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[ "What is normal pay in U.S. for RAship in STEM field?", "I am a PhD student in statistics/math in the U.S. I go to a large, state run institution. I am currently hired for the summer as a research assistant for a professor.\n\nOn the department website, an RAship is listed as being a 20 hour a week job, paid at $21 per hour. This is what she and I agreed to before my starting researching with her. However, now my professor wants me to work 40 hours a week for $7.34 an hour. (She is actually going to pay me $14.68/hr, since only 20 hours are bookable for legal purposes. Well, and the fact that $7.34 is below minimum wage). I never got the $21 in writing, so that is my error. \n\nWorking 40 hours per week is in essence requisite to retain the job (since the workload she requires to keep the job necessitates such). She is offering me no dissertation credit for my work, only this pittance of a grunt wage. Outside of a weekly hour long meeting via Skype, she does not have any time to mentor or guide me. Her promise is that at some point the research I do for her will become a dissertation topic. But, as of right now, I am just reading papers she is too busy to read and then telling her what they say. \n\nThis professor is not from the U.S. and I believe is somewhat unfamiliar with U.S. practices in fair wages. (For example, she offered me $10/hr to do some other things related to her research for her. I earned more than that as an undergraduate TA for a sophomore level class). I am not asking for $15/hr for flipping burgers, just a fair compensation for the work I am doing for her. She has a large NSF grant that she might end up losing if I do not produce results for her to show them. \n\nShe justifies requiring these hours at this pay because she says that I will end up possibly, maybe, hypothetically, if the moon lands on earth, theoretically finishing a third of my dissertation. \n\nI am aware that I need to pay my dues so to speak. Naturally, I know that I need to put in a lot of time to a PhD that is not monetarily compensated. Nevertheless, I feel a bit like I am being taken advantage of. Is this pay structure/workload normal for an RAship, or should I take it up further with her?" ]

[ "graduate-school", "salary", "research-assistantship", "working-time" ]

[ "What is PhD Level research?", "I am an undergraduate student, and I am trying to learn more about the PhD process. Based on speaking to my colleagues and research including reading many thesis the process is as follows:\n\n\nApply to a school\nGet accepted\nWork with your group of advisers to determine a PhD topic and course (that may or may not just ba a professor's project)\nDo the research\nWrite a thesis\nDefend thesis\nGet PhD\n\n\n(If I am wrong on anything above please correct me)\n\nI am still fuzzy on what constitutes an acceptable PhD topic, most sources I found quoted the same thing:\n\n\n Independent research on an original topic.\n\n\nCan someone break that down for me? (I am mostly interested in the US context for Engineering/STEM fields)\n\nIt seems that incremental improvements in methodology are ok, does research need to be groundbreaking? or are you just demonstrating you can do \"PhD level\" research?" ]

[ "phd", "research-topic", "thesis-committee" ]

[ "What is the difference between a plenary and a keynote talk?", "I am organizing a workshop and have invited a featured speaker to give a synthetic talk. What is the appropriate term for this role?" ]

[ "conference", "presentation", "workshop" ]

[ "Changing Phd topic in between because of lack of 'usefulness' of current research", "In my current study. I am trying to solve a problem A by using a technology B. My supervisors consider themselves as experts in B. I have a scholarship for 3 years and 1.5 years are over. I have passed my exams and my Ph.D. proposal presentation was passed 6 months back. But now I realize that B=evolutionary computation is not a useful technique and is incapable of solving any real problems in the industry. I have a first-hand experience with that, now.\n\nI wish to explore C and D as techniques but my supervisor is totally against it stating he cannot help me in that. Considering I am using a scholarship I am under additional pressure to do only what his 'vision' states. Any other technique I propose is challenged vociferously by them even in the inception stage. \n\nWhat should I do? I can confront them and say that EC is useless and I wish to explore techniques which actually do something. There is no top conference which will accept my work but it lead to extreme pressure and argument. My supervisor is only interested in his growth within the academic community of EC and has no concern about what industry does. I do not wish to be an academician and investing my time on training myself in such a work is not in sync with my aspirations. \n\nKindly suggest as to what I should do? Should I give up the scholarship and look for other Ph.D. opportunities? That is a huge waste of time and effort, though. The scholarship is given by university and not through my supervisor's funding.\n\nWhat is a good way out here?" ]

[ "advisor", "funding", "research-topic" ]

[ "Can post-doc inquiries be parallel?", "I am a Computer Science PhD student in the US about to graduate this year and want to contact a few professors; say, A and B; in my field to know if they have a post-doc position available. \n\nShould I wait until A replies before sending out inquiry to B? \n\nMy concern is that if I ask A and B at the same time and end up securing a post-doc with A, and B later says yes he has an open position, will B regard me as unprofessional since the inquiry is a waste of time for both him and me? If yes, I have to send out inquiries sequentially, which greatly reduces the efficiency of the hunt process." ]

[ "career-path", "postdocs" ]

[ "Capitalization of \"Subsection\"", "I write a mathematical paper. Do you capitalize \"subsection\" when you refer to a specific subsection? For example, I would write:\n\n\"In Subsection 3 we show ...\"\n\n\nBut I would write:\n\n\"In the previous subsection we showed that ...\"\n\n\nWhat is the consensus on that issue?" ]

[ "writing", "grammar" ]

[ "Is it ethical to limit marks based upon past performance?", "A professor has a habit of starting oral examinations by asking for or looking up grade averages and grades from other subjects and then taking them heavily into account when evaluating the student in question. For example, I was allowed to be even considered to get an A in Real Analysis III, because I got an A in Real Analysis II and had a good overall grade average.\n\nIs it ethical or helpful to ever consider student's performance outside the course? If not, what about subjects tightly interconnected? But then, most mathematics is interconnected in one way or another..." ]

[ "ethics", "grades", "grading" ]

[ "Do you not belong in a PhD program if you don't live and breathe your field of study?", "In my PhD program everyone talks about how passionate they are about their field of study, and how they go to seminars because they're fun. Is it expected that PhD students truly love their subject, or is it enough just to do good work and publish papers?\n\nThis thread was prompted by discussion here." ]

[ "phd" ]

[ "Why are research papers written in language that's difficult for undergraduate students?", "As an undergraduate student, I find it hard to understand research papers on any particular subject.\n\nWhy don't researchers use simple language for their reports, so that everyone would understand?\n\nUpdate: I will leave this post as a general discussion on this topic. Feel free to edit question." ]

[ "publications", "writing" ]

[ "Prestigious institutions with open admissions policies", "Has any college in the US managed to unite being prestigious and being open access, at undergrad or grad level. I mean open enrolment in the European sense, where they have kind of minimal requirements (language cert, high-school and not much more). \n\nI wonder, given that they could charge thousands $/year, what's the problem with admitting mass-wise new students (and provide them with decent teachers, materials and the like). Why limit the number of clients you get?" ]

[ "open-access", "graduate-admissions" ]

[ "Citing an unpublished paper? plagiarism?", "Here is the situation: I am working with 2 others on a paper A, and simultaneously by myself separately on a paper B (which is a thesis). \n\n\nA and B are on very much similar topics. \nI started with paper B slightly before we started working on paper A, but the ideas in paper B build upon the ideas in paper A.\nMoreover, paper A will very likely be published sooner than paper B. My plan at first was to cite paper A in paper B. \nHowever, my other 2 co-authors have now started to shift their idea about what domain of paper A should be, and they are shifting towards the topic of my paper B, and have even started to reinvent some of my ideas in paper B. \nTherefore, I am very concerned that this will cause a plagiarism issue: If we decide that paper A should contain many of the ideas in paper B, then ideally, I would want A to cite B: I came up with these ideas independently and for a different paper, so if A wants to use them, paper B (i.e. myself) should get credit for the work (since I put in all the work and came up with it first, and we originally didn't plan to put it in paper A). But paper A will likely get published before paper B is handed in as a thesis.\n\n\nMost importantly: I need to hand in paper B as a thesis, and I cannot afford not to hand it in, or to make a completely different thesis. Therefore I need to be sure that paper B does not commit (self?) plagiarism. \n\n\nIs there a way for paper A to cite paper B (my thesis), even though paper A will be published before B?\nIf no, how to avoid (self?) plagiarism in this situation? (somehow integrate parts of B in A while still recognising B as the original work that is a separate thesis and gets credit as such?)\nIs it generally stupid to work on two papers simultaneously like this? Did I make a big mistake...?" ]

[ "plagiarism", "self-plagiarism" ]

[ "University club executive committee", "As a Mathematics student or a student in general wishing to go into research in the future, does being a member of the executive committee for the relevant club matter that much in terms of gaining positions in the future in research?\n\nI have generalised anxiety disorder, and as a result I find it extremely difficult to join such clubs, and some of my fellow students who are on my level are gaining these positions with ease. Will this give them a large edge over me in the future?" ]

[ "graduate-admissions", "research-process", "cv" ]

