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<issue_start>username_0: This question [Inadmissible theorems in research](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/116019/inadmissible-theorems-in-research) mentioned a scenario in which a student was not allowed to use a theorem that he knew because it wasn't in the course. I've administered exams in which the instructor said "using X technique, solve for Y", and grades of 0 were assigned when a different, admittedly simpler, technique was used. Students seemed to consider the question to be giving a hint, rather than a requirement.
Students often get angry about this, since they feel they got the right answer. The instructor's goal, though, was to get the students to prove that they could use the particular technique, and therefore the answer itself was not relevant.
To complicate matters, there are often times in which not using technique X results in a simpler method for the particular question. This is usually because X is a more general method and is only really powerful when the problem exceeds what is reasonable on an exam. A student could reasonably walk away from the exam thinking that X is just "more complicated" and not worth the trouble.
How can you ask a question like that that tests their ability to use a particular technique in a way that gets them to understand the purpose of the question? Especially, how can such a question be asked to avoid having students erroneously discount the importance of technique X because a simpler method exists for the particular problem?<issue_comment>username_1: You say, "Solve for Y. You must use X technique to demonstrate that you know how to use it, even though there may be ~~simpler~~ other ways to solve this particular problem."
Edit: One should cover in class *why* the students need to know X. The point in the exam question is to make it clear that using X is a requirement of the question, not a hint.
*Example:* "Use a Karnaugh map to simplify the following Boolean expression." Here, the question asks, "use a Karnaugh map," not "simplify the expression." The latter is the mechanism to demonstrate the former.
Upvotes: 8 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I second [username_1's suggestion](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/116088/asking-an-exam-question-that-requires-a-specific-technique/116089#116089) of writing explicitly in the question that X technique must be used.
As to the concern that they will get a mistaken impression as to the usefulness of X: don't rely on the exam to convey this idea! My philosophy is that an exam is just to assess the student's knowledge and understanding. I don't find that it works well to assign an "interesting" exam problem from which the student is supposed to learn something new. An exam setting is too stressful to be a good time to acquire new knowledge.
Presumably there are examples that illustrate the full power of technique X, where simpler techniques don't work well. You can still have the students work those examples; just not on an exam. Maybe as a homework assignment, or a term project, or whatever. Hopefully by the end of the course, they've done enough of them that one "toy" example on the exam is not going to distort their impression of the technique's power.
(If your educational system uses exams as the sole graded element of the class, so that you can't realistically assign projects and such - my condolences. I don't have any brilliant ideas in that case.)
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> Especially, how can such a question be asked to avoid having students erroneously discount the importance of technique X because a simpler method exists for the particular problem?
>
>
>
I think you're looking at it the wrong way. If you want students to use a particular technique to solve a problem, then I think it should be your responsibility to design a problem where this is the best solution. Asking your students to use a (self-admitted) suboptimal technique to solve a problem is convoluted and goes against any problem-solving skill they might have developed.
Also, if you want your students to understand the importance of technique X, then you must show them problems where it really is the best solution.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: If the exam question states to solve a problem using a particular method, then a mark of 0 for not using that method is fair. The question is to assess knowledge. The marker cannot assess whether a student knows the stated method if they do not apply it. The student cannot (should not) arrive at the answer a different way and still expect full marks.
An exam asks to solve a problem using a particular method.
Use the stated method and get the right answer: full marks.
Use the stated method but make a mistake and get the wrong answer (by propagating the error through): partial marks.
Use a method other than the stated method: 0 marks.
Some students also think that if they solve a problem by:
***Problem***
--- a bit of working ---
--- some magic happens here ---
--- a bit of working ---
***Right answer***
that they should get full marks.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: There are good answers already, but here is a another solution. It may not be the best solution and it may be not practical in some situations, but it may still be a solution. Ask to solve the same problem with *two different methods*, i.e. write the problem as
>
> 1. (x+y points) Solve the problem A
>
>
> a) with method X (x points)
>
>
> b) with method Y (y points).
>
>
>
(Still somebody may come up with method Z, but my guess would be that this formulation will make it more clear that you require the use of specific methods. Also it should be simpler to argue that the problem statement was clear if a student with method Z comes complaining.)
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: If you want to keep it simple, use the word "only"
"using only the X technique, solve for Y"
As others have said, you just need to be clear as to what they use. If you chose to spell out why then that is at your discretion.
If you say use only the x technique, and they don't, then there can be no argument that the answer did not address the question, whether or not the answer is correct.
Personally, I would put a little more explanation in there too to set context though, something like,
"due to the parameters of Z which limit ABC, using only the X technique, solve for Y"
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: While, as others have already pointed out, it is important to make the criteria of a question explicit (e.g. words like "must" or "required" are a good bet), I believe that there's a bigger underlying problem, namely a disconnect in expectations, that cannot be solved by wording alone.
### The issue
The task "demonstrate knowledge of a specific technique", where the technique is not an optimal fit for the problem, is quite **uncommon outside of exam-like situations**. Many students will not have encountered this kind of question very often. It is also counterintuitive to anyone already used to working in the problem domain, as they are usually more aware of what method is appropriate under specific circumstances. \*
In addition, outside of trivial problems, there's always more than one way to use a tool, and whether or not two approaches are considered equivalent may depend on the level of abstraction (and experience). Personally, as a student with extensive prior knowledge across different fields, I used to have a hard time judging whether an instructor was
* aware of a simpler alternative solution, but intending to introduce it later
* aware of an alternative solution, but ignoring it to highlight a specific technique
* not aware, but open to unexpected approaches
* not aware, and will dismiss anything but the expected solution
* expecting a variant of an approach I wasn't even thinking of (e.g. same concept, different notation)
* just copy-pasting a question from a textbook without thoroughly examining it
More often than not, I ended up answering the question *exactly* as stated only to find there were subtle differences in interpretation, resulting in anything from zero to full (sometimes +bonus) points.
Add time constraints, ambiguous wording and the potential for errors or "trick" questions into the mix, and it's not surprising that a student might ignore what they perceive as a hint and solve the problem in the most efficient way they know.
### Conclusions
While there may be good reasons to design an exam around a "suboptimal" approach, you should not expect a student to be automatically familiar with your course's context, philosophy and didactic goals.
More specifically, **don't expect students to know what piece of knowledge you're trying to assess**. A question defined in, say, two or three sentences is bound to infer a lot of context, and accurately limiting the scope is a difficult task.
If you give a list of techniques that are not allowed, expect at least one student to come up with something you didn't even consider. If you teach a particular variant of a method, or a particular notation, expect at least one student to have learned the method from a different source and do it that way.
### Recommendations
* *Do* make your question as clear as possible, but don't expect phrasing alone to solve the issue entirely.
* Consider publishing a short guideline on question intent and scope that addresses frequent misunderstandings. Include pointers on notation and allowed axioms. Make it general or exam specific, as needed. The point is to move useful "boilerplate" info and caveats out of the text of each question, so questions can remain concise, but will be less ambiguous.
* When possible for the question, give students some way to quickly assess whether they're "on the right track".
E.g. "A correct answer will have the following form/characteristics..."
---
\*While restrictions like this *can* sometimes be encountered in research, as previously commented in the "Inadmissible theorems" question, these tend to be self-imposed and can be traced to a specific goal.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_8: Sometimes, setting the stage can help.
If your concerned that students won't follow the directions correctly, you can always give the old classic quiz. The one that starts:
>
> Read all directions before starting the quiz.
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>
>
Then, in the directions, tell them:
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> Make no marks on the paper besides your name.
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>
>
So, anyone who does anything beyond putting their name on the paper fails the quiz. Make the grade trivial (or, give a small amount of extra credit to those who pass and take no points from those who fail).
The point would be that the directions on your quizzes and tests are important.
It may be overkill, but it might actually get the point across.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_9: There are two options to address the issue here. One already mentioned is to instruct the students not to use other tools than required.
If the forbidden theorem applies only for a limited set of cases while the requested one applies for broader set you can build the test so the workaround gets tricky, hard or impossible to use.
You can also request them to prove the chosen technique can be used and why it is better than the requested one. Correct answer shows the student's knowledge of both techniques.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_10: Here is one way to scaffold the problem:
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> a. Describe technique X.
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>
> b. Use technique X to solve problem Y.
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>
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So students can earn credit knowing the technique in general, and they get a hint that they are expected to use it in this problem.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I can find a bunch of articles about the skills gap between university graduates and job requirements, but it seems that there are limited resources on the skills gaps that high school students have coming into university. Does anyone have any good references that might illuminate any skills gaps? I'd prefer a world-wide perspective, but that might be asking for the moon. I'm in Canada, and specifically Ontario, working in STEM.
To be fair, I can definitely pin-point some things I've personally observed, but I'm looking more for data and studies that are more in-depth than my personal anecdotes will allow.<issue_comment>username_1: My response is also anecdotal, but it is based in over a decade of working with college students in various roles (advising undergrads, teaching undergrads).
The number one issue I see with students coming from high school is not that they are unintelligent or incapable. Rather it is that they have not learned how to work at learning. When you go to college, you spend maybe 3 or 4 hours a day in class (assuming a normal schedule). What you do with the remaining 12 or so waking hours will determine the amount of success you have in college. The school day does not get shorter in college, it gets longer.
I would have students come to me complaining that they had studied THREE WHOLE HOURS for an exam in real analysis (junior level class). I would then tell them that I studied more than that for a 10th grade algebra exam in high school.
Overall, I would say that the number one skill that incoming college students need to obtain is the skill to sit for multiple hours every day and teach the material to themselves outside of class. The professor is there to aim you in the right direction and facilitate your learning, but he or she cannot make you *learn* the material. That needs to be done on your own time.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: In the US, the [ACT College Readiness Benchmarks](http://www.act.org/content/act/en/college-and-career-readiness/benchmarks.html) reflect academic skills that students should have before entering college. Sadly many high school graduates don't meet these standards and end up in remedial classes to make up for their lack of preparation.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: There is a problem, not often recognized, that affects some of the best students as they progress through the educational system. Early on, many of those who do well, don't actually have to work very hard to do so. School is easy for them. They are comfortable with the kinds of exams they have to take and no one challenges them very much. That isn't true for everyone, or for every school, of course, but some students can just coast for a while. Often into the beginning of college or even further.
The problem with this scenario occurs when they finally reach something that isn't obvious or easy. But they haven't developed good learning skills in order to deal with it. So they crash, not wondering what happened.
In my view, the real issue is that learning is a skill like any other that actually needs to be taught, and no one taught these students how to learn, thinking it wasn't necessary as they did so well.
I've had college students (in their third year, actually) that had no idea whatever of how to learn anything in a lecture. They didn't know the material before they got there, but just watched, passively, thinking that they would absorb it as they had simpler things. In particular they had no idea at all of how to take notes effectively, how to summarize their notes, nor how to abstract out the two or three key points of a lecture. It was just a picture show to them.
So, even in a third year CS class, I had to teach these students how to learn the material. They didn't know how to take notes, and didn't really even know that it was necessary.
As I said at the top, this can affect the best students, not the strugglers. The not-so-best students know that they have to work. I was fortunate to learn fairly early that I didn't learn easily, so developed better habits that others who outshone me academically early on.
Some things are counterproductive. Hi-liters and text books are a bad idea unless used with discipline. I've seen used books where nearly every line was hi-lited. Likewise laptops aren't actually effective as a learning tool in lecture. There is not enough brain-engagement when you are just listening and typing, trying to capture every word. True, having the whole lecture may be valuable for something, but not for learning unless you also abstract out the essential ideas. It is too easy to forget that part. I've found that index cards are very effective for note taking, precisely because you can't write too much on them, so you tend to write the key ideas, not every word. You can also use index cards rather than hi-liters when reading, making a note of essential ideas.
The other key thing about index cards is that they can be organized and re-organized with new thoughts inserted with new cards. They can also be easily carried and referred to in odd moments when you would otherwise have "dead time" but could review the day's lectures.
Learn how to learn.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: I have heard this referred to as the problem of **articulation**. For example:
*2015 CUPM Curriculum Guide*, [Articulation Issues: High School to College Mathematics](https://www.maa.org/programs/faculty-and-departments/curriculum-department-guidelines-recommendations/cupm/2015-cupm-curriculum-guide/articulation-issues)
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm going to be applying for a Master's program at the end of this year. The problem is that I need a recommendation letter from my professor who would know me only for 4-6 months. Does that make the letter less credible? I don't want my application to be dismissed on the grounds that the professor doesn't know me very well. For additional info, I will be sending in my application to universities in the US and the UK. How do admission officers look at that?<issue_comment>username_1: The key property here is not length of time known but strength of what the professor can say about you.
A professor with a longer relationship is likely to have more good things to say simply because they have had time to do more things with you. But if you just have spent a semester doing excellent work with a professor, that is hardly a problem.
Furthermore, a common story for undergraduate students is a "rising trend" as a student gets their life and goals sorted out and only really starts to shine as they come toward the end of their studies. If a professor can contribute to that narrative, that is likely to be a good thing for you rather than bad.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> The problem is that I need a recommendation letter from my professor who would know me only for 4-6 months. Does that make the letter less credible?
>
>
>
Less credible than what?
A letter from someone who doesn't know you as well isn't less *credible*, but it may be less *substantive*. As @username_1 says, a professor who knows you longer can write a more substantial letter, all else being equal, simply because they've had time to do more things with you. *Credibility* is more a function of the reputation and experience of the letter-writer. (Are they successful researchers? Do they know the field well? Do they have past experience with students or the caliber your program is looking for?)
But these comparisons only makes sense if you are choosing between two potential references, one of whom knows you longer than the other. I don't think that's your current dilemma.
**You should collect the strongest recommendations you can.** If the strongest recommendations you can find come from professors that you only know for a few months, then that is what you should submit. Whether some other hypothetical letters might be stronger is irrelevant—you go to war with the army you have.
>
> I don't want my application to be dismissed on the grounds that the professor doesn't know me very well.
>
>
>
It won't be.
Most graduate programs in the US require multiple recommendation letters, but *very* few undergraduates have the opportunity, ability, or interest to work directly with multiple faculty for multiple years. So not surprisingly, a significant majority of recommendation letters are written by faculty who only know the applicants for a few months. In particular, most of the graduate-school recommendation letters I've written are for students I'd only known for a few months. This is normal and expected.
What really matters is the substance of the letter, not the duration of your relationship with the writer.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: Suppose (*only suppose*) I have implemented the following 3rd-party research article for my MSc thesis:
>
> *[Deep learning and image processing for automated crack detection and defect measurement in underground structures](https://www.int-arch-photogramm-remote-sens-spatial-inf-sci.net/XLII-2/829/2018/isprs-archives-XLII-2-829-2018.pdf)*
>
> <NAME> 1,2, \*, <NAME> 1, <NAME> 2, <NAME> 2, <NAME> 2
>
>
>
I have validated their theory and earned some skills in the area (say, tools, programming languages, and so on). And, now, I want to write my own research-paper in order to publish in a peer-reviewed journal.
How can I get started?<issue_comment>username_1: In general, reproductions of existing research is not publishable. If you want to publish, you usually need to do something new. There are two major ways that you can do new work based on existing work.
1. **Make it better**: If the existing approach works very well, you can develop an extension of the methodology that is more general than the original work. Maybe you can make a theoretical improvement, like removing assumptions about the loss function. Maybe you can find new areas where you can apply this methodology to solve other problems it wasn't meant for. Maybe you can make it more accurate, or make it's failure less likely.
2. **Discover it's limitations**: If it is a methodology that has limitations that are not widely known, that can be a research contribution too. For example, maybe this crack detection algorithm only works with certain ambient brightness. If it's too dark, it looses the ability to detect cracks. Maybe it makes some assumptions about the shape of cracks that are unfounded, and cracks that are a circle, instead of having distinct end-points, cannot be detected by this methodology.
In both cases, you need to do something that goes beyond what is contained in the paper and do something new. But it's not enough to just do something new, you have to do something that both **new** and **interesting**.
"Interesting" often means **"in opposition of people's default assumptions."** Showing that a cave crack detection algorithm doesn't detect cracks in hardwood floors isn't very interesting if no one expected it to. In that case, showing that it does detect cracks in hardwood floors would likely be interesting and open up many new applications for the approach.
Another way that your work could be interesting is that it **solves a problem that people have talked about being interested in already**. Maybe it's well-known that the algorithm breaks when it gets very dim, and there are multiple papers saying "it would be nice if we knew how to make this work for dim caves." Even if this hasn't been explicitly stated, if people say "I wish we knew how to detect cracks in dim caves" then showing that this methodology does that would be interesting, assuming the original paper didn't and that figuring out that it does work in this context is non-trivial.
These are not the only two ways to extend word, nor is it the only way to show that your work is interesting. But thinking about the problem in these terms will be a good way for you to get started.
Also, if you wrote a MSc thesis, presumably you have a thesis adviser. That person would be a great resource to talk to, both to learn about what is publishable and to get advice about how to get started doing publishable work.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: In addition to the very good answer of @username_1n:
3. Apply it to a different area / change the underlying question a bit.
E.g. "underground structures in the paper means concrete pipes or other human-build structures, you could try it for caves or oil pipelines.
Since you used deep learning, the learning base / input data might also be different and lead to different results - this could be examined as well.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a masters student. This semester I had a course with my supervisor. This course was not directly related to my thesis. During the term, the professor assigned me an in-class project (which was his previous work). I became interested in this course and project. How can I ask him to assign me to write a paper?
Having said that, I am funded by one of his projects and this is another one.
Is it appropriate to ask him to assign me tasks to publish the paper related to this course? If yes could you please tell me how should I write my letter?<issue_comment>username_1: If you have a vision for a paper, you could
(1) talk to him about it and show him your proposed outline, or
(2) just start drafting it if you're really motivated to do it,
as @username_2 pointed out, there's nothing stopping you from doing it.
Direct communication and/or initiative goes a long way.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I don't understand whether you want an additional assignment or a replacement assignment. In the first case, there is no need for the assignment if you have your own ideas. You can just write the paper without any permission needed. You an even publish it without permission.
However, if you do need to discuss this (either case) with your professor, the best way, by far, is to do it in person, not by mail. Only if a face-to-face meeting is truly impossible would I resort to mail. But one way to proceed is to include with your request (in either case) would be to include an outline, at least, of your ideas for the new work. Include this in addition for the reasons why you want to take on the new work. Show both interest in the topic and the fact that you have also spent time and thought on it.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: My doctoral advisor did something that seems odd to me. I did a bunch of unpaid work for him, with an explicit promise from him (but not in writing because I trusted he would keep the promise) that in exchange he would do one of two mentoring-type things for me, and he has now reneged on his promise.
I want to think he is just unaware of how much time I put in, or has forgotten his promise, or is extremely busy with other commitments, or that maybe my work wasn't up to snuff and his earlier very positive evaluation of the work didn't match what he in fact thought. It may also be the case that the mentoring-type things I want from him would take more commitment from him than he realized he was prepared to offer. I fear that it is a little of some of those things, but also that he is being covertly aggressive (because I feel fairly sure he's been covertly aggressive toward me before).
What would the professors on this site suggest I do? What I want to do is send him an email politely reminding him of our deal and specifying what work I've done to gently nudge him to do his part. (And also to say, hey, if there's some unnamed conflict we need to address, and that's why you're reneging, let's.) Then again, I need him to be on my side so that I can graduate, I don't need him to do what he promised to graduate (although it would really help my scholarly development, hence the unpaid work I did), and I fear this action from me will prompt aggression from him. For example, I'm afraid he'll just say, 'Sure, I'll do what I promised,' and then will hurt me in the process again (since they involve him mentoring, which would involve more work from me and from him). I guess my question is, do I 1) send a polite email, 2) try to set up a friendly phone call, or 3) forget about it and eat a crap-ton of nachos, because that's the only satisfaction I'll really get? I can't switch advisors. Thanks!<issue_comment>username_1: I think, you are overthinking. It's perfectly normal to gently remind others of promises they made after doing your own part. He may not know when you need his help or simply forgot it. Anyway, you are the best person to represent your interests, do not wait for others.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: I would not assume malice or intent when just plain forgetfulness is likely. There are times in academia where all you are thinking about is the "next thing". Finish the revision for this manuscript, proposal deadline due in three days, grant proposal due date coming this Friday, a consulting client is demanding another meeting, classes have started and you still need to organize and revise your course based on feedback from last semester, etc, etc, etc.
In short, the scholar might just have forgotten. If I were in their case, I would probably be a little embarrassed at my own forgetfulness, apologize, and then put a meeting (and reminder) in my outlook calendar.
My suggestion is send a polite email with a reminder. Just a
*Hi Dr. So and So,*
*I worked for you in \_\_\_\_ project. We had discussed setting up a meeting for you helping me with \_\_\_\_\_. I wanted to see if you had time to meet now? If you are able, I can schedule a call about it.*
*Thanks,*
*Bleepgloop*
I think this is a nice little reminder email that is not accusatory and would probably work well.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I wholeheartedly agree with username_2 that you should not immediately jump to assuming malice, but instead of forgetfulness the root of the issue could also be a *misunderstanding*. You don't really provide enough details that this can be judged by us, but often I have seen "verbal agreements" that both sides understood quite differently. For instance, you may have asked for "help with finding a postdoc position" and expected that your advisor would poke his colleagues, sit down with you and prepare your application material, and train you for the interviews, while he thought it just meant writing a nice letter for you. That is, maybe you are in a situation where your advisor *thinks* they are doing everything they agreed to do, while you see it has them reneging on their promise.
The solution to this problem is similar to what JMH2006 proposed - contact them and ask, very concretely, what kind of help you would like to get. Never go into accusations that they broke their promise (this won't end well, *especially* if they think they actually did everything they promised to do). Maximally, I would remind them of all the unpaid help you did for them, but more in a "I did a favor for you, can you please do a favor for me now" way, again not in an accusatory way.
If, after that, they still maintain that they can't or won't provide whatever help you feel you have been promised, I suggest the Nacho option. You realistically have no leverage to enforce the deal, and there is no way that pressing the issue will bring you good mentoring (or goodwill for your upcoming thesis defense, for that matter).
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I want to communicate to graduate admissions committees that I know the equivalent of a standard course in machine learning as a result of my self-study. If possible, I would like to avoid taking the machine learning course at my home university to prove this.
Is there any way I can show my proficiency in the subject matter? There are no proficiency tests in my college for this course.
I have a few ideas:
1. I could blog about machine learning
2. I could post solutions to exercises from a machine learning textbook
3. I could make a project that uses machine learning
4. I could make YouTube video lectures/tutorials.
How would graduate admissions committees compare the following with a good grade in a machine learning course?
---
Rationale for not wanting to take the course (Please do disagree if you see necessary).
I think self-studying is more efficient than taking a course. There's a lot of overhead involved in going to class, submitting assignments as per a certain format, clarifying grading policy details etc. that I would rather divert to learning more of the material.
That said, having read one of the links in the comments, I now see how unverifiable self studying can be; many students can allege to have proficiency but be dead wrong.
---<issue_comment>username_1: If showing proficiency in this one area is so essential to your application for graduate study that without it you would fail, then you are already in trouble. It would be different, of course, for a required undergraduate course such as Algorithms. If your general record is strong without this, then don't worry too much about showing proficiency for *application* to a program. You can mention in your CV or elsewhere that you have *also* studied machine learning on your own and it will be noted as a plus, even if unverified.
The problem in general with evaluating self study is that it can vary so widely. It is hard to verify that you've studied in sufficient depth, but also that you have covered the ground that would be expected in an UG course. Of course, if you have written machine learning algorithms and tested them, then your code and results can speak for the depth, but not necessarily the breadth.
However, if you want to study machine learning as a dissertation topic, then you need to convince one person, your advisor, that you have the necessary background. You can probably do that in an interview, which might have some aspects of an informal oral exam.
In general, though, some advice to self studiers. Don't think that you have *learned* something just because you have read about it or were a relatively (or completely) passive participant in an online course. Solve a lot of problems, and save your working papers. Build yourself a portfolio, which can just be a stack of paper, that shows that you have engaged successfully with the subject. Attend to the breadth issue. If standard textbooks exist they can be a good guide to breadth and their exercises and suggested projects a good verification of depth, provided that you do them.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I doubt a graduate school cares about some specific individual course. Of course if your actions mean you won't complete the B.S. that is another matter.
I wouldn't do all the elaborate stuff (videos and the like). It will look silly. Just a single sentence (within overall essay and without disproportionate emphasis) saying that you did an organized self study of topic X and thus have the benefit. And no need to go on some tangent explaining why you did this--realize the people taking your application are professional, paid instructors. Personally I agree with your point of view. But it's just not the right place (applications essay) to be making a contrarian education argument. Nobody cares, it's not germane, and it will turn people off.
[But then you SHOULD have an organized self study...good text, sound projects, and some means of assessing yourself..even with an alternate text's problems or with a tutor (or "last year's final" or the like).]
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: In my opinion (and the answers to this question will be opinion based!), 1, 2 and 4 are not helpful:
1.: Everyone can blog about a topic they have no idea of. And no committee member wants to read the full blog.
2.: Noone wants to verify whether you did it right. And no one can be sure, that you did them by yourself.
4.: See 1
3 has the problem that a) it might very likely just cover a certain subset of the whole material and b) no one knows, if you did them by yourself.
The only way in my opinion would be a research paper with you as main author accepted in a peer reviewed conference or journal.
I would just try to be honest and write which courses you did and how you applied the material to practical problems - without trying to prove any equivalent to formal courses.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: Consider taking the course.
---------------------------
I don't mean to devalue your knowledge or assume that you did your studies half-heartedly. Most of my skills are self-taught with the help of online courses, so I reside firmly in the "for some people, self-study works better" camp. But based on my experience, taking a course that seems to cover something you have already learnt, will still offer some benefits:
1. You revisit knowledge, repeat difficult elements and thus improve your overall proficiency of the subject
2. No two courses are alike. It is quite likely that it will include things that you haven't learnt, or that you have only superficial understanding of. Especially since you are self-taught, you might not have been confronted with issues that arise in a classroom context: collaboration, tools, adherence to standards, ...
3. Use the opportunity to help other students and learn by teaching, again consolidating your own skills
**Standing out:** Approach the lecturer and ask for more in-depth detail of the course. Explain your situation. Instead of trying to escape the course, offer your support (if you really exceed the course requirements by margins) or ask for additional material (if you are certain of some things, but not all course requirements).
I teach an introductionary programming course to students, and the studentship is extremely heterogeneous: from "I googled programming and decided to try it" to "I am currently working on my own game in Unity". As attendance is compulsory(!), we try and encourage the advanced students to complete extra challenging material, to help other students, or to spend the classroom time otherwise, but still related to the subject (i.e. no gaming or browsing). So you would still take the course, but you would have quite a bit of leeway in spending your time more effectively.
At the end of the day, you have to ask yourself: what do you gain by skipping these x amount of hours, what do you lose (also consider the social aspect: students grow together, yet you're away) and instead of fighting the system of admissions, you could view it *not as a penalty for prior knowledge, but as an opportunity*. Maybe you will meet others with prior knowledge (not unlikely in this subject area) and perhaps you are less knowledgeable than they are.
I say all this because I have been there. I am largely self-taught, and have found myself in situations where my knowledge was not more or less, but *skewed*. While I had experience in implementing some very advanced features of some programming language, I was, at the same time, missing important basics that I had never come across/hadn't needed. It not bad, it is just that there is a *mismatch*. Taking the course for you is an opportunity to gain knowledge. You won't lose any.
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: is it possible to update (minor edits) a paper after a conference/workshop before proceedings?
If that's not possible, why is that?, I'm just trying to understand the rationale, not critiquing. Aren't workshops/conference mechanisms to get feedback?
The paper acceptance has already provided a peer review mechanism; but isn't the conference just another mechanism? questions arising here, might provide means to clarify some concepts to a wider audience? is this to avoid a loop of revision, and instead use the mechanism of a new paper?<issue_comment>username_1: Your questions are legit - of course in an ideal world you would be able to make your publication the best possible for when it reaches your readers. Notice the word 'ideal' though.
So first off, this is heavily dependent on the field where you're publishing, as well as the particular venue. In computer science (where i can comment first-hand), there are some workshops that even count on you amending the paper to incorporate feedback from on-site discussions.
Most of the time though, this is not allowed for processing reasons. The publishing schedules tend to be really tight (for instance because the field as such moves forward rather quickly). This means that if there are delays or inconsistencies at any stage, the whole 'pipeline' might fail.
Another reason can be tradition: it's quite common that every conference participant gets (or has the chance to buy) printed proceedings at the event time. Obviously then the papers have to be finalized. In the age of progressive electronic publishing, this will probably become obsolete at some point.
Still, it is possible to amend factual errors or other significant issues at least for the electronic version. For this you have to contact a responsible person (again depends - paper chairs, publisher, etc.) and negotiate.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: It depends on the conference or workshop, of course. In my field (Computer Science), it is uncommon but not unheard-of for workshops to have what is called "post-proceedings". That is, authors submit an initial version of their manuscript, present at the workshop, and then have a chance to revise for the actual published paper. In this case it is possible, maybe expected, that you actually improve your paper based on the comments you received (although usually no additional review happens at this point).
However, most venues don't have that. The more usual case is that you submit a paper and the proceedings are already published when the conference starts. In this case, you obviously have no chance to revise your paper, because by the time the conference happens the paper is already available on archival sources. The advantage, of course, is that the paper is available for people to read during, or even before, the conference.
>
> Aren't workshops/conference mechanisms to get feedback?
>
>
>
For conferences in CS, this is most certainly *not* what conferences are for. In this field, conferences are a means to *communicate* the result of finished studies, not to get input on how to do them. Sure, you can get ideas for future work, but it will pretty much by definition be too late to change what you have already done. For workshops, things are a bit muddier, but in practice authors usually use the feedback they receive at workshops to improve the larger study that they are usually working on (which will be submitted to a conference or journal), not so much to improve the workshop paper itself.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a master’s student and have done some original research work which may not be that great.
I have asked my professor who works in that area where can I publish my work or is it at all publishable.
But he seems to be not so concerned about my work nor does he say whether I should publish it or not.
He says I might try it, but he seems more interested with his doctoral students.
* What should I do?
* Should I try to publish it in some journal?
* If yes, how can I choose a journal?
* Are there any journals which publish small works of master’s students?<issue_comment>username_1: The practice of preparing a piece of work for publication is, itself, worth the effort. I suggest that you write up your work as best you can. Once you have a really solid draft, ask your professor, again, for advice on it.
However, you can still submit it to an appropriate venue, independent of the support of your professor, and that experience is also worth having. If you are lacking in any way, the editors and reviewers of the paper will give you additional advice that is independent of what you can get locally. This can help you evaluate a lot of things about both your work and your approach to it.
If you want a career in academia, then publishing early and often is definitely a plus. The review you get helps you improve for the next time.
But make sure you have also done a literature review to avoid embarrassment of submitting something already known. That is another valuable skill, of course. (literature review, not embarrassment).
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Sometimes publishing too early can work against you. You don't want to amass a traceable record of inferior publications. You want whatever appears under your name to be of professional quality.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: **Talk to your supervisor**. You write that you've already done it, and his response is "try it". In that case, try it. Write up a draft, then show it to him. Especially if his name is going to be on the paper, he should be willing to take a look at the draft.
Everything that happens afterwards - such as which journal to submit to - can be discussed after your supervisor has approved the draft.
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: Take a look at this [subject-wise QS Ranking (CS/IT)](https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/university-subject-rankings/2018/computer-science-information-systems).
We see that ***Shanghai Jiao Tong University*** is sitting on the **46**th place, ***Lomonosov Moscow*** in on the **49**th place when ***Delft University*** is between 51 and 100 (probably **51**st).
My hunch is that someone graduated from Delft University will be enjoying much more competitiveness in the job market (academia and industry) than someone graduated from Shanghai or Moscow.
I can think of two reasons:
1. Political factor: China and Russia have spats with the USA. Since, the rule based order is dominated by the West, there is a space for a recruiter in the West to be tempted to devalue the graduate from China or Russia.
2. Language & Culture: China and Russia are obscurer countries because of languages. Most people in Western countries know English better. Most of us don't know how are the learning environments like in China and Russia. Also, there is an undeniable preconception circulating in the air that Western countries are much more closer to each other in terms of understanding and hence their culture of education is much closer.
If I am not mistaken, if all factors are equal (like reputation of the supervisor, etc),
* probably a degree from **Warsaw** would be much more competitive in the West than that of **India** or **Saudi Arabia** even though **Warsaw** sits on a much lower position in the ranking chart.
Is my perception correct?
Do international politics, language, and local culture affect recognition of research degrees like the way I described?<issue_comment>username_1: Please don't confuse the actions of the US government (or any other) with the way that citizens and especially academics treat people from different cultures. We (academics) all recognize the contributions of those from other places. In mathematics (my field) Russians have contributed hugely to the literature. I am also aware of the quality of, for example, institutions in India.
It is true that language may play a part in evaluation, but only because the language of instruction (and even research) may be localized to a place, so someone who doesn't speak (and/or write) that language is at a disadvantage.
One additional consideration that is at the cusp of government and ordinary people. If the government suspects (rightly or wrongly) that a person is in the country for the purpose of stealing IP, then the government's wishes will be paramount and it is difficult for the academic establishment to counter it in questionable cases. While we may wish for a more universal acceptance of ideas, governments still build borders.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Your question is based on the wrong premise:
>
> My hunch is that someone graduated from Delft University will be enjoying much more competitiveness in the job market (academia and industry) than someone graduated from Shanghai or Moscow.
>
>
>
What you are confusing is (i) the competitiveness of an individual applicant for a position, with (ii) the ranking of a university they graduated from.
The ranking of their alma mater is one factor that affects the competitiveness of an applicant, but it is only one of a very large number of certainly not even the most important one. Among the many other factors are (i) previous work experience and results, (ii) familiarity with the language and culture of the hiring institution, (iii) the strength of the university from which the applicant graduates *in the area for which the applicant is seeking a job*, and many other factors.
Ranking is really fairly low on the list of criteria hiring committees look at.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Firstly, I think you are placing too much stock in these rankings. They are close to meaningless.
Secondly, in terms of "competitiveness in the job market (academia and industry)" or "recognition of research degrees", I don't think the ranking or location of the institution is very important. Individual factors matter much more.
That being said, international politics, language, and local culture do play a role in hiring.
Suppose a US university is hiring for a faculty position. They want a person that fits in to the department and can teach students. So they will prefer someone who is familiar with local customs and expectations and has good English language skills. This is a big part of what the job interview is about.
Now a person with a US or western degree is more likely to do well in a US job interview because they have experience with western culture and English language. But don't confuse correlation with causation.
Coming back to your hunch: Suppose person A grew up in China and then went to Delft for a PhD, while person B grew up in the Netherlands and went to Shanghai Jiao Tong for a PhD. Who would you think is more competitive on the job market? Both have gained familiarity with western culture and English language, in different ways. I'd say any "familiarity advantage" has disappeared.
Now I've answered from the perspective of hiring in western universities. The picture may look very different elsewhere. Also, for industry jobs, things may also be different and prestige may play a bigger role.
Lastly, international politics is really not something academics care about. However, universities are bound by the immigration laws of their country. So a US university currently cannot hire someone from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, or Yemen because they cannot enter the country.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: A few days ago, I went to have lunch with my colleagues (working in the same group). Somehow, the conversation turned towards politics and the "immigrant emergency" that Europe is currently facing.
To put it mildly, I as a person have very strong convictions regarding such issues. I am from India and I have to deal with passive racial profiling on a regular basis (People looking me up and down and then holding their bags a bit more firmly; No, It was not my appearance, I was very well dressed/groomed). After having experienced it the first few times, I understand the biases that affect such behaviour and do not really mind it.
Nonetheless, it is very difficult for me to ignore it when my peers portray this issue from a one-sided perspective. At that moment, I let the matter be because a short argument over lunch is not going to change a people's minds.
Yet, at this moment I feel very angry at myself for not having spoken up.
For future reference, how should I go about addressing such sensitive issues without raising a furore?
In other words, how can I present history/societal and political issues from the other side of the fence without creating a fuss? Is that even possible?<issue_comment>username_1: >
> How should I go about addressing such sensitive issues without raising a furor?
>
>
>
Either keep silence or avoid going to such places if you can't withstand such talks.
>
> how can I present history/societal and political issues from the other side of the fence without creating a fuss?
>
>
>
You can't. Reality is different from place to place and human minds are built according to realities they live in.
Its futile to talk about the benefit of democracy with a person from mainland China; futile to try to explain why invasion of Ukraine was a bad idea to a Russian; futile to try to convince a neo-Nazi to not to stab a Turkish guy.
>
> Is that even possible?
>
>
>
No. This is about ideology. Ideologies can't be argued with. They are deeply rooted into human souls.
Someone who passed their **entire life** living under the roof of democracy in Hong Kong can not be convinced to cede their right of freedom of speech only because their country is systematically taken over by a communist country. That is why we saw **Umbrella Movement**.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: The world is, unfortunately getting more dangerous rather than more accepting at the current moment. It is good if everyone of good will can work to make the world a better place for everyone.
But you can't, safely, act, or even speak out, in every situation in which you might find yourself.
But one thing you can do is to seek out allies who think about things in a clearer, better way, and work with them. It may be possible to do that even in the workplace.
But even within families, if you have a bigoted uncle, it is sometimes best just to let him rant as you won't change him and you have better things to do than try.
Collective action wins. Ghandi taught all of us that lesson, not just those from India and its neighbors.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: Your question has many moral, philosophical, and practical sides and the answer is more or less the work of a lifetime. I recommend: (1) Don't remain silent wherever you see untruth and injustice. Silence sends a strong message of assent and approval. (2) In some cases, you can content yourself with one firm statement of truth and justice and then withdraw without engaging in combat. (3) Don't jeopardize your power and position to the point of extinguishing them, because then you will have no power to help society. (4) Be ready to sacrifice something in defense of people who have far less power and status than you do. To fail to come to the aid of someone who has much less than you is a deep moral failing. (5) After making your one firm counterstatement, make sure you have some larger outlet for your convictions where you can apply them effectively.
Clearly, some of those principles conflict and this is why I say that discovering how to respond to untruth and injustice is the work of a lifetime. Often in life two opposite principles are true at the same time, like "I must respond to injustice" and "I mustn't get killed by a band of bigots."
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: From a computer science conference, I have received 4 reviews. Two of the reviewers have accepted the article and have appreciated the work, while the other two have given "weak reject". The conference has asked us to submit a rebuttal within 3 days (seems a hard deadline; but it is okay).
My question is:
* Should I write the rebuttal for all the reviews?
or
* Should I write the rebuttal for the comments on the weak-reject decisions?<issue_comment>username_1: You should address comments from *all* the reviewers, but *focus* on responding to the negative reviews.
Also, it's always good to say something generic like "we thank all four reviewers for their time and thoughtful comments".
If the reviews include questions, definitely respond to those questions. If the reviews include helpful suggestions, acknowledge them and say that you will implement them in the final version.
When responding to the negative reviews, acknowledge what they have said and then explain why you think differently. Avoid sounding combative.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: I assume that your rebuttal will go the the committee, not the individual reviewers. If you disagree with anything said by anyone, you can try to correct the record. But presumably your biggest issue is the reject votes, so focus on that.
But be sure to focus only on the content of the review and the reasons given that the reviewers think the paper is deficient. It isn't a contest of wills. You can point out things the reviewers missed, for example. But keep it polite.
It may be that the reviewers themselves won't see your rebuttal and it will be handled by the committee. They may actually be looking for a good reason to accept. Give them that reason.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I recommend the following but I look forward to seeing other approaches (this is my personal approach and by no means the best).
**How to Respond to a Review**
Every time I respond to reviewers, I create a document. I write a short paragraph thanking the reviewers for their time and state my responses to their comments are below. I copy each reviewer's comments, organized by reviewer (my preference). Beneath each comment, I write a response. If I make a change, I specify where and how I've updated the paper. If I disagree, I state that I respectfully disagree and then elaborate on why. I may choose to include tables, figures, or references in this document that are solely intended for the reviewers.
By doing this, each reviewer can quickly and easily see my responses to their comments as well as my responses to the other reviewers. Where there are similar or duplicate comments, I have similar or duplicate responses to make it easier for the reviewers. I have found this approach to work well---it also helps the editor weigh the totality of the review and my responses.
I send this PDF with the updated paper back in; my hope is that it demonstrates to the editor and reviewers that their comments have been taken seriously.
---
**Sample Format**
*Authors’ Response to Reviewer Comments*
Manuscript: con575r1
We thank the reviewers for their time and helpful comments - their feedback substantially improved this paper. Our responses to each comment are provided below (reviewer comments are italicized in bold). The references listed at the end of this response are intended for all reviewers as cited in our responses.
Response to Reviewer 1...............p. X
Response to Reviewer 2...............p. Y
Response to Reviewer 3...............p. Z
***Response to Reviewer 1***
**Comment 1 Text**
*Response:* Response here to include any required evidence.
**Comment 2 Text**
*Response:* Response here.
***Response to Reviewer 2***
**Comment 1 Text**
*Response:* Response here to include any required evidence such as tables, figures, additional results, etc.
**Comment 2 Text**
*Response:* Response here.
*References*
Reference list (if needed) for anything in this Response Document that is solely for the reviewers & the editor. It is not just the references from the paper.
Upvotes: 4
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<issue_start>username_0: Some journals do not require article submissions to be in any particular format. Would it still be better to try and copy that journals usual format, or use a generic draft format? Would you as an editor or a reviewer prefer one over the other?
For example, many articles use a two column format that is nice and compact for publication, but is a little harder to review and markup - so maybe the reviewers would prefer the article in a single column draft format?
**EDIT:** I'm specifically asking about journals that state you *can* use any format you like (for submission), leaving you free to choose whatever will be most convenient for the editors and reviewers. Do you try and still present a "finished product", i.e. format it like it will be if published - or use larger spacing, etc. to make it convenient for review. *What would you as a reviewer or editor prefer in the absence of set submission guidelines.* Or would you not care in the slightest?<issue_comment>username_1: You should address comments from *all* the reviewers, but *focus* on responding to the negative reviews.
Also, it's always good to say something generic like "we thank all four reviewers for their time and thoughtful comments".
If the reviews include questions, definitely respond to those questions. If the reviews include helpful suggestions, acknowledge them and say that you will implement them in the final version.
When responding to the negative reviews, acknowledge what they have said and then explain why you think differently. Avoid sounding combative.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: I assume that your rebuttal will go the the committee, not the individual reviewers. If you disagree with anything said by anyone, you can try to correct the record. But presumably your biggest issue is the reject votes, so focus on that.
But be sure to focus only on the content of the review and the reasons given that the reviewers think the paper is deficient. It isn't a contest of wills. You can point out things the reviewers missed, for example. But keep it polite.
It may be that the reviewers themselves won't see your rebuttal and it will be handled by the committee. They may actually be looking for a good reason to accept. Give them that reason.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I recommend the following but I look forward to seeing other approaches (this is my personal approach and by no means the best).
**How to Respond to a Review**
Every time I respond to reviewers, I create a document. I write a short paragraph thanking the reviewers for their time and state my responses to their comments are below. I copy each reviewer's comments, organized by reviewer (my preference). Beneath each comment, I write a response. If I make a change, I specify where and how I've updated the paper. If I disagree, I state that I respectfully disagree and then elaborate on why. I may choose to include tables, figures, or references in this document that are solely intended for the reviewers.
By doing this, each reviewer can quickly and easily see my responses to their comments as well as my responses to the other reviewers. Where there are similar or duplicate comments, I have similar or duplicate responses to make it easier for the reviewers. I have found this approach to work well---it also helps the editor weigh the totality of the review and my responses.
I send this PDF with the updated paper back in; my hope is that it demonstrates to the editor and reviewers that their comments have been taken seriously.
---
**Sample Format**
*Authors’ Response to Reviewer Comments*
Manuscript: con575r1
We thank the reviewers for their time and helpful comments - their feedback substantially improved this paper. Our responses to each comment are provided below (reviewer comments are italicized in bold). The references listed at the end of this response are intended for all reviewers as cited in our responses.
Response to Reviewer 1...............p. X
Response to Reviewer 2...............p. Y
Response to Reviewer 3...............p. Z
***Response to Reviewer 1***
**Comment 1 Text**
*Response:* Response here to include any required evidence.
**Comment 2 Text**
*Response:* Response here.
***Response to Reviewer 2***
**Comment 1 Text**
*Response:* Response here to include any required evidence such as tables, figures, additional results, etc.
**Comment 2 Text**
*Response:* Response here.
*References*
Reference list (if needed) for anything in this Response Document that is solely for the reviewers & the editor. It is not just the references from the paper.
Upvotes: 4
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<issue_start>username_0: I don´t know what is exactly the value of publishing a high impact paper in a journal or magazine (electronic or not, open-access or not). I have several doubts about the benefits of publishing on a journal. Sorry for asking so many questions in the same post but separately it would result redundant.
Is it a question of money, pride, prestige?
Is not it better for humanity to be published in an open place accessible to all, in a simple language without such academic rigor?
If the reason is money, how much can I earn with a high impact paper?
If my publication shows new methods and algorithms that solve overwhelming problems that involve big costs for the pharmaceutical and aeronautical industry, can I claim copyright if they implement my methods and algorithms? Publishing in a journal is better in that case?
How could I prevent it from being used for destructive purposes?<issue_comment>username_1: I can answer a couple of your questions and may revise as I learn more.
If you publish something then in many places you have copyright already. Registration of the work may be required in some places and once was in the US, but no longer. Here, at least, if you publish something the copyright is yours and while your words can't be used without a license, your ideas can.
The way to protect "inventions" is through patent. This will almost always require registration (and cost), but is the only way to keep others from exploiting your ideas (as distinct from your words). But if I describe an idea that leads to a "process" or invention, but don't patent it, then others can exploit it freely. They might even try to patent it themselves, but you can (more money) probably prevent that.
One of the big problems for a researcher is gaining a reputation. This implies the need for your work to be seen by as many people as possible. Self publishing and writing a journal has the problem that it is difficult for people to find your work. Publishers, with all their problems, provide a partial cure for that, as do conference presentations.
Finally, for now, you are unlikely, in the absence of a patent and an implementation of the patent, to make very much money from publishing. The exceptions are textbooks for elementary economics or calculus courses, but only a few others. If you want to make money from publishing, write popular novels. (But "popular" is the hard part.)
One possible exception to the above, is that you can self publish successfully provided that nearly all of the people who would be your audience already know how to find you. If you have an already popular blog, for example, read by nearly everyone who cares, then you might be fine. But building audience is a hard task.
Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer and the law varies widely around the world.
Upvotes: 1 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Publishing articles will not bring you any money. Publishing open access may even cost something.
If a kind of invention is published you can usually not patent it anymore.
If you publish, you usually transfer the copyright of the text to the publisher.
Scientists mainly publish in journals, because there are so many new papers every day, and peer review and publishing in journals organize the cornucopia of works. Also, publications in a reputed journals may lead to a tenure position.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: In essence, people publish in journals for two reasons:
* Journals provide a relatively small number of central places where everything of interest is collected. As a consequence, it is (relatively) easy to find things there: If you're looking at how exactly the chemical reaction works that turns mercury into gold, then searching through the publications of a few dozen chemistry journals will suffice. On the other hand, if everyone just put their stuff onto their own web servers, things would be much harder to find.