[ "Do “researcher degrees of freedom” invalidate my analysis?", "I tested a hypothesis using some observational data, but did not find support for the hypothesis (the difference was not significant at the p < 0.05 level). I subsequently realised that the inclusion of a certain subset of individuals was dubious, since there was some doubt over their measurements. I filtered out those individuals (on objective criteria), and lo and behold, I now find evidence to support my original hypothesis. \n\nI am acutely aware that, had the original hypothesis test returned a significant result, I probably would have found justification to support the inclusion of those doubtful measurements (or perhaps never even stopped to think about removing them). Although this wasn't my deliberate intention, what I have done seems a lot like I have employed my “researcher degrees of freedom” to find a version of the analysis that supports my original hypothesis. \n\nI realise that what I should have done was to plan out my analysis more carefully in advance, and decide whether or not to include the doubtful measurements before carrying out any analysis. But I can’t change what has already happened, so my question is, what do I do with my data/analysis now? I can see a number of options that vary in their sensibleness, but none of which seem ideal:\n\n\nContinue to use my updated analysis and present a clear argument for why those individuals should be excluded (i.e. ignore the RDF issue).\nContinue to use my updated analysis but, in any write-up/publication be fully open about the less-than-ideal path that I took to reach it.\nConduct some kind of multiple-comparisons adjustment to take my multiple different analyses into account (I don’t know if this is even a valid approach in this context).\nSigh and throw the analysis in the bin.\n\n\nHow (if at all) can I make good use of my analysis while still adhering to good research practice?\n\nMy field is Ecology, in case that makes any difference. \n\nEdit, in response to close vote: I did consider submitting the question to Stats.SE instead, but I felt that this is more an issue of research philosophy than a detailed statistical question. The answers that I am interested in (and indeed have already received) are connected with a general research strategy, and how to present results, rather than details regarding particular statistical methods, and so I felt that it was appropriate for this site. Having received very useful answers and comments already, it won't make too much difference to me personally if it ends up closed (and I can understand the argument for doing so), but I think the material could be useful to others in a similar situation to my own." ]

[ "statistics" ]

[ "What is a good academic word for \"verifiable by scientific data or experiments\"? Is \"empirical\" a suitable word for that?", "What is a good academic word for verifiable by scientific data or experiments?\nIs empirical data a suitable word for that?\nP.S EDIT: my question is what is A single word for "derived through experimental data" (opposite to derived through observation)\nI mean that word should explain that it can be precisely reproduced by others as well because it's experimental data." ]

[ "writing-style" ]

[ "Is computer science worth double majoring in for an aspiring Data Scientist?", "I'm currently a computational Statistics major at UC Davis and have my eyes set on becoming a data scientist. I like both fields of stats and computer science, but not sure if I want to put in the effort to double with computer science, since my only career goal is to become a Data Scientist. How important are the set of skills taught in comp science and not in statistics to Data Scientists? Is it worth the double major effort?" ]

[ "career-path", "major" ]

[ "Reference on how often \"To the best of our knowledge\" assertions turn out to be false", "Quite often authors make some claims with some \"to the best of our knowledge\" disclaimer. \n\nExample:\n\n\n \"To the best of our knowledge this is the first time this approach has been used to address this problem\".\n\n\nIs there any research/study/survey that tried to look at how often such claims are false? (e.g. some counterexample can be found)\n\nI am mostly interested in the field of machine learning / data mining in English-speaking venues, however any reference on occurrence of such false assertions would be of value." ]

[ "publications", "reference-request" ]

[ "2nd bachelors vs 2nd masters", "I already have a BS and MS of a certain degree. I am contemplating going for a 2nd BS or 2nd MS, in which my employer is willing to provide financial aid. The employer is generally supportive of me getting a 2nd degree with the belief that I will become a better employee, and I am interested in the fact that I can put it on my resume to potentially be more desirable to companies.\n\nSo there is the option to get a BS for this 2nd degree, or skip the BS and go directly for the 2nd MS. I'm not sure which option would benefit me more. I believe I have done enough related real-world work that I could easily stomp out the BS (though it would take longer), or at least not struggle too badly if I skipped the BS and went directly into the MS.\n\nWould an employer see more benefit in having 1 BS and 2 MS, vs 2 BS and 1 MS?" ]

[ "canada", "second-degree" ]

[ "Professor said we should meet again, but never answered my email", "Recently I tried to join a lab as an undergrad and do a research project next semester. I e-mailed the professor and he arranged an interview. Interview was pretty normal, and we talked about an available project he had. At the end, he said we should meet again in August to talk more about the project.\n\nSince the interview I have followed up several times, trying to arrange this meeting. But he never responded to my e-mails, and now I'm just confused... Should I keep waiting? Or did he just change his mind and decide to ignore me instead of telling me that. (If this is the case then it is really a d**k move. I have been spending a lot of time reading relevant papers and studying his project for the past month or so.)\n\nThanks in advance for any suggestions" ]

[ "undergraduate", "research-undergraduate" ]

[ "Are the peer-reviewers of papers submitted to a conference that took a place in location X from X too?", "Generally speaking, are the papers submitted to a conference (Scientific conference, say) that took place in region/country X reviewed by peer-reviewers in region/country X?" ]

[ "peer-review", "conference" ]

[ "Why do US/Canadian universities make you do master even if you have a first class honours from Australia?", "In Australia, when you want to do a PhD, you only would need first class honours (some universities even accept second class honours upper division). For instance, please see the self assessment for the Australian National University:\n\n\n\nI guess that most of the UK universities have the same requirements (at least Cambridge and Oxford).\n\nWhy do almost all US/Canadian universities make you do a Master's (before doing PhD) even if you have a first class honours from Australia?\n\nI think the time that is spent for studying masters, can be saved for postdoc; on the other hand, UK/Australian PhD programs takes 3-4 years but US/Canadian PhD programs are much longer." ]

[ "graduate-admissions" ]

[ "Contract versus ongoing positions in academia", "Why are a majority of jobs in academia offered on a fixed term basis? \n\nI have noticed that most teaching or researching positions have a contract term (e.g. 3 year contract). Some contracts may be renewed, subject to additional funding, while others simply end. \n\nI am wondering if there is an academic reason for this system (akin to the system being designed to compel the incumbent to continually publish in order to remain in a position)." ]

[ "career-path" ]

[ "Who typically serves on a graduate school admissions committee?", "Suppose a student is applying to a graduate school. Who is typically on the admissions committee? Is the chair of the department on the admissions committee?" ]

[ "graduate-admissions", "service-activities" ]

[ "Should you contact professors at universities you plan on applying to for graduate studies in mathematics?", "I am currently applying to graduate school in mathematics. In the last year of undergraduate study I have read many papers and books by experienced mathematicians, and with the help of my honours advisor, I have a list of potential PhD supervisors at universities in the USA and Europe.\n\nI am wondering if it is good form to email mathematicians (or more generally any faculty) at graduate schools you are applying to, just to assert your general interests and/or goals to work with them.\n\nI'm definitely not planning on spamming hundreds of mathematicians with a generic email, but there are a handful who I think I can say a few words to.\n\nIs this type of think considered annoying? Does it help the application process in anyway? Does anyone else do this?" ]

[ "phd", "graduate-admissions", "mathematics", "united-states", "europe" ]

[ "Do I need to keep my high school transcripts?", "I graduated high school in the United States and I have a bachelors degree from an accredited university in the United States as well. Would I need to keep my high school transcripts for any purpose? For example, Grad school in the US or abroad or any other need?" ]

[ "transcript-of-records" ]

[ "Any places opening up this year?", "I'm hoping to start a PhD, I had been planning to do application this year and start next year but I've now been laid off with no real prospects of getting more work soon.\n\nWondering with all the travel bans and people leaving cities if previously filled places might become available this year in the US? Obviously universities are in disarray so don't want to bother them at this time.\n\nIs anybody aware what happens when people pull out of programs or defer?\n\nI am in NYC and hoping to start a programme in CS, or statistics in NYC or the east coast anyway, my partner works in the city too so I can't go too far. Just wondering if there's any scope to start this year as now I have no work. Any ideas if this is feasible? If I'm already living here so I'm able to attend with very little hindrance compared to those in other parts of US or coming from an international location. Better to fill a place then let it go to waste?\n\nHas anyone one some insight in to what happens in exceptional times such as these?" ]

[ "phd", "graduate-admissions", "graduate-school", "application", "deferral" ]

[ "How do I create a diagram in this specific style?", "I am unsure if this is the right place to ask this but I have seen this style of diagrams (shamelessly stolen from this question):\n\n\n\nmostly in an academic setting, i.e. assignments, exams, publications, etc. Anyone have any idea how these diagrams are created. Are they created in Latex/Tikz/PGF, illustrator, paint, something else?" ]

[ "publications", "graphics" ]

[ "How can I validate a citation that is genuine in google scholar but as a *?", "Google Scholar may mark citation counts with an asterisk (*), meaning:\n\n\n This \"Cited by\" count includes citations to the following articles in Scholar. The ones marked * may be different from the article in the profile.\n\n\nHow can I validate citations in my Google Scholar account that are genuine but are marked with a *?" ]

[ "citations", "google-scholar" ]

[ "Would an honest researcher actually have to pay back their salary?", "Recently, I read the answer by Hexal to the following question here: Not including student who contributed very little as coauthor of paper and I was scared. Much more than scared, I could not sleep the following night. In the question, a project leader asks whether or not he should include a visiting student who showed "good motivation", but did not contribute anything to a certain project as a coauthor (to one of the project's papers).\nThere is a downvoted answer with -40, saying that if the student writes that she wants to be a coauthor, the project leader should write her an e-mail:\n\n[...] Therefore, we would appreciate it if you return the salary you received for the internship. Please transfer USD ... to the account ... until .... If we don't see a reverse payment, we feel necessitated to undertake legal steps. Thank you for your cooperation.\n\nNow, this answer is downvoted. I am also not sure if the downvotes/comments are because this approach is not appropriate for the given situation or not appropriate in general.\nThis scared me a lot. I always thought that one would never have to pay back earned money (except for extreme reasons, like fraud probably?).\nNow, I do not plan to not work. But I know some asshole professors who, when their students say that they do something else on their weekends than working, they tell the whole faculty that their student is not working. I've never heard of someone asking back for money, though. However, I am scared now that I will work for such a professor, we do not manage to write a paper together and then they make me to pay my salaries back after some time, which I cannot afford.\nSo, my questions:\n\nAre such threats something that happens sometimes / often?\n\n(I would probably be scared enough if I got such a letter since lawyers are expensive but) Did students ever go to court because of such a letter and do judges approve this?\n\nAre things like this supported by universities or their legal departments?\n\n\nI would be interested in answers about the situation all over the world – if this is not possible, I would be interested in Europe and Northern America." ]

[ "legal-issues", "salary" ]

[ "Do I need to cite an artwork? How would I do it? Is permission needed?", "In my academic paper, I have well over 100 figures, and would like to use an artwork I found online in one of my figures - it is not published in any book, it is just something they made and posted online. I would be using 1/6th of the author's artwork figure, and it would be so heavily modified it would barely be recognizable. The modified artwork would take up 1/40th the space of 1 such diagram (out of 100+) and used once only, it is a minor element of my figure.\n\n(1) Do I need to cite the artwork in this case?\n\n(2) Can you give any guideline on when an artwork citation is needed?\n\n(3) Am I required to get permission from the author, or is it a courtesy to the author only?\n\n(4) How would one cite an artwork in their dissertation?" ]

[ "citations", "thesis", "copyright", "graphics" ]

[ "How to get a mentor or supervisor for PhD studies in Computer Science?", "If I have already completed a master's degree, but no longer belong or have contact to the institution in which I followed my master's degree; how to approach one professor to see if he or she wants to supervise me? Actually I see lots of different areas that I would like, but I feel afraid of not having the enough background (I can only contact the potential professors by email because well I am actually in the North America area, and I would like to aim for an European university)\n\nI know that some times there are some published open positions, but in those cases mostly the competition is really fierce.\n\nAny advice, mostly based on experience, will be very useful.\n\nThanks" ]

[ "phd", "advisor" ]

[ "Submitting to conference without intention to present", "I did a master's degree in computer science and wrote a thesis. I'm interested in submitting the work in my thesis to a second-tier conference in my research area -- if it is accepted, it will be a stamp of quality for my work. \n\nNevertheless, I'm not really interested in presenting the work in case it is accepted, because (i) I've moved on to a PhD somewhere else, and it would be troublesome to ask my former advisor for travel funding or presentation advice, and (ii) I've moved on to a different research area (still within the same broad area.)\n\nCan I submit to a conference and choose not to present? If not, what can I do?" ]

[ "conference", "computer-science", "presentation" ]

[ "As a student, should I offer alternative ways of understanding a point in lectures?", "Often, I’ll be in lectures and the lecturer will explain the point to me, and I make a comparison with something else that helps me understand the point, and it clicks. For example, in Syntax, the lecturer was talking about the difference between a noun and a determiner phrase; how the former describes a set of things, and the latter points to a specific thing. This reminds me of computing, so I think: ‘Oh, right. Nouns are classes, and DPs instantiate those classes.’\n\nIs this type of rephrasing ever a useful thing to vocalise in lectures, for other students or the lecturer? I do sometimes vocalise these thoughts, usually in a smaller class setting though, not lectures. I usually try to keep quiet because I feel like either people won’t understand what I mean, or the teacher doesn’t consider it relevant or useful. So, my questions are: Is this kind of contribution in lectures valuable? Or do lecturers prefer that you ask questions instead of making statements?" ]

[ "etiquette" ]

[ "Need help with linear dynamics and kinetic frictional force question", "I have went though my course notes a number of times and have still cannot solve the question below\n​A penguin slides at a constant velocity of 1.52 ms-1 down an icy incline. The incline slopes above the horizontal at an angle of 6.3° At the bottom of the incline, the penguin slides onto a horizontal patch of ice. The coefficient of kinetic friction between the ice and the penguin is the same for the incline as for the horizontal patch. How much time is required for the penguin to slide to a halt after moving onto the horizontal patch?\nI worked out the Uniform horizontal velocity of the penguin to be 1.511 m/s however I cannot find a way to get acceleration even when I derived:\na = μg\nFrom\nF = ma and F= μmg\nAm I missing something or is the question not got enough information to work with?" ]

[ "teaching", "university", "united-kingdom", "physics", "education" ]

[ "How do I get out of my overly vain 'trophy' mindset when it comes to universities?", "I have friends who went to pretty good universities (world top 10), and I would love to apply too after my Masters although I am not sure how realistic this is, as I also had some personal problems during my undergraduate degree affecting my grades. However, I feel bad every time I think about it and realise that my university right now is not Oxbridge / Ivy League -although I too ultimately am interested in a career in academia. \n\nOne of my friends got into Oxbridge and I don't think he's more intelligent than me or particularly gifted at all to be honest, -but I just don't understand? - And: yes, I should know that it doesn't matter that much, and that I should not compare myself and not let this take over my thought processes. But I cannot seem to help it, it's on my mind a lot. And it's even keeping me from studying. - any advice?" ]

[ "graduate-admissions", "graduate-school", "academic-life", "motivation" ]

[ "Do you let Google Scholar index popular science articles, conference abstracts, etc.?", "I enjoy that Google finds things I've written that I would never bother to link on my own web page, just because it's nice to have all my writing collected somewhere given I've made the effort. But given that academics often assess each other from Google Scholar, I'm worried that my \"year\" index is getting cluttered and makes it look like no one cites my recent work. Of course, some people allow Google to automatically list discovered works and have their indices full of articles that aren't even theirs, but that's obviously unimpressive. \n\nIf you are the kind of person that clicks \"year\" on Google Scholar to see what an academic does lately, and you were checking the Scholar page of someone you were thinking of hiring, funding, or working with, would you be put off by fluffy articles like book reviews, conference abstracts, and popular science mixed with good ones?" ]

[ "publications", "reputation", "google-scholar" ]

[ "Desaturation of academic (TT) job market in Mathematics and the Sciences", "Although this question doesn't pertain to me so much, and I have my own suggestions, I wanted to ask this general question to the community. What solutions can be (relativity) easily implemented, to cure the problem of a lack of TT (Teaching + Research) positions in mathematics and the sciences? This is a major problem in academia now, and we can see individuals with PhD's in Mathematics (for example) who struggle to find suitable employment, end up in postdocs for many years, etc., \n\nI ask this because these solutions can hopefully be looked over and possibly implemented in the future, if we have an idea of what they are." ]

[ "job-search", "postdocs", "tenure-track" ]

[ "How to deal with insignificant work / wrong methodology in papers, when it is discussed correctly?", "I had a strange situation a few months ago: \n\nI was reviewing a paper which was on an interesting problem and the authors used machine learning to solve this problem. Unfortunately, they seemed to have little experience with the methods so they obviously ran into the problem of overfitting without noticing this. Therefore, they drew wrong conclusions from their experiments. (Short summary for people not familiar with machine learning: They did not use the methods correctly and so their results were invalid). \n\nI elaborated on the problem in my review and stated that the result cannot be generalized due to this problem and that the methods were used wrongly. \n\nI was a bit surprised to receive a revision of the manuscript, where my remarks were just included in the discussion section: In fact they did not improve the experiment, but in the discussion they more or less stated that:\n\n\n it is possible that everything we wrote in here is invalid due to the problem of overfitting. \n\n\nSo in the end they had a paper with a good justification for the project, a maybe working method which was not applied correctly, and they interpreted the results correct – so all in all it was a well documented example for a failure, and it was formally correct.\n\nStill, my recommendation was to refuse the paper, but I was considering if it might be helpful to others because they could learn from the mistakes. On the other hand, publishing such a paper would not be a reference for the authors since this is a severe flaw in the use of methods (and readers might skip the discussion and think the results are valid).\n\nDid you have similar experiences before? And how did you react?" ]

[ "peer-review" ]

[ "If I take a PhD from a not so well standing university, will I be less respected in science?", "Let me give you additional context on the question.\n\nI am a master student in Computer Science (hopefully graduating this year). I want to do a PhD later on (after working in the industry for a bit). I am currently writing a paper with an aspiring associate professor. He doesn't have a lot of heavily cited publications yet, but he is aspiring to go to more prestigious conferences and pushing himself. The university I go to doesn't rank high in the world ranking of the universities, but in my country it is one of the top universities.\n\nMy question is, then: If my advisor isn't a star scientist (yet) and if my university isn't some worldly famous one, can I still be a well-respected scientist, provided that my work is actually good? I guess that the broader question I am referring to is: Is there elitism in academia, or is it merit based?\n\nThank you in advance!" ]

[ "phd", "advisor", "computer-science", "science" ]