* Journals provide a seal that says "We had this paper peer-reviewed and it was found to be a good paper". This gives published papers a gravity that things you put on your own website do not have: I know that some of my colleagues have looked at it, and have found the work useful, correct, relevant.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: Recently I've had three different sets of co-authors give up on the publication process. Here are the three cases:
1. Publication was rejected on the basis that additional work was needed, amounting to repeating all the experiments. One co-author has retired, another left academia, and a third just isn't interested in the field anymore (and has also left to work elsewhere). To do all of the work myself seems a little unreasonable if after all that I'm still 3rd author.
2. Publication was desk rejected by multiple journals (5 so far) due to either being "too theoretical" or "too applied". The other authors wanted to just turn it into a tech report, but after I started reformatting it, they decided they didn't care if it got published anymore due to the multiple rejections and wanting to move on to other things. 2nd author left our organization recently.
3. Publication has been written, but one of the authors refuses to move forward with the submission process because they are unsure if our conclusions are right. Unless we have a "bullet proof" (their words) interpretation of our results, we can't submit.
I don't want to give up, but it's demotivating to have co-authors who don't care. Is it worth it to keep fighting these battles all by myself if they still benefit?<issue_comment>username_1: You don't really have a problem here in most situations. If they are willing to have their name still applied and you are willing to do the work, then just do it.
If they don't want their name applied to the work then ask them to remove themselves as authors and just acknowledge them in the future work.
The problem would occur if they don't want it published at all. Most likely they can prevent it unless you want to step into an ethical issue.
But if it is published, make sure you give them a chance to review, especially if they are still authors of record.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Parts of your question are too circumstance-specific to really be answerable without more details, but a couple of the final points can be answered a bit.
>
> Is it worth it to keep fighting these battles all by myself if they still benefit?
>
>
>
You sound like you resent the fact that they still benefit. That’s the wrong thing to be focusing on: the question is, do *you* (and your field!) benefit enough for it to be worth your time and energy pushing the work through to completion/publication? If so, then do it — and if they benefit, then that’s a bonus, and with luck they’ll even be grateful to you for it later.
If you feel a third authorship isn’t worth the effort it’d take, but e.g. a first or second authorship would be, then discuss this with your co-workers as honestly as you can. Say something like: “I think this work is worth the effort to get published, and I would be happy to do the main share of the work from here; but given the amount of work needed, I think in that case we should consider changing the author ordering to reflect it. Would you be willing to consider that?”
>
> I don't want to give up, but it's demotivating to have co-authors who don't care.
>
>
>
It’s not necessarily that they “don’t care”. They may feel as frustrated and torn as you — caring about the work and wanting to see it published, but feeling dispirited about the chances of that, and that at this point their time and energy are better spent on other things.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: I agree with a lot in the other answers but wanted to add a few things.
If you want to publish, then do it. If you decide to just archive some as tech reports, then do that. I understand this is a lot of work. Only you can decide how to allocate your efforts.
**How to publish?** Some ideas to just get it done...
(1) *Aim lower*. Either continue submitting to different journals (go down a rung on the impact ladder to one with a higher acceptance rate) or break papers up and send to conference proceedings.
(2) *Get help*. Hire an undergrad to help with all this and supervise (spot-check the work). Solicit grad students (or even peers) to help. Offer to add them as co-authors if they make a significant contribution (you define what that means).
**If that fails / you decide to stop:**
Can't make that happen? Not worth the effort? Put the draft papers on your website as a tech reports and prominently display how to cite them.
Upvotes: 1
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2018/08/31
| 1,022
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a student interested in doing research in the field of (transcriptomics) that is lacking in my country. There is no possibility for me to travel in the next four years due to obligatory military service.
I am concerned about emailing some researchers in the field and ask for a remote supervision (for example working with a postdoc on one of his loose end projects and communicating Online).
Does this sound good? Have you done it before?
PS. The question isn't about opinions please post your experiences if you supervised someone abroad and the academic situation e.g. is it accepted by your institute? Does it require paperwork? Is it even possible?<issue_comment>username_1: I am aware of a case that is a bit similar to what you need and participated as an external reviewer of the dissertation. The advisor was in UK, along with the committee. The student was in the US. However, the communication wasn't all electronic. The student travelled fairly frequently to UK and the main advisor and the student would meet fairly frequently at conferences both in US and Europe.
Many things can be done remotely, but discussions are really hard to carry out that way, being less spontaneous. It is harder to "brainstorm" with a delay and not being able to see facial expressions/body language.
I don't believe that it was a normal practice for the university, hence they consulted with me as an external expert. But I thought everything went well.
So, my suggestion is to suggest it to some potential advisor but be prepared to spend a fair amount of money and time on travel. A week end on the other side of an ocean is now possible, if tiring.
But it is good if you can get at least some local help and advice, even if it is on peripheral things that would be easy to get done for a residential student.
If you are seeking a degree, however, you will need to deal, potentially, with other requirements such as coursework and qualifying exams. Some of that may be locally available in an acceptable way, but likely not all of it.
But the case I mentioned was theoretical work, not involving laboratories. If you need to perform experiments in lab it would be a lot harder, of course, due to the likely lack of a suitable setup. Being told that "the cauldron bubbled green stuff" isn't the same as seeing it happen, I'd guess.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I was supervised remotely for my Master's dissertation, so yes, this can and does happen in academia. My situation was similar to yours: there was no one working in the field in which I really wanted to specialise at my university.
My supervisor and I communicated via email and had a Skype meeting once a week (this is the closest you can get to an in-person meeting, so I would highly recommend doing it, or at least supplement emails with phone calls). I also visited him in person twice during the project (relatively easy since we were both in the same country, about 5 hours apart by train).
In my case, it was very informally organised; the course coordinator for the dissertation agreed I could have a supervisor from another university and I had a second supervisor at my own institution who I updated regularly on my progress. There was some talk of my having to pay tuition fees to my supervisor's university but in the end this didn't happen.
However, depending on the specific rules and procedures of your or the supervisor's institutions, there may be formal paperwork to submit. There's probably someone you can ask about this, e.g. the department head or administrator.
Good luck!
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: In order for this to be successful, it requires a lot of self-discipline and intrinsic motivation from the student. I supervised a student via distance and was quite a headache. Communication was a problem, deadlines were missed, the writing was unsatisfactory, etc. There is also a loss of the camaraderie of having this experience with other students on campus who can share tips with an encourage. This is hard to replace online
A major problem with distance supervision is focus. Students write in this situation often because they are working. Having a job, like military service, makes it hard to concentrate on research. This was another problem I had with my student was he was a full-time k12 administrator while under me. He had no time for in-depth thought and research.
Upvotes: 1
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2018/09/01
| 1,239
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a master's student and want to publish a paper in a specific subfield in mathematics. I have written the paper all by myself.
The problem is my advisor won't check my draft. He says he is busy and so he could not find time.
My question is:
* When papers are submitted to reviewers and editors, do they see what are the names of the authors in the paper submitted?
* If my professor co-authors a paper will it be easier to get published?
* Should I include my professor's name with my name to get the paper published easier?
I really want to publish it with my name only. But I really don't know how this publication process works.<issue_comment>username_1: Co-authorship could be for various reasons but usually all authors contribute to the manuscript in a way or another. Usually authorship is better discussed at the beginning of the project and whenever a new contributor join the team of people working on the paper.
The question is did you agreed with your supervisor that you together will be coauthoring the paper ? if not, then you have the option of be the sole author of the paper.
Do co-authoring the paper with another author who already have publishable work increase the chance of publishing ? usually yes. But that depends on the field, the journal and most importantly the submitted manuscript.
Discuss authorship with your supervisor first before doing anything else. if you think your supervisor have the experience and knowledge to contribute to your paper but is busy at the moment with other projects, simply invite him to coauthor the paper with you ( specify what you would like him / her to contribute to ) and ask him when he could have the time to go over the paper with you.
He may decline or suggest another professor or he may accept and define a schedule in the coming time.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: The much bigger issue here seems to be that you are in dire need of proper advising and mentorship, and your official adviser isn’t providing you with those things. You say “I really don't know how this publication process works.” Well, I don’t think anyone here can give you the sort of advice that you need - a few suggestions and rough ideas, maybe, but without getting very specific advice and feedback from someone who has actually reviewed your work and knows what it’s about, I fear your path to successful publication of your paper will be a very hard one indeed. So, I think you should set it as your goal to fix the situation of the neglectful advisor, whether by talking to other professors who are interested in what you’re working on and are willing to mentor you, complaining to the department chair, or by having an awkward but necessary conversation with your current advisor. It is a difficult problem and I don’t have an easy fix, but at the very least I think it’s important to recognize that this goes much deeper than just the question of who should be the author of the paper.
Coming back to your “official” question: no, you should absolutely not add your advisor’s name as a coauthor to your paper *just to increase the paper’s chances of acceptance*. There may or may not be some good reasons to have your advisor as a coauthor (for example, he may have proposed the research question, and that might be seen as a sufficient intellectual contribution to make someone a coauthor), but this particular one is most certainly *not* a good reason - in fact it is a blatantly unethical reason to make someone a coauthor.
Good luck!
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: >
> When papers are submitted to reviewers and editors, do they see what are the names of the authors in the paper submitted?
>
>
>
Unless the journal uses double-blind or triple-blind peer review (uncommon), editors and reviewers will see the names of the authors. You can check whether the journal uses double-blind or triple-blind peer review on the journal's website.
>
> If my professor co-authors a paper will it be easier to get published?
>
>
>
Not really. The prestige of the author does matter when publishing a book, but the impact in journals is much smaller. It's not non-existent - for example if one is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, [it's relatively easy to get published in PNAS](http://www.pnas.org/content/94/12/5983). But in general, plenty of professors get their papers rejected as well, and it's what's written in the paper that counts.
>
> Should I include my professor's name with my name to get the paper published easier?
>
>
>
Warning: this is usually viewed as unethical. All authors should have contributed significantly to the paper to be listed. Some publishers explicitly list this as part of their policy, and violating it can get your paper retracted and you (+ your co-author) blacklisted. [Here's an example from Elsevier](https://www.elsevier.com/about/policies/publishing-ethics). Quoting only the relevant part:
>
> Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made substantial contributions should be listed as co-authors.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I am asking this question regarding to the documents (thesis, research papers, and publications) that contain original, novel work.
Before starting to write a research paper/ thesis, searching for a problem statement, submitting to a journal, staring research work for Ph.D., etc., every researcher has to do a proper literature search. It is a well-known fact that literature search is mandatory for every professional researcher.
There is a finite number of existing disciplines and each discipline has a finite number of existing topics to research and to publish upon. Why is there no centralized mechanism to document the research that has happened till the previous year? If the discipline or topic is totally new anyway there is no need for the literature search.
If there is such a mechanism, then there is almost no chance for rediscoveries and there is no need to search for the whole literature that is randomly distributed across the Internet, paid journals, libraries, etc.<issue_comment>username_1: These central repositories exists - they are called a (digital) library. What we typically mean with "doing literature review" is going into one or more digital libraries and retrieving all information on the subject. Given how heterogenous research questions, approaches, and scientific results are, it seems fundamentally impossible to provide much more structured information than that across disciplines. That said, for some fields (notably medicine, as I understand it), more fine-grained repository structures have emerged, which allow researchers to query for specific data sets etc.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: There is such a repository - see [the Wikipedia article on Annual Reviews](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annual_Reviews_(publisher)).
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: "If the discipline or topic is totally new, anyway there is no need for the literature search." : But how do you know your totally new topic on hypermetabolic quiver systems isn't the same thing as what Prof. X's work called totally supernormal inverted forms?
For example, I am a mathematician. I was recently leading a group of students in studying Paley graphs, which are defined on elements of finite fields. There are all of the obvious papers on Paley graphs to look at, of course; but then there are also papers that concern large families of graphs that may or may not include the Paley graphs. Then there are papers on finite fields that don't mention graph theory at all, but really describe Paley graphs. Or papers in finite geometry that are really talking about Paley graphs using slightly different language.
So unless this repository actually included all of the results of every single paper ever written in full, I'm not sure it would provide much use. Of course, there are only a finite number of results in a finite number of topics that have been published about, so this is *theoretically* possible. Even then, looking through this repository would be not much different than what is usually called a literature search.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: I agree literature search in its current form, by reading loads of free-form documents with large overlaps1 to extract the relevant bits and pieces is not efficient.
Let's first look at your individual statements:
* I agree with the assessment that
>
> There is a finite number of existing disciplines and each discipline has a finite number of existing topics to research and to publish upon.
>
>
>
though I consider it quite theoretical: We are probably far from *knowing* all disciplines that will ever be relevant, thus it's not like a "map" where we could check which areas are still blank.
* The claim
>
> If the discipline or topic is totally new anyway there is no need for the literature search.
>
>
>
strikes me as questionable, though. "Totally new" topics do not emerge out of nowhere, they result from unexpected findings in existing disciplines that pave the way for what can be called a new topic.
Now, a "central repository" across all fields (because, also based upon what I wrote about "new topics", they are all linked in some way) would indeed be helpful, but is not yet feasible for two reasons:
* Doing and maintaining it would be a tremendous effort. Do not get me wrong, it would be much less of an effort than the net effort of all the researchers around the globe individually reading all those original papers, but as long as there is no good worldwide system to compensate those involved for the effort (and I don't really see one for now), the decentralized approach of everyone just individually publishing their source documents and leaving most of the "linking" of source documents for further use up to everyone on their own2 looks like the only achievable solution.
* Our technology is not far enough yet. The topic of formalizing knowledge is still in its early stages (when compared to the task of representing complex knowledge on arbitrary topics), and without that, any plan to summarize, juxtapose, and link papers can only be implemented by humans reading natural language text and, at best, producing condensed natural language text that may bring different results into a uniform scheme. Automatization of that process is not yet feasible, leading back to point one.
---
1: Note that I am referring to the *text* here, not just the novel findings or results. The results should indeed be overlap-free, but the text describing them is only a part of a paper beside e.g. problem statements or summaries of related work.
2: Except for some comparably localized efforts including survey papers, textbooks, encyclopediae, and similar.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: The [SAT](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAT) comprises two sections, each scored on the range 200-800 (in 10-point increments, so it's really 20-80), so the final score is on the range 400-1600. It used to have three such sections, for a total range of 600-2400.
The [GRE](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graduate_Record_Examinations), on the other hand, comprises three sections, two of which are scored on the range 130-170, in 1-point increments, and the third is scored 2-8, in 1-point increments.
This makes scores hard to interpret from a lay perspective, even though you can easily look up percentile conversion tables ([SAT](https://blog.prepscholar.com/sat-percentiles-high-precision-2016), [GRE](https://www.ets.org/s/gre/pdf/gre_guide_table1a.pdf)[pdf]).
Is there any legitimate reason to make scores more difficult to interpret than necessary? Why not report percentiles? Or even just score on 0-100?<issue_comment>username_1: There is indeed no statistical reason to use these unusual ranges - zero to one hundred would do the job just as well. So why don't they just use that scale?
The main reason is that most standardized tests need to use some kind of difficulty scaled scoring system, to allow having different editions of the tests etc. One easy way to stop people from mixing up the scaled score and say a raw percentage score is to use a different range for the scaled scores. See e.g. [*Why Do Standardized Testing Programs Report Scaled Scores?*](https://www.ets.org/Media/Research/pdf/RD_Connections16.pdf) written by two ETS psychometricians (<NAME> and <NAME>) in 2011. Relevant quote:
>
> If two test takers taking
> Forms A and B respectively got the same scaled score of 194 (corresponding to raw
> scores of 95 on Form A and 96 on Form B), we know these two test takers exhibited the
> same level of performance on this test. One might ask: Why not report the adjusted
> scores for Form B instead of the scaled scores? This is because the adjusted scores
> would be on the same scale as the raw scores and could be easily misinterpreted as the
> raw scores. Thus, the scaled scores are used and are commonly set to a range of values
> different from the raw score values.
>
>
>
The same is true for percentile scores, which are easily misinterpreted for the percent of correctly answered questions. The test takers can probably figure out the right interpretation either way, but with this approach e.g. parents less conversant with SAT scoring or percentiles are more likely to go "oh, 1500, is that good?" rather than "only 52%?!".
Next, the test designer has to pick an actual range. As far as I understand it, this is somewhat arbitrary. It involves picking an increment (e.g. 1 or 10),
>
> For example, the scaled score can be reported in various increments (1-point increments,
> 5-point increments, 10-point increments, etc.). Usually, we want each additional
> correct answer to make a difference in the test takers’ scaled score, but not such a large
> difference that people exaggerate its importance. The selection of a score scale, with
> appropriate increments, aids in the usefulness of the reported scaled scores to the
> test-score users.
>
>
>
Then you naturally have an interval of scaled scores, which can be offset to whatever minimum you prefer. See e.g. the answers to [Why do some tests have a (nonzero) minimum score?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/61207/17254) for more details.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: It prevents confusion by people without a solid foundation in mathematics.
==========================================================================
Both tests have an offset. The score range for SAT is really 0-60 for each section, a total of 120.
Similarly the GRE is 2 × [0,40] + [1,6] for a total of 86. A majority of those scores would be in the high multiple tens - which would make them look a lot like a percentage score already. Add in percentile and that's begging for confusion.
The offset in each case prevents this problem. A score minimum of 400 couldn't possibly be confused with a percentage mark or a percentile ranking (and the associated increment allows for granularity in the event of changes to the test format) while a score minimum of 262 has similar benefits even if only one section's score was viewed (although with increment of 1, this is the extent of the gain).
Upvotes: 1
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2018/09/01
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<issue_start>username_0: I am crafting applications for US faculty positions and Californian universities require diversity statements. Now, the problem is I have no idea what to write in it, since diversity can mean literally anything. I've seen various examples that are all based on personal struggles by people belonging to minority groups or active in some program related to mentoring/teaching to minorities, which makes writing such a statement much easier.
Now, I've never been involved in any "program" of this type. There's no research/teaching about minorities in my field (science). I'm no minority, since I'm a white european. I've lived here and there for various years (outside of my homeland) in my early life and to work these last 5-6 years, so I'm technically an emigrant, but I guess it'd be offensive to people emigrating due to serious reasons to pick on this to develop the statement.
I was wondering whether anybody can give me a solid to develop something tasteful. I thought about something about multidisciplinarity since I've worked and studied in various fields, but I think the purpose of such statement is to address racial/gender/sex diversity.<issue_comment>username_1: This comes off a bit to me like "this application asks for a teaching statement but I haven't ever taught or thought seriously about teaching, so what do I write?" Well, if you haven't done anything or thought seriously about it, then you're not going to be able to write a very good statement. The first steps (which it's probably a little late for) are to start thinking about issues around underrepresented groups and getting involved in some way. Barring that you just have to resign yourself to this being a very weak part of your application.
That said, there are some other aspects beyond racial/gender diversity which you might think about and might have something to say about. For example, maybe you have relevant experience concerning teaching ESL (English second language) students, or first-generation college students, or students coming from underrepresented rural areas.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: One of those Californian colleges prepared a useful page discussing How to Prepare a Diversity Statement: <https://www.pomona.edu/administration/academic-dean/faculty-jobs/how-prepare-diversity-statement>
FWIW, Diversity statements are becoming pretty common beyond California. My Midwestern regional comprehensive requests them now.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: You say what you want is to write a diversity statement. What you actually need is the training and experience to support a statement. Some examples for how you can get training:
[Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning](http://cirtl.net/)
[Journal Articles](https://journals.aps.org/prper/collections/gender-in-physics)
You also need to do some teaching at a diverse institution.
Upvotes: 0
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2018/09/01
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| 1,910
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<issue_start>username_0: Is it reasonable to ask for a research assistant position (field of economics) over email to a professor who doesn't live in my country/city?<issue_comment>username_1: This comes off a bit to me like "this application asks for a teaching statement but I haven't ever taught or thought seriously about teaching, so what do I write?" Well, if you haven't done anything or thought seriously about it, then you're not going to be able to write a very good statement. The first steps (which it's probably a little late for) are to start thinking about issues around underrepresented groups and getting involved in some way. Barring that you just have to resign yourself to this being a very weak part of your application.
That said, there are some other aspects beyond racial/gender diversity which you might think about and might have something to say about. For example, maybe you have relevant experience concerning teaching ESL (English second language) students, or first-generation college students, or students coming from underrepresented rural areas.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: One of those Californian colleges prepared a useful page discussing How to Prepare a Diversity Statement: <https://www.pomona.edu/administration/academic-dean/faculty-jobs/how-prepare-diversity-statement>
FWIW, Diversity statements are becoming pretty common beyond California. My Midwestern regional comprehensive requests them now.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: You say what you want is to write a diversity statement. What you actually need is the training and experience to support a statement. Some examples for how you can get training:
[Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning](http://cirtl.net/)
[Journal Articles](https://journals.aps.org/prper/collections/gender-in-physics)
You also need to do some teaching at a diverse institution.
Upvotes: 0
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2018/09/01
| 1,204
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<issue_start>username_0: I am unaware if this question has been asked anywhere on StackExchange before. However, I would like to know what is the major difference between a top 6 and a top 10 graduate school in Mathematics. Forex: Top 6 would include Princeton, Harvard etc. Top 10 would have a few more like Michigan or Columbia etc.
I know that it depends a lot upon quality of theses and advisor. But can a graduate from Michigan be better than someone from Princeton? Looking at the faculty of top schools this rarely happens. Usually, everyone at Princeton received their doctorates from Princeton itself or maybe Harvard. Harvard/MIT also have the same situation. So is it really difficult for a Michigan(or any top 10 school) graduate to get a tenure-track job at a very prestigious school like Princeton ?.<issue_comment>username_1: I don't think you have gone very deep into rankings. Certainly not deep enough to suggest any relationship meaningful for individuals. I've never heard anyone scoff at a PhD from University of Michigan. You are suggesting that the top graduate from some place is invariably less skilled than the worst graduate from some other essentially similar place. That doesn't happen in the real world.
But if your life goal is to be a tenured professor at one of the top six schools in the US, prepare for disappointment, no matter where you study or how good you are. The problem is that the total number of open positions at such schools in any given year is minuscule and the competition for those few positions is huge.
But you should also think about the following in choosing a graduate school, if that is why you ask. Many top (and other) schools don't like to hire their own graduates. It certainly isn't that they doubt the quality, of course. But they like to bring in people who may have fresh ideas, not having studied with the current faculty and been exposed for many years with their ideas primarily. This has less effect now than it once did as it is easier to collaborate across distance and even internationally because of the internet and cheaper travel.
But some schools *do* permit hiring their own, and many students prefer to stay around a place where they are comfortable, so such places can collect a faculty made up of their own graduates. But, even in these, I'll guess that a lot of those "from here" people went out into the bigger world and made their reputation there before returning "home."
On the other hand, there are some incredibly fine mathematicians at quite small and out of the rankings places who simply want to live and work in a "home" environment of a different kind. Princeton isn't, actually, the finest place in the US to actually live. Too many cars, too many deer ticks.
But there is more to life than the quality of the institution you attend or the institution you work for. Lots more.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> But can a graduate from Michigan be better than someone from Princeton?
>
>
>
Yes, of course. Consider how implausible the alternative is - that the sorting process as people applying to grad schools could actually succeed at sorting grad students so perfectly that the top 6 schools catch *every* top tier student and *exactly* those students.
>
> Looking at the faculty of top schools this rarely happens. Usually, everyone at Princeton received their doctorates from Princeton itself or maybe Harvard. Harvard/MIT also have the same situation.
>
>
>
This addresses a very different question. Only a small fraction of Princeton/Harvard/etc math PhDs go on to become professors at Princeton/Harvard/etc.
It's quite possible that the best students from Princeton/Harvard/etc are slightly better than the best students from Michigan/etc, and that the faculty at Princeton/Harvard/etc are selected mostly from that very top group.
But the range of students at the very top schools certainly has a lot of overlap with the range from the schools a small step down.
Also, even the most cursory investigation of the actual faculty lists at Princeton, Harvard, and MIT, would reveal that the premise is false - all three schools do, in fact, have faculty whose PhDs come from other schools, both schools that might be in your "top 10 but not top 6" and schools that aren't in the top 10.
>
> So is it really difficult for a Michigan(or any top 10 school) graduate to get a tenure-track job at a very prestigious school like Princeton ?.
>
>
>
Yes, it is really difficult for a Michigan graduate to get a tenure-track job at a school like Princeton. It is also really difficult for a Princeton graduate to get a tenure-track job at a school like Princeton
Upvotes: 3
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2018/09/01
| 6,112
| 23,956
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<issue_start>username_0: I am doing a PhD in the US. I am in my mid-twenties and will graduate next spring. My advisor was very good and nice to me. He invited me to have dinner at his home many times and then I met his daughter. I did not realize at the beginning but she told me she had a crush on me. I have known her for some years now. She is above the age of consent.
I went to a party last week and had an extra couple of beers and I could not resist her. I am here alone and had not been with a woman in two years until then.
Now she wants to start a relationship with me and is threatening to tell her father, who is my PhD advisor, that I seduced her if I do not agree.
This is a very difficult situation for me because I do not want my advisor to think I took advantage of his daughter and the trust he has in me.
Also, I do not have time for a relationship. I just want to finish writing my thesis and then graduate.
Aside from those issues, I would love to date that girl: she is cute and hot. In normal circumstances, for me it is extremely difficult to get a girl. I am like Leonard from the Big Bang Theory TV show.
I do not know what to do. I just want to graduate and go home. But she is threatening me.
What should I do? What should I tell my advisor? I do not want him to feel betrayed and that I took advantage of his daughter. She is the one that came to me because under normal circumstances I cannot get a girl. But also I do not want her reputation to be damaged.
I tried explaining that to her but she told me I got sex and I want to get away with it. I am afraid and worried.
Some additional information: There is no way I could have seduced her. I am not good with women.
I do not know what happened. As I can remember, I had very few interactions with her. Never shared anything but a few encounters in social meetings. That is all. And then she tells me she has feelings for me. I did nothing to get into that situation. I was invited to a party and then she appeared. I had a couple of extra beers and she offered to take me home and there she jumped over me and kissed me and I could not resist. I had been a very long time without sex.
I am very worried and scared.<issue_comment>username_1: Assuming she is of legal age and you don't have an issue with the law. And assuming you aren't in a culture in which you can be killed for this, the only real way out is to talk to your advisor yourself. Painful, but true. You messed up and may have to pay the penalty. But every other option could wind up worse. There is no guarantee that your relationship will last - I assume marriage is not in the options here. There is no guarantee that she won't tell her father whenever she is unhappy with you for any reason. As painful as it is, the best person to deliver the news is yourself.
And be aware that "he seduced me" is NOT the worst accusation she can make.
But be prepared for whatever consequences occur.
But, it is possible that you don't need to mention the physical/sexual aspect and first present it as you are "seeing/dating" his daughter, assuming you want to continue. He may make the connection himself. He may tell you to stop. He may drop you as an advisee.
If you don't want to continue the relationship you may need to be more explicit, or not. But the message is still better coming from you than from any other.
---
Since this answer and other of my comments here have been controversial, let me explain the assumptions I made and didn't make.
First, I assume I've heard one side of this only and the person has a vested interest. I don't assume I know all.
I don't presume to know anything about the advisor or his relationship with his daughter.
I don't presume to know the state of mind of the 19 year old, whether she is rational or emotional. People (men and women) of that age can act out emotionally.
I think that the probability that the young woman is bluffing is somewhere between 0% and 100%. I have no way to know where to put a marker and am curious that others think it quite low, not knowing any of these people. I can't extrapolate from my kids to the situation here and wouldn't care to try. I doubt, for example, that my daughter would blackmail anyone, but am pretty sure she doesn't bluff.
I know that the charge of "seduction" may be a bit serious, but a charge of rape is devastating and can be made whether true or false. Refuting a false charge in such a case could be difficult to impossible.
I think that putting my head in the sand as the victim of blackmail would be very dangerous. I would rather be in front of the story than behind it while charges were being made.
No, I wouldn't describe the details to my advisor unless pressed. I wouldn't present it as the OP did in the question (I had sex with your daughter and she is blackmailing me). That would be stupid and I don't know why it was suggested.
It might even be (no assumption here) that the dad knows his daughter well and would roll his eyes if told. But, of course, that isn't highly likely.
The OP, of course, is in a better position to evaluate all of this and has knowledge that we, mere commenters, do not. It is up to him to make a rational decision about action. I still point out the extreme danger of letting someone else control the message and, hence, the future. Especially someone who is being accused here of blackmail.
Finally, I do assume that this has a high likelihood of ending badly. If the young woman is unhappy with the OP now, she will be more unhappy if he gives in to the blackmail for now but ends it later. Given that the situation may be bad, I would personally look for the least bad outcome.
Finally, the answer of [<NAME>](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/116240/75368) is clearly more refined.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Personally, I would tell her to go for it. There's a pretty good chance she's bluffing. *Kids do not tell their parents when they're having sex.* If, in addition, she's as you described, "cute and hot", it's far more likely she's merely manipulative than desperate to have you at any cost.
Even if she's not bluffing and does tell her dad, so what. You can't change the past, it is indeed a fact that you had sex with her and I don't see how your situation improves by preemptively "kissing and telling".
If you tried going first to your adviser, what would you even say? *"Hi, Prof! Guess what? I had sex with your daughter and now she's blackmailing me!"* How's that going to go over?
Look at this as a game-theoretic problem: There's no payoff to blackmail unless the blackmailer gets what they want *without* carrying out the threat. It's a one-shot deal. Once the threat is carried out, it's no longer a threat because the information has been released. If she knows she's not getting the relationship either way and that the only thing that will happen if she carries out the threat is that Dad will know she's having sex, that's not much of a payoff. Telling her to "go for it" explicitly informs her that you intend to ignore the threat and that you will not be swayed by it.
What I would not do is escalate or mirror the bad behavior. If you think responsible adults do not secretly record, collect evidence against and blackmail people they have sex with, then don't respond to that by doing it yourself. Instead, simply end the relationship and end all contact.
Ultimately, you can't control what she says but you can control what you say. If she tells her dad and he confronts you, I would point out that you consider one's sex life to be a very private matter, not something adults discuss with others. I would express surprise and disappointment at his daughter's behavior but otherwise refuse to discuss the matter except to deny any false accusations.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_3: First off, you haven’t committed a crime (assuming she was above the age of consent) and you haven’t engaged in academic misconduct (since there is only an indirect academic relationship between you). However, the fact that she is threatening/blackmailing you is very concerning. The fact that she is your advisor’s daughter makes things more complicated, but being threatened or blackmailed by a sexual partner would be deeply concerning in *any* circumstance.
I do not know the exact nature of the threats or blackmail, but I would not engage in a relationship with someone who is threatening or blackmailing me. Only you know the exact situation, but your choice of words rings alarm bells. My primary concern in your situation would be worrying about whether she will make worse threats — e.g., false rape accusations. That would be much worse than a spat with your advisor.
If I were in your situation, I would try to record my conversations with her so that I have some evidence to protect myself if she does carry out her threats. Save text messages and get a voice recorder app on your phone. (Check the [laws on recording conversations](https://www.rcfp.org/rcfp/orders/docs/RECORDING.pdf) in your state first.) The only thing other than “he said, she said” you have to defend yourself is such evidence.
Maybe I'm misreading the situation from your question, but your choice of words "threatening" and "blackmail" is concerning. And there is no harm in trying to protect yourself from possible future accusations. *Hope for the best, plan for the worst.*
This is not a complete answer, but I think you should worry about being threatened/blackmailed before you worry about dealing with your advisor.
In terms of dealing with your advisor, two (conflicting) points: Generally, honesty is the best policy (as [username_1's answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/116228/44249) emphasizes), but she is an adult and her father has no automatic "right" to know about her sex life, and there is a good chance both of you would prefer him not to know (as [Nicole's answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/116229/44249) suggests).
In terms of dealing with her: It sounds like you are still on speaking terms with her and you should absolutely try to talk things through with her. Treat her with respect and acknowledge her feelings. (See [Geoffrey’s answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/116240/44249).)
Upvotes: 7 <issue_comment>username_4: It may be worth thinking about the contrast between this:
>
> I could not resist her. I am here alone and had not been with a woman in two years until then.
>
>
>
and this:
>
> Now she wants to start a relationship with me and is threatening me to tell his father, which is my PhD advisor, that I seduced her
>
>
>
Perhaps she sincerely believes you *did* seduce her. If you felt unable to say no to this encounter, which you now regret, is it possible that she also felt unable to resist?
Here is one possible scenario (I don't claim it's the only one) that might explain her reactions:
You're six years older than her. She's known you since she was a child, and you're part of her father's social circle. (The power gap between you and her father probably isn't as visible to her as it is to you; when I was a kid and my father had his PhD students over for dinner, I tended to think of them as "Papa's friends", not as his juniors.)
She probably doesn't see that you're lonely and haven't been with a woman in two years, nor that you view yourself as somebody who's awkward with women. She probably also isn't factoring in how alcohol might have affected your judgement, especially since she's not even old enough to buy alcohol herself.
What she sees is a guy six years older than herself, almost a PhD. From a 19-year-old's perspective, mid-twenties seems *very* old and mature. She probably had more faith in your maturity and judgement than you do yourself.
Then she slept with you, and things didn't end up the way she had hoped, and that hurts. So how does she interpret that hurt?
From her perspective: you are a very old and mature person, so presumably you knew how this was going to turn out. Therefore, the fact that she got hurt is perceived as being due to callousness on your part - you took advantage of her, "seduced" her. She may find it hard to comprehend that *you* felt "unable to resist".
IMHO, the best course of action here is to acknowledge that things didn't go the way they should have, take ownership of the fact that you *did* choose to sleep with her, and express sympathy for the hurt she is feeling. Were I in your situation, I might say something along the following lines:
>
> I want to apologise to you for what happened. I like you and I find you attractive, but I didn't think enough about what us sleeping together might mean to you and I'm sorry I didn't talk to you about that first. You're an adult and I think of you as an equal; I didn't think that you might be counting on me to look out for both of us.
>
>
>
(I'm struggling a bit with that wording, suggestions for improvement welcome.)
Attempting to blackmail you is unacceptable behaviour. But if you acknowledge the hurt and if you can shift her perception of why it happened, you might find that the blackmail issue resolves itself.
If you *can't* resolve things with her, then you may need to talk to your professor and explain the situation, which is going to be an uncomfortable discussion. But I'd recommend doing all you can to make things right with her first.
One of the problems with conversations about sex-gone-wrong is that the emphasis almost always ends up on "whose fault is it?" rather than "somebody is hurt, what can we do to heal that?" Often the latter is actually more tractable, especially in situations that break down to poor communication and mismatched expectations.
Upvotes: 7 <issue_comment>username_5: >
> I do not want him to feel betrayed and that I took advantage of his daughter.
>
>
>
I am a little bit concerned by the confusion and conflict in your question. You seem to be suggesting that you took advantage of her. Is this the case? Did you? Was it the case that she was half blind drunk and you just went in there at a party, or was it more of a kind of she got a bit tipsy and confessed some inner feelings she already had, which you shared at the time (at least). Why do you assume you took advantage of her and not the other way round?
>
> Aside from those issues, I would love to date that girl she is cute and hot
>
>
>
Well, so what's the problem? Honestly, you both like each other, unless you are leaving some important info out. What's really going on here?
I don't actually see what the problem is here. Again, unless you are not giving us the full picture, I would just go with her, enjoy it, but tell her you do like her, but your plan is to eventually go home after the degree and you are worried about breaking her heart at that point, or that maybe she could consider emigration too.
I think your advisor is nothing to worry about. If things progress, just both of you tell him that you are bf/gf at the moment.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: Regarding the bit that in normal circumstance you would like to date her, the ultimate problem is, again, what do you want? Since you still want to date her even when (1) you want to prioritize your thesis first, and (2) she blackmails you, I guess that you just see this action as a desperation as describe in [@Geoffrey Brent's asnwer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/116240/14341), and you want to give both another chance? If so, I suggest you to tell her these points before re-entering the relationship:
1. "This thesis is really important to my life, and I have to prioritize it over you. It doesn't mean that I will drop you, but I hope you understand this. Can you accept that?"
2. "This is the last time you can do that to me. Can you promise?"
This will give both of you the best of both worlds. This will also not only forces her to have responsibility, but also forces **you** to have the responsibility too. Do you want that?
In all, in any situation, try finding a ***different perspective*** that you don't aware of. When we see the problem in a different perspective, we can be (1) more empathy to others, and (2) more rational to make a decision.
Recommended: [Emotional blackmail - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_blackmail)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: Let me read your question again through my *expertsexchanging* glasses:
>
> I am a 25 year old **female** in the US. I went to a party last week and had a couple beers. The 19 year old son of my boss followed me home. I never had much contact with him before, but he was suddenly all over me and due to being drunk I did not think enough to resist, and ended up sleeping with him. He is now blackmailing me, threatening to tell my boss about the night, if I do not follow his orders against my will.
>
>
>
Well, the agressor I was just reading about here seems like quite a jerk. Nowadays, some would even call what happened rape - as someone was too drunk to fully consent (personally, it is unclear to me).
I hope by this example it becomes more obvious that you are not at fault. Get rid of the mindset that you alone are responsible for the mess you both landed in.
With this in mind, I would try to disarm the situation and talk to her, as others advised. Be kind and understanding and try to find a workable solution for both of you. But also be firm in that you will not follow her orders for just her own sake. As you said, you have your own life to live first.
If she refuses, too bad for her. If she then presses the issue, go to the police.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_8: Refuse to be coerced, and accept the consequences. I don't think it is a good idea to engage in any relationship where your partner tries to force you to do something, whatever she is trying to "blackmail" you into doing.
If she wants a "relationship", where does that lead? Pregnancy? Marriage? How long will you be in servitude to this woman? The rest of your life?
Like Nicole answered previously, I do not think you should tell your PhD advisor; that is ***also*** being coerced by her into doing something you do not want to do.
In your position, I would refuse her demands. If she threatens to tell her father, I'd say "That is up to you. I cannot let you blackmail me with that, it will never end. If you tell him, I will suffer, I accept that."
As for your advisor (and I am a PhD), if he DOES find out, you will have to trust his academic integrity. Despite the fact that advisor/advisee relationships are often friendly, in the end this is a professional relationship and any offense he takes about this incident should be put aside in making ANY decisions about your PhD and defense. Failing to do so is academic misconduct. I would not mention that specifically, he should quite obviously know it. If he takes any punitive action as a result of knowing, I would say "I don't think what happened has anything to do with my research or my schedule to graduate."
Also, it is important for advisors to graduate their students, it helps with their career to do so, and hurts their career to NOT graduate a student. The college likes to get something for their money, and minting new PhDs is one of those things. Paying a professor and supporting a student for 4 years and having it end with nothing is not something your Advisor's supervisors will take lightly, and the excuse that you slept with his daughter so he dumped you is not a reason they would typically accept: That has nothing to do with the academic value of your work!
If you end up having to tell your side of the story; I'd say, "I went to a party with friends. I had drunk too much. Cindy was there and started hanging out with me, she said she had a long crush on me, we were flirting around and ended up in bed together. It was consensual."
I would not try to blame her as the aggressor, nor admit to "seducing" her, I would say it progressed and you both went along with it.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_9: ### tl;dr: Tell your advisor right now.
You have several concerns, not necessarily in order of significance:
1. Your advisor's reaction (and the danger to your PhD)
2. Your own feelings/interests in the proto-relationship with the daughter
3. The daughter's feelings/interests in the proto-relationship
None of these is a trivial concern, but I'd say the greatest cause of fear and concern here is that *they are all entangled, intricated with each other*, making it emotionally difficult to approach any one of them.
My suggestion is to extricate the first one from the other two, while mitigating it or addressing it completely.
Your advisor - her father - will find out sooner or later. In fact, it is highly likely he'll find out before you graduate, and quite likely he'll find out very soon. It is *far* better for him to find out from you than from anyone else. Also, considering the fact that it was legal, consentual (you would say so, and she hasn't complained to her father, so he will believe you), and did not involve academic misconduct - he may be somewhat upset, but **he will absolutely not be upset enough to hurt your PhD**. Your relationship might suffer, or it might not - but this will happen regardless, since like I said - he will find out.
Tell him that you had not told him so far because you were afraid he will be angry and this will hurt your relationship, but that this was the wrong choice for you, for him and for his daughter. If he reacts favorably, consider even asking *him* for advice regarding how to deal with the fact that you will likely be leaving, and thus believe you cannot pursue a relationship with his daughter - something he might understand while she does not.
---
PS - If you are willing to entertain the possibility of maintaining the relationship until you leave at least, the daughter might be willing to tell her father *together* with you. That way is even better, because it would make him feel that nothing has gone on behind his back. Note that she might be at least as upset about what she perceive as cowardly behavior than about the fact that you might not be toghether after you leave.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_10: So there is a girl. She is cute. She is hot. She is totally into you. And you'd love to date her.
And additionally, you are a nerd who usually has difficulties finding a girlfriend.
Then unfortunately there are two problems: You don't have much time. This thing might blow up your relationship with your advisor in a really bad way.
My solution would be: Tell her that you'd love to date her. Because she's hot and cute. But you are in a stressful situation with your thesis and this will only work if she can accept that you have very little time for her. Then set up a date.
Before you go on the date, you need to talk to your advisor. Tell him that his daughter asked you out on a date. And that you hope that that's ok for him. If he says no, you can go back to her with that and maybe deflect her anger, after all it's her father's fault.
But most likely he'll say that its not a problem. Then you are mostly out of trouble. Even if you break up with her after a month or so, the whole situation is not going to be as radioactive as it would be if she started to tell her father lies or half-truths about you right now.
Now, the remaining Elephant in the room is that she has been threatening and "black mailing" you. This is your judgement call to make. But given that you write that you'd love to date her, I judge optimistically from afar that maybe that was more an expression of disappointment and passion in the spur of a moment or something ... ;-)
If you judge her to be truly crazy and vicious and ready to destroy your life with unfounded accusations, don't take my advice. Go and immediately talk to your advisor about her.
Upvotes: 5
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<issue_start>username_0: Do universities know that you are a re-applicant who applied to the same program last year? Do they keep that database? And if they do, does that hurt your chances? (Specific to universities in the US and the UK)<issue_comment>username_1: Certainly *some* will retain that information. It would be best to assume that they do unless you have information to the contrary.
I hope the reason for asking is not "Can I be dishonest in re-applying?". Such would be a mistake as is any sort of dishonesty in an application.
Of course, in reapplying you have another year of history. If you have done something interesting with that year be sure to mention it. Also address the quality of your personal and goals statement in a new application. If you were given a reason for refusal previously, make sure you address that.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> Do universities know that you are a re-applicant who applied to the
> same program last year?
>
>
>
Yes, they do. Moreover, many universities directly ask are you a re-applicant in application forms.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: I've been working on a text which you could call a short monograph. Without going into details (which might lead to another question) - I'm considering posting/uploading/"publishing" it on arXiv.
It's not a draft - I've gone over it several times and it seems in pretty good share; but, at the same time, it is not finally done: I expect that, with feedback from others, I will need to make several additions, rephrasings, and possibly even slight correction of certain details regarding existing work.
Now, I would have liked to have received this feedback before ever publishing, but this is unlikely to happen; and I've been "sitting" on this for quite a long time already.
Is it legitimate, and is it reasonable, to upload an initial version on arXiv, expecting that an update will be necessary?<issue_comment>username_1: Yes, it’s legitimate. The fact that arXiv has a versioning system tells you everything you need to know: the ability to post updated and improved versions of your manuscript is an intentional feature of arXiv. So your question really amounts to “is it reasonable to use this feature?” - to which the answer is, yes, of course.
Now, keep in mind that the versioning feature can be, and at times has been, abused by people who post way too many versions of their paper with many confusing, incremental updates, usually in an attempt to bring an originally very low quality paper up to an acceptable level. This type of behavior is certainly looked down upon as a form of “noise pollution” and may be seen as a signal of low quality content, so if you think you’ll be posting more than, say, three versions (including the original submission), I’d suggest rethinking your approach. Also remember that the older versions of the paper remain accessible indefinitely. If you care about your reputation, you’d want to make sure that even the original version of the paper is of a high enough quality that you can accept being associated with it far into the future. With that said, your desire to share the work even in non-final form, whether because you think it may be useful to others and/or because you need some feedback to put the finishing touches on it, are quite understandable and acceptable, and shared by many; that is why the versioning system exists. So as I said, it’s totally legitimate.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: My normal workflow is to:
1. Post the first version after all coauthors are happy
2. Collect any feedback, and if there are needed edits incorporate them into a second ArXiv post which is exactly the version submitted to a journal (otherwise you run the risk that the referee looks at the wrong version).
3. After any referee reports and responses make a third ArXiv version which is the author-final version.
4. No more than once-a-year update with any post-publication typo fixes.
For any given paper steps 2, 3, or 4 might not be needed, so this is more of a maximum than a required. But I think if you’re not doing more posts than what I’ve outlined you’re certainly ok.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Legitimate but not recommended.
1. My experience is that feedbacks from persons unknown are very rare. Think of the reverse: do you yourself send feedbacks to random authors in your field who submit on arXiv?
2. There is a reputational cost to submitting work obviously not ready for publication. Do you yourself read a lot of submissions of this type or do you stop once you realized this is not finished work?
3. Constantly updating an arXiv submission tends to bad at the time of journal submission.
If you are *a few days* away from journal submission then nothing is lost by privately circulating advanced copies of your work or posting on arXiv: you might get the occasional feedback especially if there is a glaring omission in the text or in the bibliography, but arXiv is not a peer-reviewing service, and thinking of this as such may lead to acute disappointments.
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: I have a specific question. I am working on my academic paper.
I came across this unpublished paper online written by a PhD student. Although, his topic is different, some parts of his paper relates to the background section of mine. For my background section, I am using three different books as source material. This person, let's call him Jack, has also used the same books.
>
> Question: If my sentences are similar to Jack's (i.e. I reworded parts of his sentences) is it considered plagiarism, given, I cite the original source (that we both used): the books?
>
>
>
Example (made up):
* Jack: According to Greene (2001), the program was implemented in 1991 to ensure a more efficient organization of the workers and, subsequently, to facilitate their unionization.
* Me: The Unity program was created in 1991 to efficiently organize the labour force and, subsequently, to help workers join the labour union (Greene, 2001)
Some terms are hard to replace with alternatives without fully changing the meaning or using too many words.
I have read the book, the main source material, and have cited it in my sentence. But, my sentence is very similar to Jack's. Would this be considered plagiarism even though the idea is not Jack's?
I have no problem referencing Jack's paper in my Reference section at the end, but I don't want to use intext citation citing Jack's paper.<issue_comment>username_1: It is hard to know from the detail you give what the correct response is. In general if you use someone's words or even ideas you should cite them. That is true even if the citation is to an unpublished manuscript (which you can describe as such).
It is also possible to paraphrase things you cite rather than simply quote them. Jack says in [1] that mumble mumble.
But taking sentences and rewording them (your description) seems a bit odd. If Jack hasn't expressed himself well, then a fresh paraphrase would seem to be more appropriate.
The big deal is don't give the impression that the words are yours.