[ "Respected researchers giving imprecise or misleading explanations in casual conversations", "I have attended quite a few large conferences in mathematics where experts from different fields participate. Naturally I talked to some people and asked them a very basic question: what they are working on. In some cases the answers were not very precise and even rather misleading. I had the feeling that these people tried to make an impression that they work in one field while they work in another one.\n\nOne of the worst examples of such discussions was as follows. The person said that he works in interplay of random series and quantum fields. I never heard that there is a connection between the two subjects and asked to elaborate. His explanations were chaotic: he started to explain on random series without any mention of quantum fields. I asked again how it is related to the latter. He said something about quantum field without mention of random series. After a couple more questions he continued to jump between the two subjects without explaining the relation. The funny thing is that after this discussion I found his list of publications and realized that all his publications belong to a third area which has apparently nothing to do with the two above topics. To my greater surprise, this person is actually a respected mathematician from a good math department. \n\n\n My impression is that the situations as above are not exceptional. Am I wrong? How typical they are? Is there any rational explanation of such a behavior?\n\n\nMy question might be non-appropriate for this site, sorry about that. Personally I find the situations I have been in quite strange, and I would like to have any comment if it is something typical in academia (at least in mathematics) or not." ]

[ "mathematics", "conference" ]

[ "For how long is research considered valid for publication?", "Does a research/study have an 'expiry date' that prohibits it from being published in a journal after it has been completed?" ]

[ "publications" ]

[ "Best way to cite collaborators that are unaffiliated with an academic institution or business?", "I am the lead author on a journal paper to the IEEE, and I'm trying to figure out how to cite other contributors in a way that makes sense. Two of us are affiliated with a university, one contributor is a wonderful and knowledgable mathematician whose \"real job\" is in the service industry, and the other contributor is also a math nerd who is a barista in another country that did all of the proofs.\n\nWould these non-conventional authors be \"independent\" or \"unaffiliated\" or some other term. The affiliation is required by the journal. Any suggestions (or a definitive source) of how to handle this issue would be appreciated." ]

[ "journals", "independent-researcher", "affiliation" ]

[ "Does the candidate usually get notified when a request for a reference letter is made?", "I applied for a university position and gave the named three persons as a reference: A, B, and C. I am not very much in touch with A, B, C, but I already have permission to use their name as reference.\n\nWould the university I applied to let me know that they sent a request to those persons – and whether they answered or not? For example, would they state that they contacted A and C and only A has sent us the reference letter?" ]

[ "recommendation-letter", "faculty-application" ]

[ "Can intentionally omitting related work (citations) be considered as misconduct?", "I've seen a recent journal paper that presents a solution to a problem, and it in the introduction it has a statement that the problem has not been solved yet.\nThat wouldn’t be very strange if I didn’t publish a paper with a solution a few years ago, which is not cited. \n\nI understand that no one can be aware of all papers published so there can be honest omissions, but these authors were aware of my paper because we talked about it at a conference held before the submission of their paper. \n\nAnother case which I have noticed is that some papers avoid mentioning other related papers which present similar methods but perform better than theirs.\n\nIs this considered as misconduct, and is there something one can do about it?" ]

[ "research-misconduct" ]

[ "Popular Science References in Statement of Purpose for Ph.D", "I am currently in the process of writing my SoP for applications to PhD in Physics programs starting Fall 2018 (in the US schools). I am definitely writing about the content that I have studied rigorously as well as about the research projects that I have been involved in and so on. But I also want to involve something about a paragraph (not a specifically small one) about some of the colloquial talks and articles that I have read during my undergraduate years that have played a significant role in shaping my interests inside theoretical physics. I have been quite a YouTube buff and have watched a lot of semi-popular level talks and have been quite motivated by them in my interests. These talks have been very useful in making me aware of the current frontiers of research as well as in narrowing down my interests for good. Of course, these are not the only factors but these are among the non-negligible factors. So, I wanted to ask whether mentioning this part would be considered good or it would give my statement a non-serious and a childish tone. Or worse, might it look like I am confusing real physics with what is shown in the popular level talks? \n\nAlong with anyone interested or knowledgeable about this kind of a situation, those with a first-hand experience of looking at someone’s statements with such references or those with a first-hand experience of writing such a kind of statement are particularly requested to comment/respond." ]

[ "graduate-admissions", "statement-of-purpose" ]

[ "possibility of paying fees by bitcoins in IEEE transactions?", "Is it possible to pay IEEE transaction fees/charges by bitcoins?" ]

[ "ieee", "fees" ]

[ "Early career advice for Jr. Researcher on selectivity of authorship credit for collaboration in areas outside one's specialization", "I have a problem...Once folks learn my academic specialty within the medical sciences and of my strong background in statistics, they often want to form a collaborating - mostly they want me to conduct analyses, develop the study methods, write methods, results and discussion sections of their manuscripts. All this in exchange authorship credits and no actual pay. More often than not, these offers come from clinicians with little experience in human subject research and statistics, who specialize in research topics vastly different than my area of focus. \n\nThese days I am weary of getting involved in these projects because when I did do so a few years ago, I became very worried about the integrity of the data and the scientist with whom I worked with. More importantly, I worried the work would at some point be retracted and consequently tarnish my reputation in the future. These concerns arose due to the fact that I had many questions about the data the study was based on and had limited access to the raw data. \n\nThe above-mentioned predicament worries me as I am at the beginning of my scientific career and I suspect that many of these clinicians are only temporarily vested in research to amp their publication records for the purpose of promotion. For them, these publications are one-offs and would have less devastating consequences on their careers if retracted. For me, its very different as I am strictly a researcher. It worries me that working on projects where I do not have full control/access to the raw data, and by working with clinicians with little scientific training in human subject research will result in catastrophic outcomes for me. \n\nMy questions to the forum are: \n\n1) am I being too picky about who I collaborate with at this stage of my career?\n2) should I relax my standards?\n3) what are the consequences of being included as an author in poorly conducted research early on in one's research career for an aspiring academic?" ]

[ "publications", "collaboration", "reputation", "early-career", "retraction" ]

[ "statement of purpose", "I am currently finishing my MS in Economics and Finances and I intend to apply for a PhD in statistics. There are many reasons why I did not make an undergrad and grad in statistics but in economics, first of all the fact that in my previous university there was no statistics department. \n\nI'm searching for some advice regarding my statement of purpose since my previous experience is not necessary connected with Statistics. Should I make more emphasis on my quantitative background, on my motivation, on the reasons why I want to apply for this particular program, even though my background might not be entirely relevant?\n\nIs there some advice you can give a student making this sort of \"field-shift\"?" ]

[ "phd", "statement-of-purpose", "statistics", "economics" ]

[ "Can a PhD thesis consist of \"exploratory research\"?", "I am a physics graduate student at the stage where I need to come up with a PhD thesis proposal.\n\nI have an idea for a thesis project that I think is very interesting and has not been explored in the literature. Specifically, the idea is to take a powerful new numerical technique that was developed in a completely different field and try to apply it to problems in my own field. If it works, it could greatly impact the field by drastically reducing the computational cost of calculations, which is one of the biggest limitations of current research.\n\nThe problem I face is that this research would be exploratory in nature. By this I mean that I do not have a well-defined problem to solve beyond \"attempt to adapt it to my field and establish how well it works on some basic problems\". In contrast, every thesis I have read has consisted of applying known techniques to new problems. My approach would be to do the opposite: apply a new technique to known problems to establish whether it could be feasible as a new tool in my field. \n\nSo my question is: can exploratory studies such as this one constitute a PhD thesis? In my experience, I have never seen a thesis of this type, and I am worried that this is because it is a bad idea." ]

[ "thesis" ]

[ "What do polarized student evaluation results say about my teaching?", "I taught my first class last quarter. The results for evaluations are very polarized. The raw data shows that my scores are either very high or very low for a majority of items. That implies some students loved the class and some hated it. \n\nHonestly, this teaching experience has been so tiring that I am seriously thinking teaching is not for me. My colleagues tell me it will get better but I am not sure how I feel about my average performance. I wish the evaluations weren't so polarized so I could know if I was overall an effective instructor or not. \n\nHow would you make sense of the results?" ]

[ "teaching", "evaluation", "evaluation-criteria", "course-evaluation" ]

[ "Are studies centered around one's own students regarded as publish-worthy scholarship within educational research?", "I have read a number of papers within the field of educational research where researchers simply used their own classes for testing. For example, they test one of their classes with a certain type of instruction, but leave another class without this instruction, then: (1) test which group of students did better and (2) collect student opinions about the lesson.\n\nWhile I can understand why a teacher might conduct an \"informal\" study on their classroom, I cannot understand why this would regarded as publish-worthy research. It is possible that I am simply misunderstanding the benefit and purpose of publishing such studies?\n\n\n Within educational research, is it regarded as acceptable practice to publish research which is only conducted on such conveniently available groups?" ]

[ "research-process", "teaching" ]

[ "Should I apply for a master's or PhD if changing to a related field -- linguistics coming from B.A. in Spanish and Chinese?", "So I applied to a linguistics PhD program my senior year of undergraduate studies in Chinese and Spanish. I wasn't accepted, and the university provided the explanation that essentially I didn't have enough background/research experience in the field. I am reapplying to this graduate program now five years later, and I am wondering if I should apply directly to the PhD program again or to their master's program. My career goal is a professor, so I know I will need the PhD for that. I also know that funding preference is given to PhD admits, but I just don't know if I have a strong enough background for them to consider me. \n\nThere are prerequisites to the program that I still only fill one of unfortunately, but they do allow you to take them your first year if needed. What is new to my application is that I've taken three linguistics MOOCs (massive open online courses), audited a phonetics course in the speech language pathology department, and completed a TESOL certificate program. My work experience is as an ESL tutor. I do not have any research experience. \n\nThanks in advance for your time and help." ]

[ "graduate-admissions" ]

[ "Are there any great researchers who are terrible teachers?", "I'm curious if there's been anyone who's really good at research but also really bad at teaching - for example traditionally, Nobel Prize winners are required to give a public lecture related to the topic that won them the prize. For the hypothetical winner, nobody would look forward to the lecture (or the requirement is even waived entirely).\n\nI'm asking this because I've attended many lectures given by well-known researchers and somehow they're all surprisingly good. Some are better than others, of course, but nobody is so bad that people fall asleep during the lecture (which I've seen happen in high school). It makes sense that there is some level of self-selection, because universities would not hire really bad teachers, but presumably research output is also valuable, and one does not have to be at a university to perform research." ]

[ "research-process", "teaching", "academic-history" ]

[ "What is a Scientific approach to Law and Epistemology?", "In an extended discussion in Law SE chat, there was a description of the legal approach to epistemology, namely one that is dependent upon the findings of the various actors of the criminal justice system: police, defendants and plaintiffs, judges, lawyers, and juries. The specific quote that I wanted to touch upon was:\n\n\n It means that science and law fundamentally (and, one could argue, incompatibly) disagree on the nature of truth. In science, no group exists that can declare something \"fact\". In law, that's what juries and/or judges do. Asking scientific questions about something science considers impossible is akin to asking what color the most magical unicorns are. - cHao\n\n\nBut despite this, I know that there is a distinct gap in my knowledge of both realms to conclusively address the issue.\n\n\n How would you test it? It is fundamental that juries decide what is fact from disputed evidence (juries have nothing to do when the parties agree what the facts are). How do you set up your double blind experiment when there is no way of telling objectively who the guilty and not guilty defendants are? - Dale M\n\n\nTaking a research-approach to the question, I posited a rough sketch of how I would've approached the topic.\n\n\n @DaleM complete taking a guess here, a control (12 jurors) and different experimental groups consisting of different sizes. A known “case” where it is known with a p value of <0.05 that the defendant is X (can be real or imagined). The prosecution (study confederate) would present evidence systematically and equally to all groups but without knowing actual case X. Based on experimental results, determine optimal jury size. - Me\n\n\nSo I ask:\n\n\nWhy is there a fundamental gap between law and science?\nCan the two ever be 'merged' or 'reconciled'?\nHow would both realms work if they adopted attributes from either realm?" ]

[ "united-states", "research-topic" ]

[ "How do we know if something relevant is already published?", "I keep reading European Conference on Computer Vision, International Conference on Pattern Recognition, and others, and I find so much in common in those papers. \n\nFor example, half the papers seem like: X Algorithm combined with Y algorithm tested on Z database and was better than A in this category but worse than A in that category. \n\nThere are many top journals and top conferences with > 1000 papers, in a year, in this field. In addition to this we would have to go through all the tier 2, tier 3 conferences for lack of a similar piece of work. \n\nWhile working on organic solar cells I found the same problem. I saw 20 different papers on extracting parameters from a single-diode/double-diode/XYZ model.\n\nSo how do we know if something relevant is already published?" ]

[ "research-process", "publications" ]

[ "How does computational learning theory differ from computational complexity, decision theory, and information theory?", "I am very interested in bringing mathematical clarity / the abstraction of the big philosophical questions of computation and learning (or computational learning theory). For example, proving mathematically why neural are easily confused by small input changes or, in general why certain learning structures like neural networks, transformers, etc actually work / don't work. How do the other areas I listed differ, and how are they related to learning theory? How is studying the theory behind neural networks or adversarial machine learning different from abstraction in reinforcement learning?" ]

[ "research-process", "mathematics", "computer-science", "philosophy", "theory" ]

[ "Letter of recommendation from employer", "I have worked as a mobile dev in a small creative software company for a year, and I'm preparing to apply for CS masters in US as an international student (for AI-related field).\n\nQuestion: Do you think it's good idea to use a letter from my employer? \n\nI only have one strong letter from my senior project supervisor and I can't find another strong (and personal) one from my undergrad university since I've never really been close with the rest of faculties.\n\nI think having one letter that talks about me personally (like work ethics) would be great. With this I'd have 2 letters from professors (1 strong, 1 generic), and 1 letter from my employer.\n\nHowever, I've heard that it's not recommended to use a letter from someone not in academia, especially someone who's not in the field I'm applying to (more like in business). My current job title is also not related to AI at all, as I'm doing mobile app development.\n\nI'm thinking that since I graduated last year, and didn't have nice projects to show in my portfolio, the letter from employer will at least demonstrate the work, or fill the gap of what I've done in the past year.\n\nThanks for reading! Any suggestion is welcomed." ]

[ "graduate-admissions", "masters", "united-states", "recommendation-letter" ]

[ "What are the most important things to include in your thesis defense presentation?", "If you are creating a simulator of the existing system then should you present the details about the system or your simulator? or both? How technical you should go in your defense presentation? I have so much stuff in my report that I don't know what to put in my defense and what to leave out. I wanted to show my slides to my supervisor but he is very busy this week and I doubt he will have time for me.\n\nI am doing a post-Masters degree known as a Doctorate of Engineering or professional doctorate and I will have 45 minutes for the presentation and 15 minutes for question. Then I will have one more hour for my defense." ]

[ "thesis", "defense" ]

[ "Increasing the number of authors in the research article after uploading it on arxiv", "I have done some work and want to upload that research work on Arxiv. The problem is that the second author wants to work more on this and doesn't want to upload the result to Arxiv. I am thinking that I will upload the result on Arxiv and then I will keep doing research on that thing, so if get more results, then along with the second author I will submit the result to a conference.\n\nQuestion: Suppose I upload an article on Arxiv as a single author and after that I work on the same problem and get some results. Will it be possible to submit again the additional result with two authors on Arxiv and to a conference? Is there any problem with the process I have described above?" ]

[ "publications", "computer-science", "arxiv" ]

[ "Can i use the same Method Section for two different papers?", "I did a survey on the demand for complementary medicine among patients of the gynaecologcial department here in Munich. We collected a couple of hundred questionnaires and I am currently writing two different papers: one dealing with our findings concerning the cancer patients and another about the results from our patients in pregnancy and after birth. I finished the first one and I am currently sitting on the second one. I am wondering now: obviously, the introduction and discussion sections are completely different, but my method section is more or less the same. Can I simply use my method section verbatim also for the other paper? The papers will be submitted to two different journals in the end." ]

[ "publications", "research-process", "paper-submission", "science", "medicine" ]

[ "Can you do paid external work under a PhD contract in France?", "If someone has a PhD contract in France and wants to work during summer for instance, is it fine if that person receives any external support during that time, outside the PhD contract support?" ]

[ "phd", "salary", "france" ]

[ "How to figure out if a certain algorithm has already been discovered or not?", "Suppose that I make a new algorithm to calculate something. How do I know that the exact algorithm has been found or not? I know that I can check scientific journals to figure that out. But surely checking every single journals available is not a feasible way to figure that out, especially since I'll have to read them before I can tell whether they use the same algorithm or not as the title can only tell the general idea of how the calculation is done. Also many journals requires one to subscribe or pay for their service. It'd be ridiculus to pay huge sum of money just to ensure whether my algorithm has been found or not.\n\nSo, how do I figure whether a certain algorithm has been found or not?" ]

[ "publications", "ethics" ]

[ "Should I suggest to use version control for writing a paper with new collaborators?", "I will soon write a new article with new collaborators (my first paper with other people, I'm in math). For some context, I know one of them well, but I've never met the others in person.\n\nI use Git to manage all my papers. I'm wondering if I should suggest the use of Git to them? If so, how much should I press the issue, what should I say when suggesting it?\n\nI can use it alone and apply their changes manually, but it would be infinitely easier if everyone just used a VCS -- and not just for my own personal comfort, because Git (or any VCS) does make writing the paper easier, IMO.\n\nThe main issue is Git's learning curve. I can offer to make everything as simple as possible (set up the repository myself, help out with technical issues they might have, direct them to tutorials), but academics are busy people, and they might not want to learn a whole new system for just one paper (even though I believe that were I they, I would then use Git for everything...).\n\n\n\nI've gotten a lot of answers that don't apply at all to my situations, so to clarify: I'm in (pure) mathematics, where all manuscripts are written in LaTeX. So \n\n\nversion control using, e.g., Git, is appropriate, since LaTeX is a plain text format (and not some WYSIWYG thing), and \nit requires a little bit of technical know-how already, so it's IMO safe to assume that other collaborators are not completely tech-illiterate." ]

[ "mathematics", "collaboration", "technology", "version-control" ]