But the citation should be given, even for an unpublished work. If you got it from Jack himself, you can also describe the "source" as a "private communication".
To be more clear, citing the joint source for yourself and Jack isn't enough if you use Jack's words even if paraphrased. But perhaps it isn't necessary to use his words at all, given that you can refer directly to the sources of the idea.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: Plagiarism is the act of passing off another work/writing as your own.
If I read the question right, you are saying something like the following: you wrote a background section about about works [1], [2] and [3]. Jack also independently and prior to you wrote a summary about works [1], [2] and [3]. And some of your sentences happen to be similar. **This is not plagiarism.** This is normal, because you're talking about the same things, and because both of your descriptions are influenced by the original sources [1], [2] and [3].
What would be plagiarism is if you were to copy large chunks of text into your paper without marking it off as a quotation. In my field (pure math) it's common that different papers have whole sentences which are virtually identical. (There must be hundreds of papers with the sentence "Let G be a group.")
I also don't think it's necessarily necessary to cite Jack's work just to say they summarize [1], [2] and [3] also. If you think looking at Jack's presentation also will help the reader, or you used aspects of Jack's presentation, then you should cite Jack.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: **TLDR: When you paraphrase someone, you should cite them.**
I agree with the spirit of the [answer by @username_2](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/116333/39477), but I come to a different conclusion based on the specifics of your case. You say:
>
> I reworded parts of his sentences
>
>
>
If you take someone else's writing and paraphrase it, you should probably be citing them. Otherwise you risk committing what Harvard's Honor Council calls *uncited paraphrase*, which is a form of plagiarism:
>
> The rule of thumb here is simple: Whenever you use ideas that you did not think up yourself, you need to give credit to the source in which you found them, whether you quote directly from that material or provide a responsible paraphrase. ([Harvard Honor Council: *What Constitutes Plagiarism*](https://usingsources.fas.harvard.edu/what-constitutes-plagiarism))
>
>
>
If you had simply read the same works and *happened by chance* to write a similar summary of them, then you would not need to cite the other author. But *if you read the other author's summary and then paraphrased them*, as your question seems to state, then you are relying on their work and should cite them.
---
Note: If you meant that your sentences could merely *be interpreted* as re-wording the other author's writing, but that you wrote them before you read the other version, then @username_2's answer applies (though you may still wish to cite the other author for the sake of completeness). If that's the situation, then it might be helpful to re-word your question to make this clear.
Upvotes: 3
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a PhD student in mathematics starting my third year with the goal of a tenure track position at an R1 university. I believe I have enough research completed that I could graduate this year if I chose to, however my funding situation allows me to stay in my program for up to 6 years fully funded and with little teaching obligation (I do have the opportunity to teach a full course over the summer and plan to do so). I am currently planning to stay for all 6 years, unless I receive a very good offer in my 5th year. I have somewhat different taste in problems from my advisor, so I am currently working on becoming a more independent researcher.
My question is on how to best take advantage of the remaining years of my degree. Is there anything more subtle than "do more research"? What can I do to prepare myself for a postdoc or otherwise get ahead? Are there things that can be done as a graduate student in this situation that cannot easily be done as a postdoc or that are much better to start earlier?<issue_comment>username_1: Very interesting question, the answer of course depends on you and your preference. A few pieces from a Y3 postdoc...
* Advice 1: Think of a **skill** that you **feel** as your biggest weakness. If possible, try working on improving it. This can be a management workshop, a presentation class, whatever. As a postdoc, having a well-rounded skillset is going to be useful.
* Advice 2: Think of an **area** adjacent to yours which you considered to **learn** about, and then try to take an online course or something like that for it. Having broader overview helps a bunch.
* Advice 3: **Present your work** to others. Write a bunch of profs of interest that you'd like to visit their lab and give a lecture about your PhD topic. But also, consider giving public-oriented "outreach" lectures, so that interested general public knows what's happening in your field. One feels this to be important, given we're usully paid from their taxes.
* Start writing that book that you always wanted ;)
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: As a third year student who is ready to defend their thesis at the end of the year (start of fourth year), with six years funding, I'd recommend:
* Writing your thesis; and
* Starting your job hunt.
You can "hang around" at your current institute until you find the right position.
A PhD is training. You claim to be complete, so move on.\*
---
\*I've deliberately used "claim," you should consider whether you are *really* complete.
Upvotes: 1
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2018/09/02
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<issue_start>username_0: I am from a country controlled by a repressive regime. I was able to leave the country and continue my academic activity in a top US university. Most of my work is focused on equality, human rights and distribution of resources. Until now, I couldn't publish using my name. Always ends up collaborating on different projects but without being an author (this is my request and other co-authors are just respecting my wish).
Not all my works are in those themes but this is the field of research where I think I could contribute the most, and feel like I am achieving something.
I was arrested by my government (kidnapped and tortured for 5 months) before leaving the country. Arrested for humanitarian activities, ended up tried by court-martial and then terrorism court, while I am a civilian. This was the one reason for me to focus on those issues. I fear that if I go public this regime may arrest my family members and/or confiscate my properties.
Is there a way for academics to publish (in peer reviewed journals) and do research while earning credit for their work without using their real names? Or at least a way to prevent their identity from going public ?
I think that in academia there are so many ways depending on personal identity to thrive. I have this negative feeling that there is no way to advance professionally without using my personal identity. I do not know how to do it, but it is still early to make final judgments.<issue_comment>username_1: This is a highly speculative answer - just a thought experiment.
It may be that you will never be able to publish, safely, under your own name. The secret police in such regimes may have a long reach into other countrie,s as Russia seems to have in GB.
It might be possible, however, to create a second identity for yourself that is known to only the fewest possible, most trusted, allies. It may be too late for that if you already have worked with others on these issues and they can connect you. The difficulty, of course, with a second identity is that it is necessarily not connected to your history, including degrees, employers, etc.
But academic publishing is normally by individuals and their institutions and credentials are not as important as when seeking employment. But, then, your human rights work would be attributed to a fictitious person, which I'm pretty sure is legal as long as you aren't using such a pseudonym for fraud.
I wonder if you already have connections to reputable human rights organizations (Amnesty International, ...) that can help you with legal advice on this. Certainly a human rights lawyer familiar with the issues in your home country would be worth consulting. If you work with a reputable lawyer, that person can cache the relationship between your true-name and the pseudonym, so that if it ever becomes possible to reconnect them, you have the legal means to do so.
I don't know if the US government would be of assistance, but I don't have much faith in it at the current moment. Even our own spies identities have been "outed" here for political gain.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Yes, it can be done. Some historical examples:
>
> <NAME> and <NAME>, Physical Review Letters, **35**, 1442-1444 (1975) <https://doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.35.1442>
>
>
>
This paper has some amusing history which you can read about on [<NAME>'s Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._D._C._Willard). The catch: <NAME> is actually a cat.
>
> Polymath, D. Mathematical Sciences (2014) 1: 12. <https://doi.org/10.1186/s40687-014-0012-7>
>
>
>
Again, Polymath isn't a person, but the name of a [collaboration of mathematicians](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymath_Project).
You'll note from the second example that one journal's editors objected to the use of the pseudonym, insisting that the authors use their real names, but another journal didn't mind. You can do the same. It's possible editors object to practical jokes like the FDC Willard case (if they're aware of it), but if you are protecting your name because you fear retaliation, editors are likely to be sympathetic.
Upvotes: 2
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2018/09/03
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a graduate research assistant, who is paid hourly, I run a script that scrapes data for my professor's research. It is automated, meaning that I don't have to even click a button. But it runs for 1.5 hours everyday on my laptop. I get paid hourly. Do I clock in for the 1.5 hours on a daily basis at the time when my scrape starts? or do I not clock in at all since I don't physically do anything for the 1.5 hours?<issue_comment>username_1: As always, talk to your professor and ask him/her!
If I paid a student to write a script, I would just run it on my own machine or a department machine. You aren't working so it seems disingenuous to accept payment for it, unless the professor knows he/she is essentially just renting your computer to run the script.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: >
> [my professor] runs [a script] for 1.5 hours everyday on my laptop...[Should I get paid whilst the script runs?]
>
>
>
You are presumably doing other work whilst the script is running? So, yes, you should get paid. On the other hand, if the script is consuming your laptop resources in a manner that precludes other work, then you should reschedule the script to run when it doesn't preclude other work (e.g., over night or early morning).
Upvotes: 1
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2018/09/03
| 1,524
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<issue_start>username_0: It is no secret that industry labs are competing with academia at a pace never seen before. Most of the tech conferences now are dominated by industries with superior funding, human resources, and data.
What surprises me is that papers from industry are often written by a large number of authors. In fact, whenever I see a citation/reference with a whole string of authors, I can immediately predict that it comes from industry labs. Why is this the case?
For example, [this very short and simple looking paper from Google](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1705.00652.pdf) is authored by 9 people.
[Here is another very brief paper from Google,](https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/en//archive/large_deep_networks_nips2012.pdf) similar to the style of an undergraduate project. Now why is 12 people needed to put it together?
Take [a look at another paper from Facebook](https://research.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/hpca-2018-facebook.pdf). What looks to me to be a survey paper with no simulation or any equation required 17 authors.
[Or this, again, very short joint paper from Apple, Facebook, Google.](http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~lisa/pointeurs/taslp_RNNSLU_final_doubleColumn.pdf) Why 11 authors?
[Why does this Google paper (that has three labeled equations in total) require 16 authors?](https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/en//pubs/archive/41159.pdf) Are these people gaming the publication/citation count system or what.
[Why does this other Google paper](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1609.08144.pdf) require 31 authors? Am I to believe that they all contributed equally?
Can someone please chime in as to why these papers require so many authors? I say many because I've seen student projects or theses written by a single person that (more than) rivals the depth of those papers that require some 15 people to write.<issue_comment>username_1: Since the comments already capture this pretty well this will summarize them and add only a bit.
In a place with a lot of collaboration and team work it may be impossible to determine individual contributions to an important work, so you get a lot of authors, who did contribute ideas and other things.
In some lab sciences it takes a huge number of people to keep the lab going. Think CERN, for example. Many of these places credit contributors to the lab with authorship of work produced there. There is at least one scientific paper in which the list of authors is longer than the paper itself. I don't have a reference to it, but it was published within the last couple of years, possibly in chemistry or the medical sciences.
If computer programs were published the way scientific papers are, then a significant program would have (at least) hundreds of "authors" who all contribute in different ways and whose participation is essential to the result. Whether their contributions are "equal" is moot. I don't know how many contributors Linux has, for example, but it is over a thousand.
The number of authors of papers from academia is normally smaller since the working groups are normally smaller. But they have increased as well. It used to be unusual for papers in some fields to have more than one or two authors, but is now more common. That is partly true to the availability of internet communication, of course. I've been involved in several computing projects with several authors, all from different countries.
I will second, also, the comment that industrial research is in a sad state today, especially in the US. In the past, companies did a huge amount of basic scientific research. That is much less now, with the research that most do is very applied, product-oriented research rather than basic science. There are a few exceptions, but economic forces have pushed companies into a more parochial view of research. Even governments are less generous with basic research grants than was true in the past. Everyone seems to be looking for a competitive edge, rather than knowledge itself.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: **TL;DR:** results in industrial practice are often much more of a product of team work, rather than the "every student works on their own thesis" model that we usually have in academia. This is also reflected in the length of author lists.
---
The work mode of an industry lab (or, even worse, of a group of day-to-dat software engineers in industry who just happened to become involved with a paper) is typically different to your average academic lab. To wit:
**Academic project** (simplified, of course):
Somebody (a PI, the student themselves, or somebody in between) has an idea for a research paper. A person (often, but not necessarily, a student) takes responsibility for executing it, and collaborates with their advisor and, maybe, one or two other students on executing it. Importantly, for this "driver" of the project it is usually of high importance (because it goes into their thesis in the case of a student), and they invest a significant portion of their time on it. The other collaborators usually only invest time in specific roles (giving feedback, doing specific analyses, helping with paper writing, etc.). In short, there is often *one person responsible for bringing the project all the way*.
**Industrial project** (particularly in the case when a software company is reporting on aspects of their practice, as in many of your examples):
Somebody (often a member of the research division of the company, sometimes an academia-affine practitioner) has an idea for a paper. They start working on it, but they *cannot* commit more than a fraction of their time on it (because even for industrial researchers, writing papers is often much less a core focus of their job profile than for students or academic staff), so they gather collaborators, who likewise cannot put more than a few hours here and there on the project. Additionally, for such "report of a practice" kind of papers, *many* people have typically contributed to establishing the practice, and it is bad tone to leave out key players (unless they don't want to contribute to the paper). In short, while there may be a coordinating person as well, nobody really has the time to work on this paper full-time, and many people have somehow contributed to the work being reported on, so automatically the author list swells.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
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2018/09/03
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<issue_start>username_0: I dont know much about paper submission as I am not that matured enough.
Can someone kindly say what does it mean for a paper to be "under review"?
First I was informed that it was "Initial version" and now the status says "under review".
How long will the tag "under review" stay?
As I am a Master's student I dont know much about publication.Can someone please say what does the above means and what are the steps that follow in order for a paper to be accepted in a journal.
Do editors send the authors mail keeping them informed about the steps that are being done ?
I will be grateful if someone helps me here.<issue_comment>username_1: Only answering this since the rest is easily found in the linked question.
>
> Do editors send the authors mail keeping them informed about the steps that are being done ?
>
>
>
Usually yes. Only exception is if the editor is handling everything manually (that is, he receives and sends out decisions by email, not through an editorial management system) in which case sending these notification emails by hand get tedious really quickly, and the editor might not do this.
Warning: check your spam folder since these emails are sometimes marked as spam.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: When you submit a paper to a journal (conferences are a bit different), it first goes to an editor who has some familiarity with the subject area, but may not be an academic. He or she will make an initial determination of suitability and (possibly) quality. If the paper is deemed worthy of examination it next goes to a few reviewers who are experts in the field, usual academics and volunteers.
Your paper is being reviewed at the moment by this group, who probably don't meet together. They may or may not have your name listed as author.
When a reviewer completes review he/she writes a report back to the editor. When the editor gets all the reviews back a decision is made (accept, reject, accept with revision, more review,...).
Usually the author is kept informed, but there are often delays in the system as people are busy and not dedicated totally to this one paper to the exclusion of all else. Reviews can take a long time if people are busy with other things. They don't usually have hard deadlines.
The author will normally get a copy of the reviews, but not the names of the reviewers. The author is usually expected to write a new version taking the comments of the reviewers in to account. Then the paper goes back to the editor who may decide to publish it or start the process over again with more reviews.
For conferences the process is similar except that the reviewers may be the conference program committee who do meet as a group for acceptance/rejection. Here the process is time constrained by the date scheduled for the conference itself. The committee may also be limited in the number of papers it is allowed to accept to keep the cost of the conference and the resulting proceedings reasonable.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
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2018/09/03
| 871
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a computer science student. I have done some work on algorithms and I have got one result. The result is small, 6-7 pages long (entire paper). I want to publish it and my adviser is also motivating me to publish.
**Question:** Is it worthwhile to publish short paper as graduate student? Will it enhance the significance of my research work?<issue_comment>username_1: There are many reasons why it is helpful to publish. The usual reason is that it enhances your standing in the community of scholars and professionals. But another important reason, in my view, is just for the experience of it. You force yourself to bring your ideas into an understandable and maybe usable form. That is good for your mind and publishing is just the goad to get it done.
Submitting to a conference or journal will also get you independent feedback on both your ideas and your writing. That is valuable also.
In CS, however, most of the work is presented in conferences, so you might look for a suitable one and submit there.
If you want a career in academia, publishing is essential, and starting early gives you more experience for when the more important results are ready.
It is also usually good advice to follow your advisor's lead.
Good luck and see you at the conference.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Flip the question around and ask the reverse: is there any reason not to publish a short paper as a graduate student? Offhand, I can think of:
* If it's a poor paper it might reflect badly on you to have published it. A [related question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/90165/publishing-a-very-mediocre-paper-as-undergraduate) has been asked before. This isn't all that likely to work against you to be honest, since papers by early career researchers tend not to be very high-impact for obvious reasons. Your advisor who presumably has a lot more experience than you is the best judge of your work. If he says go ahead (and as you write he's already said that), it probably won't reflect badly on you. After all, your advisor's name is probably also going to be on the paper.
* It takes up time that you could've used to do more research. Is this really the case though? If in the time it takes to write a paper you could've achieved something more substantial, you're one exceptionally motivated student.
* You don't have the money to publish it open access. If this is a problem for you, simply publish it in a subscription journal.
Can you think of anything else? If not, why not go ahead?
Finally you ask:
>
> Will it enhance the significance of my research work?
>
>
>
The idea behind publishing is that more people become aware of it. If enough people are aware of it and they find it interesting, then you'll certainly have "enhanced its significance". It's possible they don't find it interesting in which case the significance is low, but if you don't publish it then the significance is almost by definition zero since nobody else knows about it. So the answer is yes: it might, and certainly won't hurt.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: If you don’t publish your research, no one will ever know about it. If you publish it successfully, that means it will undergo peer review and be deemed to be worthy of publishing by experienced researchers and journal editors, and then will join the body of knowledge available to humanity. So yes, by its very definition, publication “enhances the significance of your research”.
Or, as <NAME> said, [real artists ship](http://www.ghostinthepixel.com/?p=24).
Upvotes: 3
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2018/09/03
| 768
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<issue_start>username_0: I encountered in a Master's thesis some of my original and important findings. I finished my experiments and left the lab to home to write and while I was writing my supervisor put my data into someone else's thesis.
Funnily enough the data is also in my thesis but masters thesis came earlier. Even though, I am the original observer, I have the position who did plagiarism.
What is the best action to take?<issue_comment>username_1: In a case like this, the most important first step to take is **preserve all written records.** In particular, you need to have the proof that *you* were the one who collected the data—perhaps it’s in the form of laboratory notebooks in your own handwriting, emails showing that you were the one who collected the data, or anything else that unambiguously shows that you were the data collector. This protects you from any charge of wrongdoing.
The second step is deciding if you want to take action in this matter. If you feel the use of the data is sufficiently problematic and you are willing to deal with the fallout of reporting your advisor and a fellow grad student for plagiarism, then you should cautiously proceed. However, if no one has raised any issues and you don’t want to make an issue out of it, it is understandable that you might want to wait until you are no longer directly part of the group before taking any action (or doing so anonymously).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> What is the best action to take?
>
>
>
It depends. What problem are you trying to solve? What goal do you want to achieve?
As your question seems to imply, you are concerned that the data you obtained in the experiment were analyzed in the publication of another team member in the same research group. This may or may not be an issue, depending on how you answer the questions below.
* **Are these data "yours" or "group's"?** You obtained the data, that's great. But did your superviser contributed to designing the experiment? Who is responsible for setting the research aims and formulating the problem? Who financed the lab, got the correct equipment and performed the risk assessment? These are non-negligible tasks, and that's why in many labs the obtained data belong to the PI's group, not the person who first observed them. For example the team in CERN responsible for collecting the data and eventually "observing" the Higgs boson includes 200+ researchers.
* **Are results the other student published exactly the same as yours?** The same dataset can be analysed differently, with different goals, methods and approaches, leading to different results. Some classical datasets are used as benchmarks and analyzed in hundreds of papers, without constituting a plagiarism.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: You didn't mention anything about discussing the problem with your supervisor. In my opinion your first step should be to ask them about this, and request to have your work duly cited. The fact that your work is not published yet is not an issue, it can be cited as a work "to appear".
I think this is essential even if you think your supervisor will not listen: making a formal complaint without giving them a chance to fix their mistake could be construed as disrespectful and hostile, given the potentially serious consequences.
Upvotes: 0
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2018/09/03
| 986
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<issue_start>username_0: How to know which journal is open access?
I have searched many journals homepage which give an option "Supports Open Access"
But I know open access journals after accepting papers charge huge amount of money from authors which I wont be able to give.
So can someone please help me to understand how to be sure that I dont fall into such traps and I submit in those journals which charge money after accepting my paper?
The following link is of Discrete Maths which is a top-journal.
Still it states open access.
<https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/discrete-mathematics/articles-in-press>
If someone helps me to know how to understand it,I will be really very grateful.<issue_comment>username_1: >
> But I know open access journals after accepting papers charge huge
> amount of money from authors which I wont be able to give.
>
>
> So can someone please help me to understand how to be sure that I dont
> fall into such traps and I submit in those journals which charge money
> after accepting my paper?
>
>
>
If you are a PhD student, the first person you should talk to about publishing is your supervisor. They know the field and they can recommend which journals/conferences to submit to (in case you are not a PhD student, try to find somebody experienced in your field that you can ask about this).
While open-access is important, it is not the only criterion to choose a journal for submission: visibility, relevance to the topic of your paper, editorial policy and length of the reviewing process should also be taken into account. This is why it is crucial to get advice from an experienced researcher if you are starting in the field.
As a side note, I think that paying any research costs (and especially publication costs) with your own money is a bad idea: maybe your PhD grant can cover such costs, or your supervisor might have access to other funding.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: You can tell whether a journal is open access from their website. "Supports open access" doesn't immediately say if the journal is completely open access, but it does mean that you will be able to publish open access in it. In other words, it's possible the journal practices the hybrid model where it is subscription, but offers open access to whoever wants it.
For *Discrete Mathematics* itself, you linked a ScienceDirect webpage. [ScienceDirect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ScienceDirect) is not the journal's publisher - it's just a database. What you really want is [the journal's webpage itself](https://www.journals.elsevier.com/discrete-mathematics). Clicking on the "Supports open access" tab on the left leads to [this page](https://www.elsevier.com/journals/discrete-mathematics/0012-365x/open-access-options), which tells you everything you want to know. This is a hybrid journal alright, and if you want open access the article processing charge is USD 1500 excluding taxes (potentially lower if you are funded by the Wellcome trust and Research Councils UK).
If you are unable to find whether the journal is open access on its webpage, assume it isn't. If the journal claims to be open access but does not list its article processing charges, do not publish there, since one of the key criterion to calling a journal/publisher predatory is whether its APCs are clearly listed.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: You are overlooking the most relevant form of open access: **green open access**, in which the publisher allows the author to post a preprint or postprint (or even the final published version of the paper) online where it can be accessed for free. A huge number of journals -- including the one you have mentioned, Discrete Mathematics -- allow green OA, and it doesn't cost you a thing.
By far the best resource in this regard is **[Sherpa/Romeo](http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/index.php)**. The people who run it have already done all the work for you. Simply enter the name of the journal and it will tell you in great detail what the publisher allows or does not allow.
Upvotes: 2
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2018/09/03
| 492
| 2,094
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<issue_start>username_0: I am working on writing my PhD thesis after four long years of work. I'm writing the hypothesis sections, and I am finding it extremely hard to write one single hypothesis that is comprehensive and specific enough without using vague wording. **Can I have three hypotheses for my thesis?**
For background: my work is in medical informatics, and my thesis work can be divided into three steps:
1. I evaluated existing models in the literature against our hospital's dataset using a novel approach and demonstrated that their performance is not great;
2. I developed my own model, which is better;
3. I implemented it in the hospital, with decent results.
Can I have those three as hypotheses? [1) existing models perform worse than X; 2) a model that is X% better can be built using machine learning; and 3) implementing a model in the hospital can lead to XYZ]? Or do I have to find just **one** overarching hypothesis and make those three the goals?<issue_comment>username_1: This is the sort of thing that you should discuss with your advisor if you have questions. This may be field specific; that said, I'd be surprised if there was any sort of specific limit on the number of hypotheses discussed in a thesis.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: You can certainly do that, but if you can get your degree with a simpler structure it might be worth doing one thing and use the other work for future papers and such. Your advisor should be a good guide here, actually.
It doesn't sound like you have three distinct things going on, however, and that all three of them support a common overall theme. If the results all point the same way you should have a strong result. Your number (2) seems like the big thing, with (3) supporting it and making it concrete, though I don't see how you support (2) without (3). Not my field, though. But (1) would be a pretty common element of a dissertation.
That sort of thing is pretty common actually in many fields.
I would only recommend against a number of hypotheses if they were disparate in some way.
Upvotes: 1
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2018/09/03
| 1,732
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<issue_start>username_0: About me:
About to start final year ChemE
Top of class/grades
Have completed 6 month co-ops in pharma and biopharma
Liked the work but think that I would much prefer development or research type work
I need to make a decision over the next month to either:
Take a graduate program/job in pharma or biopharma
Do a PhD (I have been talking to my professor who has agreed to take me on or else give me a reference for another college)
Take the graduate program and do a PhD simultaneously (difficult option but I know people who have done this)
I am really attracted to the idea of doing a PhD in a biopharma/biotech related space. I do not know if I am interested in academia afterwards or if I would prefer to work in industry. That said, I do not know much about the roles available to PhDs in industry.
I have heard that a PhD can give you more 'work freedom' and also a higher chance of working in cutting edge areas. Also the idea of working in a startup or starting my own company at some point is something I am interested in.
My problem is that I do not have the tools to decide what is the right decision for me. I would apprecaite any input or experience anyone has with this, or alternatively any advice on how I can make the right decision.
Thanks in advance. If I am missing key information here, apologies. I will add it in if it comes up in a comment.<issue_comment>username_1: Check out the jobs that you'll be enabling (and disabling) by getting a PhD. Getting a job is after all the ultimate aim of the PhD. It's imperative to know what options are available, both academic and non-academic, *before* you start.
Don't rely on hearsay like "PhDs give you more work freedom". Research it yourself. I suggest using a similar method to [this answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/115930/career-prospects-for-a-math-phd-student-in-pure-math/115931#115931) I wrote for another question, applied to your field / target country. You're particularly interested in:
* What jobs become available if you have a PhD? Do you find them attractive?
* What jobs are already available to you, without a PhD? Do you find them attractive?
* What is the salary like for either category?
You want to calculate whether it's worth doing a PhD so you can do jobs in the first category, versus not doing a PhD and going into the workforce at once. Be sure to factor in the time taken and the fact that if you go into the workforce at once you're likely to earn a substantially higher salary over that period. Remember also that if you get a PhD, you're probably overqualifying yourself out of the jobs in the second category. I personally like doing calculations like [this one](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/29504/is-it-worth-self-funding-a-phd-to-attend-a-top-10-university/109282#109282), your mileage might differ.
One more thing: you write that you think you'll like research work more. Don't just think, verify it! Do a research project, undergraduate level is fine and a short one is also fine. If you find you like it then by all means get the PhD, but if you find it to be a huge culture shock and discover you actually don't want to do research - you wouldn't be the first - then run while you're still able. There really is no reason not to do this. If you find you like research, your supervisor will also be able to write you a recommendation letter for your applications.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: Does your uni have guidance councilors? Probably you can easily get an appointment. Maybe they will be glib about it, but it can be helpful data.
At least two aspects: What job can you get that you could not get now? And is it worth while spending at least 4 years, maybe more, getting the degree to get that job? If you want to be an academic then PhD is probably indicated. If you want to be in industry then consider going no farther than the master's degree. Or stopping at the bachelor's.
Carefully scope out what it will cost you to get the PhD. Not just your university fees. But to live for that time. Scope out what scholarships you can get. NOTE! You must apply for most such scholarships. You do NOT get automatically considered for the bulk of them. Ask the support staff in your uni and the uni you are considering going to what scholarships exist and how to apply. Find out what it costs to live in the city you are considering. Find out if the uni will give you work while you are a grad student. Or if you can maybe get contract work in the industry relevant to your study subject.
Send out a few resumes to potential employers. Maybe the offered starting salary will turn your head. And at worst, you may get some interviews that will be good practice. And polishing your resume is good practice also. Tune it to the potential employer.
The difference between what you could earn in 4 years, and the payments you would need to make, will be substantial. And you will then be 4 years ahead for the rest of your job life.
Many academic areas have some equivalent of "Physics Today" which is the one for my area. Such magazines give stuff that is along the lines of "proff so-and-so has just finished big-name-project blah-de-blah, isn't it pretty?" And they have a ton of adverts for various things somewhat related to the subject.
But importantly, once per year they have lists of PhD students who recently graduated, and where they went. So, what you should do is have a look at where grads from a school you are interested in eventually went. And if those destinations seem good to you, great, go ahead. If they bore you or worse, look elsewhere. One of my cohort in PhD went to work at the Science Center, and now spends his time teaching high school students about static electricity. After a PhD in particle physics. Sigh.
You may need to ask the librarian at your university what the correct magazine is to check, and how to find it. And you may be able to get lots of back issues on-line, free or nearly free.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: I would lean towards doing the Ph.D. GIVEN THE INDUSTRY. If this were oil and gas (upstream), it would be a different decision and you might be a lot better off going straight to work. But the biopharm industry tends to be very academic. And Ph.D. is like a union card.
Try to pick a school/prof with a reputation for fast degrees, good reputation and some contact to industry. Ideally in an area with some biotech or pharma industry. You don't want to get too caught into the pure academia exploitation trap.
Really, I would recommend the joint job/degree program most. You can hack it. And having a real job gives you a different feeling of self respect than being a grad student. But the regular Ph.D. program is fine too, given you know where you are headed.
Upvotes: 0
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2018/09/04
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<issue_start>username_0: I am writing a syllabus for a Calculus for Business class. When I taught the last year, I had some very weak but vocal students whine that the tests were tough (despite other students doing fine), the practice exam was not similar to the actual exam (actually it was, but weak students don't know the material well enough to realize that, and are looking for basically identical exams) and more.
Once one student started whining, more and more students started complaining about things being too difficult. I am very nice, gentle, agreeable person and I was easily bullied. The whining became more vocal throughout. At the end of the semester during an exam I was giving, the whiny student said out loud "no one can do this exam" and disrupted everyone taking the exam.
I have been teaching college for six years and that had never happened. This time I want to tell them in my syllabus that if they find it too difficult, get out of my class.
Here's an excerpt from the draft of my planned syllabus:
>
> **Course objectives, goals, policies, etc:**
>
>
> 1. The main goal is to help you learn how to teach yourself math. I will not be able to teach you all the math you need to know, either for this course or for the rest of your life. You will have to teach yourself some of the material by reading the textbook. If you can't learn by reading a textbook, please withdraw.
> 2. Whining will not be tolerated. If my course is too demanding, please withdraw.
> 3. The goal is for you to do mathematics, not just to "know it". The more math problems you do by yourself, the better. Math eventually becomes fun when you do things yourself.
> 4. The purpose of lectures is to help you keep pace with the material, and show *some* of what you need to learn. (And to address math questions you had). The purpose of lectures is not mainly to teach you the material, although there will of course be some of that.
> 5. Students who I suspect have cheated, whine about how difficult the course is, or are disruptive during class may get slightly more difficult exams than other students. If you have a problem with this policy, please withdraw from this class.
>
>
>
My question is, **"is this okay?"** Point 5 especially - of giving different exams to different students. I do this to deter cheating, but the exams are not substantively different - the same problems, just different numbers. But I'm saying in item 5 that I reserve the right to give significantly different exams to students.
UPDATE 1: dear everyone, thank you for the tremendous feedback. Basically, all responses were critical of my approach, and I accept/agree with them. To summarize, first off, and most obviously #5 will be deleted.
secondly, items #1, 2, 3, 4 will also be deleted. Specifically, I wont use the words whining and I won't suggest withdraw either on the syllabus or on the first day of class. Instead, verbally in class I'll try to saying things like math is not a spectator sport, I believe in active learning, and to help you, I will follow the textbook closely. I also won't say I expect them to teach themselves. (A few topics I will leave for them to read out of the textbook, but that is reasonable and there is no point in bringing that to their attention on the first day).
In addition, I'll also have to figure out how to be more assertive and maintain high standards etc. without coming off as combative, arrogant, etc.
Thanks again for all the input, it is very much appreciated.
UPDATE 2: <NAME>’s answer (even though I didn’t select it as the accepted answer) really solved the underlying problem I was having with the course, and it was my fault/problem: My expectations were too high for the type of students I have (someone I think I gave a B to last semester studied hard and could do a bunch of the calculus but couldn’t do 1/2 - 1 without a calculator), and that was getting everyone involved frustrated, students and myself. I went into the first day of class (just two days ago) having Patricia’s answer in mind, and I think the session went well and I am optimistic the semester will go well. I also had my typical friendly tone and was all smiles. I believe I came across as welcoming (students felt comfortable asking me math questions) but also firm (I spoke loudly and authoratatively). Students were well behaved and stayed on task. (And to reiterate update 1, I did not include any of the items 1-5 on the syllabus nor did I say them in class). I came out of the class feeling happy and optimistic about how it will go. We’ll see.<issue_comment>username_1: Frankly, the whole thing seems like a terrible idea - a guaranteed way to sabotage your rapport with your students and ensure complaints on your evaluations. If you're trying to get tenure, this seems like a good way to make sure you don't get it.
I suspect that the "if you don't like it, withdraw" clauses won't have the desired effect of weeding out all the problem students. Rather, they'll weed out everyone except those who have no choice but to take the class (required for their major, can't wait another semester, other sections don't fit their schedule). Neither you nor the remaining desperate students are going to be happy to be stuck with each other.
But I'll comment on #5 specifically. I believe this is unethical, and probably contravenes your university's disciplinary rules. While obviously there is wide variation in how cheating cases are handled, I would say that a common principle is that the student has "due process" rights. You can't unilaterally impose a punishment (and I would say that a more difficult exam is certainly a punishment) based solely on your suspicions. The student has a right to see the evidence against them, defend themselves, and appeal to a higher authority.
Upvotes: 9 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: There's a low barrier for verbal complaints. Depending on your priorities, an alternative policy that may be worth considering is requiring that complaints be written out clearly with an explanation for why the student felt it was a fair complaint. This may have the effect of also deterring legitimate complaints and may still damage your rapport with students.
Additionally, I would recommend against using variations of the word "whine" in the syllabus or while talking to students. Whether you view it as whining or not, a student who is already having problems in the course would not appreciate being told something so dismissive.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: A cheating policy that basically says "for cases of suspected cheating, the process outlined in the university's discipline code will be followed" or something else conveying that sentiment is sufficient. Your institution may have a "standard" text for such purposes.
The overall tone of your excerpt is very negative. You should be framing it along the lines of your comment that "math becomes fun when you can do it yourself." It doesn't need to be aggressively cheerful, either. But the tone should be one where you try to motivate rather than discourage your students.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: Text like this in the syllabus will not change anyone's approach to the class. I repeat: **Text like this in the syllabus will not change anyone's approach to the class.** Hence, for brevity (if nothing else), it should all be struck out.
What *will* change some people's approach is how points and grades are awarded. So that should be presented clearly in the syllabus, and enforced rigorously. I highly recommend not "scaling" grades in any way.
The other thing that will change some people's approach is how you personally carry yourself in class with confidence and decisiveness. Clearly, you need to work on this. I recommend a very forceful "no" to the first person in the class that asks for some waiver or modification to the rules in the syllabus (almost regardless of whether it is reasonable or not; this sets the tone for later requests). People need to see that you have the capacity to say "no". Practice in front of a mirror. Personally, I attended a self-defense class for a few years after I started teaching, and it helped me be aware and manage my emotions greatly in class. I would recommend that as well, time permitting.
The long added text seems to signal that *you cannot say this in a face-to-face interaction with students*, and therefore sends exactly the opposite signal from what you wish. Again, I recommend (like others) that the whole passage be deleted.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_5: I see several issues with your syllabus draft that are worth thinking about some more.
>
> Course objectives, goals, policies, etc:
>
>
> 1) The main goal is to help you learn how to teach yourself math. I will not be able to teach you all the math you need to know, either for this course or for the rest of your life. You will have to teach yourself some of the material by reading the textbook. If you can't learn by reading a textbook, please withdraw.
>
>
>
Your “main goal” is very commendable, but it is hopelessly unattainable within the scope of a calculus class. The skill of being able to teach oneself math from a textbook takes several years to master, and I would not assume a student has it (or is capable of acquiring it) until they are at an advanced stage in a math graduate program. So the last sentence is effectively telling 99% of your students they need to withdraw from the class.
>
> 2) Whining will not be tolerated. If my course is too demanding, please withdraw.
>
>
>
I second the advice in @username_2’s answer not to use the word “whine” or any of its derivatives. Moreover, I would wonder why you even think it makes sense to have the *sentiment* that whining should “not be tolerated”? Your job includes dealing with students who will sometimes struggle with your class and may give voice to their unhappiness; this is simply human nature. So, tolerating “whining” *is in your job description*.
Instead of putting draconian restrictions on your students about what they may or may not say, perhaps you can work on your own attitude, and give some thought to how to teach in a way that leads students to be happy instead of feeling like whining, or, if they do whine, how to deal with that effectively or even turn their whining into a teachable moment with some positive benefit? Just a thought.
>
> 3) The goal is for you to do mathematics, not just to``know'' it. The more math problems you do by yourself, the better. Math eventually becomes fun when you do things yourself.
>
>
>
There is a wonderful rule in writing and communication called “[show, don’t tell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Show,_don%27t_tell)”. You will never convince anyone that math is fun by saying things like “math is fun!” Instead, you have to *show* them that math is fun. So, while the sentiment you are expressing here is very valid and laudable, this paragraph serves no useful purpose other than to clutter up your syllabus. I suggest removing it.
>
> 4) The purpose of lectures is to help you keep pace with the material, and show some of what you need to learn. (And to address math questions you had). The purpose of lectures is not mainly to teach you the material, although there will of course be some of that.
>
>
>
I also don’t understand what purpose this paragraph serves. I suggest keeping you thoughts about what the purpose of lectures is to yourself. Lectures are a standard part of university life and everyone has their own idea about what they’re good for and how useful they are (with some students considering them very important, others less so). Do you really think any one of the small number of students who bother to read this part of your syllabus will change their behavior in any way, or stop and say to themselves “wow, I never thought of it that way! This has completely transformed the way I think about lectures”? I don’t think that’s very likely...
>
> 5) Students who I suspect have cheated, whine about how difficult the course is, or are disruptive during class may get slightly more difficult exams than other students. If you have a problem with this policy, please withdraw from this class.
>
>
>
This is just awful, for reasons explained well in the other answers.
---
To summarize, it sounds like you have noble ideas about teaching math, but at the end of the day, you are teaching calculus, not philosophy. I would reserve the syllabus for listing the actual topics you plan to cover and other practical matters like a grading policy etc (you’d be lucky if most students [even read those parts](https://phdcomics.com/comics/archive_print.php?comicid=1583)), and leave the philosophical discussions to those few minutes here and there during lecture if/when it makes sense or you are in a particularly philosophical mood. And please try to be more tolerant of students’ venting about their struggles in your class.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_6: One suggestion, I think you should focus your practice exam on exactly the topics you will be testing students over. That or you make very clear that the practice exam is meant to give an example of the style of the test and not necessarily the course material it covers.
I think you set yourself up for student anger when your practice/study materials do not align well with your exam. This does not mean that the problems should be exact with just the numbers changed, but if you give a practice exam with a question over the chain rule but then don't have that in your exam, you can expect student frustration.
That said, I feel you are setting yourself for unhappy students with a syllabus that comes out so confrontational. The "if you dont like it, leave" attitude rarely works. Most students do not have that leeway due to scheduling or requisites.
Fair, Firm, and Focused (and maybe Funny). That's my mantra.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: Your #5) policy defeats the purpose of your class.
The purpose of a class is to teach knowledge and skill to a certain level.
The purpose of the exam is to test whether the students acquired that level.
Your punishment would require students who are suspected cheater or are disruptive to need to have a higher level to pass the class and that is wrong. Either you have the level or not.
Suspected cheaters should be investigated and disruptive people should be dealt with.
Don't throw the integrity of your grading out of the window.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_8: Students come into college with all sorts of expectations. Some expect courses to be easy. Some expect to be given a break if they complain enough. I don't think you can really change this. You can put on slippers, or you can try to sweep the world...
Regarding your initial example
==============================
One or two whiny students are hardly a reason to radically alter a whole course. It's easier to get the one student to stop whining. You say, however:
>
> I am very nice, gentle, agreeable person and **I was easily bullied.**
>
>
>
I think this is a problem you really need to address. It is part of your job, as instructor, to be firm and provide a source of authority in the classroom. The students depend on this for their learning, they expect it from you (though they may not realize it). Learning from an instructor who cannot control his classroom is very difficult even for an enthusiastic student.
I suggest seeking out resources from your institution about controlling the classroom, or at least just overall assertiveness. You are supposed to be in charge - you have every advantage (official authority, power to grade, knowledge, experience, age) in your favor. If you ask a student to stop whining, they should stop whining. There are many ways of effecting this, ranging from very nice to strict, but you must have at least some way that works. There should not be issues of students continuing the whining after you told them not to - that's called a dysfunctional classroom. There is certainly something very wrong if you feel bullied by a student and it affects your pedagogical decisions.
Regarding your syllabus
=======================
The sense of your syllabus sounds reasonable enough, except for point #5. The style is a bit improper, in my humble opinion. Language like "Whining will not be tolerated." doesn't really belong in a modern classroom, and you risk being perceived as self-important, hostile or ridiculous by some students. Putting it so bluntly in writing also gives them ammo to complain to your superiors.
#5 seems unreasonable to me. Students tend to dislike being graded on subjective criteria (one man's whining is another man's insightful critique...). It can work if the students trust and respect you sufficiently, but given the difficulties you've had controlling your class, I doubt that this will be the case. Also, at the end of the day whining *is* communication, and it doesn't make sense to punish your class for communicating. You want good communication so you can keep an eye on how they are doing and teach accordingly.
At the bare minimum, I would trim it down to simply:
>
> Students who are disruptive or behave in an unacceptable manner will be asked to leave. I may deduct points from their grade.
>
>
>
You can then verbally say they are being disruptive when they whine, this way at least the focus is shifted on preventing disruption rather than an obsession with "whining". And they are already aware they can drop the class if they don't like it, there is no need to say it (and it can intimidate or discourage some, even if they are not disruptive or whiny). If you really want to, you can arrange things so that they get results from the first exam or graded quiz/homework before the withdrawal or add/drop period ends, so they can see for themselves they're not going to do well, and drop. If they are required to take the course, they'll still be back the next semester, but at least they'll come into it with more accurate expectations (and they might even try to prepare a bit beforehand!).
But even better would be to flip this and do something like tie 5-10% of their grade to "good behavior". Start everyone at the highest "behavior grade" and threaten to take off points for bad behavior. Even if the points you take off are trivial, students will probably comply since they usually exaggerate the importance of grades. Weak students will also feel less hopeless, since now they can get some points by just not making trouble, which is (presumably) easier than studying. Alternatively you can call this an "attendance" score (might not work if you want your students to be able to skip the lectures), and then threaten to dock someone's attendance point for the day if they refuse to stop whining when you ask them to.
General remarks
===============
I think it's worth examining your own aims here. If there are really many students who complain about struggling, and then go on to actually struggle and get low grades, clearly the learning process is not happening. Remember, you are not <NAME> at the pearly gates, separating the wheat from the chaff. You are the foremost representative of the institution, whose task is to take students who don't know, and *teach them*. Indeed, the aptitude and motivation of the student is also important, but remember that all these students are pre-selected: They have been deemed to have sufficient aptitude and motivation by the admission committee. If they are not learning, it is potentially a possibility that perhaps *you* could be doing a better job. Indeed, the students get to excuse their failings with immaturity and inexperience. You, less so.
If there are business students that find the math too hard, perhaps the course can be redesigned to be effective for them. Maybe it would help to put less emphasis on technical aspects such as theorems and more on applications and problem solving (especially exercises dealing with a more hands-on situation in a business context). I'm assuming a "Calculus for Business" class *is* supposed to be less technical and abstract and more geared for what a business major would likely do. "Stamping out" the "whining weak students" isn't really a perfect solution - ideally you want to find a compromise where everyone is happy, including the weak student. The one exception to this I can see is that if you want to teach "Calculus for Math Enthusiasts who appreciate the intricacies of theory" and the university needs you to teach "Calculus for Business", you're somewhat out of luck there.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_9: I see a basic disconnect between the course title "Calculus for Business" and the stated objective "The main goal is to help you learn how to teach yourself math. I will not be able to teach you all the math you need to know, either for this course or for the rest of your life. You will have to teach yourself some of the material by reading the textbook. If you can't learn by reading a textbook, please withdraw."
I would expect a course called "Calculus for Business" to be suitable for business administration and similar students who need to learn some calculus for finance and statistics, and as part of their general education. They are outside their comfort zone, trying to learn a subject for which some of them are not especially talented, and that many of them do not enjoy. Some of your students may need both a lecture and another explanation in a textbook to get a concept. This is likely to be the last, and most advanced, mathematics course they ever take.
On the other hand, the goal would be suitable for a course targeting second or third year mathematics majors who have a lot more mathematics to learn and already have significant exposure to college level mathematics textbooks.
The fact that you cannot teach, in your lectures, all the material you expect them to learn is another indication that you are asking a bit too much for the population and the length of the course.
An inappropriate goal for the student population could be the root cause of a lot of friction.
I suggest consulting with your department to make sure your objectives and the demands you are putting on the students match the department's objectives for the course and the target student population. You may need either a different course title to make the nature of the course clear, or a revised syllabus.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_10: While this does directly not answer your question, I believe it will help you help your students the most. Rather, you should not discourage 'whiners' from taking your course, but instead help them help themselves.
**Discussion-done-right**
One of the best math classes I ever took (Stochastic Modeling / Probability) had a practice of doing in-class discussion of the homework problems.
Friday:
>
> "are there any questions about the homework?"
>
>
>
The professor would then directly answer and explain any questions we had with the homework assignment and we would turn them in for points. I believe occasionally students would be allowed to answer the question for the class.
This had a few great benefits
* there was always a personal benefit in doing as much of the assignment as possible and showing up to class
* everyone could and would freely help each other and discuss the assignment outside of class
* there was little excuse for doing poorly on the homework while it still let the strong students shine
* students with questions always had them answered well and thoroughly
**Additional notes**
There were only 5-15 questions per assignment, though with calculus you may expect more. Consider providing a large list of recommended problems, but only requiring a specific subset of them. (5 easy, 3 medium, 2 hard)
There was not enough time in the class period to ask and answer every question, and one would look foolish doing so. There was also a benefit to the students to discuss which questions were the most difficult or unclear and ask about those.
This professor allowed any paper material to be used on the exam, including the book and all notes from the course. The two calculus courses I took (years earlier) allowed the book to be used during the exam. Personally, I have tremendous difficulty with magic formulas and prefer diagrams and written use, and this practice was extremely beneficial to me.
This professor also authored their own text and I suspect incorporated our questions into successive versions.
**Closing**
In my experience, students who are not interested in learning will find a way not to do so. Students who are interested in learning will get about 90% by themselves from a good book on the subject, but need an expert for the missing 10% (which is *of course* a different segment for each student and hard to predict).
You may find other students have similar problems and would benefit from these approaches and others.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_11: I know you have already accepted an answer, but it seems that there is one key issue that you missed: **You should be nice in teaching but uncompromising about cheating.**
There should be a clear statement of the rules on your exam. Whether or not the rules are stated somewhere in the university rules, you should state them explicitly on the front page, something like:
>
> During the exam, you are not allowed to talk or communicate via any means.
>
>
> If you need to speak to the examiner, stay in your seat and raise your hand to alert the examiner.