[ "Respond to the interview invitation late", "I received an invitation of interviews for my PhD application. However, I missed the email and found it was in my mailbox a week later. \n\nI replied the mail as soon as I found it on the last Friday, and I sent another one on Monday after not receiving a timely reply. Am I worried to much ? I know the coordinators might be very busy at this moment. \n\nWhat should I do to confirm my very strong wish to let them arrange interviews for me ? Is everything too late already ? Should I call ?\n\nThe following is the full text:\n\n'''\n\nOn behalf of the XXX Graduate Admissions Committee, I am pleased to invite you to interview for our program. As you are an international applicant, we will be scheduling 2 - 4 skype interviews for you with multiple faculty members. This will give different faculty the opportunity to speak with you about your interests and experience.\n\nEmail your SKYPE ID to Ms.X , the Program Administrative Assistant, at: [email protected]. All the logistics with your interviews will be coordinated by Ariana.\n\nPlease keep in mind that all skype interviews will be scheduled before the end of January. From January 9th through January 27th , send all of your date and time availability to participate in a 20-40 minute interview, as well as your location so that adjustments can be made for time zone’s.\n\nIf you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.\n\nAdmissions Committee\n\n'''" ]

[ "phd", "interview" ]

[ "Students requesting to switch partners mid term", "I'm a TA in a graduate level course. Students in the course have to hand in a weekly assignment which is done in pairs.\n\nA few days ago, one of the students approached the professor and told her that they are not getting along with their partner and requested to join another pair of students, in practice creating a group of three students and leaving their current partner on their own. The professor asked me and the second TA for our opinion in this matter.\n\nWhen we inquired further, the student stated (roughly) that they think the partner does not take the course seriously, does not put enough effort and expects them to do all the work. They also stated that success in this course is important for them and that they wish to work along with a similarly motivated student. (They named a specific student they would like to work with. That student already has partner so it would make a group of three students.)\n\nWhile the request itself sounds legitimate, we are reluctant to comply with it, because we are not happy with the idea of students working on assignments in groups of more than two since we think this is unlikely to lead to situations where all students in the group put in a reasonable amount of effort. Also we are concerned of what will happen with the current partner of the student if we comply.\nThirdly, although we have no proof on this matter, both the professor and I independently had the gut feeling that the request might (mind you, I said might, again there's no proof and we may be totally wrong here) also be related to racial tensions. \n\nA possible solution we were thinking about is to have a conversation with both students and see if we can make them work together in a more productive way.\n\nI will be most grateful for any tips as to how to make this conversation productive and as pleasant as possible to the students involved.\n\nAlso if someone has any other thoughts on this matter such as creative solutions or convincing arguments for/against the obvious solutions such as refusing the request, complying with the request, doing some reshuffling in the pairs in order to be able to comply with the request and still guarantee all students are working in pairs, I will be most grateful." ]

[ "teaching-assistant" ]

[ "What can I do, for I cannot read documents on screen for long times, but my required readings are too heavy?", "1) My degree demands me to have around 50 lbs. of new books and reading each year. Second-hand books are not possible for my subject that changes every year.\n\n2) The total cost of all this material is around $5000 USD. \n\n3) I must have all this material with me while I travel repeatedly between North America and England during my degree, and I cannot afford exorbitant shipping or airline baggage fees each time. \n\nI suffer from an eye condition that forbids reading on screen for long times. Thus buying the PDF versions for these books is not a possibility. What else can I do?" ]

[ "travel", "reading" ]

[ "Are you permitted to forward the reviews from a rejected manuscript when submitting to a new journal?", "Suppose I have a paper rejected from a top tier journal. The anonymous reviews highlight a number of strengths of my paper, but ultimately judge that the paper does not merit publication in that lofty journal. When I resubmit to a lower-tier journal from a different publisher - presumably after addressing some or all of the reviewer's substantive concerns - can I include the entire original reviews as part of my submission? How about including excerpts from these reviews in a cover letter? \n\nOn one hand these reviews might be seen as the property of the journal that rejected my manuscript and as part of a closed correspondence. On the other, in my role as an editor I do think everyone would be better off if we were more open about where we'd submitted and what feedback we'd received. That is useful information for an editor trying to assess the merits of a paper and decide whether to desk reject or to proceed with a full review. \n\nI'm interested both in formal policies (I don't see any for the journals I frequent) and in general thoughts about the ethics of doing so. \n\nAddition: To clarify, I am more interested in whether it is allowable to forward these reviews than I am in whether it is advisable to do so. The latter question depends so much on the particular circumstances that I cannot imagine a single universal answer - though it is interesting to read the thoughts of the community on this issue as well." ]

[ "publications", "ethics", "peer-review", "editors", "rejection" ]

[ "Are there really disadvantages of community college and state Uni for undergrad compared to 4 years state Uni?", "I am finishing up my undergrad in marketing. I started off my college career at a Community College and then I am finishing my last 2 years at a local state university. This has saved me over $50k which is beyond amazing in our current (US) student debt crisis. \n\nA lot of people in my university \"look down at me\" just because I went to a Community College. While I don't particularly care what those students think I was wondering if professional jobs also \"look down on\" Community College?\n\nI currently work in a corporate position but will be leaving soon after I have my degree and am looking into applying for Grad school. Will having a Community College on my record put me at a disadvantage compared to someone who took all 4 years of their undergrad at a university?" ]

[ "university", "community-college" ]

[ "What does \"scientific merits\" in a job application mean?", "In a job application I should add a description of my \"tieteellisistä ansioista\", which translates to \"scientific merits\". (The application is only available in Finnish, in which I am fluent.)\n\nThe application also asks for information concerning my research and research interests; all of this is to be provided in the same document.\n\nWhat, exactly, does \"scientific merits\" mean and cover in this context?" ]

[ "application", "job-search", "terminology", "finland" ]

[ "For a PhD pursuing a career in academia is a Linkedin helpful?", "I have seen the other questions on linkedin on the Academia stack exchange page but had a slightly different one.\nFor a PhD student who is looking to becomes a professor post grad school, is a linkedin helpful?\nFrom what I see, the interview process for academia is the following:\n\nThe student gives a job talk at the universities they are interviewing for.\nThey interview 1-1 with the professors in the department, especially those in the same research field\nTheir publication record, existing fundings, and CV are reviewed.\nLastly, their recommendations from their own advisor and collaborators are weighed in.\n\nAlthough point #4 might not be explicitly done, at the end of the day that seems like one of the primary implicit ways a student gets their foot in the door - the student's PhD advisor connects the student to another professor in another university who will vouch/champion them in the interview process.\nWith all this being said, I see that the academic review board goes directly to the students CV, publication record, and their academic website/page to get a sense of who they are as a academic professional and whether they are involved in the proper outreach activities and support diversity, etc.\nIn this whole pipeline, I can't imagine linkedin being helpful anywhere along the way. So is it helpful? Or is it only helpful for PhD students seeking opportunities in the private sector? Does having a linkedin affect how I am perceived in Academia?" ]

[ "phd", "advisor", "linkedin" ]

[ "Students who did poorly on the final exam", "There are a handful of students in my course who came to class, did acceptably well on the midterm, and contributed to the (group) assignments, but did poorly on the final exam. The exam was a combination of multiple choice and long-answer \"problem solving\" questions. The class is heavily applied and has a strong emphasis on team project work but there was also a 50% exam component.\n\nThese students were surprised that they did so poorly in the course.\n\nIs this an indication of a poor exam or poor instruction on my part? Is there something that I can do throughout my course to avoid this situation in the future?\n\nSome articles (ex: http://chronicle.com/article/Stop-Telling-Students-to-Study/131622) advocate moving away from summative evaluations altogether for example." ]

[ "teaching", "assessment", "exams" ]

[ "Point of weakness for tenure track postions", "What is the greatest weakness point Question? I want to be honest when answering this question. Actually, I have a problem which speaking so fast in English (which is not my first language). So, I would like to answer this question as\" Some times I became so enthusiastic and speak so fast in English\" and to handle this issue\" I always ask student feedback to keep my self speaking slowly. \n\nIs this answers hurts me? \n\nI know there are \"ideal\" answers on the internet such as pointed here 1" ]

[ "job-search", "tenure-track" ]

[ "Question about the authorship of mathematical equation", "Recently, I felt thrilled because I was finally (after few months of non-stop work) able to mathematically prove the mathematical (physical) transformation which I use to prove some new laws of physics. Everything adds up so nicely using this transformation and everything seems logical. To much of my disappointment, I have learned that in 1950's two papers are written where exactly the same mathematical transformation appears. However, in neither of these two papers this mathematical transformation was not proven and it was only guessed from physical laws. Probably because of this lack of proof, both papers were forgotten, otherwise I suppose these papers would be breakthrough papers. These two researchers were not only researchers trying to find the correct form of this transform and in last century there is at least dozen of papers trying to find this transform (although not explicitly stated). Now, I've been able to mathematically prove this transform and I am writing the paper about some new physical laws emerging from this transform. My question is should I mention these papers at all? Since no one before (without fake modesty) was able to prove it and the rest of the papers were on this track (but not explicitly stated) I was thinking about not mentioning these papers at all. Otherwise I would have to explain what these researchers did and its rather irrelevant for my paper (sole discussion about this would represent another paper). What do you people think about this? I would like to hear your opinions, and of course, the constructive criticism from you" ]

[ "publications", "ethics" ]