>
>
> **If you break any of the rules, or attempt to cause any disruption, you will be given a zero.**
>
>
>
Make sure they are told to read the rules in the few minutes before the exam itself. And then you have to be prepared to actually enforce the rules! This means that it would be a good idea to have a small test halfway through the semester where you do exactly the same, to prepare the students for a firm stance on rules. At least, even if they get a zero for the small test it would not affect their grade too severely (because we're kind of course).
Why do I emphasize this? It is because it allows you to effectively and cleanly deal with disrupting an exam, simply because it is covered clearly under the rules, and the students have simply no excuse.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_12: (5) is problematic:
* You can't give harder exams to students on any reason.
* You can't punish students on suspections.
The others are acceptable.
The questions is, are they useful? In my opinion, obviously yes.
You seem to give some basic math course for some business students; these are typically young guys in white ironed t-shirts, thinking the whole world is before them.
I think your *real* lession what you give them, is that having a business bsc is *not* a guarantee to have infinite money in the rest of your life. They need also hard work and mind for that. And yes, they need exactly this lession.
However, it might be dangerous, for example if the students can choose between you course and others, or they have the option to choose a different teacher, they will likely do that.
A student wants
1. his degree on any cost, their this motivation overwrites all in them.
2. Their secondary motivation is to minimize the work for that.
3. All other, including curiousity, getting real knowledge, are coming only after that.
Your points seem trying to catalize (3). Good luck!
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_13: There are already great answers about the specific points 1 to 5.
I'll answer about the general tone of your draft: since I started teaching at university (but this would be true anywhere I think), I noticed the importance of having a **positive attitude** with students.
By this, I mean, when you start a course with new students, you have to be positive *a priori* and open-minded to them (except when you have the evidence of someone being in violation with your rules, but even in this case, a positive and professional attitude helps to solve the problem).
Students **feel** when the lecturer has a benevolent attitude, and then usually everything is going well.
On the other hand, if I was a student and read your draft, these words:
* *"If you can't ..., please withdraw."*
* *"whining"*
* *"will not be tolerated"*
* *"not just to "know it"*
* *"I suspect"*
* *"have cheated"*
* *"disruptive"*
* *"problem"*
would make me feel:
* that the lecturer probably doesn't really like his job/what he's doing, because most terms are negative; he mainly see problems instead of focusing on the interesting part of his job
* that the lecturer isn't very professional (come on, everybody has problems at work and that's the role of a worker to solve them in an intelligent manner, and not whine about it – in fact you don't want students whining in your course, but **you're whining** about potential problems that might arise in your course with your draft syllabus, even before the course has started!)
* that the lecturer has an a priori bad feeling about me (as a student)
That will obviously discourage even good students to choose your course.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_14: The biggest thing you can do to cut down on whining:
Make it absolutely crystal clear what prerequisite knowledge and skill levels are expected of students.
Some example warnings:
* You should have a firm knowledge of the concepts covered in MATH 117
* You must be comfortable doing basic trigonometry before taking this class.
* Class instruction will be geared towards students who are proficient in algebra and trigonometry. If you are weak in those areas you may find that you need extensive extra work to catch up.
A class in "Calculus for Business" will not be attracting students who are studying math for the joy of it. It will attract students who are looking for the easiest way to meet a degree requirement; for many of them this will be the last class they need to pass for this degree and they will happily never open a math book again.
Teach to the class you have, not the class you want.
(Source of much inspiration: a FORTRAN programming class long ago that had a prerequisite of another programming class but which attracted a large cohort of students who had never written anything longer than 10 lines of code.)
Upvotes: 3
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2018/09/04
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<issue_start>username_0: Situation: My university has an online course registration system. Students (including me) choose courses in the system and submit their requests at certain time.
Sometimes, the course information is not detailed enough. A lot of course information in the catalog contains no or unreasonable prerequisite. For example, no prerequisite is listed in the information of a MATH 4000-level (fourth-year) course about real analysis. Another example is that a CSCI 4000-level course about cloud computing has a very minimal prerequisite course (something like an introductory OS course).
I am not sure whether it would be rude to email the lecturer in advance, asking whether there is any prerequisite not stated in the online system. While I am feeling OK to ask the lecturer if none of the “effective prerequisite” is stated for a 4000-level course (as I believe there must be some), I feel a bit sorry in the second case because it appears that I don’t trust the department’s course director and I chose to, in some sense, challenge the lecturer.
I did send an email asking the prerequisite of the cloud computing course. Initially I expected the lecturer to require me to have some basic knowledge about, e.g. graph theory, database system etc. He replied to me that there is no other prerequisite, though. For some other reasons I decided not to take that course, but I think similar situations may appear in future.
Any help is appreciated.<issue_comment>username_1: Think about this from the lecturer's point of view. If you are the lecturer, would you rather:
1. Have a student email you about what the prerequisites are and whether she meets them, or
2. Have a student not email you, enroll, then find out she cannot understand what you are saying at all?
I think most reasonable people would prefer #1. If you are concerned about overpressing and appearing rude that way (e.g. responding to your CS professor with "are you seriously saying this level 4000 CS course has no prerequisites except this very basic OS course??") then you could also ask for details such as the textbook used or perhaps look through homework/tutorials/past-year exam papers, and gauge the level of the course that way.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> Sometimes, the course information is not detailed enough. A lot of course information in the catalog contains no or unreasonable prerequisite.
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Many courses are self-contained and should be accessible to any student that has studied the discipline in preceding years.
>
> I am not sure whether it would be rude to email the lecturer in advance, asking whether there is any prerequisite not stated in the online system.
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Suggesting that the lecturer was too lazy to list prerequisites is rude. Asking whether there is any reading that they would recommend is not rude, and should be encouraged.
The main idea is to ask for *recommended* reading, rather than *required* reading, because the latter invites conflict by implicitly suggesting that the lecturer didn't list some required reading, whereas the former invites a friendly reply.
>
> I did send an email asking the prerequisite of the cloud computing course. Initially I expected the lecturer to require me to have some basic knowledge about, e.g. graph theory, database system etc. He replied to me that there is no other prerequisite, though.
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You seem sceptical of your teachers, possibly unnecessarily.
**TL;DR**: *Course information should be assumed correct; incorrect information isn't beneficial. Asking for additional reading should be encouraged.*
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I wouldn't phrase it in terms of "effective prerequisites". But it's certainly fine to discuss with the professor whether you are adequately prepared. You could visit their office hours, or send an email:
>
> Dear Professor So-And-So:
>
>
> I am interested in taking your course MATH 4321. I see that no prerequisites are listed, but I was wondering what background knowledge is expected, and whether I'd be ready for this course. I've taken related courses X, Y, Z and feel comfortable with the material from those courses, and have also had some experience with topic Q. Does this seem sufficient? If you can recommend specific topics to review, or additional reading, I would appreciate it. Or, if there are other courses I should take first, that would also be helpful to know.
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If you like you can attach a copy of your transcript.
Upvotes: 8 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: Its worth noting that some universities attempt to automatically enforce pre-requisites either by machine or by administrative review at the time of enrollment. Some professors may not want formal prerequisites because they can create administrative barriers to enrollment for a student that may have all the necessary knowledge without having some specific course listed on the transcript.
I smacked into this problem from the other side as a student at a University that administratively enforced pre-requisites and where the professors tended to list them explicitly and exactly. I spent a lot of time running around getting professors to sign forms authorizing me to take classes without having the formal prerequisites and it was annoying for me, my adviser that had to process it, and the professors.
With that said, I think asking about "effective prerequisites" using those words might either seem a bit of a challenge to a professor or possibly confuse them as to exactly what you mean. I suspect asking them what prior knowledge is assumed or asking for recommended prior reading is likely to get a positive response.
You can also probably get some idea of whether the class is too advanced or not by flipping through the textbook. If the first couple of chapters make sense you are probably fine. If you encounter unfamiliar terminology and concepts you consider difficult in the first couple of chapters then you should either wait on the class or do some independent study first.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: I've actually had one of my students start asking this of professors when they enroll for courses. *Many* courses have implicit background classes - and for graduate classes, there is often an assumed background in the field. Memorably, he had a class where the lecturer frequently began statements with "As you will remember from your undergraduate coursework..." - something of a problem if you didn't *have* said coursework.
Emailing the professor to discuss your background and chances of successfully doing the coursework has, in my experience, been highly productive.
Upvotes: 1
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2018/09/04
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<issue_start>username_0: In my field (data science), undergraduate students usually have to compete for research opportunities. Many resort to things like Kaggle competitions. At the same time, faculty are constantly being asked to do more with the same amount of resources.
There seems to my naive mind an opportunity for a more symbiotic relationship. In particular, it seems like students should be able to do some of the "grunt work" like data exploration, clean-up, and visualization that would save the professor's time. In turn, the students would gain research experience.
So: why don't more professors offer research opportunities to students? Is it just due to the obvious ethical issues that might arise from a sort of indentured service?<issue_comment>username_1: I do employ students to participate in my research. In my department these students (Bachelor and Master students) are paid. That is the first limit to the number of students I can employ: I can only employ so many students as my budget allows.
The second limit is that in the kind of research I do these students cost me more time than they save (unless they are really good). Doing real research is for them a whole new experience, and they have to learn. That costs time, I need to do a lot of explaining, errors happen that need to be found and than fixed, etc.
That is fine, giving them that experience is why I employ them. They can see if this is something they are interested in pursuing as a long term career. If so, then they start with a bit of experience. If not, they are saved from starting a PhD and than dropping out. Either way is a positive outcome for them. For me, employing students for research is more a teaching task; an enjoyable and rewarding teaching task, but not something that I expect to improve my productivity as a researcher (If it happens than that is a nice bonus).
This obviously depends on the kind of research one does, and the kind of tasks that needs to be performed to do that research.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: The most simple answer is (at least in my mind) the professors know what the student can do or not. Most undergraduate student do not know how to do good research. It will cost the professor more time and energy to explain how to do research and explain the process. If the student is a upper undergraduate or a graduate student, then they might be interested in the research and may want to pursue it as a career, so it will help them.
Upvotes: 0
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2018/09/04
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<issue_start>username_0: When I want to publish academic code, should I use my personal GitHub account with a pseudonymous username or create a new one with a username based on my real name?
My current account uses a pseudonym as username and I write code for which I use my real name in the commits and an e-mail address related to the pseudonym (e.g. to keep my personal mail address free from spam).
For university code, I use my real name and university e-mail address in the repositories, but the URLs of the projects still contain the username, so the pseudonym is quite visible.
My personal account contains a few non-university projects and forks of other projects (some for modifications used by my university codes, some unrelated to my university work) as well. There is nothing I would not want to be seen by others and some of the voluntary work may reflect positively on me.
* Should I worry about the username being a pseudonym (nothing silly like "buffy\_the vampire\_slayer", but still unrelated to my name)?
+ When publishing code linked on the university website.
+ When publishing code with the URL linked in a paper.
* Is it preferred to have an account for university codes only?
I do not think my university or department has any rules for this, so I need to decide it myself.<issue_comment>username_1: I use the same account for both.
If potential future employers consider my Github account (such as for positions involving a fair share of coding or software engineering), it doesn't hurt if they notice that I may have written code outside of my professional life, too. It's probably rather beneficial.
On the other hand, I do write some code for research where the code is *not* publicly visible through my Github account, so that part will not show.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: **You should use your real name.**
My lab has a private GitHub group for internal stuff, as well as a few open public-facing projects.
Everyone in our group uses their real names or some transparent abbreviation (like `jsmith`) or one that matches their university email/login ID.
I feel it should be immediately obvious who each person is. It would be mildly annoying if I had to remember who `allo` was every time, when everyone else has easy-to-read IDs.
If I was your mentor, I would probably ask you to change it.
It's fine if you do non-job-related development on that same GitHub account, for the reasons you mentioned.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I would use a separate account for a couple reasons:
* If I search for "yourname Github" it would be nice to actually find it.
* It's marginally more professional to use your real name on public-facing research work.
* It's much easier to administer. I run a Github Group for people collaborating on a particular project, and it's vastly easier to figure out who should have what permissions, be on which team, etc. if it's faintly real-name associated.
* It keeps your professional and personal coding separated. While it's sometimes beneficial for a future employer to see everything you're doing, I don't necessarily want or need someone looking through the code for my papers to also need to wade through prototype code for a personal project, or have them start wondering just how much time that social network of characters in a sci-fi series took to make. Beyond that, it also gets rid of a lot of ambiguity around what's "Yours" vs. "What was made on university time".
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
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2018/09/04
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<issue_start>username_0: When presenting a new method in a paper and you don't have any/sufficient empirical evidence of the limitations, what is the best way to introduce speculative challenges and potential mitigations?
I'm looking for the title of the section: is this part of the limitations section? my understanding was the limitations had to have empirical evidence.
What wording would be used for introducing them?
Update: the field is interdisciplinary: a mixture of Business Administration and Computer Science. The method is for Business Administration but relies on some Computer Science techniques and theory.<issue_comment>username_1: What about **potential limitations**?
I guess that you have at least some intuition or some loose arguments as to *why* you suspect that the things you are going to describe are indeed (possible) limitations. If not, you should not list them. If yes, add these to the section. Also you could discuss, what would be needed to overcome the limitations.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I assume that your results require some preconditions or prerequisites to permit applicability. Do they depend on a particular governmental structure, kind of business, economic system, regulatory regimen, or anything else? You might just start there.
Do the results work over long term or only short term? Do they require cooperation between various players, etc?
It is impossible for an outsider to know, but you could start there and see where it takes you.
Upvotes: 0
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2018/09/04
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<issue_start>username_0: I was wondering how I could frame/explain in my CV that I built the datasets used in several publications outside of my field. I'm in the health sciences but have worked for a couple social science professors for several years. In this work I built several of their datasets that were used in papers. However, due to my lack of knowledge of their field and lack of contribution to the papers (beyond the dataset) I am - quite reasonably - not included as an author.
How can I best frame this work on my CV and for PhD applications?
Thanks!
Edit: spelling<issue_comment>username_1: I would cite this as work experience in your CV, without citing the publications themselves. You could mention a number of papers/projects contributed to, or mention more specifically what the projects were.
You can also see the advice on this somewhat related question: [Should I explicitly remind people to include my name in the acknowledgement?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/116001/should-i-explicitly-remind-people-to-include-my-name-in-the-acknowledgement)
There, someone is asking about how to make sure they get properly acknowledged, but several answers and comments point out that acknowledgements aren't really cited as acknowledged papers. I'm not sure whether you are mentioned in acknowledgements in the papers you refer to, but whether you are or not the advice there would agree with mine.
Adding from @Buffy's comment, if you think this work is particularly important to your job (for example, if you are applying to a position where you will be working with datasets outside of your field and want to emphasize the breadth of your understanding) it may be appropriate to get a letter of recommendation from your collaborators.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: It's a "bullet" on the resume.
I would really push for coauthorships if you are going to help people like this though. (To the extent of setting expectations before doing the work.) You don't have to know the whole paper, be the driving force, but you made a significant contribution.
Upvotes: 0
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2018/09/04
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<issue_start>username_0: I am preparing a presentation for a conference. After reading many style guides for designing presentations and talking to other people, I have decided that the best way to make slides for a presentation is to have only a picture or formula on each slide. Then I will just talk about the topic or picture on that slide.
However, now I am wondering how to make it accessible to people who are deaf and hard of hearing. I suppose they would need something to read, but I don't want to cover my slides with text that will distract the other members of the audience. Is there a way to accomplish both? One idea I was thinking of was having a printout of a transcript, or to display a link to a transcript. However, I don't want to make a big deal out of it, and maybe passing around transcripts would take a long time.<issue_comment>username_1: The flip side is that some people are vision impaired and text won't work for them. You don't need to pass transcripts around, but you can make them available for those who would like them. Some conferences have student workers that monitor the entrance to the speaking hall and they can distribute them at the door. You can also announce at the start that they are available after the talk (or online). Many folks will have laptops open during any presentation. Some people may want to record your talk.
But it is a good idea not to have slides that are dense with text. For everyone. If people are scribbling down your slides, then they won't be listening to you.
If you can print only a small number of copies you should probably make them available online as well.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: You are using slides to make your presentation even clearer to your audience than if you just stood there and spoke. What you need to do therefore depends a lot on the audience.
So, for example, if you are speaking in English, are they all competent in understanding spoken English? If they are, then put on your slides only those things that are hard to say, such as graphics, mathematical formulae, or references. If they are not, you probably should put on your slides the key points in words.
On the same principle of helping your audience, each slide needs to be almost instantly comprehensible. So, for example, if you need some equations keep them very clear and very brief.
It may be that slides would not make your presentation any clearer to your audience. If so, great! Don't use slides at all; they can be a distraction.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: A link to a transcript is a great way to make your slides and presentation fully accessible. However, I also recommend including text on some slides. Not *every* slide needs to have text, and no slide should be largely text, but putting words on a slide can be extremely helpful to all members of the audience.
Keep it concise, use it to express general themes or key points, and make sure it reinforces and enhances what you're saying instead of being a distraction. Text can be a good way to express phrases you want the audience to remember, and it can communicate a clear point to someone who may have trouble hearing or understanding you.
Upvotes: 1
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2018/09/04
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<issue_start>username_0: As a follow up question to [my previous one](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/116372/61201), under which circumstances is it reasonable to include the name and/or the address of a publisher in a citation?
In my opinion the most important characteristic of a citation is that it uniquely identifies a given publication and makes it as easy as possible to access it. This, however, is usually already given by title, authors and, if applicable, the title of the collection (proceedings, journal...). If available, a DOI alone would be sufficient for that.
As secondary feature, further details provide more information about the properties of a publication without the need to look them up explicitly. For example, the year is usually very interesting to assess the timeliness of the related work.
Neither the name nor the address of the publisher seems to fall in one of these categories, even though it might be reasonable for example for some exotic books that are otherwise hard to find\*. For this reason I usually omit the publisher's name and address in citations, partly to keep them brief, partly since I am not aware [who the publisher actually is](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/116372/61201), partly because others in my area of research (CS) do the same, partly because I am too lazy to put work into something that seems superfluous to me. Sometimes, however, the publishers and their addresses are added during copy editing, so there seem to be at least some people with a different opinion than me.
* Is it considered bad academic practice to omit the publisher and the address?
* What are other advantages or disadvantages?
* Does it depend on the type of the cited publication? Books might be different from articles in journals or conference proceedings.
* Does it depend on the type of the publication I write? In a short paper, brevity might be more important than in a PhD thesis where accuracy is essential. What about a publication list in a CV?
* Does it depend on the area of research? Maybe we computer scientists are just lazy?
\*Maybe someone wants to drive to Heidelberg to ring the bell at the Springer office just to be told that it a given publication was actually published by SpringerOpen in London...<issue_comment>username_1: >
> Is it considered bad academic practice to omit the publisher and the address?
>
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I'd consider omitting the publisher bad practice, because it is sometimes necessary to perform a reverse search to find a paper, e.g., find the publisher, find the proceedings, find the right year, and find the paper.
>
> Does it depend on the type of the cited publication?
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I suppose it depends on the infrastructure that's available, in particular, where will manuscripts be archived. When they are archived by the publisher, then identifying the publisher is crucial.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: Also: Books (unlike journal/proceedings papers) may not be peer-reviewed. So mentioning the publisher (showing it is a well-knonw publisher) gives a certain credibility to the book. As opposed to self-published books, which nowadays are easy to do.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Journal citations rarely (if ever) include the publisher's information. The reason is simple: journals can change publishers. I have at least one example in mind (*cahiers de topologie et géométrie différentielle catégoriques*, a math journal). Moreover journal names are usually trademarks, which prevents duplication (and editorial boards from packing up and starting a new journal with the same name when the publisher's bad behavior would require it). So listing the publisher is pointless, because the journal's name (+ other info such as volume, issue...) is sufficient; and even actively bad, because if the journal changes publishers later, people will wonder what they are looking at.
For books, the story is different. username_2 already said that this allows distinguishing bad publishers from good publishers, though even renowned publishers aren't immune from publishing... subpar texts. Moreover, an edition of a book will always be published by the same publisher, because it's something that has already happened and it's difficult to change the past. If the publisher changes, it's a new edition and will be listed as such.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: It's always important to know the venue for a scientific publication, not just in case you have to track it down, but also in order to understand what sort of review or other vetting process (if any) the publication will have gone through.
For a conference or a journal article, that's the name of the conference or the journal. Thus, I wouldn't typically bother including the publisher---although many such effectively include the publisher in their title (e.g., IEEE Signal Processing, ACS Nano, Nature Methods).
For a book, however, the publisher *is* the venue, as they decide what merits publication and how to try to ensure validity. Knowing that a book is published by the Oxford University Press means something, just like knowing that a conference is sponsored by the IEEE. It's not a guarantee of correctness any more than journal peer review, but it does imply some basic degree of quality control.
As for address: while it might theoretically be useful for disambiguation, these days most large publishing organizations have multiple sites and are really anchored by their online location rather than their physical location. Thus, I find address completely useless in a citation of recent work and will omit it unless forced by a publisher.
Finally, note that all of this does change if you're talking about works that are not accessible electronically (e.g., much of the literature before the 1970s or so), for which as many hints as possible are useful if one must track it down.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
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2018/09/04
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<issue_start>username_0: I am submitting a data article to an open access journal, with the data available in a repository (Open Science Framework). I need to add a license to the data repository. It seems from some internet research that the CC0 would be the correct option for a data set, but I have a hard time finding the difference between CC0 and CC-BY licenses.
So I have 2 questions: first, would CC0 be appropriate, and secondly, what is the actual difference?<issue_comment>username_1: According to [creativecommons](https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/public-domain/cc0/)" CC0 enables scientists, educators, artists and other creators and owners of copyright- or database-protected content to waive those interests in their works and thereby place them as completely as possible in the public domain, so that others may freely build upon, enhance and reuse the works for any purposes without restriction under copyright or database law."
As for CC-BY, It requires attribution of the original author. As per wikipedia page Creative Commons license this implies the following:
1. Include any copyright notices (if applicable).
2. Cite the author's name, screen name, or user ID, etc.
3. Cite the work's title or name (if applicable), if such a thing exists.
4. Cite the specific CC license the work is under.
5. Mention if the work is a derivative work or adaptation.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Caveat: This is my understanding, I am not a lawyer.
CC0 is not really a license per se - it is a declaration that you waive copyright in the work and place it in the public domain. From that point anybody can use it for any purpose, with or without attribution, and they owe you nothing.
By contrast, with the other Creative Commons licenses you retain the copyright in the work, and you grant others a license to use it. CC-BY is the most permissive of these licenses, in that the only stipulation placed upon usage is that you are identified as the creator of the dataset. Beyond that, anybody can use it for any purpose.
As you'll have noted there are more restrictive CC licenses available as well.
In practice, the only difference between CC0 and CC-BY is whether you want to retain the legal right to be acknowledged as the originator of the data. Since academic integrity would demand that this happens anyway, and since you're unlikely to take somebody to court if they don't do this, it probably makes little practical difference.
If you work for a university or other institution, do make sure you understand who owns the copyright - it may be them, not you, and they may be a lot more fussy about this choice than you are!
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: CC-0 is considered the best choice for scientific progress because it lowers barriers to reuse.
Dryad has a nice and compelling explanation of why they require CC-0 in their FAQ <https://datadryad.org/pages/faq#info-cc0>
Here is one excerpt:
>
> CC0 does not exempt those who reuse the data from following community norms for scholarly communication, in particular from citation of the original data authors. On the contrary, by removing unenforceable legal barriers, CC0 facilitates the discovery, reuse, and citation of that data.
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>
Upvotes: 3
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2018/09/05
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<issue_start>username_0: For my computer science programming-based course, I'd like to:
1) host my course and assignments (without solutions) open and free to all (e.g., as public GitHub repos)
but this seems at odds with also wanting to
2) not have to deal with rampant cheating.
Any open source assignments seem to suffer from the problem that a random stranger could do the assignment in her spare time and then post the solution online. So in theory, publicly hosting the assignments has created an avenue for my students to find a free solution.
Hosting my assignments on GitHub lubricates this process because the programming community knows how to click "fork" and any forks are listed right there for future students to browse.
What are recommendations or best practices to find the right balance?
The extremes have clear tradeoffs:
A) go full public. this is easy for me to implement using GitHub, but even students in our classes will have easy access to other students in the same section. I can run/threaten to run [MOSS](https://theory.stanford.edu/~aiken/moss/), but students may still try to beat it and that will create a hassle.
versus
B) go full private. I lose all the niceties of the GitHub interfaces, lose my open source freely available and advertised assignments to the larger community and world.<issue_comment>username_1: Your conflict doesn't seem resolvable - at the extremes. On the one hand you want "everyone" to be able to use your posts *without restriction*. On the other hand you want "bad players" not to use it in ways *they determine*.
You will need to choose one over the other in this scenario.
For a certain value of *money* you could host your repository behind a firewall, of course. But you still won't control students having their work done for them on contract. But that assumes your students really do engage in "rampant cheating". I wonder why you believe that. I hope most students are most interested in actual learning if the system isn't so unbalanced that they feel forced to take shortcuts.
You can also organize the course so that you interact with the students frequently enough that bad behavior becomes less useful to them and more visible to you.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: As somebody who has, for years, hosted assignments publicly I feel that you are *vastly* overestimating the threat case here. If all you do is make your assignment and material public on GitHub, it is *extremely* unlikely that somebody will just browse by, do it out of fun, and then make the solution available to your students.
I often analyse GitHub data as part of my research, and the number of repositories out there is downright staggering, and by far most of them get no traction at all. In order to make a repository visible, quite a bit of active marketing is necessary. If you don't go out of your way to advertise your assignment, and if your assignment is not somehow extremely intriguing so that a random developer would really *want* to work on it, it is very likely to just sit there, all in the public, without getting any kind of attention at all.
Additionally, even if somebody would solve your assignment and make a solution public, so what? You presumably do some sort of plagiarism check on the solutions your students submit anyway (otherwise, how do you ensure that different students or teams did not copy from each other?) - this is just one more existing solution to compare your student's solution to.
In my experience, by far the most "rampant" type of cheating is student teams copying from each other, and this is really unaffected by how you decided to host your assignment.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: The answers depends on the purpose of your assignments. If they are "only" meant to be a learning resource (in the sense of "learning by doing") then having the solutions online would only be harmful for those who are cheating. You might still be interested to reduce the chance that this happens, since lazy students might be demotivated to do it on their own by the availability of a solution, but in the end it is their fault.
If the assignments are the basis for grading it is, of course, a little bit more difficult since it might favor cheating students over honest students, but this does not mean that you should not publish assignments. It does, however, usually means that you have to do more work to mitigate the negative effects.
* You can modify your actual assignments slightly (but transparently for the students!). Often it is more difficult to understand and modify the code written by someone else than to rewrite it from scratch. The learning effect is nearly the same (of course depending on the amount of required modifications). Guess how many submissions we get where a certain calculation uses a mean instead of a median as requested ;-)
* You have already mentioned MOSS, but that is usually only a first step. We do individual interviews about all submitted solutions. While this is very laborious it provides a good opportunity to screen cheaters. I do not say that no cheater was ever able to pass our interviews, but it is usually very clear after a short time if a student has written the code by himself. Also (and even more important in my opinion), an interview should not only be a examination but provides a perfect opportunity to discuss open questions and to give individual support. Often 10 minutes interview seem to teach more than several hours of lecture. If your course is small enough (or you have others who assist you), you should think about this.
* As an addition to that, especially in the first semester, our interviews also contain small on-the-spot assignments from time to time. Even if they are only something trivial like adding all numbers from 1 to 100 in a for loop with C, it identifies a fair amount of students without basic learning success and seems to motivate them to work harder in the future.
* Usually, our assignments only cover a small percentage of the final grade and the major share is covered by an exam (including tasks with and without the need to write code). This might or might not be applicable in your situation (it is actually a requirement at our university), but it mitigates the influence of cheating during the assignments. As one would expect, the correlation between the points achieved for the assignments and those for the exam is very high, even though there are outliers.
* And as others have already mentioned, you have to apply such techniques anyway since cheating is possible in so many other ways, including the help by other students and solutions from students who have taken the course earlier... Even though our assignments are not available at GitHub, there are for example students posting their solutions at GitHub.
In a nutshell, security by obscurity rarely helps and you should rather ask yourself how to make the grading itself as fair as possible.
Upvotes: 2
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2018/09/05
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a mathematician whose work often connects with physics, so I often have to read papers in physics journals. I find that the two-column format popular with physics journals annoying, and based on the following questions on this stackexchange I am not the only one that feels that way:
[Difficulty reading scientific papers in two columns](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/112214/difficulty-reading-scientific-papers-in-two-columns?s=3|75.8582)
[How best to present long equations in two-column papers?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31681/how-best-to-present-long-equations-in-two-column-papers?s=2|76.4668)
[Do two-column format journals publish one column for special cases?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/99322/do-two-column-format-journals-publish-one-column-for-special-cases?s=1|83.5249)
I contend that the two-column format is impractical for long mathematical equations and is harder to read, since your eyes have to move in a pattern different from most other printed texts. But I suppose that there must be some advantage to the two-column format, given it is so standard in some branches of academia. But I can't think of a single reason why it would be better than a single column printed page! Enlighten me, please.<issue_comment>username_1: There's a widespread belief that shorter lines (fewer characters per line) are easier to read, because the eye doesn't have to move as far horizontally from the end of one line back to the start of the next. The left edge of the text (assuming left-to-right languages) may already be in your peripheral vision. Thus it's easier to visually find the correct line to read next, and avoid accidentally rereading the same line or skipping lines.
This is the justification for the extremely wide margins that LaTeX uses by default in one-column styles, for instance.
I don't know offhand if there is research supporting this belief, but maybe someone can fill me in if they know.
Two columns makes it easier to have short lines, without resorting to small paper size, large font sizes, or huge margins. Thus you still get a high density of text per page, and it keeps page counts down (and the associated costs).
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: As mentioned elsewhere, "[t]here's a widespread belief that shorter lines...are easier to read." Regarding,
>
> I contend that the two-column format is impractical for long mathematical equations
>
>
>
Push long equations into one-column figures.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: None.
It *is* true that shorter lines are easier to read, but this only highlights the other main problem with the standard academic paper formatting, namely that the fonts are ridiculously small.
Increasing the fonts sizes (they should be twice as large to achieve the readability of any modern document) reduces the line length accordingly.
Another way to look at this is that the typical academic paper takes four pages of a modern document, and for *no* other reason than tradition, crams them onto one page, 2 by 2. (Okay. A reason could be to save paper, but it's a silly reason, given that journals are pretty much only read in electronic format.)
Academics don't (often) publish longer theses in this anachronistic format, and haven't for many years. Any arguments which try to make a case that there is somehow something "special" about academic content that somehow requires this antediluvian formatting, have also to explain why modern formatting is used for longer works.
It is high time for journals to enter the 21st century and accept papers only in a modern single-column large font format, using modern sans serif fonts.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: I think it actually saves a lot of space.
Think about floats-like elements that need to be placed in between the text. Those include section titles, footnotes maybe, tables, equations, and, more importantly, *figures*.
When you place each such item, you need to leave blank space on either side since the text can only be above and below. This creates so much wasted space, which I suppose was(is) a big issue for printed journals.
And since normally journals allow for larger figures, tables, equations, etc. to span the entire width of the page - provided they are positioned at the top or the bottom of the page - I don't think there are serious drawbacks with two-column layouts.
In mathematics, I suppose you have larger equations and fewer figures so I can see your point, but at least in the areas I am familiar with, a typical 10-14 paged journal article will have about 5-7 figures and maybe 30 equations (with at most one or two of those will need to be larger than the column-width) so the space saved is considerable. As a matter of fact, when I use the IEEE Transactions template on LaTeX, when I switch from two-column to single column layout, the manuscript nearly doubles in size (I believe margins and fontsize stay the same, though I might be wrong).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: I think that reason could be; when reading academic paper, you are often re-reading sentences. It's not like reading literature, that you are just proceeding sentence-by-sentence without ever going back.
In order to grasp written text, sometimes you need to re-read, and having shorter lines makes it easier to go back, i.e. easier to visually capture several lines of text and eventually to advance faster.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: Scenario:
My own version: The authors in [5,6,7] focused on the problems associated with the production of X.
[5] ABC et al 2018
[6] DEF et al 2018
[7] GHI et al 2019
A corrected version from editorial production team:
ABC and Co-workers [5,6,7] focused on the problems associated with the production of X.
Question: Can one say: ABC et al, DEF et al. and GHI et al. [5,6,7] focused on the problems associated with the production of X?<issue_comment>username_1: You should check with the typesetters/publication team for their style guide and make sure they realize that 5, 6, 7 are different groups if that is the case. Clearly the version they rewrote assumes they are from the same group. That might still be appropriate if the author lists differ but the senior author/laboratory is consistent.
Your last example is fine, but may or may not comport to their preferred style.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: >
> ABC et al, DEF et al. and GHI et al. [5,6,7] focused on the problems associated with the production of X?
>
>
>
Yes, but it is perhaps better to write
*ABC et al. [5], DEF et al. [6] and GHI et al. [7] focused on the problems associated with the production of X*
because the relation between the authors and citations is preserved. Alternatively,
*ABC et al., DEF et al. and GHI et al. focused on the problems associated with the production of X [5,6,7].*
which is (subjectively) easier to read.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: How about rewriting the sentence to remove the word "authors" altogether?
>
> Other groups [5-7] focused on the problems associated with the production of
> X?
>
>
>
or
>
> Other groups focused on the problems associated with the production of
> X [5-7]?
>
>
>
This way [5-7] is not part of the sentence (which presumably is why the journal does not like your original version) and you do not have to put 3 "et al." in a row.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: The journal copy-editors have misunderstood what you wrote and made a mistake: they obviously didn't notice that the three author groups were unrelated and they've mistakenly rewritten the text to refer to all the work as being done by the first group. You should correct their "correction" in whatever way seems to meet the journal style, if a description of the preferred style is available; otherwise, explain the problem to them and let them fix it.
This kind of thing happens relatively often because the copy-editors are not technical experts. I recently had a paper in a journal whose house style forbids talking about the text "below" or "above" and whose copy-editors religiously replace these with "in the following" and "in the preceding" or somesuch. So, every time we had written "we bound *x* below", meaning "we give a lower bound for *x*", the copy-editors thought we meant "we give a bound for *x* in the text below" and helpfully changed it to "we bound *x* in the following".
Upvotes: 1
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2018/09/05
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<issue_start>username_0: As a tutor marking assignments, I regularly come across cases of plagiarism. As someone who put a lot of effort into my coursework studies it really offends me to see what students think they can (and ultimately do) get away with - it's making me incredibly jaded about the way universities are run and the value of (my) degrees.
I spot things from the mild "sharing answers" to the "change a few things so it's not obvious" copying, to the virtually identical outright blatant copying (not even changing the student number) to the absurd "submitting a screenshot of last years solutions". Talking to other tutors I seem to spot and pursue a lot more than anyone else.
When I come across these I always examine them, make a determination if it breaches my threshold (usually a bit past the "just change it a bit" level), then pass it on to the lecturer for them to decide what to do. It takes be significant effort to do this - I might recognise an unusual way of writing something, then go back through the assignments I've already marked to check how similar it is, then I'll decide if it looks too similar, then send an email about it.
I can't remember a single case that has gone further than a warning (yes even the one who submitted last year's solutions). I care about this a lot and I don't want students to think they can keep doing this with impunity, but there seems to be a general reluctance in academia to do anything, even in extreme cases. It makes me wonder whether it's worth the checking, the discussing, the extra time that I don't get paid for and ultimately the emotional toll it takes on me. It would be so much easier to let it slide.
From a pragmatic perspective of (for want of a better phrase) cost/benefit, what level of plagiarism should I be bothering myself with? Should I just ignore anything but the most absurd cases?<issue_comment>username_1: From a pragmatic perspective of cost/benefit? You should be ignoring these cases. It is highly unlikely that this will ever devalue your degree in hiring situations, especially since this is common practice among undergrads.
But I sympathise with you and from your post I gather you have too many principles to be mere pragmatic.
In my university, there is a policy that all plagiarism cases, whatever the level (all your levels are included), are handled by the exam committee. This has the benefit that students are remembered centrally, and they cannot pull the same trick in every course. (It also scares them, of course.) Usually, no punishment is needed although sometimes they get minus points for the exercise that it occurred on (which usually has no real impact on the final grade). You could find out if your university has a similar policy, and if so, continuously bring it to the attention of the teachers you are working with.
If you evaluate a course with the TA team afterwards or have a start-up meeting, those are ideal moments to discuss it as well. Get everybody on the same line, ideally with concrete examples of what is too much and what is still OK. If others don't see the issue, maybe that is a sign for you to decide that for that particular course you shouldn't bother too much. These wrap/start-up meetings are also ideal to change grading schemes. If you are worried that on a too large part of the final grade can be plagiarised, bring it up.
What I have also done in the past is prepare a start-up email for my tutorial group or the entire group explaining some ground rules. Have your teacher read it and send it himself. This loosely binds her to those ground rules, so that later you can say: "but in your ground rules you said you would handle plagiarism!"
As a side note: if you are working more than you get paid for, discuss it with your teacher. He can try to get more money or more assistants. (In my university it is common that TAs work more than they get paid for, but nagging does help a bit.)
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: I'd like to base my answer on the following piece of the question:
>
> […] but there seems to be a general reluctance in academia to do anything [about plagiarism], even in extreme cases.
>
>
>
This does not seem to be true. In cases of plagiarism in journal publications, theses or otherwise published material academia is quite strict and careers have ended because of plagiarism (not only academic careers - at least two ministers in Germany had to resign from office due to plagiarism in the PhD theses which have been written years, even decades, in the past).
Things are indeed different when it comes to homework assignments and there are various reasons. Homework assignments do often repeat and the same assignments may have been assigned in the same form a lot of times in different places. So it is actually likely that different people come up the similar or almost similar solutions. Also, it is hard to prove that people deliberately copied something. Moreover, students may (or should?) be encouraged to work on the assignments in teams and hence, they may produce similar output.
But the dealbreaker for me is: At the place where I am students may cheat on homework assignments, but they will never be able to graduate with plagiarism and copying only. There are more safeguards: oral and written exams, one-on-one meetings with a thesis advisor to discuss the progress of the thesis, theses presentations… As a consequence: I am pretty sure that my students do copy homework regularly. I tell them that they miss a chance to learn something if they write down other people's work and that this will backfire in the written and oral exams later (and it does…). But I never investigate any case of plagiarism in homework (however, I do investigate cases of plagiarism in theses).
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a third year undergrad in computer science, at a US university. Even before I was an undergrad, I was considering pursuing a PhD in theory after graduation; until the research internship I did this summer (for CS people, it was in quantum comp. complexity). I really enjoy the courses I take, and like thinking about/working on CS theory outside school, too. I also enjoyed idea of doing research as a full time job.
However, after some weeks into the internship, I started to have a quite hard time reading the papers on the topic I was working on; they started to feel like they were just too hard for me to understand. It was taking too long to grasp the idea of even a couple of pages. I had to study late after work for quite some time. But, I don't think that's the real problem. The real problem is that, I did not enjoy the struggle, I felt miserable, tired and stressed. Although I kept pushing and working on it for some more time, after a point, I just lost the energy to continue and just procrastinated for a couple of weeks. And at the end of the internship, I had no result. I feel like I could only learn a little about the topic and the current work on it, let alone coming up with an idea of mine or contributing anything. At the meetings with my advisor, I could only talk a little bit about what I read, I did not have any new ideas; most of the time I was just listening to his ideas. I think that maybe the only reasons I wanted a PhD was that I was doing good in courses or to prove that I am smart to enough to be a researcher. These feelings and loss of energy made me really scared of the ~5 years commitment to a PhD, or maybe the life-long commitment to a career in research. I keep thinking that same could happen during the PhD and I would have wasted many (could-be-)productive years.
On the other hand, I don't think I want to work as an engineer, just coding everyday and developing some apps, following some "best practices" without thinking, using my brain much; although it feels a lot easier to do so (and maybe leads to a more enjoyable life, since I would be actually free after work hours). I feel like that would be underutilizing my capacity.
I know that someone cannot decide for me, or know what I really want. But my question is that, how can I decide which way should I choose? What should I ask myself? What should I try (for example, maybe doing a masters first)?<issue_comment>username_1: Tangentially related: [How can I make an informed decision on whether to do a PhD in engineering or not?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/116326/how-can-i-make-an-informed-decision-on-whether-to-do-a-phd-in-engineering-or-not)
If you were miserable, tired, stressed, had no results, and procrastinated for weeks, I'd indeed take it as a warning sign that you should not do a PhD (at least in quantum complexity theory). A few things to think about though:
* You're a 3rd year undergraduate. You're not expected to know research-level material, and in fact are expected to struggle to understand them.
* You don't have to decide now. You might for example be able to do a 4th year of study (an Honours year) or a Masters degree where you get a second chance at research. If you find it miserable, tiring, stressful, etc, then you can still exit and avoid going to a PhD.
* It's possible your misery is because of your supervisor. Was your supervisor helpful or approachable? Did she provide close supervision? Did you feel like you were left to fend for yourself? It's somewhat surprising to me that you can procrastinate for 2 weeks and the supervisor not intervene, especially since summer internships are short duration so you can't really afford to waste this much time.
* You can also ask your supervisor whether she thinks you're suited to PhD study.
* Don't stereotype what engineers do. Assuming you've never been an engineer before, you know even less about what engineers do than what PhD students do. There's a very good chance that the job will require you to use your brain - one common reason for people changing jobs is that they need a new challenge (read: old job doesn't require them to use their brain enough), and engineering not known as a high-attrition rate job.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: On the one hand, the things that you struggled with are common struggles and do not in any way indicate that you aren't capable of doing a PhD or don't belong in a PhD program.
On the other hand, the fact that you were so unhappy in these situations (which are normal when doing research!) might indicate that you would be similarly unhappy in a PhD program.
Now maybe there were aspects of this particular setting that were the problem, and it's worth thinking about what made you unhappy and whether a different approach would be better for you, and it's worth trying another research opportunity to figure out if it was the subject or the advisor or the setting that was the problem. But honestly, most of what you talk about in your question sounds like you are unhappy doing research. Doing research involves butting your head against very difficult and confusing things. To enjoy research you have to *to some extent enjoy that struggle*. There are lots of interesting paths through life, you don't have to choose one that is going to make you unhappy!
Upvotes: 2
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2018/09/05
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<issue_start>username_0: Say I have introduced/defined some not-so-common terms like "clock register", "ancilla", etc. in the first section of a research paper, and while doing so I kept them within double quotes. However, I was wondering whether even during the subsequent occurrences of those terms I should use double quotes or not.
What's the convention regarding this in the physics and computer science communities?<issue_comment>username_1: I think it would be unusual to do that, actually. However, if you want to "emphasize" the terms at each use you could use some typographic form. I would suggest *italic*, however, over double quotes. Imagine a CS paper in which every use of "list" was printed that way.
But using a typographic convention should really only be needed if the word defined is also a common word or term that is also used in its normal sense in the paper as well as its newly defined technical sense.
If you over use typographic conventions, by the way, say, ALL CAPS and **bold** and such throughout a paper without a good reason, the paper just starts to look ugly and will be harder to read. The reason I suggest *italic* above is that it is easier on the eye.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: The usual convention in CS:
* Use *italics* when you first mention the term and define it.
* After that, you will use it just like any other word. No italics, no boldface, no quotation marks.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]
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2018/09/05
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<issue_start>username_0: I have completed my Masters in Pure Mathetics in India and I want to join a Ph.D. program in Algebra and Number Theory.
For that reason, I am checking the profiles of the faculty members of the different institutes where I can join.
But the problem is I don't understand how to judge the profiles of the faculty members and what are the parameters.
Should I look into the following:
* From where the faculty member has done his Ph.D., is it from India or from abroad.
* Under whom has he done his PhD
* What are his publications? Where has he published them?
Though I can check 1 and 2 but how do I know about his publications?
How do I know that he has done good work in Algebra and Number Theory or not?
It's not possible for me to know about all journals in Algebra and Number Theory as I have not done any publication before?
I really need some help as I don't want to join an institute where no good faculty members are available?
How to judge? Please help.<issue_comment>username_1: If at all possible, I would ask professors at the institution where you finished your Masters.
Some additional steps you might try:
* Try to find a list of publications -- for example, these may be on a faculty member's web site or the institute's web site. There are external sites like Zentralblatt and MathSciNet which also list this data, although they require an institutional subscription. You might also try the open-access [arXiv](http://arxiv.org). Many researchers post preprints of their papers (which you can then read), and sometimes they also say where the paper was published.
Generally speaking, you want to work with someone who is actively publishing in good journals. [Eigenfactor](http://www.eigenfactor.org/projects/journalRank/journalsearch.php) is one website which rates journals, including math journals. Take these ratings with a big grain of salt: I wouldn't take the exact numerical scores too seriously. But if you're not familiar with any of these journals, then sites like this are a useful rough guide.
* You might also look at the [Math Genealogy Project](https://genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/). If prospective advisors have graduated Ph.D. students before, this is a good sign. If you aspire to an academic career, then google the students' names and see if any of them have landed academic jobs.
* Finally, you might try emailing professors at your target institutions, say that you are considering applying to their Ph.D. programs, and asking about opportunities for research in algebra and number theory.
Before doing so, use the Internet to find out as much about these programs as you can. If it's clear from your emails that you've done this, this increases your chances of a positive response.
Good luck!
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: The institution and the advisor give you very limited information. Of course, a very bad person would not be admitted at a very good institution, but even god institutions and great advisors have mediocre students. The same goes for journal names. All but the top 10 journals sometimes publish mediocre papers, and some great papers appeared in middle ranked journals.
A better way to judge people is by looking at the reviews of their papers in MathSciNet or Zentralblatt. Citation numbers are easy to manipulate, so having many citations does not necessarily mean that you are good, but few citations are a bad sign. A good indicator is by how many different authors someone was cited. If you have many citations by few people, something seems fishy. You can also look at their most cited papers. If many of them are surveys, books, or pose many open problems, the citation number is exaggerated. Worse, if there are many self citations. Next, you should read the reviews themselves. Since you want to know what the faculty members are doing, you should do so anyway. The personality of the reviewer plays a role, but I would expect that every decent advisor has some papers that are praised by the reviewer. If all reviews are short summaries of the main results, the reviewer was either lazy or didn't find anything important in the article. Articles without a review are usually worse.
A big red flag is the use of predatory journals. Some people might be too innocent to see through this scam, but every half way decent research can be published in a real journal. Not necessarily a good one, but one which has actual peer review going on. On the other hand, publishing in a little known journal, or conference proceedings is not a bad sign, unless it is always the same journal/conference, or more than a quarter of all publications are of this type.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: Other answers have commented on how to evaluate the quality of research output. In my opinion it is at least as important to evaluate if a supervisor is a good match for you. Research excellence does not necessarily correlate with excellent mentorship of students. Sometimes (maybe even often) famous professors have little time to devote to their students due to other commitments.
A good way to find out is:
* Contact current/former group members and ask about supervision style/lab culture, does this match with how you work?
* Find out where former group members have gone afterwards. Have they moved to prestigious institutions/got faculty/industry jobs, does this match with your career goals?