[ "Most common departmental structure for degrees in EE, CE, and ECE", "The acronyms are Computer Engineering (CE), Electrical Engineering (EE), and Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE). Currently, my Department is ECE, and we offer two degrees within the same departmental structure. \n\nAs a result of some political issues, I have been asked to find out what is \"best practice\", i.e., what \"most\" Universities do. After googling around, I was able to find several departments that pursue each of the possibilities: \n\n\nseparate departments (CE and EE) offering separate degrees, \nsingle departments (ECE) offering degrees in both CE and EE, and \nsingle departments offering one degree that encompasses both fields. \n\n\nMy question is if there is any survey, overview, or summary that would shed light on how common these various options are (preferably in a quantitative way)." ]

[ "reference-request", "engineering" ]

[ "How to assess an unknown journal's quality?", "[I apologize if it has been asked, I think it must have been but I couldn't find a similar question.]\n\nI often receive invitations / calls for papers to write papers in journals. 95% of these cases are obvious spam publications, but in about 5% I see a letter that's not entirely generic, e.g. they mention my previous publications in the subject** and they write something that appears genuine about the publication. They also write the name of the editor in chief. \n\nMy question is how to assess this new journal's quality? I mean, nice journal pop up once in a while and just because it's a new journal, does not mean it's necessarily \"fake news\". \n\nHere are a few points I thought about:\n\n\nWait a few months/years until I see reputable people publish in it, but then I will have missed my shot, possibly.\nInspect the editor's reputation. If she/he appears reputable (e.g. have published in journals I know to be good), then the journal is okay.\nInspect the publisher's \"parents\", for example if it's ACM, Springer, IEEE, etc., then maybe it's worthwhile (but then, I can't say definitively either way).\n\n\nI would appreciate any points on the subject.\n\n** yes, these messages can nevertheless be generated automatically." ]

[ "publications", "journals" ]

[ "How rude is it to ask a potential PI for their CV?", "I think I made a dire mistake a few days ago. I asked a potential PI for their CV (I wanted to get a full record of their credentials along with the information I could find about him on Google Scholar and his website), but I was met with a curt response telling me I should look at his website and papers. I felt really, really bad after that. I sent him an apology e-mail, saying I meant no disrespect, and will look at the materials he suggested.\n\nFor context, I am trying to decide between two reputable graduate schools for an EE PhD, and I am interested in a particular person at both. One guy had his CV publicly available, while the other did not (the one I may have offended). I naively thought I could ask for a CV since I've seen professors post theirs. I thought this could help me decide.\n\nI'm going to wait a few more days to make a decision because I don't want it to seem like I intentionally provoked him to make it easier for me to pick an option.\n\nDoes the guy despise me now? I'll be seeing him in the next few years (these particular people know each other and work together, and go to the same conferences). Is there any way to undo any damage I might have caused to his impression of me?\n\nEdit: Thank you everyone for your input. I will try not to make this mistake in the future." ]

[ "phd", "graduate-school", "professors", "cv" ]

[ "Effects of tenure in the US system", "Suppose you are in a tenure-track position in the US and lucky (or successful) enough to eventually get tenured. \n\nThe most important effect is obvious that you now have a permanent position. But what other effects are there? Does your salary increase automatically? Does your teaching load change? Do you get (additional) grad students? Are these changes negotiable?\n\nPS: I am outside of the US system but interested in these facts for the purpose of comparison." ]

[ "career-path", "tenure-track", "salary" ]

[ "How long does it take a student to conduct undergrad research and then release a publication based off of that research?", "I'll be attending a accredited/well-recognized university for my undergrad this coming fall, and I'm just curious about research correlating with publications. I have a particular yearning passion in enhancing the field of pediatric robotic surgery, a new field of medicine that just opened up very recently, and I am firmly intrigued in doing undergrad research along with a publication from that department. Now I know for a fact publications take up an exceeding amount of time. \n\nMy main question is :\n\nHow long does it take a student to conduct undergrad research and then release a publication based off of that research?" ]

[ "publications", "research-process", "research-undergraduate", "medicine" ]

[ "Is it possible to \"validate\" a simulator without comparing it with the actual tool?", "I am developing a simulator for a data mining tool. The simulator will be an abstract version of the tool so that people can perform their experiments easily.\n\nI am doing this project for a post Masters Degree and \"verification and validation\" are a part of the report. Please note that this is not a research degree and the projects are fixed term. So my project time cannot be extended. Also, its not a research project so a publication is not required.\n\nProblem:\n\nThe problem is that I don't have enough time left for the project and my simulator is not realistic enough to validate with the real tool. I asked the director of our program and he told me that I should ask my stakeholders to limit the scope of the implementation and I should validate against a limited scope. But whenever I ask one of my stakeholders(who will be using the simulator), he says that I cannot validate my simulator against the real tool unless I do all of the implementation. I asked him to restrict the scope of validation(only for the report) so that I can put the validation in my report. He said that we can ask my supervisor (who is on vacation for the next three weeks and isn't responding to emails).\n\nI could try and finish the implementation by spending my weekends and nights on it but even then I will not be able to put the validation in my report because the report deadline is a month before the project deadline.\n\nDo you have any suggestions for the validation of my simulator ?" ]

[ "projects", "validation" ]

[ "Equal contribution for second and third authors", "We are six co-authors in an applied CS paper (AI). This paper has a \"strong\" first author who worked on this project for years. Two student authors (let's call them Alice and Bob) contributed to the paper, and the other co-authors are seniors.\n\nSince Alice and Bob have roughly the same contribution, we use a lexicographic tiebreaker, and placed Alice before Bob. While Alice is (unsurprisingly) happy with this solution, it bothers Bob.\n\nI thought of several solutions:\n\n\nWe stay with the lexicographic tiebreaker between Alice and Bob. \nFlip a coin to determine the order. \nPut an asterisk suggesting equal contribution to the second and third authors.\nOther creative solutions?\n\n\nMy question is about option 3. I've yet to encounter an \"equal contribution\" remark that is not about the first author. Since there is a sole first author, is it reasonable to remark that the second and third have equal contribution? Any other thoughts?" ]

[ "authorship", "author-order" ]

[ "Do PhD students really publish so committee doesn't have to thoroughly read dissertation?", "My advisor recently mentioned that the point of publishing throughout your PhD is so your committee doesn't have to read your dissertation to determine whether it's sufficient for a PhD--if you have enough publications in peer-reviewed conferences/journals, the committee can just rubber stamp the dissertation without effort. For context, the field is computer science and engineering. \n\nIs really the point? Obviously publishing work throughout the PhD is important, but to me this seems a dumb reason. I thought the point was to be continually learning and developing as a scholar, not to publish a series of half-baked papers so your committee can avoid reading your work several years down the line. Perhaps I am being idealistic." ]

[ "publications", "phd", "thesis" ]

[ "Contact reviewers/authors after the end of the review cycle for follow up", "I recently submitted a paper to a conference and was just blown away by the quality of the reviews (double-blind). Not only were they very detailed, but they were also very informative and insightful. They really helped me move the work forward. I wanted to thank the reviewers (which I got a chance to do in the rebuttal stage) but also to perhaps even contact them for a follow up on their comments. I thought that I could perhaps add them as co-authors or even offer collaborations.\n\nI was wondering if people thought whether or not it would be appropriate for journal editors or program committees to allow reviewers to connect with the author following the end of the review cycle should it be requested by either side. What would the down-side of such a follow-up system be?" ]

[ "peer-review" ]

[ "How to recruit participants for online experiments?", "We are currently doing a study where we thought it might be smart to try out the possibilities of recruiting participants from the Internet. I was thinking it might be best to ask more experienced members, where would be the best kinds of places to publicize the experiment, and what strategies they would recommend to this?" ]

[ "website", "social-media", "experiment-design" ]

[ "What warrants acknowledgement or citation in a dissertation?", "I have just finished my dissertation and just have a question about acknowledgements and citation.\nThere was a line in a proof of a paper that I did not follow and someone told me what it meant.\nDoes that warrant citation or does it look silly citing such things? It wasn’t their own work, they explained where it came from." ]

[ "citations", "university", "acknowledgement" ]

[ "What standards should I apply when evaluating a PhD thesis from a weaker university?", "I have been asked to serve on the examination committee for a PhD thesis. It's in the area of machine learning. It's from a university in a developing country. My job is to provide a written report, recommending whether to award the degree (possibly with minor or major changes), or even not to proceed to defence. I won't be participating in the defence itself.\nThe quality is very bad. I would say it would receive a low grade, if evaluated as a 3-month MSc dissertation, in my university (in a developed country, but not a top-tier university). It's bad in every respect - novelty, experimental design, understanding, motivation, contact with literature, writing, reliance on "predatory" journals, even some (fairly benign) plagiarism. So, my instinct is to recommend it should not proceed to the defence.\nMy problem is that standards vary between countries and between institutions. How much allowance should I make for this? I do not want to perpetuate a "vicious cycle" which prevents high-quality work in developing countries (eg Breaking the (perhaps perceived) academic (poverty) cycle).\nPart of my problem is that I don't know how much weight my report will carry. Maybe the department is used to receiving harsh reports from international committee members, and de-weights them. Or maybe a harsh report from an international member is enough for an immediate fail.\nIf I could allocate the blame in my review, I would say the supervisor surely deserves most of it. But it is the student who will suffer the most, if they fail. On the other hand, perhaps the supervisor's own PhD was the beneficiary of some lenient reviewing in the past, leading them not to know what standards are expected. I should not perpetuate that cycle either.\nI hope my question does not sound condescending or insulting to scholarship in developing countries. I know that great research is done everywhere, and I have great respect for many individual researchers from the country in question.\nEdit: of course, there are no right answers here, but I accepted @anon's answer because the "PhD = passport to worldwide community" concept was the most helpful in my thinking. In the end, I wrote a fully honest review from my point of view, and recommended it should not go to defence, but I added a note that I understand the local committee will apply the institutions' own standards. It goes without saying that I was constructive, not negative, and gave a lot of advice for accessible improvements. Thanks to all for a useful discussion!" ]