* If you want to travel/visit other institutions, see if the potential supervisor has an international network of collaborators (for example look who the co-authors are on their papers).
* If possible arrange a face-to-face meeting, or a phone call, to get a sense of if this is someone you could spend the next few years working closely with.
Upvotes: -1
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<issue_start>username_0: Almost 5 months ago I got an offer for a postdoc in USA. As we knew due to my nationality it will take some time to get the visa, I started working on the project from distance. Even though, my postdoc will be in USA but the project I was working on, was for a company in Canada which has some collaboration with my future postdoc supervisor. Yesterday, I have received an email from supervisor that the company would like to pay me some salary in a consultant basis. I am totally unfamiliar with USA and Canada system and have no idea what does this mean. What should be my expectation for this payment? Will it be the same as my future postdoc salary? Or it may be much lower? I have been working fully on the project and personally expect full salary. Any experiences and advises? Thanks<issue_comment>username_1: We can't know, it really depends on your particular situation, the relationship of your adviser with the company, company policy, and other factors we do not know.
Job contracts, like most other things in life, are made between individuals and reflect the relationship they have with each other. Talk to them about what they want to achieve, what they propose to pay you, and what you hope to be paid -- *conversations* are what make negotiations work.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: Only the company can know how much they're prepared to pay, so we can't answer that. It could be more than the postdoc salary, it could be less. It could be higher, but for fewer hours. A consultant position might come with much fewer benefits. You really need to negotiate this with them.
For the future, you'd ideally negotiate this with them before you begin to work. If the company is unscrupulous, or if they didn't give the green light to start the project, you might never get paid at all for the months you've worked. If there is an actual written contract it's much harder to pull stuff like that.
Upvotes: 1
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2018/09/05
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<issue_start>username_0: I recently received an email asking if I would be willing to evaluate a colleague's application for promotion and tenure. We are both at R1 universities in the US. According to the guidelines, I am qualified to serve as an external evaluator even though I am neither tenured nor in a tenure-track position. However, this means that I have limited familiarity with the process.
I am inclined to accept and support the case, but would like to know:
* What is typically involved in such a review? How much reading and writing? Can I expect to do this in a single day?
* What makes a great (great = valuable to the committee) evaluation?<issue_comment>username_1: There are typically three things evaluated for tenure: Research, Teaching, and Service. The importance of each depends on the institution, but at an R1 you can guess that Research as evidenced by **quality** publication is by far the most important. At small colleges it would likely be Teaching first, but not necessarily. But no candidate can afford to not have some evidence in each of the three areas. For some, a book (or three) might be evidence of Service, or of Teaching. Only a seminal book would probably count much in the research area.
In many ways the **quality** of a publication record is best measured by how much the individual has influenced other researchers in the field in question. How often have they been cited, for example, or how much work has been done to extend the work of this candidate. In other words, how *central* is this person to the current work of the field. For a mid-career academic, writing a lot of papers may be necessary, but not sufficient.
The kind of person who the institution really *wants* to tenure is the kind of person who they really don't want to lose. For an R1, think of the following in addition to the publication record. Does the candidate properly mentor grad students? Does he/she hold advanced seminars or run labs? Does he/she bring in exceptional visitors to lecture or talk? What have the advisees of this person gone on to accomplish? Does the person mentor junior faculty effectively?
In some fields, such as CS, in which conferences are important, is the candidate regularly represented? Does he/she participate in conference committees? That can be evidence of service, but also of having a central place in the research community.
At some institutions, grant funding outweighs a lot of other things. One wants to say "outweighs everything" but that seems a bit cynical. But if a prof can draw enough grant money to fund grad students it will be hard for the institution to let them go.
Another factor, not usually formally weighed in, is how collegial is the person. Is the other faculty happy to share the coffee room with them? Note that it is the more senior members of the faculty who are going to be making the decision at most places.
At many universities the candidate creates a dossier for examination by the tenure committee. The dossier may be used to a greater or lesser extent to guide the discussions. But the candidate gets to make their personal "case" for tenure. If you have an idea what they want to communicate and accomplish in the dossier, it might be helpful to both support that but also to supplement it. Sometimes it is hard for a person to say good things about themselves and others can do so more easily. I once mentored a candidate who couldn't bring himself to point out how great he was.
Some places will even formalize the mentoring process for a candidate. Ideally this starts a couple of years before the tenure decision when the person still has a chance to enhance their record in appropriate ways. I've mentored other people (for promotion, not tenure) who refused all advice and didn't advance.
The time to do such a recommendation can vary widely depending on how well you know the candidate and his/her position in the field. If you have a lot of personal knowledge and work in the same field it might go quickly, but I doubt that a day is sufficient. I would want a week, actually, but might do better in some situations. I put an important recommendation together (for an award, not tenure) in a few days. Part of that was just thinking about presentation, so wasn't full time work, but the ideas needed a bit of time to settle and mature.
It can also vary depending on just how important *your* recommendation is. If it is expected that your support is vital, then it naturally takes more work if you want to be helpful. But if you are just a minor commentator and others will bear the major weight, then it can be quicker.
But, I wouldn't do it unless I actually *wanted* to do it. Just repeating things you can easily find (Google) will be less than helpful. If you have no personal knowledge, you aren't the right person.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: **For context: I’m in math. Take this advice with a grain of salt if you’re in a discipline with different norms.**
A good (meaning useful) letter is typically around 2-3 pages long, although I have seen letters as short as 1 page (not very useful) and as long as 5 pages (useful, but not in proportion to its length and tedious to read).
At least 85-90% of the letter’s length will be devoted to discussing the candidate’s research. It’s appropriate to comment briefly about other aspects of their work such as teaching, service, organizational work, outreach etc, to the extent that you feel such feedback would be helpful, or to the extent you were explicitly asked to discuss those things. Unless you were explicitly asked about them, it’s also appropriate not to discuss anything other than research.
For letters I have written, I would estimate that I spent around 4-8 hours in total doing the review. That time is spread out over several days, which I feel is important to make sure the review is thoughtful and I have time to weigh my words carefully and make sure I am willing to commit to the end result. I am usually familiar with only a part of the candidate’s work, so I spend a good amount of time getting up to speed on their full body of work and trying to estimate its significance. But I think it probably wouldn’t make sense for me to agree to do a review if I felt like I needed more than a day’s work to get to a point where I can meaningfully comment on the significance of their work.
In the letter I usually include both some general comments and at least a few paragraphs on each of 2-3 specific results and papers I am more intimately familiar with. My suggestion is to aim for a good balance between the general and the specific - the people reading the letter need a bit of both.
It’s okay to use some technical language, but don’t overdo it - many of the readers will not be experts in the specific area the candidate is working on. For the benefit of those non-experts, it’s helpful to include language that manages to convey how important and influential the candidate’s work has been without getting into a technical discussion. To some extent you can achieve this by relying on “sociological” data such as how prestigious and well-regarded the journals the candidate publishes in (or conferences they lecture at, etc) are, but try not to put too much emphasis on such things or you will risk coming across as a shallow person who only cares about prestige, and your feedback may be discounted. (Also, as JeffE said in a comment, such sociological indicators of prestige can often be estimated by non-experts directly, so your discussing them is potentially not as helpful as a more expert/technical commentary. But to a limited extent, I think it is appropriate and potentially helpful to comment on prestige.)
Good luck! Writing this sort of letter is a big responsibility, but also a very valuable service. It speaks well of your reputation that you were asked to do it.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
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2018/09/05
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<issue_start>username_0: I recently taught an undergraduate seminar course, in which each student has to read a research paper, summarize it and present it to the class. In the first lesson I explained to the students the components of the grade: attendance, summary writing, and presentation quality.
Most of the students did great jobs: attendance was near full, summaries were good, and presentations were great. Many of them did more than I expected - they contacted the paper's authors to get more information, presented movies and demos, engaged the class in discussions, etc. So, when I wrote the grades to myself, most of them were between 90 and 100.
But then, when I told this to the department vice-chair, he told me "what have you done? You will cause a grade-inflation! The department policy is that the average grade on seminar courses should be at most 85!"
I totally understand this policy - grades that are too high might show that the course was too easy, and they do not sufficiently distinguish between good and better students. Also, they might be unfair to students who took the course in previous years.
However, I am not sure what I should do now. I haven't published the grades to the students yet. Should I just re-scale the grades so that 90 becomes 70? I feel this is somewhat unfair to the students who worked hard for their presentations. Are there better options?<issue_comment>username_1: One really wants to say that the vice-chair is an idiot, but I will refrain. The policy is idiotic in any case. I've taught at places in which nearly every student excels on every measure I could devise. Why would I want to pit one student against another for the purpose of an artificial "average"? They weren't average.
If you have the twenty best people (students or employees for example) in the world and you measure them in any single way, then half of them will be below average. Just how fine can you make the graduations so that someone can be "called" worse than someone else.
On the other hand, if the average, as measured over several runnings of the class, is around 85 and if there are *clear* differences in behavior and outcome, then "rewarding" everyone equally is also idiotic.
You set a standard. People met it. The standard was *not* that you must do "better" than someone else. If you change it now you have an ethical failing.
I hope you have enough standing in the university and in the profession that you can stand up to such unfair and unethical suggestions. If your group of students was exceptional there is no reason not to mark them as exceptional.
If you want to lower the average in future, with a different group of students, make the course more demanding.
But if you change the grading structure after they have finished their work then you are doing evil, not teaching.
Upvotes: 8 <issue_comment>username_2: Based on your description of what took place, it sounds like the reason most of the students will get a grade between 90 and 100 is because according to your best judgment *they genuinely deserve it*. If that is indeed your belief, you don’t need to do anything other than to publish the grades as they are. After all, the department charged you with teaching a class and grading it in the most fair and accurate way and to the best of your abilities, and that is what you have done. I would simply recommend, before publishing the grades, to make sure that you are not violating any formal policies the department may have that mandate a certain distribution of grades or range of average grades; and, since you are going against the vice chair’s opinion, it may also be advisable to either discuss the matter some more with the vice chair and try to reach a consensus as to the desired course of action, or to make sure you are comfortable with going against the suggestion of your senior and that you will not suffer any adverse career consequences as a result, before proceeding.
If on the other hand the premise that the students in fact deserved the good grades you were going to give them is not something that you strongly believe in or are sure you can defend if challenged, then I think it’s reasonable to follow the vice chair’s suggestion and curve down the students’ grades to reach an average grade that is in keeping with historical norms in the department. After all, if this year’s students are no more talented than, and worked no harder than, last year’s students, then having the average grade remain the same across successive years does sound like the most fair grading methodology.
To summarize, it all depends on your personal convictions regarding what the students deserve. Try to do what you thinks is the most fair for the students, while being attentive to the broader concerns of others in your department.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_3: You are in a less than ideal situation.
This happened to one of my undergraduate professors, who I had for a year long course (actually, two back-to-back semester long courses). The department told him his average grade for the course was too high after the first semester. The professor told the department he would change his grading in future years, but would keep the same grading for the second semester course because we were the same group of students. This was my professor's first year teaching at my university. I respect him and still keep in touch with him to this day.
If you are unwilling or unable to stand up to your department, I would turn the question on your department and ask them how to handle the situation and make them own the decision if they want you to lower grades. Also, hopefully you have a mentor at your university who can help you with local politics. I would add the warning you might accidentally burn bridges in your department if you do not handle this well.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_4: Giving high grades doesn't cause grade inflation. Grade inflation is where you give higher grades for the same quality of work than the year before. I assume he does understand that but what he wants is to avoid having to explain in the future why grades went down one year.
I think a good way for your department to handle this would be to have a number of other members grade a random sample of your class and move the average accordingly. Better still would be them at the same time grade some previous years samples so the grades are 'calibrated' based on the previous grades.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: If there is more than one class, with more than one teacher/lecturer/tutor marking, then you can cross-mark a sample of each group to establish a baseline. This is known as *moderation*.
You could do a similar exercise if, in previous years and under the same syllabus/criteria, there is student work available as a comparison.
There is a school of thought that says you should never give 100% for a submission because there is always something that could be improved. I disagree with this because if the student addresses all the criteria and meets or even exceeds the standard set then they deserve the credit.
It's like going to work, doing your job to the best of your ability, delivering what was asked (or more) and your employer saying that you're only going to be paid 90% of your salary because there is always something that you could have done better. Nobody would stand for that.
It's the same flawed argument that if you grade a large enough sample of students on a normal distribution then half of them are below average. You don't fail half of the students on this basis because there are modifiers to the sample - not everyone has to take the class, the group of students in the class have progressed to a certain level and those who could not meet the standard are no longer in the group, etc. The students in the class are already at the upper end of the distribution.
The students should not be penalised for delivering what was asked. I would discuss how to address it in the future but submit these grades as they are.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_6: If the grades are deserved as you state, and within the marking framework for the course, then hold the line and keep the grades as they are. It is not the fault of the students that they all achieved well within the framework that was set before the semester started, therefore, they should not be 'retrospectively punished' in their grades for doing what they were asked to do, and ultimately doing it well.
This situation does pose a series of opportunities:
1. Restructuring the coursework/assignments
2. Reframing acheivement levels in the marking criteria
3. Department wide review to ensure parity across the student assignments for different courses
In all my lecturing roles, these periodic reviews were undertaken on a fairly regular basis e.g. every year for small adjustments, every 5 years for a full course overhaul.
In your case, as I said, you must maintain the grades as they were deserved in this instance, but for next years cycle of teaching, make sure you have set clear expectations in what is needed to be done to acheive each grading level through a marking criteria matrix (and make sure the students can access this), and structure the coursework, so that additional work can earn extra credit. Students at different levels of abilities will then work at their appropriate level and that will be reflected in a broader distribution of grades.
If however, they all complete the work within the framework you set, complete the extra credit work, and all at a high standard - then they deserve the high grades.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: >
> Grades are too high for the department - what should I do?
>
>
>
**Make the class harder next time you teach it.**
Set the bar higher in terms of learning objectives and challenge your students to meet that higher bar. Continue whatever teaching strategies you were using to promote that engagement, learning, and quality work among your students.
**If** there is a formal policy requiring a certain distribution of grades, obtain that policy and share it with the students. Share with the students what their grades would be without that policy and what they are with it applied. Tell them where the policy comes from (i.e. which authority/group within the university) and, to the extent you understand it (maybe ask the vice chair for some help here) the reasoning behind it. Then the students can organize to lobby for a change in the policy if they want (as other comments/answers have highlighted, there are good reasons to do so).
If there is not a formal policy requiring a lower distribution, issue the grades as they stand and just use this comment from the vice chair as a feedback point for **you** to raise the bar for the next class.
If you think the bar is already quite high, and students are meeting it with exceptional work, share some of that exceptional work with the vice chair and offer to ask students' permission to highlight their work in appropriate public promotions of the department's educational programs as examples of what students from your department are successfully able to do.
The most important outcome is students gaining knowledge and abilities they didn't have before. If you can show impressive success at that, and the department can show this to the dean, provost, prospective students, current students' potential employers, etc., the educational mission is a demonstrable success.
Regardless of the grading policy, be sure to give the students the positive feedback you feel they deserve. They worked hard and exceeded the standards you set and deserve praise for that.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_8: From a mathematical point of view, the problem that they are trying to solve with a policy that attempts to enforce a maximum/minimum average class value is the wrong problem. Statistically, you will have plenty of variation from class to class as to good classes and bad classes. If the general guideline is that you want an "average" student to receive an 85, that is fine, but you will get classes where your students excel abnormally, and you will get classes that are a bit behind the grade, and fluctuate the other way. This is even more common, in fact, because when an entire class is doing badly, they have more trouble getting help from their peers, whereas when a class is excelling as a whole, friendly tutors are easy to come by and the performance of the under-performing students rises.
Forcing any individual class to conform to an exact standard like that flies in the face of statistics. I would take my department head and go talk to the head of the statistics department, and rework the policy so that it takes into account things like standard deviation within a class, the tendency toward positive or negative feedback cycles, and outliers.
This is an academic setting. It can be easily recognized that the existing policy does not meet scientific rigor, and there are experts a few rooms or halls away who can help.
Upvotes: 7 <issue_comment>username_9: It's a tough situation that you are in...
You feel like your class deserved the grades you gave them,
while the department wants to limit the grades.
I assume that you had a grading rubric for the various subtasks? If yes, great...If no, ok too. There's a difference either way.
The good thing for a rubric is you can later point to it and justify grading
-- both positive and negative.
My thoughts are to either go to your supervisor and say that this class deserves the higher grades because while people were required to do X they did Y, which was beyond the scope of what they had to do, so they deserve more.
Or, re-calibrate the grades so the people who minimally met the requirements would get an 85%..if they exceeded the minimum, they'll get more -- and rightly so.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_10: The question of distribution of a good (in this case grades) has been extensively discussed in public finance. Warning: if you consider the way economists usually handle questions of distribution cynical, you may not want to continue reading and save yourself from throwing a fit.
Here is how this problem would be addressed from a public economics standpoint. Consider obtaining data on the performance of the students in other classes. If the students consistently scored highly, you may present this as evidence to the department that high grades are justified. If your course is new and has an exotic title you may have a sample of students that is not representative of the overall student pool. This violates the idea that grades should be independent across courses but throwing away (potentially) useful data would be irrational.
However, you may also find out that your students actually perform very poorly in other classes. In this case, you may ask yourself the question whether the criteria by which you score the course are likely to be uncorrelated (or even negatively correlated) with performance in other courses. For example, if you teach an acting class to econ majors...
A third reason why students performed well could be that your teaching style is very motivating or the topic of intrinsic interest to the students. In this case, you need to decide for yourself (or by department policy) what you consider the function of grading the students. (This is where the cynical bit starts.) If you consider grades only to be a job market signal of a student's ability, you may not want to give high grades if the achievement was not due to ability but due to your teaching style/course content. Notice that in most countries grades have exactly that function. Better grades mean (on average) easier admission to further degrees, more job interviews, better jobs. If instead you consider grades to be a measure of the degree to which a student understands the material, you may insist on giving high grades. Just remember that in this case you are perhaps slightly distorting the job market outcomes.
Now here is a strange bit from public finance. You may also care about interpersonal equity between students. If you reward students with high grades, then students who could not attend your class (class size restrictions, limited information) are disadvantaged. Here things become a bit complex. First of all, you would need to check if your student sample is currently worse off or better off than the remaining student pool. Next, you need to balance the efficiency loss due to a worse signal against a potential improvement in interpersonal equity. Luckily, if you do not have any information about the expected lifetime income of your student pool, you may simply ignore this aspect.
**tl;dr**: I would be highly skeptical of my own grades if they were to vastly differ from the department's and consider it important to find out the reasons for such differences. Once you have found out the reason, you will know whether you want to act on it.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_11: The sentiment of the vice-chair is really quite alarming and very sad: He should have said **"What have you done? The engagement with your course is fantastic! I think it would be really valuable if we could have a discussion about your overall approach, and your methods of teaching and assessment and see if we can implement some permanent changes for the seminar in future years, and perhaps on a wider scale in the department."**
Of course that's in a perfect world where everyone has plenty of time for workshopping and professional development, and the vice-chair isn't stressed out and run off their feet and isn't able to see past the next fire they have to put out. :)
That, said, I think *you* should take this tack: Basically, talk about how happy you are with how it's gone, with how engaged the students are, and how this certainly gives you the perfect opportunity to increase the difficulty/scope next time and that you have some guidelines/recommendations for the course in the future to help make it so effective every time it's offered.
Basically, act slightly naive, but completely positively: relentlessly keeping focus on the benefits that have come solely from your hard work, and those that are still coming
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_12: Let's set aside your vice chair's use of the term "grade inflation". No, that term means something else, as [username_4](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/116476/9553) has already pointed out. The important thing to know that he's telling you your grade distribution is off from department norms. He's saying he thinks you're an "easy A".
It's up to you to decide what to do with that information. He may or may not be right and you may or not care, especially depending on whether it's a grade on an assignment where everyone gets an A (so what) versus a final grade in a course.
You're the instructor, you decide your students' grades. This is solely your responsibility and your call, nobody else's. If you're satisfied your grading is fair and correct, it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. You have to call 'em as you see 'em.
But most instructors do like to keep their grading in line with their colleagues'. Most of us would like to avoid students thinking there's a grade advantage to one instructor over another. Also, there are a lot more students than instructors and we expect that with a class-sized sample, we can be more confident of what the distribution of A's and B's should be than of whether an assignment or exam we just wrote will turn out to be harder or easier than we expected.
So you might reach out to your colleagues or bring up the question at your next department meeting, asking others in the department how they set their curves. It might be helpful to know more about how your colleagues decide grades.
But let me get to the real bottom line: If everyone gets an A, it is likely, as [WBT](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/116506/9553) argues, that the material was too easy. It is your job to match the material to your students so as to be able to make that distinction. When I read your description of the assignment, it sounded easy to me and I wasn't surprised by what happened.
If it were me, I'd make the project more difficult somehow, add more structure, more hoops for the students to jump through, a more fine-grained rubric with pickier grading, whatever it takes to push the students enough that you can differentiate their performances.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_13: This is your first problem:
>
> I feel this is somewhat unfair to the students who worked hard for
> their presentations.
>
>
>
You think just about your students. What about students that got 80 for the work that you are willing to give 95? Is that fair to them?
Your second problem:
Course is too easy. Now it is too late to fix this, but for the future you should make sure students have hard time "maxing out" easily. Not to torture them for fun, but to make sure that the spectrum of outputs is recognized(instead of half of the results piling on around 95).
This brings us to your current situation. You should rescale the grades, but unfortunately this will hurt some students because since course is easy precision of the measurement was bad. But it is unfeasible for you to do anything about it now.
Upvotes: 0
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2018/09/06
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<issue_start>username_0: I wanted to know that whether it is possible to sit in a grad-level course or undergrad course without registering?
What should I do before going to the class? should I talk to the professor?
Is it illegal to participate in a class without registration?
I need to learn about some other area that is why I need to participate in other classes as well.<issue_comment>username_1: (Per the comments, this might be country-specific. In my experience, this answer applies to the countries where you can take as many or as few courses as you like per semester, for the same price).
Are you a student of the university? If so, you're generally free to sit in, although it's polite to ask the lecturer first (I've never had a lecturer say no, in fact they were very happy, so don't worry). Still, if you're going to sit in, I'd also try to take it formally for credit.
If you're not a student of the university, then it's mandatory to ask. Again however, I've never seen a lecturer say no, and they were even happy to talk to me about the material after class even though I'm not a student.
In both cases, you won't be able to do anything other than sit in for the lectures - so no tutorials, no labs, no homework assignments, and so on.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: In the US, as far as I'm aware, the term you're looking for is "auditing" a class. You'll need to check your school's policy for this, as they vary.
For example, here's the [audit policy for The University of Texas at Austin](https://registrar.utexas.edu/students/registration/before/audit), which requires filling out a form, getting permission from the professor and there being space available in the class. But, when you're auditing, you only go to lectures, you don't participate in discussions or do any of the actual coursework.
This is pretty similar for other schools I've looked at but, as noted, you'll need to check your specific university's policy for it. Hopefully knowing the term will help.
For huge classes with 100+ students, you may be able to get in the unofficial way but for smaller classes of 10-30, the professor will probably notice that there's someone extra in the class, particularly if there aren't enough seats in the room.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: Many online universities offer free online classes without registration for getting knowledge. You need to attend these classes in your manageable time period.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm a first year Physics MSc student. This semester I'll attend to a practical course where we learn to use Python for scientific computing. The course is beginner-level. We will work on our own laptop, not institutional devices, and are expected to install all necessary software.
Yesterday, at the first lesson, the teacher informed us about the recommended environment and code editor (Anaconda and Spyder). He also told us, however, that, if one wishes to, he's free to use any other environment of his choice - only the teacher will have a harder time helping him.
The thing is, I already am a somewhat experienced Python coder. Of course I still have a lot to learn, but e.g. part of my BSc thesis was writing (and debugging) a 1500 line complex data processing Python program. While I wrote this, and other codes since, I got really used to a different environment (bare Python installation with Pip, and VS Code). If only for my convenience, I'd use this.
On the other hand, this is a beginner level course, and I'm sure a measurable deal of time will be spent learning the environment itself – so it's a good opportunity to learn something new. Also, if I get stuck and need the teacher's help, it'd be more convenient for him to use the environment he knows. And it's not my aim to get him frustrated... On the other hand, I think I'd be faster and more powerful using the editor I got used to, and that would be an advantage in time-critical tasks (like tests). Also, though I never used Spyder, from what I found online there's nothing it can do that VS Code couldn't – actually, VS Code seems to be the superior to me – so there may be no advantage in learning this environment.
Should I use the recommended environment, or is it okey if I use a different one? I'm sure the majority (maybe all) of my classmates will go with the recommended one, as they have no former experience with Python.
I'd like to get some point of view from educators. How big a trouble does a wayward student like me cause, may it annoy the teacher in the long run, even if he doesn't believe it now?
[I'm not really familiar with the tags here, I'd be grateful if someone more experienced could check them.]<issue_comment>username_1: The biggest difference you're likely to see if you use your own set up is the level at which your instructor will be able to answer questions. With the recommended method you might be told "Find and replace the string using control/command + R", whereas with your own setup you're liable be told "replace the string". Providing you already understand things well enough that you can make the translations in your head, then for a beginner's course and a mixed group you aren't likely to miss that much.
It's worth pointing out that it's perfectly possible that the teacher is more used to using yet another setup when coding themselves. Anaconda + Spyder is a good choice in this setup mostly because it works cross-platform in a reasonably consistent manner, rather than because it's a high productivity environment.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I would suggest to use whatever you like as long as you are willing to invest the needed time and energy to get it to work.
For example, when I learned to use Anaconda for Data Science, I first wanted tot code in Atom, just to learn in the middle of the course that Atom (or rather the script plugin to run code) isn't able to work with the pandas package included in Anaconda...
Yes, you might be able to fix such issues with enough experience and time to google for fixes, but there is a real chance that it will take you a lot of time that would not be needed if you follow the prescribed steps.
Furthermore, there might be (homework) exercises that you have to do in the demanded environment for the teacher to be able to grade it.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: I would suggest you start by "going with the flow" and using the recommended tools. If nothing else, you will get the chance to explore them, with help on hand if you hit any problems installing them and learning how to use them.
But if after a while you feel you can work more efficiently a different way, then change horses. After all it's *your* time that you are investing in taking the course and (you hope!) the course is supposed to be teaching you "Python programming", not "how to use one particular IDE."
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: As a faculty member who has taught data analytics classes, one thing I hate to do is provide "tech support" to students in class. (In office hours is fine.) I would recommend a standardized platform to my students because it minimizes (but doesn't eliminate) the amount of technical problem solving I have to do. At least, if I solve a problem once\* for the class I don't have to solve it again.
So the real question is: are you a complainer? If you can't make something work in class time, are you going to be calling on the professor to help you fix it? Or will you just muddle through, watch/help your neighbor do the lab on his computer, and figure out how to configure your own machine on your own time after class? If the latter, I as the professor would be fine with you doing whatever silly thing you want. If the former, or if the professor needs you to complete the lab during class time, I'd use the tools he recommends.
By the way: Spyder is to Python what RStudio is to R. In addition to being a code editor, it has window panes or tabs to explore datasets currently in memory, and to view and format any data visualizations generated by your code. So it's different than using a typical Python editor like PyCharm; it's a tool specifically well suited to data analysis. I can understand why your professor has chosen it, and I recommend you give it a try.
\*Actually, twice: once for somebody with a Mac and inevitably also for someone with a PC.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_5: The choice of editor probably doesn't matter so much, although I would lean to using something with the IPython console (default in Spyder, add-in for VS Code AFAIK) as it easier to work with. Spyder has features useful for data science, such as quick access to variables and an image pane to show plots. PyCharm has these too now.
However, I do think you should use Anaconda, as it provides a distribution of the common python libraries using versions that are supposed to be compatible. If you submit code for assignments or to share with classmates, this will ensure they run on everyone's machine. It will also ensure that your code doesn't have some weird bug using some half-baked release that no one else has.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm not sure if this is the place to ask about graduate admission, so please let me know if the question is off-topic.
I'm currently in my senior year doing my undergraduate degree. I recently made the decision to pursue graduate studies (M.S. CS), but my GPA is a bit low. I will graduate with a double major degree in international relations and computer science. My major GPA will be 3.1/4.0 (cumulative 3.3/4.0), and so I decided to delay graduation an take another semester to raise my GPA (retaking a couple of courses and taking one new one) and also give me more time to prepare for graduate admission as I felt I was a bit too unprepared. After the extra semester (and assuming I do average to well) my major GPA will be 3.4/4.0.
I took the GRE and did well (163V / 169Q / 5.5 AW), but felt that I want to invest as much effort as I can (since this is the only time I'll have, to raise my undergraduate GPA) and then apply when I'm better prepared.
Does graduating late reflect poorly for graduate admission? I wanted to use that time and take advantage of the fact that I'm taking fewer courses during the semester to work on other projects as well.
Any feedback is appreciated. Thank you!<issue_comment>username_1: Your GRE seems not well, but excellent! I can't comment on GPA though, it is different for different universities. However, rather than extra semester, universities in US for instance generally criticize course repetitions. Such as in University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee they count replaced courses as if they are another courses,
<https://uwm.edu/graduateschool/admission/>
Though, your decision does not seem to have course repetition, instead, lowering the number of courses and enhancing your research experience at the same time, which sounds quite strategical and good.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: In general, taking longer to graduate is not a problem. However, your plan of retaking courses rather than taking new courses is a bit flawed. If you take more advanced courses and do well, then your earlier performance on more basic classes is less of a concern. It might not bring up your GPA as much, but taking new upper-level courses (and doing research as you have suggested) will give you more to talk about in a SOP, strengthen relationships with faculty, and better prepare you to do research at a graduate level.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: There is a group in our small field that almost exclusively cites themselves. Their latest paper has 35% self-citations, which is 80% of the citations within the field. They only reference their own work in talks, presenting it (e.g. to industry) as if they are the only group doing research in this field. When they refer to the work of other groups they do it with a handwave, e.g. in a little corner of their slide with misspelled names.
Their name is attached to a well-known university and they had influential and excellent papers in the field, so most people cite them in their papers, but it increasingly feels as if we are helping a career-boosting strategy here. I have witnessed that they were already criticised in review rounds for ignoring other people's work and not giving credit, but they continued the self-citing in new publications, either seeing nothing wrong with it or following a strategy. They often seem to get away with it. About two years ago they had a publication where the main result was already published by another group in our field years ago, and they did not cite them.
Is there a counter strategy against this behaviour?<issue_comment>username_1: Science is not a competition.
The "counter strategy" is to ignore the "problem" and do excellent science yourself. They are making a fool of themselves, and most other scientists will realise that as well. Behave like a responsible scientist, cite them if you need to, and only cite their relevant and interesting papers (as you would normally do anyway).
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: First, I think it's important to have a more precise diagnosis of the problem.
Self-citations by themselves are not necessarily a problem---even 30% self-citations might be quite reasonable depending on circumstances (e.g., work in a very narrow but deep niche). Likewise, re-inventing a result is not necessarily a problem if the prior result is in another community and your community was genuinely unaware of it.
Failing to properly credit the work of others when made aware of it, on the other hand, is definitely a problem, and can be addressed by the community of peers:
* For journal articles, the peer reviewers can simply insist on citations. It's very easy to add a citation in revision and pretty much never a reason *not* to cite closely related work. Furthermore, reviewers get to see it again and don't have to say "accept" until they are satisfied. Thus, unless the editor thinks the failure to cite is OK, it's easy to force the citations to be added as a condition of publication (or they can go to a crap journal instead, which is worse for them).
* For conference papers, it is more difficult to insist on citation, since there is often no second round of review. Here, I would recommend invoking the ongoing *pattern* of failure to cite in a review as a reason for giving a low score, thus signaling that this does not appear to be an accidental oversight.
* For slides, of course, there is no pre-presentation review, but there are post-presentation questions. "I notice that you failed to mention Smith's prior work on this problem, would you care to comment on its relationship to your work?", "How does your results compare to Xu et al's results on the problem?" Embarrass them in front of the peers, and they will be motivated to improve---and more importantly, the peers will be motivated to make the same requests.
None of these strategies are things that you can really do just by yourself. But if it's a legitimate issue (as opposed to, for example, a potential distorted view of the significance of your own work), then other peers will hopefully have noticed as well and can be doing the same.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: What you encounter is unfortunately common, even 20 years ago. I don't know if there is an English equivalent, but it is called in German *Zitierkartell (citation cartel)*. I encountered it the first time when I researched phase-unwrapping algorithms for speckle interferometry in my *Diplom*, there were people working on network algorithms, region-growing algorithm, branch-cut algorithm and least-squares algorithm. **Every single one was citing only their own research and of friendly groups.**
What can you do against it? Essentially *nothing* from a higher instance. The only thing which prohibits it is a thing called "scientific ethos" which has now the [conservation status](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_status) of "Vulnerable" or even more pessimistic, "Endangered". It is not forbidden to ignore other people's work. Worse, *it does work.* By citing own and friendly work and getting cited in return, the citation index is inflated. It's the same method as the *Salamitaktik, salami-slicing*, instead of putting content in one paper, spread it thin over five to get more citations (in English: "least publishable units").
So the only way to punish the perpetrators is doing the same in return, so in time several citation cartels begin to grow, each fighting for funding. As citation cartels are unethical and unethical behavior seldom comes alone, you can look up their papers and search intently for data fudging and scientific misconduct. It goes without saying that you should have an impeccable record because you can expect retaliation in return.
Upvotes: 4
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2018/09/06
| 313
| 1,303
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<issue_start>username_0: This is fairly inconsequential, but I'm not sure how people typically count years for graduate studies. In my case, having an MA means that I have fewer years to do in the PhD program. This is physically my first year at this particular university, but would I technically say I'm a 3rd year still?
Edit: This would be at a university in the US, although in my case, my MA was done in Canada.<issue_comment>username_1: This does indeed seem quite inconsequential, but usually first year would imply that it's the first year you're enrolled in graduate studies at that particular institution, or even a given program. In my experience, phrases like "first year, but I came in with a masters" get used if there's a need to make that distinction.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: This may also depend on your program. For example, where I did my PhD, coming in with a Masters (usually an MPH rather than an MA) didn't actually get you much of a "boost". Those that came in with Masters were in the same classes I was (I entered with a BA) and their time-until-graduation was roughly similar.
In that context, "Third Year" would imply several things about their progress in both coursework and various administrative milestones that weren't true.
Upvotes: 0
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2018/09/06
| 346
| 1,440
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<issue_start>username_0: As far as I'm aware, the base requirement to be a teacher or substitute requires a degree. However in my case, I've been working in my career field for going on 10 years. I'm wondering if it's possible to move to Academia, either part-time or full-time without having a formal college degree.
Lately, I've been having an "itch" to impart my own experiences and knowledge on students that are just starting out. I haven't decided on what exactly I want, but it could be anything from a guest speaker to teaching a full-time class.<issue_comment>username_1: This does indeed seem quite inconsequential, but usually first year would imply that it's the first year you're enrolled in graduate studies at that particular institution, or even a given program. In my experience, phrases like "first year, but I came in with a masters" get used if there's a need to make that distinction.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: This may also depend on your program. For example, where I did my PhD, coming in with a Masters (usually an MPH rather than an MA) didn't actually get you much of a "boost". Those that came in with Masters were in the same classes I was (I entered with a BA) and their time-until-graduation was roughly similar.
In that context, "Third Year" would imply several things about their progress in both coursework and various administrative milestones that weren't true.
Upvotes: 0
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2018/09/06
| 1,175
| 5,020
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<issue_start>username_0: I am in my second semester of a MS in engineering.
While classwork is fine, research is not going well. I wrote the first few pages of my thesis and basically everything was wrong: formatting, writing style, poor graphs and figures. The results my codes are calculating show that my method makes no improvement to current methodology and sometimes its actually worse.
My adviser and I keep having miscommunications, and I keep disappointing compared to what I originally showed when we first starting working together. He won't ever tell me directly that I am failing but I can sense his attitude while we talk.
Due to my job, classes, and thesis work, I have no hobbies and I only sleep every other day.
Is this a normal amount of struggle everyone goes through and I'm overthinking it. Or is this an indication that grad school is not for me?
If I do quit, I will not be able to get a job at a good engineering company due to an average GPA in undergrad.
**EDIT:** This is an edit for anyone else who might have tendencies to get stress paranoia and start spiraling down negative paths.
I entirely overestimated the situation, my adviser was perfectly chill about everything, and the issues I thought I was going to get reamed over, were discussed and resolved in about a minute. Instead of criticism, he helped explain a math issue I had, and even let me know some higher-level industry folks he knows were interested in my work.
PSA for people like me (who probably are going to be like me and still worry over everything), making mountains out molehills in your own head is not a wise course of action.<issue_comment>username_1: It sounds to me like you've hit a wall. It isn't really uncommon, actually. The comments that suggest you get proper sleep are good, of course - things just get worse if you work exhausted.
I don't know what your undergraduate experience was like, but for some students who had a fairly easy time as an undergrad find that, suddenly, things are bad. Really bad. Everyone (or nearly so) will eventually reach a stage when natural ability doesn't carry them over the hard parts anymore and only hard work will get them through. The wall isn't impossible to get through, so it isn't a sign of failure. It is just hard.
But before you make any decisions about quitting, first make a list of all your options. What would you do if you don't continue. Is that a pleasurable thing or not? Would your life if you quit be better in, say, ten or so years or not. You probably have several options for your professional life, so try to make a list. Include what it would take to move to one of those options instead of your current one. How much time/money/work to get you there?
I suggest writing them down so you make a formal search out of it.
Compare those options. If none are better than just pushing through the wall, then you have your decision.
Know, however, that a lot of people hit that wall. Maybe not as hard as you have, but pretty hard. Many continue. But knowing your options will help.
But you will probably also need to change your actions a bit. The first paragraph of your question doesn't sound like an especially hard issue at your point in your education. It isn't often the case that the first time you try research you hit the mark immediately. Like many things it can take re-work and practice. The first time a person gets thrown in the pool they aren't likely to be effective swimmers.
But it is probably a mistake to avoid your advisor. The disappointment may be only on your side. Perhaps he/she will have some advice.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> The results my codes are calculating show that my method makes no
> improvement to current methodology and sometimes its actually worse.
>
>
>
For a master's degree, there is usually no requirement that your research produce a successful result. One can make a contribution to science by showing others what *doesn't* work. But you may find that your new method is an improvement under certain circumstances. Or you may get an idea (after you get some sleep!) for improving your method. That's exactly what happened to me.
Given your lack of sleep and your state of mind, I'm not sure you should trust your impression that your advisor is disappointed in you. I recommend you have a heart-to-heart talk with your advisor, being as open as you can about all your concerns and fears, including that you are stressed out and not sleeping. It's very common for students to feel like failures at some point during a master's degree, and your advisor should be ready to help.
>
> I wrote the first few pages of my thesis and basically everything was
> wrong: formatting, writing style, poor graphs and figures.
>
>
>
Academic writing is a very different beast than the types of writing you've done before in school. No one is born knowing how to do it. Expect to have to do a lot of rewriting as you learn this skill.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
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2018/09/06
| 504
| 2,264
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<issue_start>username_0: I am applying for a prestigious postdoc in social sciences. I need to make a case for why the sponsoring university is particularly well suited to support me, and what unique forms of support it has to offer me. A representative of the postdoc informed the dean that the support has to go beyond what all postdocs receive. Thus I can't list "professional development" because all postdocs and grad students can access that.
The dean has offered me priority status for an internal grant of $5,000 to travel to conferences. What further types of support could the sponsoring university offer me that would advance the research, teaching, and committee work of a social science PhD?<issue_comment>username_1: Here's some ideas about what you could ask for:
* A course that is not generally available - such as a leadership program
* Support to spend a few weeks at some other institution to build a relationship?
* What do you need for your research? For example, funds for transcribing interviews, or a few months of a data analyst?
But it sounds to me like you are being asked not for a wish list, but for some thought about what is both relevant and unique about the university you are applying to. For example, is there a respected researcher in your field and you could spend some time working with that person.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: This is a fairly normal part of grant applications that are meant to fund the development of an individual rather than a program of research.
An example I am most familiar with is the NRSA set of grants in the US for PhD students and post-docs in the biomedical sciences in the US. It isn't clear to me whether you are talking about an externally funded grant or a particular funded position at the institution you are applying to.
How you answer these questions is very dependent on your individual circumstance, but you are probably best of seeking some support from people who have written or assisted in writing similar proposals in your field, successful or not. Either your current institution or the one you would like to work with may have staff that are knowledgeable, or they may be able to find you someone who previously worked there that held that grant.
Upvotes: -1
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2018/09/06
| 800
| 3,397
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm applying for PhD and thesis masters programs in Electrical and Computer Engineering. In one of the schools, there is a specific faculty member I'm extremely interested in working with. However, admission into her lab is really competitive. Realistically, my odds of getting in are mediocre at best.
At the same university, there is another faculty member who I share some interests with. I have also done research in his lab as an undergrad, and I know for a fact that he has millions in funding and more or less accepts any grad student who applies because he can afford to. He's definitely not ideal, but I'd be okay with doing my masters with him and then finding somewhere better for my PhD.
Finally, there's a third faculty member whose work is also pretty interesting. His research interests align fairly well with mine, but admission into his lab is also extremely competitive.
If I mention all three professors in my SOP, does it affect my chances of getting into the competitive labs? Obviously, if I only mention one name, it makes it look like I'm a lot more passionate about her work specifically. I was hoping for a way to maximize my chances of getting into the first prof's lab while still retaining the second and third prof as a back up. I was hoping for some advice on how I can phrase my SOP to accomplish this.<issue_comment>username_1: I'm not sure this is a good forum for this question. You have set up the situation like a game with hidden rules. There is no algorithm for this and it depends on both everything you say and how the various readers will interpret it. Secret rules.
So, this is just a suggestion about something you might think about. It isn't a solution to the game.
But you could write your SOP focusing on the field or fields in which you are interested, rather than the professors. Make it as fine grained as you like. Talk about how you are suited to studying in those fields. You can stress those fields most that align most with the professors you want to study with even without mentioning them by name. Hint that you are flexible, but don't make it easy for them to make a suggestion you would rather have made otherwise. Emphasize your suitability for the option you most want.
If it is necessary to name one or more of the professors you will need to figure out how to work them in to it, possibly even at the end. But if it isn't necessary then *perhaps* you could leave it unsaid.
Don't write the SOP as if you are unsure, of course. State your goals. Stress the most important one.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: I'm in a program (and went to a program) where students are admitted to the program, not a lab.
When considering students, I'm actually quite nervous about those who only mention a single professor they're interested in working with, as that's not a particularly robust "plan". What if they don't get tenure, or are recruited elsewhere? What if they have a personal emergency? What if they just don't have funding for a student right now? What if it turns out you just have wildly incompatible working habits (this happened to me)?
I'm going to echo username_1's suggestion - don't try to write your SOP as the optimal solution to a game whose rules you don't know. Write about your interests in the program, and how that applies to one or more specific faculty members.
Upvotes: 2
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2018/09/06
| 3,600
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<issue_start>username_0: As a publisher, every now and then I saw reviews which are so good, I thought I should thank the reviewer with something more than "thanks". What can a publisher offer that will actually be useful?
Ideas:
* Cash. This is probably not happening. Cash is too liquid, too precious a resource to offer. The only conceivable way top management might be persuaded is to have a small pool of best reviewer prizes (say 5 prizes/year @ $500 each), company wide. That makes it hard to reward all good reviewers, since there're tens of thousands of reviewers a year. I also suspect that if top management were to entertain such an idea, they'd prefer to have a best paper award.
* Best reviewer certificate. I don't see this as very useful though, since it's just a computer graphic. Plus they're easily hacked - I changed one of these to put my name on it instead of the reviewers', which might be enough to deceive a casual observer.
* A free book from the publisher's collection. This is more doable but is not cheap (since it also requires postage), so I won't be able to do send many of these - maybe one / year.
* Cheaper open access. This is doable: there's a discretionary range with open access article processing charges (to e.g. offer bulk discounts and to waive them for authors from developing countries). However many reviewers never publish in the journal they review for, and even if they do they might not want to publish open access. I am not sure how useful this is.
* A personal subscription to \_\_\_ journal. Not sure how useful this either since the reviewer probably already has access to the journal via his or her institution, and if not, there are (usually) other ways to access a needed paper.
* Something else?
**Edit**: Thanks for all the answers.
* Make best reviewer awards public: this should be easily done. My only concern is that this can break reviewer anonymity for small journals. Still, a central list of all the best reviewers who have reviewed for the publisher should be doable, with the only drawback being someone will have to compare reviewers from different journals (or there'll have to be set numbers of best reviewers for each journal, which would favour small ones at the expense of larger ones).
* Give reviewer feedback: unfortunately only the editorial board can do this. The publisher can suggest, but cannot force the editorial board to do it.
* Appoint as editors: it's potentially doable, but needs the approval of the rest of the editorial board.
* Free store credit: this is doable, maybe even better than providing free books from the perspective of the publisher. After all, the publisher would not have to pay postage charges, and it's a revenue-generating activity. Making it transferable would be a nice touch!
* Free mugs/T-shirts etc: considering publishers make books and journals (instead of mugs and t-shirts), I am not sure this is a good idea.
* Reception at conference: the problem with this is the cost. First one would have to rent the necessary space (expensive) followed by send staff there (also expensive). It would be pretty hard to get some kind of personalized welcome; the staff that attend will probably not be those handling the journal for example, and there might be reviewers for multiple different journals at the same reception. I can float the idea, but not hopeful.
Again, thanks for ideas.<issue_comment>username_1: * A variant on "free book" is "store credit with the publisher". This gives you the flexibility to offer a smaller amount. Or it can be something like "X% discount on purchases from the publisher."
* If there is a prominent conference in your field that many of your reviewers attend, you can have a special reception at the conference, with free food and drinks. This may also be a good way to make connections with them and get feedback.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: I've gotten free books from a publisher, usually for longer reviews of books or proposals, rather than journal articles.
The *American Journal of Epidemiology* awards several 'Reviewer of the Year' awards, which are hard to fake as they're published in the journal: <https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/187/4/637/4956753>
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Reviewers can be promoted to editors, which eventually can contribute to a successful tenure / promotion application. Also, best reviewers have a good potential of becoming great editors, which is beneficial for publisher, too.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: Actually, I'd be happy just to get some feedback from the editor about the quality of my review. Doesn't have to be every time, but I would really appreciate getting comments when I do a particularly helpful one and what was good about it. Similarly, I think Publons now has a 'rate this review' feature that allows editors and/or authors to score or give comments (not really sure, I haven't used the feature).
One of the journals I occasionally review for provides something like a 150 USD voucher for their books. This is given for every review or for everyone who reviewed at least once or similar. Not sure of the details as I haven't reviewed for that journal recently, but I definitely remember appreciating getting a book I otherwise would not have bought.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_5: The Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) has a [rewards program](https://www.setac.org/news/213870/New-SETAC-Journals-Reviewer-Rewards-Program.htm) for reviewers in their journals. Reviews are judged on promptness and quality and reviewers earn points that they can exchange for meeting registration, SETAC dues, and other rewards. Also, all reviewers of SETAC journals are invited to a reception/social at the SETAC meetings.
As another reward, SETAC gives Outstanding Reviewer Awards and selects members of the Editorial Boards from their reviewers. SETAC journals have an Editor-in-Chief for each journal, Editors (which some journals would call Associate Editors), and an Editorial Board (which is basically a reward and recognition for past reviewing service as well as a stepping stone to becoming an Editor).
I'm am member of SETAC as well as an Editorial Board member and this approach seems to help the Society get reviewers.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: There are a number of quite reputable journals that actually do give public "outstanding reviewer" awards, and their value ([while not large](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/103607/do-certificates-for-outstanding-reviewer-contribution-matter)) is non-trivial.
If the journal announces their awards publicly online, as these tend to do, then there's no worry about faking a certificate or such. It's probably not going to win anybody a job, but it's another line on the "service" or "awards" portion of a person's CV, and it will be noticed in their community.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_7: Good journals tend to have an extensive editorial board. There are usually various categories.
For example, the [editorial board for Journal of Applied Psychology](http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/apl/?tab=2) at the time of posting, has
* 1 editor
* a little over 10 associate editors
* over 200 contributing editors
Admittedly, this is a massive journal with a huge reputation. Also, the exact names of these categories varies by discipline and journal (e.g., the levels might be editor in chief, editor, and associate editor).
But the point is that if a reviewer is reviewing a lot of articles and doing their reviews well, a good way to reward them is to offer them a position on the editorial board. This is important recognition for many academics that may help them with getting jobs, promotions, grants, prizes, and so on.
Note that this answer duplicates [some discussion in this other answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/116537/62). A commenter said
>
> I think that is pretty rare, given the numbers of reviewers and editors needed.
>
>
>
The key response to this is that you are not inviting the reviewer to be the editor. You are inviting them to be part of the editorial board. There are no limits to how many people can be listed.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_8: A significant sum of money would be the best option if you are serious about rewarding and expect to encourage further good reviews. You make it sound like you are too broke to give out even a few thousand, so perhaps your operation is too small to be support this sort of reward at all. I would mention something like free conference attendance or travel aid, but probably those run into the same issue with lack of funds.
The certificate is unlikely to have much weight. Certificates don't really improve your prestige or status by much. For a junior academic they might make for some decent CV padding material, but most reasonably successful academics seem to have much more impressive accolades already (grants, recognition from professional societies, papers in prestigious journals). It would have to be an underrated researcher indeed for the "best of reviewer of 2018" certificate to make much difference. The authenticity problem you mention is a non-issue: Simply list past awardees on your journal's website and fakers will be instantly exposed. Granted, if you really admire the reviewers and think they should be recognized, I think it's not a bad idea to list them on your website anyway - not as a reward, but as a way of giving credit where due.
The free book is at best a nice gesture. I don't think books are unaffordable for the average academic, and most likely they are available for free through their library. Unless the book has some kind of exclusive branding, all it does is save the recipient a very cheap Amazon purchase. Reading books is a fairly private activity, so you wouldn't really brag about getting a free book, nor would you question people about where they got a book (the obvious answer being that they probably bought it from a bookseller like everyone else). It is also a bit strange to me that you say books are too expensive. Maybe we're talking about extremely valuable, rare volumes here, the kind fancy bookstores keep under a glass display with a padlock? Or are you really too broke to send a few books out every few months? If the latter, perhaps it's time to worry about finances, not awards.
Cheaper open access (doesn't "open access" already mean it's free?) and subscription seems almost a non-gift to me, possibly more trouble than it's worth. From what I've seen, most normal people access papers through some automated system provided by their campus network or library proxy, which shows the papers as if they're subscribed without any login being necessary. If you give people personal subscription, you now give them yet another account to forget the password to. Imagine if every journal did this: The only way to take advantage of the "reward" is to juggle a dozen journal accounts. Besides, many people do indeed have access to institutional subscription anyway. And, aren't reviewers usually people who have previously published in your journal? How/why would they publish with you if they don't even have access to you?
Since cash is out, I think your best option is to provide something cheap and/or worthless, but branded so as to derive prestige from exclusivity. Tshirts, mugs, hats and other swag with either just your journal's logo, or something like "best reviewer of 2018" on it, is a nice conversation starter and status symbol. The items themselves are dirt cheap (well, not to you, if you think books are too expensive...) and the value is basically created out of thin air by virtue of your branding.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_9: >
> Cheaper open access. This is doable: there's a discretionary range with OA APCs (to e.g. offer bulk discounts and to waive them for authors from developing countries).
>
>
>
How about you upgrade this. Instead of "cheaper", make it "free", and make it a voucher than can be used by anyone. Then, if the reviewers themselves are too important to publish in your journal, this gives them some form of currency they can trade or gift as will. Something along the lines of:
>
> Hey, can you run those samples for me in your instrument? I don't have any funding but I have 2 APC waiver vouchers you can use when you submit to the Journal of Waiver Vouchers!
>
>
>
---
>
> However many reviewers never publish in the journal they review for, and even if they do they might not want to publish open access.
>
>
>
Other than that, people don't generally refuse to publish open access. They find paying the fees (even if extremely low) an obstacle, sometimes more mental than financial. Why pay to publish in this journal when you can publish in the other journal for free? Readership isn't always important, because people assume everyone has access to paywalled articles somehow (whether legal or not). By removing the fee obstacle, you're making it easier to publish.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_10: The American Physical Society (publisher of Physical Reviews, one of the principal series of physics journals) has what they call and [Outstanding Reviewer Program](https://journals.aps.org/OutstandingReferees) about which they state:
>
> The highly selective Outstanding Referee program annually recognizes
> about 150 of the roughly 67,000 currently active referees.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_11: Editors should be able to award reputation points to good reviewers. These points can then be used as follows. Say a reviewer's paper is rejected and told not to resubmit. He/she should then be able to 'cash in' some of these points and be allowed to resubmit the paper after revision. These points can also signal an editor that an author is a key contributor to the journal. Hence, he/she should handle the author's paper 'better' (up to you how you want to define 'better').
Overall, the aim is to reduce the 'randomness' in the review process. The points are by no means used to bypass the review process.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_12: The assumption that paying referees is unaffordable is not obvious. Particularly for a society journal which isn’t seeking to maximise its profit. Some journals (in Economics and Finance at least) do pay referees for reports. Often this is associated with providing a report within a given timeframe. See [here](https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/aer/reviewers) for example. The Journal of Financial Economics pays a referees $350 (per round) ([see here](http://jfe.rochester.edu/time.htm)) and offers a discount on future submissions, and also publishes statistics on editor and referees median turnaround times. Note, that a submission costs $750 (per round) such that with three referees per paper the journal faces a substantial cost per paper.
Upvotes: 1
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2018/09/07
| 801
| 3,496
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<issue_start>username_0: I have finished my PhD in pure mathematics 3 months ago, and have just (one week ago) started a 1 year post doc appointment in another area of applied mathematics (it has only very very minor links with my PhD, and I really don't know how it will turn out - but I am not very into it so far).
I have had this offer for a few months, and took it because my other post doc applications in areas more closely related to my original topic were rejected; I was on the shortlist many times, but ended up 2nd in the final choice.
Now I have yet another opportunity to apply for a post doc in a topic that is close to my PhD, back in my home country, with people who are world-leading experts in my field, at a world leading, prestigious department and university (my current one isn't). Another advantage is that my current post doc only has guaranteed funding for 1 year, while the one I want to apply for, has 2 years.
This post doc has a provisional starting date in 2 months time. This means I'd have only worked in my current position also for only 2 months.
In my situation, is it advisable on the application form to state that I have currently just started on a post doc, or say absolutely nothing at all (i.e. not even mention this on my CV)?
I am worried that it won't look good on my application that I am applying for new jobs after having barely started the first one.<issue_comment>username_1: (*This answer assumed the OP was going to be job hunting after a few months for a new position following his current one. Clarifications given in the comments shows the OP expects to leave the current one-year position after a few months, instead.*)
If your first position is only a year long, then it is expected that you will already be searching for a new position before you've even arrived at the current one. There's simply no choice: most committees are already forming short lists a month or two into the academic year. This is what makes one year positions brutal: as soon as you get one you've got to start hunting for the next one, but your current post-doc position still expects to see you engaged and active in research and whatever teaching you may have.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: You should optimise for you, rather than your employer. With this in mind, apply for the second post-doc and push the start date back (by a few months) if you're accepted. Then you get more benefit from your current position and security from the second.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I am going to disagree with the current answer. While it is true that there is a certain amount of expectation that short contract postdocs are looking for their next position, you have just started your first postdoc.
The first postdoc is the hardest one to get. What gets you your second postdoc is doing a good job in your first postdoc. I would be putting all my energy into doing a good job now so that you can get a reference and also get some assistance in looking for your next job.
Once you have been there for a little time, you can have a conversation about your future, including the likelihood of extensions. At that time you can start applying elsewhere for your next position. Starting looking around now will just distract you from making connections where you are.
These are also in different countries and there are practical issues. What are you doing about the expense of moving? Have you entered into a rental agreement yet?
Upvotes: 2
|
2018/09/07
| 899
| 3,480
|
<issue_start>username_0: Is it considered ethical to sign yourself with name followed by PhD when in fact your doctorate was a DTech?<issue_comment>username_1: Ethically, you should portray yourself accurately. So don't say PhD unless that is your degree. It might even be considered, by some, as an attempt to defraud.
If the DTech degree stands on its own, then there is no issue with using it. But if some consider it a "lesser" degree then they would interpret saying PhD as an attempt to give yourself a promotion.
So, not only an ethical issue, but a practical one.
Note that the US NSF has definitions of which degrees it considers "research doctorates" and hence "equivalent" to a PhD. But not that they *are* PhDs.
Of course, for usage outside the US, there are different conventions. If the country in which the degree was earned considers the degree to be equivalent then it is, but it still is not a PhD. Be accurate. When it matters, you can, of course, explain the background.
However, DTech is a bit tricky since it can be a higher level (than PhD) degree from some UK institutions, but a lesser level degree from others. [Higher-level degrees normally require a doctorate be earned previously](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_of_Technology).
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: Of course it’s unethical. Misrepresenting your educational credentials is always unethical. The details of why you rationalize doing it are irrelevant - if you don’t have a PhD, don’t write the letters “PhD” after your name. For example, a friend of mine has a doctorate in mathematics from Oxford. Cool, right? But guess what, he doesn’t have a “PhD”, he has a [DPhil](https://uni-of-oxford.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/185/~/what-is-a-dphil%3F), so that’s how he signs his name when he wants people to know about his doctorate.
**Edit:** the comments below go into lengthy discussions concerning the precise nature of the distinction between the PhD and DPhil degrees. This may be an interesting question, but is off-topic and has no bearing on OP’s question or my answer to it, because: first of all, OP asked about a DTech degree, not a DPhil; secondly, my answer addresses the specific context of signing your name “firstname lastname, PhD” when you have a degree other than a PhD. In that context, a person signing their name that way is engaging in an obvious misrepresentation of their educational credentials. As I said, intentionally misrepresenting such information is unethical, and I would advise against it.
As for other contexts such as a casual conversation with a family member who doesn’t know or care about the minutiae of various academic degrees and their significance, my answer might have been different, but that’s not what was asked about so I see no need to discuss it.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: In general it is a misrepresentation to list a kind of degree that you have not earned. The best way to list the degree is as it was awarded by the institution from which it was earned: if it's a "DTech," list it as a "DTech"; if it's a "DPhil" or "PhD" list it as "DPhil" or "PhD", respectively.
One other thing to consider is that in some countries—particularly in Central Europe—it is not only unethical but *illegal* to misrepresent one's credentials and to misuse titles one has not earned, so it is better to err on the side of caution and not claim anything for which you do not have "hard" documentation.
Upvotes: 2
|
2018/09/07
| 461
| 1,910
|
<issue_start>username_0: I am about to finish my first postdoc (2 yrs) and the positions and grants that I am applying to frequently require me to specify and explain any career breaks. I feel somewhat uneasy about this since I was out of work for a year and a half after finishing my PhD, due to the fact that I could not find a postdoc position.
During this time I was not able to do any science as I was not affiliated with an institution. I also submitted nearly 90 applications, almost all of which were tailor made. This required a lot of time and effort.
The 1.5 yr gap is the only stain on my otherwise good CV and academic track record. Any suggestions on how to approach this issue would be much appreciated.<issue_comment>username_1: I would not explain this short break. When they ask for breaks, they usually mean breaks of 5-10 years.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: I wouldn't bother to explain a break this short on your CV directly. I would instead just have a "canned" response ready when people ask you about it that puts a spin on it to look as good as possible. Something like:
"I wanted to make sure that I stayed in the field that I wanted to be in, and proper opportunities can be hard to come by, and short-lived. I applied for over 90 post-doc positions over that time, but decided that I wanted to make sure that I was open if the right opportunity came along, so I didn't take other work. Instead, I lent extra support to my partner as they started a new position, and made sure that the applications that I put out were top-notch."
Based on your question and comment, none of that is likely dishonest, it's just a nice and clean way to describe what happened in your life during that time. They really just want to make sure you didn't get bored in your field, but seems like you stayed engaged and dedicated to your field, so I wouldn't see it as a problem.
Upvotes: 2
|
2018/09/07
| 1,266
| 5,423
|
<issue_start>username_0: The Duale Hochschule has published [this guideline (German)](http://www.dhbw.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Dokumente/Dokumente_fuer_Studierende/Richtlinien_fuer_Bearbeitung_und_Dokumentation.pdf) (this question might be specific to the studies in Germany) and it does quite a good job explaining how literature shall be cited and put into a bibliography.
Now, in the evaluation sheet for the paper and thesis, literature research is mainly judged by its academic character, i.e. it should be primary sources, qualified links etc. I'm fine with that as well. My students should try to find and understand primary literature.
However, here's a caveat: the studies is Informatics. When they implement an application, the students use software libraries. Personally, I'd like to know the sources of those libraries, because some of them are not unique by their name.
I can understand that the students don't want to put them into bibliography, because they might not be scientific or academic, they are just a tool. However, there are sentences like
>
> To get around problem X, I use library Y.
>
>
>
IMHO, such decisions are ok, they don't require special research. Other researchers may simply use a tool ("hammer") to solve a problem without thinking much about it as well. Not mentioning such a library fix would leave others in a situation where the paper is not helpful.
How to deal with that situation and why?
Should the software libraries
* be part of the bibliography,
* get their separate list of "software" references,
* just be mentioned in a footnote when the library name first occurs,
* not be mentioned at all
* ...<issue_comment>username_1: As a computer scientist, I often encounter this as well. I have seen three main approaches used, in decreasing order of preference
1. Cite the paper about the software, if one exists: academic software is often the subject of papers, and the authors very much appreciate those citations, often explicitly requesting them in the software documentation.
2. Cite the software as a miscellaneous reference: most citation styles will have an explicit recommended means for doing so, (e.g., [this post on APA software citations](http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2015/01/how-to-cite-software-in-apa-style.html))
3. The first time the software is mentioned, put a link to the software in a footnote or parentheses.
The earlier ones are better for the authors of the software, but I have sometimes had journals refuse to allow me to give a proper citation.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: If a particular piece of software is essential to achieving an end then it is probably best to cite it explicitly, including version number. This makes it possible to reproduce results. However if it is a generic tool then it may not be so important. Operating systems are usually interchangeable for most purposes as are many middleware tools. But specific statistical or mathematical libraries might be more important to name.
However, it is good to at least acknowledge, say in a footnote or acknowledgment section, the creator of any tools you depend on.
However, as an educator, it might also be good for you to over stress citation at least a bit so that students get in the habit of it for their later work.
How you cite it is probably less important than the fact that you do, however.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I'll add to @username_1's excellent answer that citing the authors of software packages also gives them the credit they are due. Whether you rely on previous researchers' work in the form of publications or in the form of research software, they ought to get credit in the form of a citation.
We can argue all day long whether citation credit *should* towards people's job evaluations, but the fact is that it does. If we want to encourage people to make the software that comes out of their research public and available to others (as we do when we require people to *publish* papers), then we need to make sure that the incentives are so that they will *want* to make their software available. One way to do this is to ask people to cite the relevant papers/websites/sources whenever they use research software packages.
(This would not apply to commercial packages such as MS Word, Mathematica, etc, since for their authors, the incentive structure is different. Although I would point out that if your research depends on one package specifically -- as opposed to something like MS Word, which you could easily substitute by LibreOffice Writer -- then you probably want to mention and cite that.)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: In a lot of ways code is just math, but fleshed out to be more applicable and user friendly. In that sense libraries (especially open source ones) should go in your bibliography. As others have mentioned, this also encourages academics to write more usable code, gives credit where it's due, and makes your work more reproducible. Any journal that doesn't understand this is stuck in the past and isn't helping science.
If people object to you citing ephemeral things like URLs or github repos in your bibliography, you might also try to encourage the author of the library to create a more citation-friendly resources. There are several services like zenodo (<https://zenodo.org/>) which will give you a DOI and archive code releases.
Upvotes: 1
|
2018/09/07
| 1,231
| 4,906
|
<issue_start>username_0: Context: Back in May I had asked a prominent professor whom I really admire for research opportunity. He gave me some study material to do over the summer and said he'd decide in the Fall. So in August, he "accepts me", but he also decided to let me work together with another undergraduate (who asked in August) on this project. This was two weeks ago. Today the other undergrad and I met with the Professor to discuss things. Working in a "group" basically ruined it for me. It's childish of me I know.
For these two weeks, I've been an absolute wreck. I've been so stressed about working with this other student. I've met with her, talked with her, and it is certainly possible for us to get along but I am just so so stressed and anxious. I feel competition exists now and it's simply a lot of pressure. I "dealt" with depression, (social) anxiety, self harm, and an eating disorder for 7-8 years now, and these past two weeks my eating disorder has gone completely out of control, since I use it for coping, I'm sleeping 5 hours max and I feel like I'm going out of my mind.
I've decided I really can't stay like this and want to withdraw from doing research with this Professor. I considered asking for an independent undergraduate level project but he did say he does not usually take undergraduate students and since beggars can't be choosers, I'm really afraid to ask. I have another professor in mind I can ask for research for my thesis (whom I'm more familiar with).
Sorry, I don't have anyone in real life I can talk to about this so I'm writing a lot on here. My point is, how can I tell this Professor I want to withdraw because of this social-anxiety-induced stress that I cannot handle? I don't want him to think I'm slacking/lazy/not interested because I am but I can't stay here (but maybe I shouldn't care about this). Is it "proper"/ok to give him the true reasons (group work) (better worded of course)? I dislike lying.
Thanks<issue_comment>username_1: I think that your interpretation of it as competition is probably misplaced. Can you reframe the situation as cooperation? There is no reason for either of you to feel like one of you is "in control" or dominant. Sharing research experiences can teach you both a lot. This isn't a zero-sum game where one must lose. But cooperative work (like most things) takes practice. You will be called to work cooperatively in your professional life and it is good to get some practice at it in your student years.
I think, also, that the conversation you want to have with your professor could be much simpler. Let him/her know that you haven't worked on a team in the past and have no experience with it. Let the other woman know as well. If you are extremely introverted it is also good to start to learn that you can act in "public" in a safe way, but that, too, takes practice.
Don't let these kinds of feelings, introversion, inadequacy, etc. control your life.
Know also that many people who are prominent in academia and in the workplace have felt these same things. Some people who are sought after public speakers have trained themselves to act as if they weren't as introverted, shy, whatever, as they really are. In effect, they play a role in public that, over time, becomes completely authentic.
I know that what I'm suggesting is very hard. I have some of those same tendencies myself. They cost me an extra three years of my graduate education, in fact. Had I been more self confident and bolder, my education would have been much simpler and shorter.
If, indeed, the issue is extreme introversion, see [here](https://csis.pace.edu/~bergin/patterns/introvertExtrovert.html) for suggestions on how others have worked through it to a better place.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: First, I hope you are working with a mental health expert; I always hate to see people lose good opportunities due to issues like this. As username_1 says, you should definitely see if there is anyway you can make this work (though, a clean break is better than performing so poorly he has to fire you. A mental health expert can help you weigh these decisions).
At any rate, to your actual question:
>
> how can I tell this Professor I want to withdraw?
>
>
>
Clearly and concisely. In person if possible, but if you cannot face that, an e-mail will do the trick:
>
> Dear Professor,
>
>
> Unfortunately, I am going to have to withdraw from research. I really enjoy working with you, the research has been very interesting, but due to some mental health issues, working in a group is not really feasible for me. It's nothing against [the other student], and I understand that research is often done in groups, but I'm not currently at a place where I can support group work. I am sorry to have to withdraw; thank you again for your efforts.
>
>
> Name
>
>
>
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
|
2018/09/08
| 3,126
| 8,140
|
<issue_start>username_0: Belgium recently passed a law allowing researchers to make any of their article open access if the majority of the research funding came from Belgium public funding
Here is the [law](http://www.ejustice.just.fgov.be/cgi/article.pl?urlimage=%2Fmopdf%2F2018%2F09%2F05_1.pdf%23Page81&caller=summary&language=fr&pub_date=2018-09-05&numac=2018031589):
>
> Art. 29. Dans l’article XI.196 du même Code, inséré par la loi du
> 19 avril 2014, il est inséré un paragraphe 2/1 rédigé comme suit:
>
>
> “§ 2/1. L’auteur d’un article scientifique issu d’une recherche
> financée pour au moins la moitié par des fonds publics conserve, même
> si, conformément à l’article XI.167, il a cédé ses droits à un éditeur d’un
> périodique ou les a placés sous une licence simple ou exclusive, le droit
> de **mettre le manuscrit gratuitement à la disposition du public en libre
> accès après un délai de douze mois pour les sciences humaines et
> sociales et six mois pour les autres sciences**, après la première
> publication, dans un périodique, moyennant mention de la source de la
> première publication.
>
>
> Le contrat d’édition peut prévoir un délai plus court que celui fixé à
> l’alinéa 1er.
>
>
> Le Roi peut prolonger le délai fixé à l’alinéa 1er.
>
>
> Il ne peut être renoncé au droit prévu à l’alinéa 1er. Ce droit est
> impératif et est d’application nonobstant le droit choisi par les parties
> dès lors qu’un point de rattachement est localisé en Belgique. Il
> s’applique également aux œuvres créées avant l’entrée en vigueur de ce
> paragraphe et non tombées dans le domaine public à ce moment.”.
>
>
>
[Google translate](https://translate.google.com/#auto/en/%3E%20%E2%80%9C%C2%A7%202%2F1.%20L%E2%80%99auteur%20d%E2%80%99un%20article%20scientifique%20issu%20d%E2%80%99une%20recherche%0Afinanc%C3%A9e%20pour%20au%20moins%20la%20moiti%C3%A9%20par%20des%20fonds%20publics%20conserve%2C%20m%C3%AAme%0Asi%2C%20conform%C3%A9ment%20%C3%A0%20l%E2%80%99article%20XI.167%2C%20il%20a%20c%C3%A9d%C3%A9%20ses%20droits%20%C3%A0%20un%20%C3%A9diteur%20d%E2%80%99un%0Ap%C3%A9riodique%20ou%20les%20a%20plac%C3%A9s%20sous%20une%20licence%20simple%20ou%20exclusive%2C%20le%20droit%0Ade%20**mettre%20le%20manuscrit%20gratuitement%20%C3%A0%20la%20disposition%20du%20public%20en%20libre%0Aacc%C3%A8s%20apr%C3%A8s%20un%20d%C3%A9lai%20de%20douze%20mois%20pour%20les%20sciences%20humaines%20et%0Asociales%20et%20six%20mois%20pour%20les%20autres%20sciences**%2C%20apr%C3%A8s%20la%20premi%C3%A8re%0Apublication%2C%20dans%20un%20p%C3%A9riodique%2C%20moyennant%20mention%20de%20la%20source%20de%20la%0Apremi%C3%A8re%20publication.%0A%0A%3E%20Le%20contrat%20d%E2%80%99%C3%A9dition%20peut%20pr%C3%A9voir%20un%20d%C3%A9lai%20plus%20court%20que%20celui%20fix%C3%A9%20%C3%A0%0Al%E2%80%99alin%C3%A9a%201er.%0A%0A%0A%3E%20Le%20Roi%20peut%20prolonger%20le%20d%C3%A9lai%20fix%C3%A9%20%C3%A0%20l%E2%80%99alin%C3%A9a%201er.%0A%0A%3E%20Il%20ne%20peut%20%C3%AAtre%20renonc%C3%A9%20au%20droit%20pr%C3%A9vu%20%C3%A0%20l%E2%80%99alin%C3%A9a%201er.%20Ce%20droit%20est%0Aimp%C3%A9ratif%20et%20est%20d%E2%80%99application%20nonobstant%20le%20droit%20choisi%20par%20les%20parties%0Ad%C3%A8s%20lors%20qu%E2%80%99un%20point%20de%20rattachement%20est%20localis%C3%A9%20en%20Belgique.%20Il%0As%E2%80%99applique%20%C3%A9galement%20aux%20%C5%93uvres%20cr%C3%A9%C3%A9es%20avant%20l%E2%80%99entr%C3%A9e%20en%20vigueur%20de%20ce%0Aparagraphe%20et%20non%20tomb%C3%A9es%20dans%20le%20domaine%20public%20%C3%A0%20ce%20moment.%E2%80%9D.):
>
> "§ 2/1. The author of a scientific article from a research
> financed for at least half by public funds, even
> if, in accordance with Article XI.167, he has assigned his rights to a publisher of a
> periodical or has placed them under a single or exclusive license, the right
> to **make the manuscript freely available to the public for free
> access after twelve months for the humanities and social sciences
> and six months for other sciences**, after the first
> publication in a periodical, subject to mentioning the source of the
> first publication.
>
>
> The publishing contract may provide for a shorter period than that set
> paragraph 1.
>
>
> The King may extend the period laid down in paragraph 1.
>
>
> The right provided for in paragraph 1 can not be waived. This right is
> imperative and applies notwithstanding the law chosen by the parties
> since a point of attachment is located in Belgium. he
> also applies to works created before the entry into force of this
> paragraph and not fallen into the public domain at that time. "
>
>
>
What's the point in waiting 6 or 12 months before allowing researchers to make their Belgium-funded article open access?<issue_comment>username_1: Because publishers lobby governments too. If the rule had been immediate open access, this would have had the potential of wrecking commercial publishers' margins. Who would subscribe to expensive journals when all the papers are open access anyway?
But note that this will soon be obsolete thanks to the new EU-wide "Plan S", which requires full and immediate open access (among other things, such as authors retaining copyright on what they have written). The plan is slated to come into effect in 2020. See <https://www.scienceeurope.org/coalition-s/>
(However, Belgium is not yet part of the plan. But the ERC is, so all EU-funded projects will have to apply the rules above. And it's not unlikely that the Belgian funding agencies would join the plan too. If I had to guess, I would say that the Belgian agencies aren't part of the plan yet because there are several of them and it was harder to coordinate a simultaneous press release.)
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I think you are reading this wrong. It's not that you are not *allowed* to make something open access before this time span, it's that you *have to* after it when public money has been used. This is called [Delayed Open Access](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_open-access_journal) (thanks to Anyon, who mentions this in a comment).
Specifically note that the journal is free to open up the paper earlier:
>
> The publishing contract may provide for a shorter period than that set paragraph 1.
>
>
>
(for instance, if you paid the open access fee). I think the most salient point is this:
>
> The right provided for in paragraph 1 can not be waived.
>
>
>
That is, you cannot sign a copyright transfer to a closed-access journal that gives them the right to not make it open access even after the closing period is over.
If you are asking why they don't require immediate open access, you are back at Najib's answer - publishing is a business, and presumably the Belgian legislation has decided that Delayed Open Access is an acceptable compromise between the publisher's interests and the public's interest in free access to scientific information.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Requiring open access after some period of time is a compromise.
On one hand, the government wants research done using public money to be public. I.e., taxpayer-funded research should be open access. The argument is that it's unfair to require taxpayers to pay a third party to view things that they have already paid for with their taxes. It's the same spirt as freedom of information laws.
On the other hand, publishers want people to pay to see "their" articles. They want to profit from the publishing of science and they have a lot of power by owning established journals.
So the compromise is to give publishers a fixed period of time to profit and then *require* it to be open access.
Note that this compromise is "future-proof". If the government later decides to demand immediate open access for research it funds, then within 6-12 months all prior work is also open access, so everything is open access. This overcomes one of the big challenges for the open access movement -- university libraries may be obliged to continue subscriptions to journals to retain access to decades-old research even if all the recent research in the area is available on arxiv.
Upvotes: 2
|
2018/09/08
| 504
| 2,197
|
<issue_start>username_0: Suppose that I am submitting my application form for admission to a PhD program in USA/Canada. When I am asked to declare my GPA, should I declare it the same original way that my university has calculated it in my transcript?
Here's the thing: I have a failed course in my transcript that was retook the next semester and I have passed it with a good grade. According to my university's policy, when a student retakes a failed course, **only the most recent grade** is considered in their GPA. So, the GPA that my university calculates is a little bit higher than just averaging all my grades. Should I declare the GPA that my university has calculated as my GPA? Or should I write down the average of all my grades and calculate it on my own?<issue_comment>username_1: You should declare the GPA that is written on your transcript and provide the transcript. You should not compute the GPA yourself. This would only introduce confusion. If someone asks, you can simply give the explanation you just gave us. You can even preemptively include an explanation somewhere in your application, with the simple explanation you wrote.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: >
> when a student retakes a failed course, only the most recent grade is considered in their GPA
>
>
>
In my US experience, this is the most common way to compute GPA. Report the GPA as it appears on your transcript (as the university reports it). NEVER calculate it on your own as the University's calculation is what it will be checked against.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Always do it the way **your university** calculates it. When applying to graduate schools, they are aware that different universities will have different ways of calculating GPA, and often will make minor recalculations to fix your GPA against other applicants. So don't waste your time fretting about this.
Of course, if you feel it's necessary, you can explain somewhere (either via recommendations or your statement of purpose) regarding the failed grade, but if it happened in your first semester or two, generally it's understood as long as the rest of your application is good.
Upvotes: 1
|
2018/09/08
| 959
| 4,161
|
<issue_start>username_0: I am a Ph.D. student (after mid stage) working in theory. I do as much hard work as I can, but there is something I think I am missing. My experience so far is many people don't know what I do and many people don't want to know what I am currently doing. Many of my fellow researchers (Ph.D. students) are very good at organizing various events that happen in the department. I've also tried but have not been as successful. I mean to say: non-research activities also seem to be very important for a researcher and also as an academician.
To be frank, I don't like non-research events very much but still try to give my best. Many professors also know that I am not that good at organizing and managing events, but they always support me. I don't know how much this is going to hurt my career as a researcher and as an academician. I am an introverted kind of person and not that good at talking to other people (especially ones who I meet for the first time).
**Question**: How to grow in these ways as a researcher? After my Ph.D. I will be looking for postdoc or another job specific to research.<issue_comment>username_1: The best way to grow as a researcher is to do research: ask questions, find answers, disseminate results.
Networking and participation in / organisation of various events are important for your development as an all-rounded academic, but this is more expected at the tenure-track stage. Your postdoc applications will be judged based on your research results in the first place.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: I would describe the areas you're concerned about as networking and service.
While neither of these are critical path for your ability to succeed as a researcher, they most certainly will make you more well-rounded and can help you in many ways, so they are definitely worthy of investing a small but significant fraction of your time and effort.
What I would advise you, however, is that there are more ways to do networking and service than taking a leadership role in organizing events. There are many other types of role that you can ask to take on that can ease you more slowly into such organizations and roles, but which won't push you out of your comfort zone too quickly. Two good directions that I would recommend are:
* Secondary event organizing positions, such as web chair, publication chair (i.e., the person who turns accepted papers into proceedings), local arrangements chair, tutorials chair, publicity chair, etc.
* Reviewing for journals and conferences (often starting as a "sub-reviewer" for your advisor or other professors you work closely with)
The professors that support you can likely help you get such opportunities, and from these "training wheels" positions you can start to establish yourself as a known contributor in your professional community and start getting more comfortable with more visible roles and more active forms of networking.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> How to grow in these ways as a researcher? After my Ph.D. I will be
> looking for postdoc or another job specific to research.
>
>
>
Everyone has parts of their job that they hate. For many researchers, including myself, "Networking" falls into this category. A couple suggestions that have proven helpful, at least in my case, or the cases of people I have watched closely:
* Volunteer at conferences. Some conferences have student room monitors, registration desk helpers, etc. In my experience, beyond getting a break on registration, these are often remarkably good ways to meet important people in your field in a way where there is a natural introduction, and a sort of structured means to exit the conversation.
* Twitter. While social media is often dangerous (see: many, many public personalities), engaging with your field on Twitter is a decent way to increase your visibility and meet new people - again in a fairly low impact way. There are several people in my field who are *far* more prominent than they otherwise would be for due to their social media engagement, and I've met at least two of my co-authors through social media.
Upvotes: 2
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2018/09/08
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<issue_start>username_0: So I'm dealing with a very weird case here. I'm a PhD student and my wife is currently taking a history course at a different university. Apparently this instructor says he has tenure so no one can do anything about his rambling.
He spends a sizable chunk of the course ranting about how evolution is false because there's no proof of it, that Neanderthals didn't exist, and how humans aren't apes. He also claimed the Earth isn't 4 billion years old and people lived with dinosaurs.
This is obviously very obnoxious and disturbing to sit through. But is it true that his rambling is protected by tenure? If we were to complain could anything be done? Thanks.<issue_comment>username_1: Having tenure doesn't mean a professor can spend large amounts of time in a course talking about off-topic things. They still have a duty to teach the subject of the course.
Have your wife talk to the department chair if she feels she isn't receiving the education that she expects from the course.
Upvotes: 7 <issue_comment>username_2: In general, yes, tenure protects you from retaliation for anything you say, write, research, etc. That is the point of it. But the instructor still has to teach his/her course. If this is going on in a math course, then a complaint could come about not teaching math.
But in a biology course, the person could probably make a case that they *are* teaching biology, even when they are actually rejecting science and its underlying principles.
The student also has academic freedom, I'll point out, so speaking out against a creationist professor should never result in any sanction. That, unfortunately, is harder to guarantee.
Another issue, of course, is whether the instructor is requiring students to adopt anti-scientific positions for any reason. You can't attack a person for their religious beliefs, of course, and under tenure you can't attack them for speaking about those beliefs, but you can require that they not try to undermine the beliefs of others.
One effective way to counter ineffective teachers is to avoid them. If that isn't really possible then complaints to the dean, etc. or letters to the editor, etc. are certainly possible. But be aware that you are very unlikely to change the minds of people who choose to ignore science using any argument whatever. There is some research, in fact, that arguing with such people only deepens their belief.
From the Dean's standpoint, while he/she may not be able to fire a misbehaving teacher for what they say, there is no reason for the Dean to be required to let that person anywhere near students, or promote them, or give them raises, etc.
Finally, in some (but sadly not all) places, the other faculty can provide helpful peer-pressure against instructors who use their classroom time to proselytize rather than teach.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: Faculty at my university, and I would imagine at any large university in the US, are bound by the terms of a technical document with a title such as “Faculty Code of Conduct” or something similar. If you look at [this document for my university](https://www.ucop.edu/academic-personnel-programs/_files/apm/apm-015.pdf), you find descriptions of certain behaviors described as “unacceptable behavior” for a faculty member. Notably:
>
> **Types of unacceptable conduct:**
>
>
> 1. Failure to meet the responsibilities of instruction, including:
>
>
> ...
>
>
> (b) significant intrusion of material unrelated to the course;
>
>
> ...
>
>
> 2. Discrimination, including harassment, against a student on political grounds, or
> for reasons of race, color, religion, [...], or, within the limits imposed by law or University regulations, because of age or citizenship or for other arbitrary or personal reasons.
>
>
>
The faculty code of conduct also contains procedures that are in place for disciplining professors who engage in unacceptable behavior. The bottom line is that tenure is not a “get out of jail free” card to engage in any sort of unprofessional behavior. In theory, a faculty member who violates the code of conduct can get fired. At the same time, termination is an extremely rare and unusual punishment, and there are other milder forms of discipline that are much more likely to happen first (or at all). Moreover, the process for getting someone fired is very long and complicated. So, to a first order approximation, it is essentially correct to say that with extremely high probability your wife’s professor won’t be fired for the things he said in class about evolution.
With that said, your wife can and should complain about her professor behaving unprofessionally in class. Her university has processes for dealing with such issues, and it is likely that a complaint can lead to the situation improving for her and other students, and to the professor suffering some consequences for his actions.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_4: This is a difficult position to be in, but I'm alarmed that most of the other posts here seem to be discussing how to get a tenured professor fired or negatively impacted.
You should be focused on helping either your wife and/or other students, NOT on harming the instructor. If your efforts seem focused on harming the career/public opinion of a tenured professor, the dean should, and hopefully will, meet those efforts to the defense of the instructor, which could result in very negative consequences to you and/or your wife.
Regardless of what you hope to achieve, ask the dean what your options are. If a professor is acting like this, it is extremely likely that the dean knows about it, and has heard complaints from other students. Most likely, your wife would be allowed to drop the course or transfer to another section with a different instructor without significant incident. If other students are having similar problems, the onus is on them to act similarly.
If you are really dead-set on trying to get the instructor reprimanded or fired, then take a video of the class, and be willing to accept it if the dean tells you that they can't do anything. There could be a lot of politics happening that you have no awareness of.
I would avoid the following:
Making a scene during class, arguing with the instructor in front of the class (do **not** pull a "God is Dead" moment in reverse), or actively attempting to get the instructor fired.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: I perceive two distinct issues that you bring up with this question. It seems that the direct questions ("How much time is OK to dedicate to this in history class? Is this behavior protected by tenure?") have been addressed by other answers. I would like to examine whether it should be obnoxious and disturbing for the professor to make his unusual claims.
>
> Evolution is false because it is not proven.
>
>
>
That evolution is not proven is acknowledged, and even asserted, by evolution's authorities such as [UC Berkeley](https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/teach/68pitfalls.php#1e). So on the notion that an idea is only true if it has been "proven", this would be the natural implication. Instead,
>
> Scientists gather evidence which might help support or refute hypotheses and theories, but these ideas can never be absolutely proven, even when supported by many different lines of evidence.
>
>
> *UC Berkeley, Understanding Evolution, Teaching materials, 6-8 Teachers' lounge, Avoiding common teaching pitfalls, 1. Choosing your words carefully. <https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/teach/68pitfalls.php#1e>*
>
>
>
When the professor asserts that "anything not proven is false" he is repeating a common fallacy in science education. <NAME> wrote in Quora in 2017:
>
> All science is merely the current best model. Science is impermanent. It is, by definition, in constant flux. You can never have 100% proof of anything. There will always be doubt.
>
>
> This comes as a bit of a shock to many people. At school we’re taught science in terms of absolute facts— and this attitude persists rather a long time, into university education as well.
>
>
> It takes a surprisingly long time for the new information you are being taught to finally be bookended with the phrase “of course, this is all based on the validity of model XYZ, which may turn out to be false.”
>
>
> <https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/12/14/theres-no-such-thing-as-proof-in-the-scientific-world-theres-only-evidence/#215633255392>, reparagraphed by me
>
>
>
It may be that the professor is misguided: doesn’t this mean that the theories of gravitational attraction and the conservation of energy aren’t true either?
Instead of this absurdity, perhaps the professor is using the apparent contradiction between "evolution is a universal concept in biology" and "there is not 100% proof for evolution" to bring students face-to-face with the academic notion of *doubt*.
---
>
> But isn’t this off-topic in a history class?
>
>
>
While it may seem odd for the subjects of human origins and evolution to appear in a history class, they appear as Key Concept 1.1 in AP World History (an American standardized college-level course):
>
> Key Concept 1.1
>
>
> The term *big geography* draws attention to the global nature of world history. Throughout the Paleolithic period, humans migrated from Africa to Eurasia, Australia, and the Americas. Early humans were mobile and creative in adapting to different geographical settings from savanna to desert to tundra. Humans also developed varied and sophisticated technologies.
>
>
> *AP World History, July 2017 edition. Note that in 2019, this course will be split into AP World History: Modern (1200 CE - present) and AP World History: Ancient.*
>
>
>
Upvotes: 0
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2018/09/09
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<issue_start>username_0: My physics professor's course is BASED on a book, so he recommends buying one particular book. The book is good, but there are many other, better books.
Would it be a good idea to buy books other than what the professor recommended?
Note: I can't buy both, because those books are expensive!<issue_comment>username_1: You would probably just be making additional work for yourself by using a different book, even if it is superior. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't do one thing or another, just be prepared for the extra work that might be implied. This might be especially true for exam preparation.
Some professors will ask students to read a section of the text before a lecture so that they are prepared for what will be said. Usually this would be by chapter/section rather than by named topic.
But, if you have the option to speak to the professor you could ask him this question, mentioning the other proposed book(s) and getting his advice. Perhaps he will tell you why it is ok or not ok. Perhaps there is some feature of the suggest book that he will be especially dependent on for the course.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Are you sure the book you have in mind is better than the professor's recommendation? If so, you can show the book to her and see if you can change her opinion.
The downside of not using the course book is that you may have it harder finding what the professor is teaching in the book. This is especially troublesome if she is assigning homework problems directly from the book. Occasionally there might even be a difference in what the two books say, and the professor might default to the course book.
Something else you might be able to do is buy the course book, then borrow the new book from your university's library. You probably can't do it the other way, because course books are usually in high demand and the library won't be able to lend the book to you long-term.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Course book's importance is very variable among different lecturers. I'll give you two marginal examples:
One lecturer in organic chemistry in my university keeps using a certain book, in which course topics, problems and even the words he uses comes from that book, don't go to the course but read the book and you will still learn everything he lectured on that time.
Another one, formally, has a book in course syllabus but never recommend it, when everyone begs him to suggest a coursebook, he says a couple of books but actually totally irrelevant. He has used many of his exam questions from a 3 specific and very old books for more than 20 years and actually everything is on the notes he has on his hand while lecturing, again a combination of quite old books, have them and you get 100/100 from exams.
You may guess, that it is really up to your lecturer about what coursebook you need to buy or borrow from library. But I will make another suggestion, again from one of the professor's back then: "If you want to learn the subject, try to ask questions and give answers by yourself, and then criticize your answers again. You will never have opportunity to go check the corrections of your answers in real life. "
I, too, sincerely suggest you this last idea, continuously criticizing and considering about what you learn will really help you comprehend the idea, unlike clinging to one or two books. Still, for the sake of grades, borrow course book two days before the exams and work on its questions/problems, as well.
Upvotes: 0
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2018/09/09
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a Ph.D. student. I submitted my paper to a highly prestigious journal and also answered with a very detailed and long answer to a reject & resubmit type of revise to this journal. I think it took a long time for the journal and its referees to read and decide.
At the same time, I have a very severe financial condition as my source of finance, cuts my salary since my Ph.D. got longer than their standard duration for a Ph.D. I want to find a paid sabbatical leave. I decided to send my papers to many people in order to find such a one year job. I want to know is it a good idea to send my last submission to this journal without telling the name of the journal to through email to obtain a paid sabbatical leave which I think is rare.
What's your advice for me? Thank you very much.<issue_comment>username_1: I'm not familiar with paid sabbaticals for students. They are normally granted to tenured academics, at least in my experience. But for any sort of leave from your studies, I don't think there is any issue about revealing your "work in progress" to potential employers. Since it is under review you might be interfering with the blind review process but that is really for the editor to manage. The work is yours until you give up copyright to a journal.
But, you should check the policies of the journal. It may be that in submitting, you are implicitly agreeing not to share the work during the review process. If that is the case, however, your option would be to withdraw the paper.
It is also possible that you would consider asking this question of the journal editor and ask for advice there. It might nudge the editor to make a decision, whether favorable or unfavorable.
But prior to publishing the work, it is best to label it as "in progress."
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: In my experience, most hiring managers or hiring faculty have a specific background or skill set in mind for a particular open position, this is doubly so for a short-term position (no time for on-the-job training). From that perspective, they will likely already have made their mind up about you by the time they finish a cover letter and a CV. Overwhelming them with extraneous information, such as providing them with a 10+ page draft manuscript, is actually more likely to **damage** your chances of being hired, compared with a well-thought-out cover letter and a clear CV.
You should feel free to discuss the manuscript in your cover letter by providing a succinct summary of the work and its context, particularly if you think it has the chance of being published in a prestigious journal (i.e. it exemplifies the quality of work you could be expected to produce in your hypothetical paid position). I would also list it on my CV: in my field (engineering), students listing manuscripts that aren't yet published in their publication list is generally standard practice. Just make sure to label clearly as "manuscript in preparation," and **don't** list the journal it is submitted to, since this is meaningless unless the paper is actually accepted, i.e.:
* Author A, Author B,..., "Title," *manuscript in preparation* (2018).
Upvotes: 2 [selected_answer]
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2018/09/09
| 555
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<issue_start>username_0: I am revising a paper submitted to IEEE TVT journal. I'm quite tight on time and trying to complete the paper revision by its deadline which is on Sep 10,2018 (Monday).
Does anyone have a paper on TVT and know the exact meaning of deadline for this journal ? Is it on Sunday night or Monday night ?<issue_comment>username_1: **Relax**. Journal deadlines [are not strict](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/49109/how-strict-are-paper-revision-deadlines) (unless they are for special issues with a set publication date). They're more intended to help keep the journal organized. Chances are you can go weeks past the deadline and nothing will happen, although if you wait months, your submission might be removed as dormant.
If you're still concerned, ask for a deadline extension. It's likely the journal will grant it.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: While a journal editor is unlikely to completely reject your paper for missing a deadline, there are things you should consider. The first is that you should keep the editor informed if you will miss a deadline, ask for an extension, and provide a realistic estimate for completion.
One reason for providing a deadline is just to keep you working. But note that an editor will typically have several issues in preparation at the same time. There may be restrictions on total length of an issue, both minimum and maximum, and the editor may already have a slot in mind for your paper, provided that you complete in time to fit the production schedule.
If you miss the deadline, then, while the paper may still be accepted, it may be delayed in publication, possibly for quite a while. That might be especially true for a long paper.
Of course, if there is no *physical* version of the publication and everything is done online, then the length is less of an issue. However, the editor may also have an idea about a *theme* for each issue and your paper may fit that theme for an upcoming issue. If you miss deadlines then it may take even longer, until that theme comes up again or a more general issue is created.
It is to your advantage, in just about every way, to work with the editor to make his/her life easier. It is a mutual thing. In particular, don't make assumptions that, if incorrect, make life difficult for both you and the editor. It is easy enough in most cases to find out what you need to know.
Upvotes: 0
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2018/09/09
| 452
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<issue_start>username_0: I am going to apply for a postdoc position. I exchanged emails with one of the professors as potential mentor and he told me to mention his name in my research statement. In which part of the research statement his name must be written? Is it enough to write it in the first paragraph?<issue_comment>username_1: Your research statement should probably mention the new potential mentor's name in the context in which his research interests align with yours. So give a bit more than just the statement that he has agreed to mentor you. In other words, say why it would be a good plan for you to work with him.
As to having your previous advisor give you advice on your research statement, there is no ethical concern at all. It is natural for you to continue to seek professional advice from your doctoral advisor. Your relationship doesn't break when you finish your degree. It changes a bit, as you become his colleague in the field, rather than his student.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I don't think it matters so much *where* you mention your potential advisor, as long as you do it **very, very prominently**. From what I understand the fact that you already have an advisor in mind is a key fact in the application procedure, and you should never assume that the evaluation committee reads your letter with care. That is, format / write it in a way that even an evaluator who only glances over your letter will understand this fact.
With that in mind, I suggest to bring up your advisor (at least) in your cover letter, in the introduction, and maybe in the conclusions of your research statement. You don't need to be heavy-handed about this - it is ok if you add something along the lines of "I am very much looking forward to work with Prof. X on Y" in a few places, although at least once in your statement you probably want to have a small dedicated paragraph where you discuss that you have been encouraged by Prof. X to apply to work with them.
Upvotes: 1
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2018/09/09
| 1,687
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<issue_start>username_0: Brief explanation:
I have came up with an M.Sc. thesis idea to my advisor 11 months ago. She supervised but especially in last months not sufficiently for reasons, and I have added very much content at those times. She then led me to the committee without being able to read thesis completely and committee members also were not related to the subject. In presentation of the thesis, one of the member started to ask weird questions and gave reactions to my answers in a humiliating tone, and with time other members forbid me to answer the questions and as a result they simply asked something and automatically assumed that I did not know about that and I should correct them in thesis. Later, I was behaved like I actually was not worth to be graduated but they still granted me with that. Finally, I feel to be judged unfairly and very depressed. I wonder how much I am to blame here.
Chronologic long explanation:
I have made a modeling research on nitrate reactive transport in groundwater. For 10 months, without a single day break I have worked on learning the required tools, finding data from internet, conducting models, writing thesis and also consulting relevant faculty. At the end we had more than 180 pages of a thesis document. But the committee members we were able to find were not actually relevant to topic, the relevant ones simply ignored or rejected the offers for unknown reasons, without seeing the thesis/aim or anything.
My advisor was not able to allocate time to thoroughly read the thesis for again many reasons and as such, I had not even seen her for 3 months before committee, and only met her 10 minutes before it. In other words, it is an unfortunate fact that my advisor led me to the committee without comprehending my thesis study and unable to find relevant people for judging the suitability of my thesis for graduation. And for making things worse, I was only able to give my thesis to committee members 4 days before the event. And I have said to my advisor that one of the member did not even seem to understand a thing in the topic while I was explaining.
So the presentation commenced. I have extremely focused on my rehearsal and swiftly explained it. Afterthat, the questions came. With exception of one or two, all of them were clear misunderstandings, and again carelessness. They simply wanted me to add something to thesis with I already did, but they just did not look at those chapters so they did not know. One of them again asked a thing which I definitely clearly did in the document, and when I said so in a direct way, she got frustrated and simply tried to find an opening and humiliate me. She was unsuccessful in such attempts but as she kept getting angrier whenever I replied, other members did not permit me to answer questions anymore and they decided that I really did not know how to answer them. By humiliating, I really meant it, such as " you don't know what you are talking about, you can't say whatever you want" etc. even if it is not the case. Sometimes my advisor cut my answer and claimed something completely incorrect about my thesis and the members stopped taking me seriously, as it contradicted with my more than hour explanations and they simply automatically assumed that advisor knows the thesis much more than the actual writer. And as with my gossip about a member not understanding a thing, my advisor directly said these words to other members (this one is different than the frustrated one, albeit she also acted in the same way).
Then they let me out and decided about the outcome, as a result they declared that "normally you would get an extension but we thought maybe you will correct your mistakes in one month length so we let you graduate". They stated a couple of times that a thesis should be understood even by a five-year-old child, with a serious complexion. Yet, I even know that some of the members did not even upload their M.Sc. thesis to online national database, which has been obligatory since 2006 and voluntarily for thesis done before, let alone 5 year old no one even is able to reach.
I know there are theses much worse in condition than mine, also there are thesis much better. I have tried to do something sufficient. Yet, without any clear understanding by them I feel like I was harshly judged. As I explained, I have worked on this without a one day break for more than 10 months, might sound to some as feeble, but no one I saw worked harder than me around. I felt like a complete failure and really lost my motivation on even doing a simplest things I enjoyed before.
I might take any advice on how to cope with this depression as it is directly related to the overall process, I want to know how much I am to blame here given the circumstances.<issue_comment>username_1: We cannot judge who was right and who was wrong without having been there and having read the thesis. Given your description, you may have been right at some of the points, but it looks to me that there is also a lot you can learn from the comments you got from the committee.
Therefore the best advice I can give you is to accept your graduation and move on. Above all, I advise you to learn from the experience and see what **you** can change in the future (both scientifically and personally) to prevent similar problems from occurring.
It is not important to find out who is to **blame**. The only thing that matters is what **you** can change to improve yourself and get better at dealing with criticism in the future: this may not be easy, but blaming others (or yourself) is useless, regardless of who is right: just learn from the experience and move on.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: There isn't much you can do after the fact to change what happened with your thesis committee, as louic mentions.
However, there are certainly some red flags to me in the proceedings that you could have controlled. The biggest issue is related to the length of the thesis. A master's thesis that is 180 pages long seems very excessive—this is as long as or even longer than many PhD theses. The consequences of turning in a document that long are significant. First, many schools have length restrictions on the thesis document; you may have "lucked out" and attend a school that doesn't. But it is entirely possible at some schools that your thesis would be rejected on length arguments alone.
More importantly, reading, let alone, reviewing such a long document **takes time**. You gave your committee your thesis four days before your defense. The odds that every member of the committee read it in that time, given its length and the short timeline, is essentially zero. By doing so, you already placed yourself in a hole with respect to the thesis defense. Because the committee was likely already in a bit of a foul mood after getting such a large document and didn't have time to review it, they were probably more likely to be combative than if the process had gone more smoothly.
You may also be in a department (or had thesis committee members whose "home department") that has a culture where the thesis defense is intentionally "confrontational." This is unfortunate when it takes place but depends on the composition of the committee and is something the student has little control over.
Upvotes: 3
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2018/09/09
| 1,012
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<issue_start>username_0: Yesterday, I deposited an online document into my ResearchGate. My adviser prepared this document for a research proposal. I did not change anything and even I did not wrote that document at all because he just wrote that proposal and because my name was there I thought it's a good idea to put that in my ResearchGate account. Because it's already online somewhere and people could find it by searching in Google but it doesn't have DOI. Today, my adviser sent an email to me and said you can't publish something with my name without my consent and you should remove it from ResearchGate. I apologized and removed it immediately. I'm wondering because I did not publish it I just deposited that document into ResearchGate, which is already online somewhere else and people could find that. Furthermore, even I did not write that to need approval for the content because he wrote that completely. Right now it is completely deleted and I don't care really but I just feel that it was true that I should be blamed or not? I appreciate any idea or suggestion.
Edited:
I don't think my question was vague but I just reiterate my arguments more briefly again maybe it makes it clear.
1. This document, which we are talking about, has two authors: me and my adviser. So it's not the work of other people.
2. This document is publicly online in an university website and people could search it in Google, find it and download it so nothing is private, confidential or in the copyright of an publisher.
3. The document is written by my adviser based on a draft which I gave him sometimes ago So it is not a "new" document which I wrote it by myself to say ok you published something which is not reviewed before publishing.
So, I don't know what's wrong to upload a document, which is already online somewhere else, in ResearchGate for better visibility. I mean it's already out there but because it's not in a public research repository maybe has less visibility and that's it.<issue_comment>username_1: Here are a few things to consider.
What it means to "publish" is open to at least a bit of interpretation. Making it available is a form of publishing.
Next, you shouldn't "publish", by any definition, the work of another without permission. So your advisor is technically (and ethically) correct.
Third, it is always advisable to follow the instructions of your advisor. There are exceptions, of course, for when you *should* follow the advice, but he is still your advisor. If you haven't completed your degree, build a good relationship with him.
However, neither is he permitted to publish your work without your consent and your question wasn't clear enough to determine if he did that himself.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: I don't think your question is (or was) unclear, but there are a few things you don't seem to consider.
First, each author has a say in a) the final form of the document to be published, b) when to make it public, and c) where to publish it. You seem to think that c) doesn't matter. While my opinion is that ResearchGate generally is pretty benign, your advisor might not agree. However, we don't need to debate the relative merits of ResearchGate to address this question. Suppose instead that your coauthor were to submit your piece of writing to a site you fundamentally disagree with, or one that's likely to reflect badly on your work by association (e.g. a site with a reputation for hosting crank or crackpot papers). Yes, you would be justified in being angry at your coauthor in this situation. To avoid such troubles, it's always best to discuss with your coauthors where, when, and how you submit something before doing so.
Second, when something gets published in a journal you usually sign a copyright transfer agreement. Depending on the journal, you might be allowed to host a copy of the published paper on your personal website but not third-party sites like ResearchGate. In that situation you might actually sabotage getting it published. Now, in this case you say the document is a grant proposal rather than a paper. I don't know if the same applies there or not, or if your advisor might simply want to keep the visibility low on this document, and instead focus on giving publicity to actual peer-reviewed publications later. After all, such documents might contain ideas that didn't work out, or ideas that a competing research group might "steal" if they were to see it online.
Upvotes: 2 [selected_answer]
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2018/09/10
| 969
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<issue_start>username_0: In the context of preparing a CV for a math academic job search
Is it advisable to list preprints which are not yet accessible to the wide public in the CV?
If so, should it be in a rubric of its own (i.e. separate from "research publications"), or can I put it in the same rubric but write something like "(draft, available upon request)" or "(in preparation)", depending on its actual status, to its side?<issue_comment>username_1: If the paper has been submitted, then of course you can list it as "submitted", whether it's public or not.
Otherwise, I think that about all you can do is to say "in preparation", but this won't really have much impact. My impression is that "in preparation" means about as much to a search committee as "I had this idea for a paper", i.e. practically nothing. They aren't really likely to believe a candidate's estimate that the paper is "99% done", since it's obviously self-serving. And anyway, the last 1% is often where you discover a critical gap that takes months to fix, or can't be fixed at all.
If the paper really is done or nearly done, your best bet is to work hard and try to get it submitted or posted publicly (preferably both) before you send in your job applications.
If you can't get to that point, then the next best thing is to make sure that at least one of your recommendation writers is familiar with the project. (If you have co-authors, ask one of them to write you a letter.) They can write about how awesome it is and assure the committee that it really is practically done. In this case you still say "in preparation" on the CV, but you have some third-party backup.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I second <NAME>’s excellent answer, and in particular the opinion that “in preparation” means nothing and will be ignored.
“Submitted” is okay to write if true, but also doesn’t mean much if the paper can’t be viewed by the person reading your CV.
“Available upon request” is marginally better than “in preparation”, as it suggests you are willing to at least consider sharing the draft on the off-chance that someone will ask for it, but given that you’re putting the burden on people to contact you to ask for the paper when they may not feel comfortable doing that (or don’t have the time to start running after job candidates to ask them for materials that most other job candidates have already provided), is also not particularly helpful.
The best and most credible way, and one might say the only credible way, to claim a private preprint would be to include in the CV a private link (google docs, Dropbox, personal web site etc) to download the paper. Personally I would heavily discount any mention of a draft that doesn’t allow me some easy mechanism to view it. It’s nothing personal against you - just cumulative life experience that taught me that such claims often amount to nothing more than hot air.
Good luck with the job search!
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: You are a mathematician. Maybe I am overstating this a bit, but you should have no preprints that are not publicly available.
* If it's accepted, it's on the CV and available, at least for those having subscription, see also below.
* Before it's sent to the peer review, you upload it to arXiv, hence it's available (but not yet peer-reviewed). It probably deserves an own section in the CV, but it's there.
* If the paper is in works yet, you do not upload it to arXiv yet, but also don't mention in as a paper on your CV.
The side benefit of this approach is that accepted papers are also available on the arXiv for anyone. *And* you can reference your submitted but not-yet-accepted papers in your next work immediately.
In most cases, you are allowed to update the arXiv version to the post-review revision state. You are *not* allowed to publish the final journal PDF on the arXiv, but who cares. For this, you need to check with the journal.
Even if not revised, the initial state of the paper is available to everyone, which increases visibility.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: My professor announced the grades. He told us in each part what grades we had.
My oral presentation for the project was way better than other students. But he just gave me 89 for oral and gave others 88.
I think it is not fair at all, because most of the students were not clear or the did not consider timing. He also told me that "your presentation was very good".
Also, I performed very well on the final exam but he also did not give me the 100. I think it is not fair.
How can I make a complaint? What should I write?<issue_comment>username_1: For now, I guess, the only think you should do is asking the students previously took this course from same professor, about his grading at the end. Maybe that one point really weighs much.
Also I have seen in many lecturer that giving a 100 grade over 100 is almost tabu. Sometimes you clearly outstand everyone but they always find a thing or two to curb a point.
After final grades given and you still think it is unfair, I suggest you one to one talk with him about grade, in a way curious about why your grade is lower, not in a furious way.
After all of that, if that grade is really really detrimental for your career, consult the regulations on your university and department about how to proceed on regrading demand.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: In principle, at least in some places, you can request an independent regrading for your written exams, as far as I know. The upside is, apparently, a few extra points and, possibly, going one shade of grade up (if you have anywhere to go; normally 90%+ means an A anyway). The downsides are
1) Getting at odds with your instructor (never really pays off, if you ask me)
2) The risk that your grade will get even lower (unless you are totally sure that your answers are 100% correct)
3) Creating a reputation of somebody who complains too much about too minor issues.
It is up to you to decide if you want to play this game. If you do, just visit the department chair office and politely ask what the rules for making such requests are.
As to the oral presentation, it is gone. Nobody (neither you, nor your instructor) can prove beyond doubt anything about what happened there now. You'll just enter a long and mainly pointless discussion about who heard what and how to measure "fairness". Besides, it is one of the cases when the scores are going to be at least partially subjective no matter what.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I did a bachelor's degree in a creative industries subject (Audio Technology) because at the time, I didn't know what to do with my future so I decided to do a "hobby" (regretful, to an extent but many skills gained are transferable).
However, I am now starting my Master's degree in Computing (a conversion course that covers programming, web development, data/systems engineering, business technology and the like).
I am also gaining experience in this area also with my own projects and I already have a sub-field that I'd like to pursue for a PhD which relates more to business technology and technological consumerism - but, am open to other sub-fields also.
I have my mind strongly set to pursue a PhD after my Master's in the same field (or after a few years of industry experience), but I get a little concerned that my rather "weaker" bachelors degree subject (especially since it was split from a foundation degree to a full degree, yet I did receive a high 2:1), will hinder my PhD applications.
Any advice on how I can work around this or what I need to consider to better my applications? Or maybe I have a better chance of doing my PhD at the same university as my Master's?<issue_comment>username_1: I see that you question has two sides:
1. **The weaknesses of your bachelor topic (as you believe it is)**: In most of the cases, the bachelor quality is mainly evaluated for the eligibleness of joining a master program. After obtaining a master degree, there will be no concrete need to check the quality of the bachelor, rather the quality of the master thesis.
2. **Working in different topics/fields in bachelor, master and PhD**: On the one hand, of course working on the same topic for several years makes you an expert in the field but with a very limited view. On the other hand, it is very common and normal to work on different topics. I personally know a lot of people who did their bachelors in a topic (e.g. Biology) and their PhDs in another topic (e.g. Computer Science).
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I personally know someone, who did a diploma (MSc in the Anglo-Saxon world) in biology, did her PhD in physics, and is now on the way to do postdoc in anatomy. Of course, the actual topics were more related, but formally it is the case.
Or someone who did a diploma in mathematics, PhD in philosophy, and a postdoc in computer science – without actually changing the narrow field!
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: The best way to know if your background is "acceptable" for doctoral study is to actually apply, or speak to a potential supervisor. However, it is natural that as a young person you were seeking for your way in the world. People understand that. The more recent experience and education will be much more relevant to anyone's (or nearly so) evaluation of you.
I wouldn't, myself, be concerned that you haven't been single-minded goal-directed since you were a kid. In fact, some levels of intensity are scary, in a way. I don't know your whole educational program but would guess that an MS in CS is pretty good preparation for a business-tech oriented doctorate. But the only way to know is to put together a plan and show it to an institution or a supervisor.
But, as with anyone applying for a doctorate, you have to make your own case. If nothing else, your early studies (hobby as you call it) helped you focus your direction. If you are sufficiently focused now, doctoral studies requiring focus, you should be fine, provided that you present your case properly.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: My understanding is that most undergraduate schools are liberal arts colleges for the very purpose of exposing students to a liberal field of education which by definition would mean that as the student progress through the ranks of academia he/she becomes more refined in his/her life goals. As this personal application is refined it changes course of direction thereby quasi-forcing or encouraging the student to make the academic changes as you described. Hence the goal and intent of the liberal arts institution have been met when the student(s) modify course trajectory based on new learning. If the student does not learn through the learning process, the time spent becomes moot. Case in point the florescent light bulb was invented/discovered when a new engineer was given an out-of-the-norm assignment of creating a light bulb that could generate electrical energy into light without using the traditional metal filament. The successful discover involved the discovery of metal like qualities in mercury. In this case Change became a good thing. Or to quote your own question: "I am also gaining experience in this area also with my own projects"
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: I submitted my paper to a journal in July 2017 and I received an email of acceptance on May 2018 but it hasn't been published yet. Suddenly, while I am searching on my topic I found that someone else through another journal published an article on the same topic of mine (same basics and main idea with some little differences) and I found that his paper was received in January 2018, accepted in July, and published in August 2018.
Is there any risk that the journal will not proceed with the publication of my article after acceptance?<issue_comment>username_1: After a journal has accepted an article, they're ethically bound to publish it unless there's an egregious error or abuse on the author's part. Some examples could be:
* They discover that you actually submitted your paper without acknowledging a critical person who contributed so much to the work that she should have been a co-author;
* They discover that you plagiarized significant sections of your paper;
* They discover that the reviewer they invited for the paper was actually you, using another name.
In your case, the journal will need to show that you must have known about the other paper before you submitted yours. If they can do this, then you are acting unethically, and they can retract your paper. If they cannot, then they'll go ahead and publish, and you can claim to have discovered the result first while the other authors discovered it independently.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: But your paper was both submitted and accepted before the second paper. So, anyway, I think, you have the priority. Once the paper was accepted I think you have no reasons to worry. Something really extraordinary should happen in order that the paper is not published. It is not your case. I believe that the papers with similar findings are constantly published in parallel in competitive fields.
As to the delay with the publishing: in some journals it takes time. I suggest that you check already published papers in this journal with regard to how long it takes from acceptance date to publication.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I'm not as comfortable here as the other answer writers. I can't be as certain as they seem to be that "all will be well."
I think you should take some action, actually. First, find out why your paper is delayed from your own editor and point them to the "duplicate." (See below for a caveat, however)
Second, try to determine if the other paper is an example of parallel research or a possible plagiarism. In mathematical subfields with a lot of research interest, parallel work is very common. Everyone has access to the same background work as everyone else.
But it is also possible that you were plagiarized from a public preprint and you should explore that avenue as well. It isn't impossible, in fact, that a reviewer has acted unethically here. Those are both reasons for pointing your editor to the other paper. If there is evidence of plagiarism they can help you with the response.
However, if you have already paid fees (or your grant did, or your institution) or if you have already transferred copyright to the publisher then you can insist on it being published. I'm still not assured that you would win a dispute with your publisher, however, as they can return both fees and copyright. That may, itself, be unethical, but probably difficult to fight.
---
I note that there is some risk involved in pointing your editor to the other paper, if they take the existence of the other publication as a reason to back out of publishing your work. An alternative is to first ask the editor for a publication date. If they tell you they are reconsidering, then ask why. If it is because of the other article, point out the history of the two papers. I agree that you *should* have priority here, but resolving it can still be difficult.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: Journals usually indicate time stamps for reception and acceptance of the manuscript: thus it would appear (according to your chronology of events) that you will be recognized as having priority, irrespective of publication date.
There is a slim chance - I’ve seen this happen - that the “competition” was in fact a referee for you work, and that this “competitor” has somehow pushed his/her work to a journal with faster turnaround. (I’m assuming you did not present this work at a seminar or a conference, in which point the work is fair game). If you think this might be the case you might want to contact “your” journal, *politely* indicate your concern and let them do the remaining legwork of checking their files to see if something’s afoot.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: The aim of publishing is to share new knowledge with the world after a peer review process. It looks like the world now already has access to the knowledge that was in your paper, so all is well. I recommend then contacting the journal to let them know your article no longer requires publication, allowing them to focus on disseminating knowledge to the world that hasn't yet been published.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: I am interested if teaching is a part of duties for people employed on the positions funded by the German Research Foundation (SFBs in particular). To the best of my knowledge, these are pure research positions. However, what is the legal status?<issue_comment>username_1: As far as I know, you shall not teach within your contract as doctoral researcher in a DFG funded SFB. The reason is simple: There is a project proposal and the DFG gives money to do the work that is described in the proposal. If the proposal does say that the PhD student should work on the research project (and does *not* say that teaching is part of the job) you shall do that and nothing else.
However, there are several caveats: This applies to all the part of your job that is funded by the SFB. It is not unusual that your position has mixed funding, e.g. 50% comes from an SFB (or another DFG project) and 50% comes from something else. You should not do any teaching in your 50% that are related to the research project, what you do in the rest of the time is another matter. I also know that it is indeed common that PhD students in DFG funded research projects actually do teach somehow (e.g. as a TA). (Probably it is worth noting that PhD students who are funded directly by the university always have teaching duties in Germany.) Maybe this is allowed under some circumstances, but I could not find any regulations by the DFG that are explicit about this. The only thing I found is this part:
>
> **4.9.2 Eigene Stelle**
> Personen, die mit einer Eigenen Stelle durch die DFG gefördert werden, sind verpflichtet, sich mit ihrer vollen Arbeitszeit dem in der Bewilligung genannten Projekt zu widmen. Darüber hinausgehende Tätigkeiten für die aufnehmende wissenschaftliche Einrichtung (insbesondere Lehrtätigkeiten oder projektfremde Dienstleistungen wie beispielsweise klinische Routinetätigkeiten sowie die Mitwirkung bei der Patientenversorgung) sind im Rahmen der von der DFG finanzierten Stelle nicht zulässig. Solche Tätigkeiten können außerhalb der regelmäßigen wöchentlichen Arbeitszeit der von der DFG finanzierten Stelle im Rahmen des für die wissenschaftliche Einrichtung geltenden Nebentätigkeitsrechts ausgeübt werden.
>
>
>
This is a quote from the "Verwendungsrichtlinien" of the DFG an applies in the case where you write a proposal to fund *your own position*. The relevent sentence says that no teaching or non-project related service is allowed.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: In general, teaching duties are not required as a condition of SFBs and related programs if the funding covers all of the student’s salary. However, in many fields, the position that they receive might only be 50% or 70% of a TV-L 13 (the “standard position” for calculating graduate student salaries in the German government wage scale). The remainder of their time in principle could be used for teaching to make up the salary difference.
In addition, there is often the expectation that everybody in a professor’s group will make some contribution to teaching efforts unless their funding explicitly prohibits it. But this is a matter of “internal culture” and not something imposed or expected by the DFG.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: I would be interested in conducting a survey of Japanese learners of English to find out what they find difficult about learning English. I'm a university graduate, so no longer part of the university in effect, and am not connected to any research institution, nor any business. I would be an individual acting out of my personal academic interest.
My question is, are there rules or laws that prevent me from doing this? I would have no access to journals or similar, so the most I could do is publish anonymised data on a blog or Reddit or similar. I could collect consent from each participant, but if the survey hadn't been approved by any particular ethics committee would this act be essentially meaningless?
I'd appreciate any advice or input on this matter.<issue_comment>username_1: Since you ask for legal advice, only a lawyer in the country in which you intend to do the research can really answer your question with authority.
However, the usual reason that it is useful to be part of a University or Firm when doing research, is that they normally employ lawyers that can answer these questions. Affiliation isn't essential, but good advice is. A university may (*will* in the US) have an office that will help assure that you don't overstep legal or ethical boundaries.
I would try to visit a local research institution and see if they can give you guidance on your proposal. There are some things you aren't allowed to ask human subjects and some restrictions on data use, etc., but these differ by country. Perhaps a local university publishes its guidelines and they may be available to you even when unaffiliated.
Different countries also are likely to have a bureau whose purpose is to publish legal and ethical advice to researchers. A local search may turn up the information you need.
But proceed cautiously in any research that involves human subjects in any way.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> I would be interested in conducting a survey of Japanese learners of English to find out what they find difficult about learning English...My question is, are there rules or laws that prevent me from doing this?
>
>
>
There are rules, but they are country dependent. For instance, if you survey Japanese people resident in the EU, then you are governed by GDPR.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: I think consent is a good idea even if the survey hasn't passed through an ethics committee. A lot of the review around human subjects is straight-forward: are you asking people to do anything different than they would encounter in their normal lives? Would any of it be potentially uncomfortable, distressing, or dangerous to them? Will they be identifiable personally in the data, for example with their name, address, zip code, IP address, etc.? For any of those, tell them up front what the procedure and risks of participation are, and whether they want to continue. That is essentially the consent process, and is ethically appropriate whether or not you publish, etc.
All that said, people fill out surveys all the time. Keep the participation reasonable and emotionally neutral, and I anticipate no problems with your survey. It will not be publishable in a peer-reviewed journal. Have a plan for de-anonymizing the data. Notice there are strict rules about holding identifiable data, such as the new GDPR privacy law in Europe: <https://www.insight.mrc.ac.uk/2018/04/16/gdpr-research-changes/>
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: I am curious about the worldwide accepted ethics in publishing. I have never seen any other economic sector in which someone legally sold someone else's product for their own profit, apparently without paying for it in any way. I don’t intend to accuse any publisher, I just want to know how this works and why is this acceptable. Is it expected to be changed in the future? Do scientists want to change it, or is this accepted by more or less the whole community?
I admit, this question might seem to be off topic or opinion based but I don’t know where could I ask it.<issue_comment>username_1: **History.**
In the dark ages (i.e., before the internet), publishers provided a valuable service. If an author has a great idea, they want the whole world to read about it and the best way to do that is to get someone to publish their work. The publisher arranges for reviews, copyedits your work, and, most importantly, prints thousands of copies and sends them to libraries and archives around the world. (Note that, legally, they need to have the rights to distribute the work, and they claim ownership of the copyediting work.) Doing all this printing, mailing, and copyediting costs a lot money and thus publishers have to charge for their services. They also make a small profit from all of this.
Fast forward to the 21st century and the picture has changed considerably. Since the arrival of personal computers and software like LaTeX and Microsoft Word, copyediting is now mostly done by authors. (Reviewers and editors are rarely paid.) And, due to the internet, it is very easy to distribute papers using websites like arXiv. Going to the library to find a print journal is now a thing of the past, as journals these days just have websites.
Of course, publishers are still doing something, but it's a fraction of what it used to be.
Publishers made a lot of sense 50 years ago, but these days their model doesn't make a lot of sense; they still collect a lot of money, even though the services could be provided much more cheaply. So why does this model persist? Firstly, publishers still own the copyrights to lots of old work that is still relevant. More importantly, publishers own the "prestige" of their journals, which means academics keep sending them their work.
Upvotes: 9 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I certainly can't and won't try to justify all of the practices of publishers but it is useful to consider a couple of things.
First is that the "market" for any given math paper, say, is extremely small. If the publication is on paper, then the costs, if we consider everything are very high. Even if papers aren't reviewed, they often need to be edited by a professional as not every author is native in the language of the publication. There may be, even in this age, typesetting involved. Plus printing, shipping, etc. There isn't a business model there, so no one would agree to take on publishing of your paper if all costs had to be paid. If they did, the price would have to be extremely high, reducing the market further. As a result, publishers try to avoid a number of costs including payment to authors and reviewers.
In the olden days, authors published their own "tracts" by paying a printer to do the physical stuff and not using anything but (at most) informal reviewing. They would then sell the publications themselves, sometimes on street corners, or contract with other people who did. This was fine if you were in a university town, but not so fine if you wanted a publication created a few hundred miles away. But publishers need a business model, even if it is flawed.
But also, consider a world in which everyone was properly compensated. What would be the characteristics of that world? There are several options. One is that only the most popular writers could get published as that might increase sales to the journal. Competition might ensue, even extreme competition. There would be competition by journals to publish the most popular authors, but there would also be competition between authors to *be* the most popular authors. It would be hard for a new academic to break in to such a world, perhaps.
Another possible publishing option would be the advertising model. But who would want to advertise in a journal containing abstract, possibly obscure, mathematics. Actually we do have such journals in some fields. They come and go, but they seldom pay authors in any case. And they seldom last very long (a few years at most) making old material difficult to find.
But, the fundamental reason that publishers can use a flawed model in the first place is that, in academia, money isn't the *coin of the realm*. Recognition by peers is what makes you "rich" in academe. Publishers do provide that - even for new members of the profession. But without a business model they can't and won't.
---
Let me add a note about another kind of publishing. Popular music. Since it is popular it has a large market and generates a lot of revenue. The artists *do* get paid. But it is a sad fact of life that very few musical artists, even those with platinum albums, actually make enough from their published music to live on the proceeds. Most of them make a living by going on the road and giving concerts. It never ends. That is why you still see rockers in their 70's giving concerts. <NAME> has gone on record that he has never gotten a statement from his music publisher on which the bottom line was positive. The costs eat up everything - but that includes payments to stockholders, of course, without whom there would be no publishing business at all.
---
Another publishing model with flaws is textbook publishing. Textbooks now cost around $100US or even more. Of this, the author normally gets around $5. But the costs are high and the market is small. In the case of books, I've always had a professional editor, even for my native language. Figures in the book may need to be remade by a professional for use, depending on the production process. Except for a few courses like Calculus 101 or Economics 101, the market is very small. Very few authors get rich writing textbooks - though many dream to do so.
---
Let me add that in my lifetime, but long ago, there was a viable not-for-profit publishing model in Mathematics. The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is a professional membership organization. It publishes a number of journals, including the Transactions of the AMS. It is intended for longer papers, not suitable for shorter papers. Anyone could submit a paper to the journal and it would get both editorial and review services, along with, if accepted, production services. This was before the internet and so paper publishing was the only option.
If a paper was accepted there were *page charges* charged to the paper. They were quite steep, actually. If the author was grant funded then the grant source, normally the government, paid the charges. If the author had no grant, then the charges were sent to the author's institution instead. If, for any reason, the institution refused to pay the charges, they were just absorbed by the AMS and not charged to the author. Thus, the membership as a whole, paid, or page charges were high enough to cover the cases in which they wouldn't be paid. This was a form of socialism, of course, and some people hate that now.
But, for some reason, that isn't the dominant publishing model anymore. I suspect, but don't have the data, that it was simply a case that the model didn't scale well as there was an increase in the number of mathematicians and hence papers.
Non-profit, low cost models do exist, but, as I've said here and in the comments, all of the forces need to be considered in the design of such a model. If you ignore any of them, the model simply won't work for long and its defects will overcome it. But even a failed model, such as the current one, which as failed because it hasn't kept up with electronic communication, has inertia behind it that also needs to be overcome if you want to replace it with a better model.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> I have never seen any other economic situation where someone sold something legally without paying for it in any way.
>
>
>
But they do. Maybe not adequately, but publishers pay for the papers that they sell by offering all their services to the researcher (editorial services, publishing services, marketing). It might be that a considerable part of the revenues of publishers is profit, but not everything. Even journals operated by scientific communities sometimes have to charge publication fees ([example](https://www.osapublishing.org/submit/review/pub_charge.cfm)). In the case of open access publications, the publication fee has to cover all the costs, even those in the future.
The most important aspect for the premium that scientists pay in top journals is mentioned in the [answer by username_1](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/116679/54543) which is the "prestige" owned by these high ranking journals. That would be very difficult to change. People are judged by the amount of high ranking publications they have. Funding agencies ask for these publications and, on the other side, are willing to pay the publication charges. Publishers charge the amount they think they can get away with. There does not seem to be a trivial way out of it (delivering the same results, but for a lesser amount of money).
Since boycotting top journals doesn't pay off for the individual, it's clear that a solution would probably require concerted actions of many.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: Your question is based on the false premise that it is only possible to sell something if you paid money for it yourself. A mining company can sell you coal without having to pay anyone for that coal. A farmer can sell you milk or eggs without paying anyone for them. A babysitter can charge you for looking after your child without paying anyone to acquire the ability to look after children.
I'm not claiming that any of these situations is an analogy for academic publishing but they do show that the idea that you can only sell something if you paid somebody for it first isn't at all true.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: It is *not* acceptable, and people are taking steps to change things, but the system has enormous inertia and many perverse incentives that must be overcome to make progress.
I would like to draw an analogy to fiction publishing. Authors in that field have a maxim called “[Yog’s Law](https://www.thecreativepenn.com/2010/01/13/what-is-yogs-law-and-why-does-it-matter-for-authors/)” which states: *money is supposed to flow toward the author*. This is held as a guiding principle, even in contexts where nobody expects to make a *living* by publishing their fiction: short stories, for instance, pay a pittance ([SFWA minimum rate](http://www.sfwa.org/about/join-us/sfwa-membership-requirements/#active) is US$0.06 per word, times one to ten thousand words, so $60 to $600 for a story that probably took at least 40 hours of effort to write—this is beer money, not rent money). This principled stand is because there is a long history of “[vanity presses](https://www.sfwa.org/other-resources/for-authors/writer-beware/vanity/)” scamming authors with grandiose promises of riches and fame if they’ll just underwrite the up-front costs, and then not doing any marketing whatsoever, so nobody buys the book and the riches and fame never materialize. Contrast this with a legitimate traditional publisher, who pays you an advance, assumes the risk that the book never sells enough copies to “earn out” that advance, and *does* do marketing. Also contrast a printer for hire catering to self-publishers, who will tell you up front what services they do and don’t provide and how much each costs, and will *not* make any grandiose promises. This is who you should hire to print up your family history, not a vanity press—unfortunately there isn’t an accepted alternative term for honest printers-for-hire as a group..
Academic publication is different because not only do we not expect to receive riches from publication, we don’t expect to earn anything at all in the first place (for journal articles, anyway; I understand monograph and textbook publishers do pay royalties). Yog’s Law does not directly apply. However, we *are* looking for a particular kind of fame, the kind where other researchers read our papers and learn things and build on them, perhaps even centuries from now. (Much as a writer of fiction hopes that people will read their stories and find entertainment or catharsis or inspiration in them.) For this reason, we warn against publishing in “predatory journals” that charge hefty fees, don’t do adequate peer review, and exaggerate the likelihood of anyone reading the paper or taking it all that seriously. Predatory journals are the direct analogue of vanity presses in academic publishing. They don’t provide value for the money.
Traditional academic publishers are *supposed* to provide value for the money they charge: peer review, copyediting and typesetting, archiving, dissemination, and perhaps most important, reputation. Any paper published in one of the top journals or conferences in my subfield has a good chance of being worth my time, and I rely on that. However, over the past 40 years or so (I’m not old enough to know exactly when this trend started) the publishers have become less and less interested in actually providing value, and more and more interested in extracting rents. This is really obvious in my particular subfield, computer security: as I write this, I’ve got a paper accepted for publication in an ACM conference with a top-notch reputation. They facilitated the peer review, but they didn’t pay the reviewers a dime; they did none of the work of copyediting and typesetting, expecting me to hand them a PDF already fully formatted; they maintain both print and online archives, but they want to either charge every reader US$25 for the privilege, or charge *me* $700 up front. I know that this is price-gouging, because if I had published the same paper at a USENIX conference with a similar reputation and providing an identical set of editorial services, they would charge either readers or me *nothing* for the privilege.
The usual market-based solution to rent-seeking is refusal to cooperate. So why are we all still cooperating with them? It’s a classic [collective action problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_action_problem). As long as most of the researchers in a field continue to publish in traditional venues, any one person can’t refuse to do so without nasty consequences for their career. If everyone threatens to stop all at once, on the other hand, they have a chance of at least extracting concessions—in my time in graduate school, many of the top computer security conferences have moved from paywalled to open access, because our community put its collective foot down. (Not without incident, though, as anyone else who attended the business meeting at [Oakland 2011](https://www.ieee-security.org/TC/SP2011/) can attest.)
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_6: It is acceptable because there is no convincing argument why it should be unacceptable.
More generally, there is a principle of the law that people are free to enter into contractual agreements with each other, and with other legal entities such as corporations. As long as those agreements are entered into voluntarily between people of legal age, and as long as they are not deemed to be [unconscionable agreements](https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/unconscionability), the agreements are legally binding, and in that sense “acceptable”. Other people who are not parties to the agreement may occasionally find them objectionable and be unhappy, but that’s their problem.
In the case of academic publishing, authors voluntarily agree to let publishers publish their papers and not pay them any royalties. I have done so myself many times. So, if I find it acceptable to not get paid royalties for my papers, and there isn’t some convincing legal argument for why my agreements with publishers should be declared unconscionable (as far as I know no one has tried to make such a case), then that’s the end of the story - it’s acceptable.
As for why I and other academics don’t have a problem with not getting royalties, I think the answer is a bit too complicated to discuss in detail here. The short answer is that writing papers is part of my job, for which I am paid a salary by my employer. Scientific papers are simply not the same as fiction or other forms of writing that people write to make money through a direct sale of their work to a body of readers. Your question assumes a premise that publishers should pay scientists for their papers because of the superficial similarity between academic publishing and other types of publishing, but that premise is simply false.
**Edit - some additional thoughts related to the (very interesting and thought provoking - thanks!) comments:**
I want to clarify that the main point of my answer is to emphasize that the answer to questions of the type “why is activity X acceptable?” is generally “it is acceptable *by default*” - that is, it’s up to opponents of X to convince everyone else that X is *not acceptable* if they believe that’s the case, and until they successfully do that, X is acceptable. I consider such questions to be [loaded questions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loaded_question), since they subtly insinuate that there’s something wrong with X (without actually giving any explanation or evidence) and put people who engage in X on the defensive to “justify” their “bad” behavior. I think this loaded question effect is what makes the question “annoying” (as @Allure referred to it in a comment).
In my answer I was trying to make the point I elaborated on above. I focused on the legal aspect just because that’s what occurred to me at that moment, but the same principle applies if we were to debate the ethics of the issue (as some of the answers have done). I do acknowledge that there are some valid ethical criticisms of some of the practices of the academic publishing industry. But in my opinion those criticisms (while very interesting) are tangential to OP’s actual question. OP asked:
>
> Why is it acceptable that publishers sell papers they didn’t pay for?
>
>
>
Note that this isn’t asking why it is acceptable for some publishers to make as much money as they do (I think there are some reasonable arguments to be made that *that* may very well be unacceptable). It’s asking why it’s acceptable for authors to not get paid by publishers for their work, which is a different question. Well, as an author who voluntarily publishes his work without asking for or expecting to be paid royalties by the publisher, I find this a bit offensive, as it’s effectively accusing me of being complicit in an activity insinuated to be shady or immoral, or alternatively suggesting that I’m some sort of victim of predatory practices. I’m neither of those things.
The most correct answer in my opinion is the one in username_4’s answer, which is to point out that this is a loaded question based on a false premise. I expanded on David’s idea a bit more. The bottom line is that it’s acceptable for authors to let others publish their work without asking to get paid, and it’s acceptable for publishers to publish works that authors allow them to. The larger debate about academic publishing is an important one and will go on, but this question is (in my very humble opinion) not framed in a way that makes it a helpful part of that debate.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_7: This is not a unique situation. Consider film festivals: you make a movie, submit it to the festival which then is free to earn money by selling tickets to the spectators. There's more: prestigious festivals sell tickets *and* have submission fees for the authors.
The intangible product being sold here is reputation. Other researchers will trust your paper more if they see it in a journal they know, compared to a paper you put on your homepage. And prospective employers will prefer someone with publications in a journal over someone who only submitted papers in arXiv.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_8: It's generally called the [tertiary sector of the economy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tertiary_sector_of_the_economy) or service sector. In developed nations it's increasingly becoming the largest part of the economy. In other words, there are many, many other examples of a company selling "something legally without paying for it in any way". For services the costs are generally associated with labor and other expenses such as rent, infrastructure, etc. rather than the wholesale price or raw material like in the situation you describe.
Publishers charge (either the authors or the readers) for the publishing service. They do not charge for content creation. Content is paid for by research grants, university salaries, etc. A possible analogy is a telephone provider. They send you a bill for the time you spend listening or reading content created by third parties without purchasing said content. Social media, Internet search engines, etc. are other examples of companies generating a profit out of content voluntarily submitted by third parties.
Personally I find it very convenient to have publishers do the publishing work for me so that I can concentrate on my research. I have to transfer my copyright? So what? I'm not in the business of publishing papers, it's only a mean to an end. I know it's field-dependent but in mine the anti-publishers argument is a fringe thing.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_9: It becomes more and more unacceptable to do this. Computer Science already freed itself to a large extent. Journals like the high impact [jmlr](http://www.jmlr.org/) and many others already proved that you don't need expensive publishers anymore for science. I published in both kinds of journals and the services are on the same level. Additionally, more and more funding sources prohibit publishing behind a paywall ([one example](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6406/957)).
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_10: >
> Is it expected to be changed in the future? Do scientists want to change it, or is this accepted by more or less the whole community?
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At least one scientist (who stepped down from a full tenured professorship) wants to change it; he wrote a blog post ["Why I stopped caring about peer review, and learned to love the work."](http://markburgess.org/blog_peer.html)
To excerpt this in part:
>
> Today, thanks to the Internet, the sharing of ideas is a free and open process, and readers can form their own judgements about the value of ideas, whether flawed or polished. A good idea does not have to be stamped and labelled to be approved, and science is done in communities, without the central control of anonymous judges and juries. Preprint archives (originally distributed on paper by SLAC) have now become ArXive.org and ResearchGate provides indexed community based services, more efficiently than gross amalgamations of diverse fields by journals on a monthly schedule.
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>
> ...
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> Science rarely waits for publications to appear anymore. The process is so painfully slow that when a publication appears, either everyone has already read it, or no one is going to. So much nonsense gets into print that it is scarcely a real accolade to be in print.
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> It takes months or years for a paper to reach print, and who can afford academic journals anyway? So, why would we not think: what if I just self-published my idea in a blog or a website? I could simply ask a smaller circle of people to comment honestly. And it would be searchable by anyone who might stumble across it with the help of modern search engines. Use the archives and the new social sharing sites. Technology can take prejudice out of the equation.
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The blog is more focused on the brokenness of the peer review process, but his suggested solutions take advantage of the Internet age and thereby also address the broken finance arrangements of journal publications.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_11: It's acceptable because authors of scholarly papers accept it.
Consider a different kind of publishing: Is it acceptable that publishers print advertisements without paying the creators of the advertisement? Indeed, publishers demand that the creators of the advertisement pay THEM. How do they get away with this? Why don't advertisers refuse to supply magazines with ads unless they are paid for them?
The obvious reason is because the advertiser receives a benefit, or hopes to receive a benefit, from having the ad published. Namely, he hopes that it will generate sales that will more than cover the cost of publishing the ad.
So why don't authors of scholarly papers refuse to submit articles to journals unless they are paid for them? Because the authors of these papers believe that they receive a benefit from having their paper published. Namely, they get their discoveries and ideas "out there" and build a professional reputation.
To the author, the benefit of getting published is compensation itself. He doesn't need to also receive cash for him to consider it worth his while to submit his paper to a journal. There are plenty of authors who feel this way, so publishers have no incentive to offer cash. If publishers found that they had a hard time getting enough papers to fill their pages, one obvious option they'd consider would be paying for material. But as they apparently get plenty of articles without paying, they have no incentive to offer to pay.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm taking a class this semester through an online program. We have an essay exam due on Thursday every week that is open-book, open-notes, etc., we're even asked to cite the textbook and other course materials. The professor emails us the question or questions two weeks in advance.
I've been preparing my essay responses ahead of time, then submitting them after I open the exam, I work 2 jobs and so I rarely have the time alotted to sit and write the essay, I figured this was ok since it's open-notes. Last week I was slammed with work and didn't have as much time to proofread my own essay for grammatical errors so, not really thinking of it as a test so much as a regular essay, I asked my mother to look it over and sent the rough version to her in an email, she found one sentence fragment and on run-on sentence which I only changed when I put the exam into the online submission portal.
Jump forward to today, I was trying to look up my grade and there was a note saying there was no submission for my essay exam. I knew I had submitted it but freaked out and in a rush, emailed my professor offering to send him the email sent to my mother (early in the day on Thursday) as proof that I had basically finished the essay Thursday morning so there was no reason not to have submitted before it was due that night. (We get no confirmations on submitted work and there are no timestamps on past work submitted online) I also sent him the word document on my computer with the basic essay, pre-changes. He responded basically just saying he would forward it to his grading assistant, and that's it.
My question is, could I get in trouble for cheating since I had my mother proofread the essay ahead of time? I have the emails from her proving she only looked at grammatical stuff but it didn't occur to me until after I sent the email this morning that this could be considered academic dishonesty since it's called an "exam" and technically I received outside help. Thoughts?<issue_comment>username_1: Normally, collaboration is the big no-no on such exams. So, the question is, did you collaborate with your mom on the essay. I think probably not, but your professor is the only judge. If he doesn't raise the issue and you get credit for the essay, then he doesn't find your action objectionable.
But if you are called to explain or accused of cheating, what should you do?
I would suggest that you explain exactly what happened, in person, to your professor. Admit to a transgression, but emphasize that the content is yours, so the transgression wasn't in producing the ideas. Note that he only learned your mother was involved because you informed him of it, so you weren't being deceptive. Expect that you might not avoid a penalty, but I don't know your professor's policies or personality.
You have learned a lesson, I guess. You can't unmake the past. An apology, at least, is probably expected. But if you want to keep a good relationship with the professor for the future, don't complain overly. If the sanction is severe, ask if there is some way to make it up.
Think more about the future than the past.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I think the other answer is a bit more scolding than is necessary.
Your professor has your email to your mom, didn't comment on it, and forwarded it to the person responsible for recording grades. It sounds like what you are worried about is not a worry to the professor, and it sounds like your professor is quite a reasonable person where technical issues are concerned (i.e., by accepting your evidence that the work was done).
If I were in your position I'd concern myself more with making sure your submissions are fully accepted in whatever software you are doing the submission with in the future - hopefully the software provides some sort of feedback or way to check.
You can also consult the course syllabus to see if there are any specific policies on what is allowed and not allowed for exams. I don't think you are crossing any lines by asking for proofreading help (presuming you are not taking a course where proofreading is a major skill that is being taught). I also don't think it is necessary to explain yourself to your professor unless you find a written policy that makes what you did clearly against the rules: by sending the email, you haven't made any attempt to hide what you did so there isn't really anything to come clean on.
Besides that, I would stop worrying about this and focus on any other studies and responsibilities you have. You're doing fine.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Your university will probably have policies about what kind of assistance is acceptable in assessments. Depending on how those policies are worded (and whether they were written with this kind of open-book exam in mind) it's possible that this might be considered an infraction, at least technically.
With that said, your actions make it pretty clear that you weren't trying to get away with something shady. Your professor would never have known about this assistance if you haven't emailed him. That's not the behaviour of somebody who's trying to cheat.
I'd start by checking those policies. If they don't put you in the clear, then contact your professor, something along these lines:
>
> Dear Professor, As I mentioned previously, I asked my mother to proofread my essay for spelling and grammar issues. I assumed this was okay because I was thinking of it as a homework assignment, but I've just realised that you might have different expectations for a take-home exam. Can you please let me know if this is an issue? I apologise if I misunderstood expectations about this.
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(This is pretty similar to username_1's advice, but I've framed it as "was this a transgression?" rather than assuming that it was.)
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: When teaching students (especially in code, but this can apply to any subject), how do you prevent near verbatim answers that match your examples?
For example, I tell students how to find a document by ID in an array of documents. I show them the code `foundDocument = documentArray.find(singleDocument => singleDocument._id = id)`. I then ask students to find a fruit in `fruitArray`. The answer I'll get is `foundDocument = fruitArray.find(singleDocument => singleDocument._id = id)`, which works, but not the ideal answer.
Some notes based on the content discussion and answers so far:
This is sort of for a project. I teach both one off weekend classes and long term coding mentorship and this comes up in both. The goal of the weekend class is to build a website by the end. The goal of the mentorship is for the singular student to have built an MVP of their product.
The array example above was the simplest and shortest example I could think of to demonstrate my issue. I also see this happen where whole files get copied and the students expects something different to happen.
What I'm hoping to prevent is the pattern matching that students sometimes do but they don't fully understand the why of what they are doing. I've also seen (and done this myself) often in the STEM fields. You find a formula that works and re apply it but not understand what you're doing.<issue_comment>username_1: Why not do a multiple choice question “ which of the following will do x?” with one correct version and slight errors in the others - can even do partial marking depending on the error.
I have this in excel functions like vlookup with a list that asks which version will return the name or price etc
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: **This answer is specific to the field of computer science, in keeping with the OP's question. Obviously the answer is much different if we were talking about a creative writing class or something.**
In the field of computer science, there sometimes is a "best way" to do something. In your example, you are searching an array for a specified object. In most languages, array type objects have a `find()` function. This is the "best way" to access the array. I would actually consider it to be more wrong if a student used another approach to iterate over an array looking for a specific element.
I will touch on the nuance of using the identifier `singleDocument` in searching for a fruit in a fruit array. Perhaps this is what worries you? Yes, ideally a student should change `singleDocument` to something like `singleFruit`. Perhaps make a side comment to students in class about such practices, as it does indeed matter if we care about intelligible code. I would then leave it at that. Students who persist in using bad naming practices in their code usually end up getting themselves twisted up in longer projects and learn the folly of their ways.
I will add as an aside that when I first was learning to write computer code (Java), I sometimes made "mistakes" like the one you show (no identifier name change). This was due to the fact that I did not fully understand what could be changed in code and what could not be. I was more worried about finishing the project and less worried about writing really clean code. As I became more advanced, I quickly learned how to rectify issues such as changing identifier names to be more meaningful.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> When teaching students...how do you prevent near verbatim answers that match your examples?
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>
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I ask questions that cannot be answered correctly by near-verbatim matches of my examples.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_4: It looks like the problem is correctness output vs clarity of code? In which case, a consistently used markscheme that gives/docks points for correct output and further points for correct use of variable names and any other relevant conventions would motivate students to pay attention to such issues, in the same way that eg English teachers give/dock points for grammar and spelling, math teachers for showing working, physics teachers for drawing diagrams...
If they are not first year students, you could also motivate the practice by asking them to bring along some code from previous years and getting them to edit/extend it. Or providing examples with the same functionality but different readability for them to alter.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: If you are marking the students answers/project/exercises (that contain code), one trick is to leave 5% to code quality.
This means clean comments, sensible variable names and no useless code. Its minor and unlikely to be the edge between fail and pass, but helps encourage good practice (and most of the times students realise that it is in fact easier for them to use good practices!)
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_6: When tutoring my fellow students it is of utmost important that they understand the basic concept behind what they are doing or else they will just come again and ask me the next week. As far as I have experienced learning only really takes place if they figure out the solution on their own instead of copy pasting. This will take a lot more effort and time at the beginning but the payoff is well worth it.
Depending on the age of your students you should point them to the documentation of a function/object and let them figure it out by themselves. If they want to program properly reading documentation is one of the most essential parts, if this is too hard (especially at the beginning) you can give them the method signature and an abstract explanation.
```
Arrays.find(item => item.property == needle)
haystack = ....
item = ....
needle = ...
```
In this case they have to at least replace the variable names with matching names and abstract the assignment part. If lambdas are required make sure that you have covered them in an earlier example and reference it, in this case you can even keep the example more general
Upvotes: -1
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<issue_start>username_0: I've completed a project in computational physics. 100% of the code and running of the code completed by me and the introduction, theory and code description in the paper written by me. Results section written by supervisor with some feedback from me.
When we put the latex together I was listed as first author on the paper, since, as my supervisor stated, I did 95% of the work. However, when the paper was submitted my supervisor listed themselves as first and corresponding author in the online submission fields (I was still first in the author list of the submitted paper - ie. in the actual latex document).
When I pointed this out to the supervisor they denied it, so I logged in to the journal account and sent a screen grab showing the status, They said that they must have made a mistake and would correct later when resubmitting (flagged for some missing documents).
Later on I got an email from my supervisor stating that they had submitted the documents but 'forgotten' to correct the author status but not to worry because I'm listed first in the submitted latex paper.
I'm not sure what to think here. Perhaps my supervisor is correct and it will make no difference (since I'm listed first in the latex paper) and is just winding me up. Either that or not I feel that I need to push back here, somehow without damaging the relationship.
Addition: I think perhaps the author list inputted in the online fields may be used for citations but the paper itself will have me as first author. So perhaps my supervisor wants their name to be that cited?<issue_comment>username_1: I would apply Hanlon's Razor here: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
This sort of mistake is easy to make when filling out journal forms: there is a lot of information to keep straight. In particular, the UI is not always designed so as to make it clear how author order will be interpreted (some forms might always want the corresponding author entered first, even if they will not be the first author). So it's not too hard to believe that someone could innocently mess it up twice.
It would also be an ineffective way for your supervisor to try to "steal" first authorship. For most journals, if the paper is accepted, every author will eventually be asked to sign a consent form agreeing to publication, and in particular, agreeing to the author ordering. You'd eventually find out and make a fuss.
But it would be fine to ask your supervisor to contact the editor and request the change, "just so that we don't forget later," or, as <NAME> suggests, to do it yourself. After all, your supervisor has agreed, in writing, that you are meant to be the first author.
>
> Addition: I think perhaps the author list inputted in the online fields may be used for citations but the paper itself will have me as first author. So perhaps my supervisor wants their name to be that cited?
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No, it doesn't work like that. The journal is going to want one and only one author ordering, to be used both on the paper itself and for all metadata and citations. They should always match. If there is a discrepancy between the manuscript and the online fields, the journal will insist that the authors resolve it before publication.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: The first answer to this question suggests that this might be incompetence rather than malevolence. A second (and to me more likely) possibility is that it's neither malevolence nor incompetence, but simply bureaucracy.
Your description is confusing and it seems possible that you misunderstand what's happened here. With many journal submissions, there's a series of boxes where you enter authors' names and information. **These boxes are not necessarily related to author order!** You can enter names in any order you want and it's completely irrelevant to the actual published author order. Often the first box is for the corresponding author, who is not necessarily the first author.
From your description, it sounds like this has happened. If so, probably the reason your advisor is so casual about this is that it's completely trivial; it has no bearing on your concern. The author order is the order in the manuscript and you're worrying about something that's not an issue.
It's also possible that the advisor *thinks* this has happened but the order *is* relevant, but from the way you've described it that doesn't seem to be the case.
A bigger issue, to me, seems to be your relationship with your advisor. Even though your advisor promised you first authorship, reiterated the promise, and assured you that the issue would be corrected, you've leaped to the conclusion that they are trying to "steal" your authorship. If you mistrust your advisor to this extent, is this a healthy situation? Has the advisor done anything to justify this immediate and very harsh reaction, or is this a case of paranoia? It seems to me that the answer, either way, is likely to have a much bigger effect on your career than an apparent minor misunderstanding.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: This feels uncomfortable to ask, because I know my actions have undermined what I've worked toward.
A little background: I graduated with a bachelors degree, and then went on to get a masters degree in a different field from a different school. I did well in both programs, including a few years of research during my undergrad. That was a few years ago, and since then I have been working professionally outside of academia. My goal has been to eventually go back and earn a PhD.
That is still my goal, and although I didn't behave unethically during my masters, I am troubled by academically dishonest actions I took as an undergrad and I'm not sure how to reconcile them. There are two specific incidents that particularly bother me.
In the first incident, I gave a class presentation that kind of followed a secondary source while only citing the primary sources. I now understand that is also plagiarism. In the second incident, I was panicked because I was struggling in a class. Another student had evidently found the solutions manual to the homework. He approached me, and I ended up giving him a small sum of cash in exchange. This is especially bad.
I have a few questions. Although it could certainly never happen, If I faced sanctions from the undergraduate university, would they revoke my degree? Would sanctions prompt the other universities to revoke my other degrees, including my masters and a PhD if I had earned it? How should I move forward? Would it be wrong for me to enter a PhD program?<issue_comment>username_1: Sounds like you have had some insights to your past behavior, and understand what you did was wrong - that could serve you will in future situations where you might be tempted to game the system. That experience could be a positive rather than a negative.
You escaped any consequences, and I don't think it's productive to think about hypothetical situations where you didn't, especially for something that is at least a few years in the past.
There are lots of good reasons to not enter a PhD program. I don't think you've found one here, but you should think about what goals you would have as a PhD student since a PhD is unlikely to advance your career unless you want to enter academia. You'll need a lot of internal motivation to get it done. Focus on those things rather than dwelling on your past indiscretions.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: First of all, the fact is that you have a conscience about your behavior is very respectable and you should appreciate (and guard) it.
Regarding your dilemma, rather than giving up your goal, you can check with your undergrad university to see what their policies are about your situation. It is better to do this anonymously, lest they take drastic measures against you. Maybe, they have a lenient or forgiving attitude (I am not aware of regulations in your country and rules may differ from my country. Sad to say, in my country, both of your incidents are rather common and there are no written rules against them). Or, maybe they just require you to retake the courses again. Or maybe, they do not have any laws against you now that you are graduated.
In the worst case scenario, it is possible that regulations may revoke your degree (which is, for your case, very extreme and unlikely in my opinion). This is something that depends entirely on you and your moral codes.
To be honest, unfortunately, unethical behavior is not uncommon in academia (just browse this website and you will find plenty of questions from victims and even from perpetrators!). In your case, IMHO, you have done an insignificant plagiarism in the first incident and in the second one, you have just bought a solution manual. Compared to many crooks that I have personally seen in the academia, you are pleasantly clean. Of course, this statement does not mean that I agree with this behavior. It just means that, considering all factors, sometimes one can be forgiving about it.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I do not think you ought to abandon. Quite the contrary: you seem to be a sensible person!
The truth spread out: **there is an awful lot of misconduct in academia**. There are many references, such as [this one](https://www.independent.co.uk/student/postgraduate/postgraduate-study/cheating-is-a-growing-problem-facing-academia-1365990.html), or [this discussion](https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/is-there-a-problem-with-academic-integrity). The system in fact is claimed to be remarkably permissive towards cheaters and abusers. Therefore, to answer another part of your question: apparently, in most places nothing substantial would have happened to you had you been caught redhanded. Perhaps someone would have blackmailed you on your second "crime" forcing you to part from even more bribery money.
However, typically "bad apples" anywhere never admit to their own flaws. Most of them reportedly fool themselves (and close friends) into believing that (i) they are actually on the right; (ii) everyone else does it, so that in the end there's no wrong done. Many cheaters are psychopathic in nature, meaning they have no true sense of guilt nor empathy.
You are clearly not that kind of person: you question your (past) self and then you feel guilty. That means you feel the urge for self-improvement. That makes you a sensible man who should continue to grow for the benefit of others. Please stay in the academia.
Now, on a final remark, I do not think you have committed very serious misconduct. I have seen way worse, from people who wouldn't even blink when accused. Thus had I caught you I would **not** have pushed to revoking your degree, or anything to that effect. (And I am tough on cheaters; I have had some *serial plagiarists **fired***.) Some exposure and public shaming would have been enough to "set an example" and apparently you would have been psychologically impacted enough to prevent you from repeating yourself.
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: A couple of month ago, I was in a conference with my adviser. I had a poster and he had a talk. His talk was about my project. In fact, it was newer results that I presented in my poster. After he gave his talk, someone asked me "why while you are here your adviser present your work instead of yourself?"
At that time I basically didn't answer that question and just moved on with a smile. I thought that was not so important but right now, I think is it really ok ? Is it normal among academia?
Any idea or suggestion is appreciated!<issue_comment>username_1: It is normal assuming (a) your advisor is actively involved in the research project, i.e., would be a co-author on any publications coming from the work and (b) your advisor acknowledged your role in the research during his/her presentation. For most faculty advisors (at least in my specific STEM field), much or all of their research is done with advisees, so any research talk they give will likely describe work done with others.
For reference, my advisor gave a seminar in my own department on a project that I led. I had no problem with this -- it was nice to get their perspective on my work, and they acknowledged that I had done much of the legwork.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: As a life scientist i'd say its completely normal. Often what would happen is that the lab head will give a talk that synthesizes the work of several people in the lab, each of which will have a poster on their specific part of the work. Its not unheard of though for a supervisor to give a talk on just one project from one student, especially if the lab is small or new.
I have to say though, that as a supervisor, asking the conference organisers if they'd mind the student giving the talk rather than the supervisor can be a really positive thing to do for your students careers, and supervisors should seriously consider doing so if they think they can.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: It's normal in my field. Good other answers: the supervisor should mention the student.
This also depends on what else was presented. For example, if the supervisor also presented other work that wasn't done by the student, it would be even more tricky for the student to present that work, because they weren't involved and and/or wouldn't be as capable of describing it or fielding questions. Finally, it also depends on the trainee's readiness to present in that setting and format. Some talks are more programmatic and appropriate for faculty; some are more brief and more appropriate for students.
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: I finished my PhD in October 2017. I have tried to write a publication from my thesis, however I am finding it quite a struggle. I am not receiving any help from my PhD supervisor. So my question is, what should I take into account in order to write a paper (I have not written any papers before)?
Can I write a paper from my thesis after the university has published it?<issue_comment>username_1: It may depend on your university and country but many PhD graduates write papers based on their thesis, or chapters of their thesis, after completing their doctorate so this is quite normal. You will probably have to cite your thesis in any papers that you produce from it as it is a prior published work that you are expanding on.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: Shorten, shorten, shorten, and rewrite.
When writing directly for the thesis, people often are elaborate and generous. You have all the space in the world, and having 180 pages instead of 150 might be a plus.
In a journal paper you have, say, 10 pages of a condensed formatting and that's it. So, the writing has to accommodate this.
I have three suggestions:
* In most cases you would like to pick some *aspect* of the thesis, not the whole work. So start from the relevant chapter.
* It depends a lot on the writing style and personal preferences, but for me personally it's often easier to read a paragraph and to come up with a way to tell this in one sentence (i.e., *rewriting*) than to *edit* said paragraph to be shorter and more concise.
* All things that are somewhat relevant, but too large or not immediately needed either land in the supplementary document, or you directly refer to the thesis for more details.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I'll assume your thesis has the following structure:
* Introduction
* Background
* Result 1
* ...
* Result N
* Conclusion
Each result chapter should be publishable (if not now, then later, with some additional material). You just need to prepend each result chapter with an introduction to that result (borrowing heavily from the introduction chapter of your thesis), append with a conclusion to that result (borrowing heavily from the conclusion chapter of your thesis), and edit (by compression and rewriting) into a standalone paper.
---
I recommend mentioning that preliminary results appeared in your PhD thesis, but that's not necessary.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: As for any paper, you should first decide what is the exact topic of your paper, and especially what is the original contribution. Depending on this, you should choose a venue (journal or conference) relevant for this kind of contribution, and preferably appropriate for various criteria such as:
* editorial policy, in particular length of the paper you plan to write;
* acceptance rate: this depends how good you think the paper would be, and whether your strategy favours either a high chance to get accepted or the future value of the paper (the more selective, the higher the value);
* editorial process, in particular length of the reviewing process
You have probably read many papers in your field during your PhD, so you have many examples that you can use as references. The fact that your paper is based on your PhD is not essential in the process. In particular, don't try to squeeze your whole PhD into a single paper, these are two different kinds of documents with different purposes and they should be designed in a different way.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: Sorry, I believe that the title of this post is a little misleading, but can't understand what the best keywords are.
For my thesis, I have asked some help for a statistical analysis to a faculty member, getting more or less a 3-hours tutorial on the analysis. After my thesis, I have written an article on a broader topic that includes some preliminary data taken from that experiment. My article has been accepted, and I would like to mention the involvement of the faculty member that has advised me on the analysis. What are the possible methods?
I would like to ask you for different ways to do this, so to discuss this with the faculty member mentioned. As written in this article (<http://www.labtimes.org/labtimes/issues/lt2013/lt02/lt_2013_02_40_40.pdf>), the role of this advisor has been significant - otherwise I wouldn't have been able to complete my thesis -, but really too little in relation to the theme and scope of the article.
In any case, this is showing preliminary data (very basic), and I have written it completely by myself, with half the article covering a different topic. I am actively working with this advisor right now on a proper analysis to be published in a journal with this advisor as a coauthor.<issue_comment>username_1: It may depend on your university and country but many PhD graduates write papers based on their thesis, or chapters of their thesis, after completing their doctorate so this is quite normal. You will probably have to cite your thesis in any papers that you produce from it as it is a prior published work that you are expanding on.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: Shorten, shorten, shorten, and rewrite.
When writing directly for the thesis, people often are elaborate and generous. You have all the space in the world, and having 180 pages instead of 150 might be a plus.
In a journal paper you have, say, 10 pages of a condensed formatting and that's it. So, the writing has to accommodate this.
I have three suggestions:
* In most cases you would like to pick some *aspect* of the thesis, not the whole work. So start from the relevant chapter.
* It depends a lot on the writing style and personal preferences, but for me personally it's often easier to read a paragraph and to come up with a way to tell this in one sentence (i.e., *rewriting*) than to *edit* said paragraph to be shorter and more concise.
* All things that are somewhat relevant, but too large or not immediately needed either land in the supplementary document, or you directly refer to the thesis for more details.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I'll assume your thesis has the following structure:
* Introduction
* Background
* Result 1
* ...
* Result N
* Conclusion
Each result chapter should be publishable (if not now, then later, with some additional material). You just need to prepend each result chapter with an introduction to that result (borrowing heavily from the introduction chapter of your thesis), append with a conclusion to that result (borrowing heavily from the conclusion chapter of your thesis), and edit (by compression and rewriting) into a standalone paper.
---
I recommend mentioning that preliminary results appeared in your PhD thesis, but that's not necessary.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: As for any paper, you should first decide what is the exact topic of your paper, and especially what is the original contribution. Depending on this, you should choose a venue (journal or conference) relevant for this kind of contribution, and preferably appropriate for various criteria such as:
* editorial policy, in particular length of the paper you plan to write;
* acceptance rate: this depends how good you think the paper would be, and whether your strategy favours either a high chance to get accepted or the future value of the paper (the more selective, the higher the value);
* editorial process, in particular length of the reviewing process
You have probably read many papers in your field during your PhD, so you have many examples that you can use as references. The fact that your paper is based on your PhD is not essential in the process. In particular, don't try to squeeze your whole PhD into a single paper, these are two different kinds of documents with different purposes and they should be designed in a different way.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: I took a course a couple years ago and was doing well until I could not attend any longer and abruptly had to stop. I am currently retaking the course and wanted to hand in the work I submitted years ago since I worked hard on it and did well. Is this plagiarism or against some academic code?<issue_comment>username_1: I was once given credit for a paper that I'd submitted to a previous school after I moved. However, there were two considerations. I moved before I completed the first course so wasn't given complete credit for my work previously. Also, I asked the instructor beforehand whether I could submit it, as the assignment was nearly the same.
Even if I'd written it from scratch, it would have had the same ideas, and because thought and language patterns are fairly consistent over a short period, it might have had much of the same phrasing unless I'd tried to obfuscate it - a stupid practice.
Note that the earlier work wasn't published, so it really isn't a technical case of plagiarism to reuse your own thoughts. I also, I suppose, revised a bit to include more recent ideas (this was more than 50 years ago). But complete honesty with the professor isn't likely to hurt you here even though the professor isn't likely to know of your earlier work unless you tell him/her.
However, revision is worth doing in any case. Presumably you have learned some things since the work originated.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: I tend to fall more into the line of thought that such use of your work is not plagiarism. A **key component** here though is disclosure. I would speak with the professor about re-use of your work. If he or she approves re-use of the work, I would find it to be perfectly allowable to re-use that work.
I have had a few instances where my students have re-used work even from other classes. Insofar as it fulfilled the assignment, I was okay with this. It saved them from a busywork-like rewriting of an assignment into slightly different language. In each case, all I asked is that students indicate that they were re-using the work.
Some slight caveats would be cases where the student does not retain sole copyright of the work, or cases where the work was a collaborative effort. These cases require much more care not to plagiarize. However, in cases where a student is the sole author of the work and they have not assigned the copyright to any other party, I allow students to re-use their personal work.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: Whether or not this is a problem probably depends more on **the goal of the assignment for the purpose of this course** rather than *plagiarism* as a general academic concept, because in both cases the work is your own sole work for a course assignment (the same course even), and is not owned by anyone else, published, etc.
The only thing you can do is to **ask your instructor for guidance**. Depending on their goals for the assignment, they may be okay with a re-submission of the previous work or they may want you to complete a new assignment; they may even want you to pick a new topic if the assignment allows for a broader interpretation.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_4: I wouldn't focus too much on the label 'plagiarism'. I'd suggest focusing on acting with integrity and honor and in line with your personal ethics. Not everyone understands the word 'plagiarism' in the same way (as is evident from the answers here), and the specifics of the academic code might vary a bit from university to university and from class to class, but regardless of whether it counts as plagiarism or something else, you *can* still be sure to do the right thing. Even if it is not 'plagiarism' per se, that doesn't completely settle the question; you should still ask whether it is right and acceptable to do this.
I don't know whether it will be considered acceptable in your particular class, but let me suggest some questions to help guide your thinking. What would the instructor say if they knew that you were re-using your answer to an assignment from when you took the class earlier? Would they be happy with it, or would they consider it unacceptable? What would they say if they discovered that you had re-used an old assignment, without indicating that you had done so? Would they feel deceived? Would they feel like you were trying to hide that fact? What would a disinterested third party think, if they learned that? Your answers to those questions might help guide your thinking about what to do. Of course, you might not know the answer to some of those questions, in which case the natural solution is to talk to your instructor to find out the answers.
In particular, I have some concrete suggestions:
1. **Ask your instructor.** Find out what their standards are. This may make it clear what to do. And I suspect the instructor would prefer to be asked, rather than discover it on their own after the fact.
2. **Be honest about what you are doing.** Disclose on your assignment that you wrote the essay the last time you took the course and turned it in for credit then. That way, no one can claim that you are hiding what you are doing. (If you are thinking that you shouldn't need to do this, well, you totally might be right; but it's also worth considering that when we are tempted to hide some facts, that can sometimes indicate that we know or suspect it might be wrong.) And it helps protect you: if anyone later accuses you of plagiarism or wrongdoing, you can point to the fact that you proactively disclosed it on the assignment, and I expect that would count for a lot.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: Both the question (plagiarism) and the current answers (yes / no / ask your instructor) are not in line with what a typical teacher would expect: the purpose of the class is that you **learn something**.
Unfortunately a past achievement is not necessarily the same as something you can still do now. So the question you should ask yourself, and also what your teacher wants to see is: **are you capable of completing this assignment TODAY**.
In other words: you are not in university to pass exams. You are there to learn something. So the solution is simple: do the assignment again.
* If you already know how to do it you will get it done quickly.
* If there are details you forgot, you will learn something which is the purpose of attending the course in the first place.
Good luck!
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_6: In general, you need to understand the rules at your institution.
In broad terms, what you describe broadly fits the definition of what is called "self-plagiarism". I.e., using your own published work in a subsequent publication where there is an expectation of originality and you do not acknowledge that part or all of the new publication is taken from the earlier publication. Of course, in a student setting, replace the words publication with assignment.
At all universities that I have worked at (Australian context), there has been a rule that treats submitting assignments used in previous units without acknowledgement as academic misconduct. I imagine this is in place for pedagogical reasons. You are meant to learn by creating a novel piece of work, even if you happen to have done something similar in the past.
That said, your case is a little different. You are not taking an assignment from a different unit. Rather you are taking your assignment from the same unit. This scenario is presumably fairly common (e.g., students that fail, students that drop out of a unit, and the re-enrol at
a later date).
I would seek explicit guidance from your professor about what is their policy.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: My daughter received an F on a paper in college that she had self-plagiarized from a paper in high school. Best to check with the instructor and confirm their policy.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_8: Since you don’t mention how long ago it was that you dropped your class, I would say no, don’t laze your way through your first assignments. Man up and work hard again. I am a retired teacher and I agree with @louic. You are there to learn and to PROVE what you have learned. Use your past work as a study guide and fulfill your new syllabus again. If you are truly a learner, you will enjoy getting back into the swing of this class and breeze through the portions you completed earlier. Then, you will be prepared for the part of the syllabus that you dropped and have not done the work for. It sounds like this class is one you need for your major, so cutting corners will only hurt you in the long run.
It also sounds as though you submitted some of it for a grade already. In my opinion, it would be unconscionable to RESUBMIT ALREADY SUBMITTED AND GRADED WORK, whether it counted on your transcript or not. You would have an unfair time and learning advantage over others in your class that could skew the curve (if there is one).
At any rate, you’re already ahead of the game by even considering the question, so best of luck!
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: I have written a thesis that seeks to analyze the ideological thinking of a newspaper through its editorials in a political situation during a certain period of time. I couldn’t count on my Thesis Advisor and I have written my thesis by myself.
My methodology is simple. In short, I made a compilation of information about the problem, then I selected 20 meaningful dates during the political climate in question, so I had a sample of 20 editorials: 1 per each meaningful date. Then, after checking out the editorials I found 8 units of analysis and made a Content Analysis to find the expressions used on the editorials. That's how I found the newspaper’s judgments, attitudes and attributes about diverse events and characters (important people) related to the political situation. These represent the variables or categories that would demonstrate the newspaper’s ideological posture.
Nevertheless, after applying this methodology (contents analysis) in my thesis, I read about Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). This is the most appropriate method to analyze the ideological thinking of a newspaper. Even that, my Advisor approved my thesis and I must defend it in three weeks. I am afraid that in my defense someone asked me why I used Content Analysis instead of ACD, being my thesis a qualitative investigation. I do not know how to answer appropriately. I would like to read your opinions and recommendations, my friends.<issue_comment>username_1: The best approach is probably to be honest. If it is because you didn't know about CDA, then it might count against you, of course. However, it may be that the approach you took is sufficient to the research you did and maybe had some advantages. This isn't my field, so I don't know what those might be, but perhaps you do.
But you also, now, have an opportunity for future work to compare what you did with what CDA would imply instead.
But the most important thing is to be able to justify the approach that you did take. Presumably your thesis itself has justifications for approaches and tools.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: This situation is one of many that demonstrate *the key role of an academic advisor* and why I would never suggest anyone attempt a research program as a novice without one.
The specific content of your research (i.e., the merits of content analysis vs. critical discourse analysis for your research question) is off-topic for Academia.SE, but at this point you should *find an advisor in your field to ask for advice*.
If you cannot reach your thesis advisor, then maybe someone else on your committee can step into that role. Your advisor has approved your work, so either they have not read it carefully (and have failed you miserably in their advising duties) or this problem is not as serious as you may think (i.e., your choice can be justified despite your oversight of another technique in the field).
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Work on the CDA as much as you can in the coming few weeks and if it comes up during the viva, you will have a lot to talk about and impress them with.
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: As is common practice, I usually have used a red pen to grade student work and provide edits and comments on papers I collaborate on. However, I was speaking recently with an elementary school teacher who told me that they are instructed to avoid using red pen when grading student work. This led me to ask if using red pen to provide feedback on student work is a practice I should avoid.
Based on the study discussed in the link below, wherein red pen is found to have a negative effect on student response to feedback, it seems that using red pen may actually cause students to receive feedback less favorably.
<https://phys.org/news/2013-01-red-pen-instructors-negative-response.html>
I also have been told by a Korean colleague that red pen is only used to write the names of the dead, and writing a living person's name in red is akin to wishing the person dead.
In light of these thoughts, should red pen be avoided in academic settings? It seems that use of red pen can have negative psychological and cultural implications.<issue_comment>username_1: I believe that, as a student, it can be a little bit demoralizing to use red pen, and I have had past teachers avoid this. The color red is commonly associated with anger, and this may contribute to feelings of "wrongness".
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: What you could do, is mark the wrong answers in red. When I get a test that is all mark up in red ink, I believe that I got everything wrong. So, you could chose another color, say blue, and use that for corrections, and then use red for the really "bad" ones.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: In the past I have also received suggestions about marking in red, and had various discussions on the topic. My only reason for continuing to mark using red is that it contrasts strongly with the typical blue or black of the submissions.
It is often cited/claimed that red is an "angry" colour, or students find it demoralising, and so it should be avoided. But that doesn't really follow when the markings are "ticks" or other constructive affirmations.
Using blue pen when the work is blue or black does not provide a good contrast and corrections are more easily overlooked. (I have used blue pen for marking when, after having had students ask if it matters what colour they use to write, I have received work written in shades of pink. In that case, blue gave a better contrast than red.)
Green has been suggested as an alternative, but then there are studies to indicate that information written in green is not easily remembered, and if the reason for writing corrections is to help the student learn, green would then be counterproductive.
Other colours such as purple and black also do not give a good contrast. And you may well find that the students who complain now that they don't like red will later complain that you didn't show them the correct answer/method/result because the new colour used didn't stand out from the rest of the work.
There is also the issue of marking individual items or questions and then totalling the marks across multiple pages. The individual marks need to be easily seen *by you* so that you don't inadvertently miscount and record a lower mark or grade for the student work.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: I suppose if ALL of your comments in red ink are negative and there's red ink everywhere, sure, that would be demoralizing. But is that really how you mark up your students' work? When I'm grading a paper, I'm underlining passages I liked, I'm making comments in the margins like "Yes! Agree!", questions that came to mind, and stuff like that. And all of that is in red. No matter how bad the submission, I can always find something I like, so when they read my comments, I hope they experience them less as an avalanche of criticism and negativity and more as a conversation about their work.
Fwiw, I'm not changing. I like red, maybe because it's traditional but also because it makes the comments so easy to pick out against the text. And if you're considerate in your comments, I'm unconvinced there's a genuine problem that needs fixing.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_5: One of my professors in college used green, and I liked that, so I also use green. No issues so far, except for the rare case when a student writes with a green pen!
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_6: The reason that the "mainstream" color for correcting is red is because it attracts your attention easily and is well contrasted to the blue/black or pencil that will commonly be used.
My guess is that because red has been used for corrections for so long, it can be thus associated with errors, and hence elicit the potential negative feedback reception. Be that as it may, you're not dealing with preschoolers. Your students are adults. It's up to you to pick the (imo, a rather trivial detail) color you wish to use to grade assignments.
>
> It seems that use of red pen can have negative psychological and cultural implications.
>
>
>
Psychological? No. It's not like you'll ruin someone's day because a correction was made in red ink. You may or may not make that person less receptive to your feedback as per the paper you linked, but to say that it will have negative psychological repercussions is an overstatement.
Cultural? Depends where you are. I wouldn't use a red pen in Korea, but here in America, red pens are most well-known for adding comments and annotations on documents.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm a tenured professor and like my job overall. I don't go to work giddy everyday, but I enjoy research, and usually enjoy teaching. I don't enjoy stuff like playing department politics or being part of a system that puts students into debt, but I don't think you can feel positive about every aspect of any job.
However, I'm also in the fortunate position of being able to retire early if I wanted (I'm in my early forties). I made some investments a while ago that turned out well, and they generate enough passive income to support my (modest) lifestyle on their own.
If I chose to retire from academia now, I'm confident there are other things I can do to fill my time. I'm not worried about being "bored."
However, given how hard it is to get an academic job and tenure, it seems crazy to walk away from it this young. I also worry that it would be impossible to go back to academia if for some reason I wanted to in the future.
So, would I be crazy to walk away from a tenured job if I don't need it financially?<issue_comment>username_1: I believe that, as a student, it can be a little bit demoralizing to use red pen, and I have had past teachers avoid this. The color red is commonly associated with anger, and this may contribute to feelings of "wrongness".
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: What you could do, is mark the wrong answers in red. When I get a test that is all mark up in red ink, I believe that I got everything wrong. So, you could chose another color, say blue, and use that for corrections, and then use red for the really "bad" ones.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: In the past I have also received suggestions about marking in red, and had various discussions on the topic. My only reason for continuing to mark using red is that it contrasts strongly with the typical blue or black of the submissions.
It is often cited/claimed that red is an "angry" colour, or students find it demoralising, and so it should be avoided. But that doesn't really follow when the markings are "ticks" or other constructive affirmations.
Using blue pen when the work is blue or black does not provide a good contrast and corrections are more easily overlooked. (I have used blue pen for marking when, after having had students ask if it matters what colour they use to write, I have received work written in shades of pink. In that case, blue gave a better contrast than red.)
Green has been suggested as an alternative, but then there are studies to indicate that information written in green is not easily remembered, and if the reason for writing corrections is to help the student learn, green would then be counterproductive.
Other colours such as purple and black also do not give a good contrast. And you may well find that the students who complain now that they don't like red will later complain that you didn't show them the correct answer/method/result because the new colour used didn't stand out from the rest of the work.
There is also the issue of marking individual items or questions and then totalling the marks across multiple pages. The individual marks need to be easily seen *by you* so that you don't inadvertently miscount and record a lower mark or grade for the student work.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: I suppose if ALL of your comments in red ink are negative and there's red ink everywhere, sure, that would be demoralizing. But is that really how you mark up your students' work? When I'm grading a paper, I'm underlining passages I liked, I'm making comments in the margins like "Yes! Agree!", questions that came to mind, and stuff like that. And all of that is in red. No matter how bad the submission, I can always find something I like, so when they read my comments, I hope they experience them less as an avalanche of criticism and negativity and more as a conversation about their work.
Fwiw, I'm not changing. I like red, maybe because it's traditional but also because it makes the comments so easy to pick out against the text. And if you're considerate in your comments, I'm unconvinced there's a genuine problem that needs fixing.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_5: One of my professors in college used green, and I liked that, so I also use green. No issues so far, except for the rare case when a student writes with a green pen!
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_6: The reason that the "mainstream" color for correcting is red is because it attracts your attention easily and is well contrasted to the blue/black or pencil that will commonly be used.
My guess is that because red has been used for corrections for so long, it can be thus associated with errors, and hence elicit the potential negative feedback reception. Be that as it may, you're not dealing with preschoolers. Your students are adults. It's up to you to pick the (imo, a rather trivial detail) color you wish to use to grade assignments.
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> It seems that use of red pen can have negative psychological and cultural implications.
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Psychological? No. It's not like you'll ruin someone's day because a correction was made in red ink. You may or may not make that person less receptive to your feedback as per the paper you linked, but to say that it will have negative psychological repercussions is an overstatement.
Cultural? Depends where you are. I wouldn't use a red pen in Korea, but here in America, red pens are most well-known for adding comments and annotations on documents.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: A few years ago I wrote a paper with three collaborators, where we introduced a model to describe a specific phenomenon. In the end we were not fully happy with the result, so we wrote it up, put it on the arXiv without submitting to a journal, and agreed to revisit the subject after a small break.
Approximately a year later we gathered again, re-started almost from scratch, and came up with a better model, which resulted in a paper that we quickly submitted, and had accepted in a good journal.
A bit more than a year later, I now see that even though the second paper gets cited, the first still rakes up some amount of citations. We ourselves think that the second one is better, but obviously there are people who disagree.
What to do with the first paper? Should it be submitted to a journal to undergo peer review? And would it not be strange to try and submit the first paper to a journal, pretending that the second paper never happened?<issue_comment>username_1: Based on your comment
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> The basic idea behind is very similar. The reason the second one is better is due mostly to improvement of several details, which in the end made the results more trustworthy.
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this sounds to me like you **could consider the arXiv paper to be an earlier draft of the second paper, in which case you've basically already published it** (as the second paper).
Presumably anything novel in the arXiv paper is no longer novel in the field because it is either established directly (or superseded) by the second paper, or the second paper cites your arXiv paper directly.
As @Vladhagen mentions in a comment, if you do decide to continue with an attempt to submit the earlier work, you will need to be clear about the existence of the second paper to any journals you submit it to, and given the similarities you should certainly be citing your second paper in the new submission anyways. If anything, that self-citation would be the purpose of submitting the previous work, in order to direct more attention towards your second paper.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I see no reason that you really need to do anything with the first paper. In arXiv it is a stable, citable resource, people are finding it useful, and the citations are accruing credit to your work.
If you are concerned that people who are reading the first paper are unaware that it is obsolete, then you can add update its entry to add a pointer to the second paper. People will still likely continue to cite the first paper, however, either because they have reason to prefer it or because it's already in their reference collection and they don't revisit and see your update.
Other than providing a pointer to the second paper, though, I see no reason not to just let well enough alone, be grateful the people are appreciating your work, and move forward onto other things.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: I am not going to give details about the situation (for obvious reasons) but here it is: I got accepted for PhD to a very good American university, in experimental particle physics and I met a famous professor here who is willing to be my mentor.
I talked to some of his old students and they all said good things about him (both personality related and research related).
The thing is that his students usually finish the PhD in about 3 years (this includes taking classes, written and oral exams), while the average here is about 6. I am not sure if I should go for it or not.
I really like the work that he is doing and a recommendation letter from him would definitely mean a lot and I am totally willing to put as much effort as necessary into the projects he gives me. I am just not sure if a 3 years PhD would be good for my future career.
Will I get to learn enough? Will the post-doc or professor positions I will apply to might view such a short PhD as a bad thing (the students I talked to graduated quite recently so I am not sure about the long term impact of this)?<issue_comment>username_1: I received my PhD in statistics (US University) in three years. I came in with a master's degree, which sometimes makes a difference. I obtained a very desirable post-doc afterwards. No one has ever questioned me on why it "only" took three years.
Three years is probably the lower bound. If you go below that, some people may raise an eyebrow. But if your dissertation is quality and you can get out in three years, all the better. There are a number of people who only take three years.
Also note that it is not that uncommon to not even list on your CV the years you obtained your degrees. (Although this is more the case for established researchers).
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**Added:** A few comments have mentioned the fact that you do not want to shortchange yourself from the learning experiences found in obtaining a PhD by rushing through a PhD. While many good learning experiences can be found in obtaining a PhD, it is not as if you defend your dissertation and are then commanded to terminate any further learning. For me personally, I much preferred growing as a researcher while getting paid a real salary with health insurance over growing as a researcher and earning a small stipend and eating instant noodles everyday.
In all, there is no single one-size-fits all answer. Taking six years to finish is not a guarantee that you will be prepared to do independent research; taking three years is no guarantee either.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: The time that you *should* take is the time needed to complete the required coursework and to complete the requested research. In the physical sciences, the latter involves validating hypotheses in an otherwise open-ended project, publishing a core part of your findings, and having them accepted in a peer-reviewed journal. The time that you *will* take is the time until your committee approves your work.
Whether the time is three years or six is not relevant. What you accomplish in that time is exceptionally relevant.
Ask for the publications from the previous students. Read them and judge for yourself whether the work they have done has merit and is what you want to do.
I'll add additional points of reference.
I am aware of cases where PhD degrees took anywhere from three to six years even in the same department. The differences were advisor and sub-field. In the physical sciences, the caution when I might review a PhD that took only three years is that I will look to certify whether the work was original and thorough enough despite the perception of being a short time. An off-the-cuff example of a low impact PhD completed in short time is one that is nothing more than a new twist on a data analysis method applied to a collection of "big data". I count this as a tick mark toward "degree inflation". At the opposite extreme, I have to wonder after six years where the heck a student is spending his/her time (if not also why he/she allows the advisor a hold on what amounts to slave wages). This is the point where a dissertation committee should be called for leverage to set a foreseeable end point.
In summary, a PhD in the physical sciences should be awarded based on the recognition of success in the development of an idea or approach that can be uniquely identified as **original to the student**. A story I heard about a rejection goes as "Your dissertation presents much that is original and groundbreaking. Unfortunately, what is original is not groundbreaking, and what is groundbreaking is not original". Does this take three years or six? You decide for yourself.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: The issue isn't specifically the time it takes for your PhD, but rather what you get out of it.
Will your CV after 3 years get you the jobs you want? Are others in your country/field spending 6 years publishing and strengthening their CV?
Personally, I didn't feel ready until my 6th year and there is no way I would have had a competitive CV if I graduated much sooner.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: One of the questions is *why* his students finish so fast. That's likely at the core of whether or not things are "Good" or "Bad".
For example, some potential good reasons:
1. His lab has stable funding, which means his students need to take fewer TA positions to fund themselves, and can work on research instead. Note that this might also be a *bad* thing if you want to accumulate teaching experience.
2. His lab has a productive experiment and data generation pipeline, meaning his students might have clear experimental setups, there's a lot of institutional knowledge, etc. that prevents them from going down unproductive rabbit holes.
In both cases, a "Good" lab might have removed some of the waste time from doing a PhD that many people experience, which will cut down on the time it takes, potentially by quite a bit.
Some potentially bad reasons:
1. The course of study for his students is expressly *just* what's useful for their work in his lab, discouraging picking up depth or exploring interests.
2. The projects are "gift wrapped" and don't involve much thought on the part of the student as to how to conduct them - all they have to do is pull the trigger. This *seems* like a good thing, but can leave you with a lack of skills in articulating an independent research agenda later.
Just knowing the time it takes can't tell you which of those things (and others) is actually in play.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_5: *In the following I am speaking from personal experience and what I hear from others. I don't claim objectivity.*
I had a Master's degree when I started by PhD in AI and two years of industry experience. My goal is to finish as fast as possible - especially for financial reasons, because I am also supporting a wife and little son. I think there should be requirements when you are eligible for your PhD title - the faster you can get those, the smarter (or luckier for a big part) you must have been. That would be my reasoning. That much for the CV - at least from a business perspective if you want to go back into industry later.
Regarding the fun aspect: Doing a PhD can also be a fun experience that you would like to have a little longer. However, don't expect it to be the "best time of your life". I know many people who said it was the hardest time in their life. I love research and feel I was born to do it, but I have to say: It is no picnic, especially in the context of a PhD, where the pressure can be pretty high (publish or perish).
Regarding your professor: Having a good supervisor trumps nearly everything, I think. I know so many PhD students who have serious issues with their professors. Luckily I am not one of them, but that seems to be the exception from what I hear.
I think I would go for it and opt for a post-doc if you want to lengthen your time at university. You would have your PhD in the bag (pressure should be lower) and get higher salary.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: Long PhDs are a way for researchers to have cheap labor. Provided your research is up to scratch, as evidenced by publication in peer-reviewed journals, the length does not signify.
In Australia, research institutions are penalized once PhD students start taking longer than four years.
I did my PhD in 27 months; I had a research masters before starting, though.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: I think it comes down to these two main factors: if you take a long time, you would also have more time to do research, which should translate into more publications, more conference presentations, and so on. You'll also have more time to pick up expertise in other areas, i.e. be less specialized on your thesis topic. If you finish quickly, you will have less of these things - but you will also be able to move on to your next job sooner.
With fewer publications, conference presentations, etc, you would be less competitive for fellowships or postdoc positions. However these may not matter depending on what jobs you're looking to do afterwards. Further, PhD student positions in the US tend not to be well paid, so getting a PhD sooner enables you to move on to a higher-paying + more stable job quicker.
Ultimately, the choice is yours.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_8: Yes. It is very good.
I completed a Ph.D. (also in EPP, funnily enough) in 2 years and 11 months. I started in October 1988 and made a particular point of having the timestamp of September 1991 on the front cover. I used this as a USP when applying for post-doc jobs and made sure always to slip the phrase *on-time Ph.D.* into the interview. This always raised an eyebrow and generated a *hmmm* or even a *really?* from at least one of the interviewers. As regards to how successful the strategy was, I have managed to stay in work ever since.
For background, I did this Ph.D. in the U.K. and was funded by a rather munificent Government Research Council that only paid for three years. Since I had no other means of support, I was heavily incentivised to finish on time. Also, I had a five-year break working in industry between my first degree and embarking on my doctorate so I had grown up a bit and gotten a bit more focused. This helped me to avoid the usual student traps of faffing about endlessly.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_9: This is a very open ended question. Is it good to drive a car fast? It totally depends on what your objective is. In the big picture, there are many other factors in addition to speed of finishing that influence how much you learnt, the quality of your work etc.
However, in my experience of having done a 'short PhD', it is not a handicap when applying for other institutions. The quality of the work speaks far louder.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_10: Let me throw in a slightly alternative view. It is best to finish a PhD smoothly, without unnecessary obstacles, and move on with your life and career.
That said, you will never be more protected in your academic career as when you're a PhD student. There's very little grant pressure. Mistakes are unlikely to be career enders. There's no "up or out" clock ticking.
There are things that should be accomplished while you are a student that have nothing to do with finishing your research. You should be taking every opportunity to network. You should be voraciously reading everything in your field. You should be starting to write your first grant. You shouldn't just be working very hard to finish up your research, you should be laying a framework to hit the ground running when you start your next endeavor.
So, if you can work very hard, and finish your PhD research a year early, but it's at the expense of not doing all that other stuff, I would think long and hard about it.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_11: >
> if I start now, finish in 3 years and do 3 years of post-doc compared
> to someone who does 6 year of PhD
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3 years is standard for most PhD programs in the EU, including the very top ones as in ETH, Oxbridge etc.
Regarding 3 years PhD + 3 years postdoc vs 6 years PhD
Pros:
* Finacial. I earned more than 3 times as a postdoc ($80,000 vs £15,600 tax free).
* Broaden research areas. After 3 years, you may get bored with a very narrow topic. It's good to explore something else. Note that for PhD, you often need to work on the same topic, in particular when your thesis is a monograph.
* Broaden your network: new collaborators (of new advisor)
* Learn to manage a team. You are considered more senior than PhD students in new group.
Cons:
* This did not happen to me, but I heard that in many cases, first authorship was given to PhD students even when the postdoc did most of the work.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_12: It took me six total years (and 3 months) after my bachelor's to finish my Ph. D. which included the Master's degree [USA]. My Ph.D. was in Electrical Engineering (Signal Processing, specifically array processing). I now work in software-engineering exclusively, so one never knows what the future holds!
It is definitely good to finish the Ph.D. as speedily as reasonable if you are up for the work, it is a good idea.
A lot, of course, depends on your personal, not academic/career considerations; of course, the latter affect the former.
Upvotes: 2
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