[ "phd", "thesis", "thesis-committee", "developing-countries" ]

[ "How to finish Master's Thesis when my adviser is too busy to help me thoroughly edit what I have written?", "I have finished my B.S. and I am now finishing my M.S. thesis (already finished M.S. classes). My original thesis topic was not getting me anywhere and I came to my adviser asking him to allow me to switch to a new topic that I have already started working on. The professor allowed such a change and I believe my new work is much better and more interesting. Unfortunately, the new thesis topic is not my adviser's area of expertise. \n\nMoreover, I have been late in turning in my thesis for several semesters since I've also been working full time much of the time after I finished my B.S.. This makes it feel like my university does not really care about my success anymore and I am not even being pressured to finish writing my thesis as I would have been if I was a full-time student. \n\nI will be finishing writing my thesis on this new topic, but much of the work I have done have not been checked by anyone with a Ph.D. This worries me. Should I just crowd-source some comments for editing my thesis from friends and try to just get it turned in and accepted so I can present? Or should I seek out more professors who are more familiar with this new topic and try to have them read it (it would take at least several hours to do this and, keep in mind, I am not a full-time or even part-time student right now)? \n\nI think my work is good and I will pursue trying to get it published in a journal once my actual M.S. is done, so I am not too uncomfortable with the things I've written." ]

[ "masters", "professors", "thesis" ]

[ "Senior co-author is jeopardizing two years of work", "I have been working on a certain paper for about two years, the first year funded and the other one pro bono.\n\nThe data and methods were fixed during the first year. The data has high quality, the sample size is three times larger than in a typical study, and the papers that describe the methods I am using have been cited thousands of times.\n\nNow one of my senior co-authors, for some reason that I do not know, is saying that the methods are essentially junk, and refuses to allow me to submit the paper to a good journal, though he would find low-rank journals just fine! I have rewritten the paper once already but it still does not satisfy him. The other seven authors have given generally positive feedback with good suggestions on how to improve it.\n\nI will soon finish my studies, so I have little incentive to remake everything for a third time. However, it would be wasteful to discard the paper entirely. I don't know. I am very angry about this but I do not know what to do. My supervisors have been helpful but I feel I am not getting anywhere.\n\nI could perhaps file a formal complaint and burn some bridges but then I would only lose more time in that. Any suggestions for further action?" ]

[ "journals", "paper-submission", "authorship" ]

[ "Letter to the editor from the referee", "Nowadays most journals use electronic forms for the referees to submit their recommendations to the editor. \n\nHowever, if that's not the case, how should the letter to the editor be structured?\n\nIn the referee report I have already mentioned some points I consider should be revised. But, do I have to explicitly state these points in the letter? or should I just say that the points mentioned in the referee report should be considered before publication?" ]

[ "peer-review" ]

[ "PhD application: bad grade in relevant subject at master's", "I'm currently pursuing an M.Sc. in Europe. I am going to apply for a PhD program at an Ivy league university. I am afraid that some bad marks in the master's (especially one in a relevant subject) would affect my application.\nSome background: I completed my B.Sc. in mathematics with very good marks (corresponding to a GPA of 4.0 or something close to it) in Europe and then moved to another country (still in Europe) to do a quite renowned master in theoretical physics (about 1 out of every 5 applicants was selected for this master).\nCurrent situation: Because of several factors (moving to another country, changing subject from math to theoretical physics, different and stricter exam regulations*, having chosen to follow the most demanding courses) I got bad marks in my first semester. In particular I got the American equivalent to 2.5 in a subject which is relevant for my master thesis (and for the PhD project I would like to pursue).\nDuring the second semester my grades improved. Since I got most of the required credits, I have time to do the specific low-grade exam again during next semester (I can also do more exams to replace the bad ones according to the university regulations).\nProblem: Even if I do the exam again and get a good mark, I will know the results after the deadline of the application for the PhD. So, I can't reflect my ability in that core subject (apart from my results in other exams and from my reference letters) in the application. Would it be a problem for my application? Would saying "I did bad in the first semester but I will try to make up for it in the third semester" be satisfying for such elite universities?\nI am very excited about the research topic and would love to work on it. I am just afraid that some bad marks could affect my chances to get in the PhD program.\nAdditional info: The PhD program would be in physics / theoretical physics. My B.Sc. was in mathematics but included physics exams (and I did more physics exams than average by choosing optional modules).\n*here I mean that in the master's I had less time to prepare for exams (they were immediately after the end of the lectures, whereas during my bachelor's I had time between the end of lectures and the exam session). Moreover, in the bachelor's I had multiple retake exams and every retake had the same difficulty whereas here we have at most one retake and if it occurs it is more difficult than the first exam (this is an objective observation claimed by professors, I quote "you can't get a good mark at the retake" and "guys I suggest you to do the exam immediately because the retake will be way more difficult")." ]

[ "phd", "application", "grades" ]

[ "When translating an article into English, how do I quote the author’s quotations of translated versions of English works?", "The article which I am translating into English quotes extensively from translated versions of works by English authors (e.g. a Spanish translated version of Philip Pettit’s ‘Republicanism’). As the translator, do I translate these quotations into English myself, or do I need to find Pettit’s original English words? I’m not sure, because the latter would mean quoting from a text (the original, English version of ‘Republicanism’) which the author of the article I am translating did not read... In which case do I simply do the former but make very clear in the in-text references that I am quoting from a translation?" ]

[ "citations", "translations" ]

[ "Can I share my notes of copyrighted materials on my blog?", "I make extensive notes on the material I encounter all over the Internet (video courses, textbooks, blogs etc). I want to make my hard earned notes available free over the Internet. But if I do that, then it won't be fair as everybody will want to read the notes and won't buy textbooks.\n\nIs it copyright violation if I share my notes over my blog?" ]

[ "copyright", "blog" ]

[ "Nobel laureates and where they currently work", "There are a lot of lists of Nobel laureates by institution available online. However I cannot find any that list laureates by where they are currently working. Does such a list exist?" ]

[ "university", "academic-life" ]

[ "For government / industry research posters, should I include my university's logo?", "For an undergraduate putting together a research poster describing research worked on at a government lab, is it appropriate to include the undergraduate's home institution in the Acknowledgements section?\n\nAssume, in this case, the undergraduate institution has no involvement in the research." ]

[ "university", "acknowledgement", "poster" ]

[ "Graduation attire - masters hood while receiving an associate degree", "I earned a MS degree a while back. I went back to school for another degree that happens to a \"lower\" degree...associates of science. Can I wear my Master's hood while getting the AS degree at graduation?" ]

[ "etiquette", "graduation", "outward-appearance" ]

[ "Getting a master in math after an econ PhD", "Ok guys, I know this is a weird question.\nI have found that the opposite has been asked many times, however I could not find opinion in how useful would be to get a master in math after completing a phd in econ.\nI am at an advanced state in my PhD and I do not want to give up now, because I stil believe I can make it to the end. However, I believe that I will never fully understand some topics without having some intense training in math. So I am considering to successfully complete this path to start a degree in math that could also give me some research ideas for my future career.\nWhat would you say of this atypical question? What are good institutions to learn math (better if linked to good economics department) in Europe?\nThanks in advance for your consideration." ]

[ "phd", "masters", "masters-post-phd" ]

[ "My adviser agreed to write a letter of recommendation, but hasn't done so", "I am currently a M.Sc. student and I was planning to apply for PhD programs. I asked my adviser to write me a letter of recommendation two months ago, and he agreed to do that. However, now that the deadlines are approaching (in 2 days) he has refused to write a letter, and basically he says that he wants me to stay in his research group and do a PhD under his supervision. In other words, he is forcing me to stay in my current school. I have been rejected from one of the PhD programs that I had previously applied, because he did not submit the letter of recommendation.\n\nMy first question is: what should I do? I do not want to create conflict, because he is my adviser and I need to defend my thesis in peace in the next two months.\n\nMy second question: If I do not send a letter of recommendation from my adviser, will it affect the decision of admission committee?\n\nThis is a time-sensitive manner and I really appreciate it if you could give me some insights, I am absolutely stuck here." ]

[ "phd", "application", "recommendation-letter" ]

[ "Transferring Master to Master, different country/ LOR issue", "I'm currently undertaking second semester in MA program. \nAs an international student, I am unhappy with living here in this country, so I'm considering to transfer to another university in the US but a similar MA program. \n\nIn this case I need to take GRE which wasn't required in order to get in the current university, and hopefully meet the minimum requirements. \nIn this case can I make an excuse about unhappiness when asking for a letter of recommendation (LOR) from my supervisor? \n\nWell then I need at least three LORs, but I have no idea where to ask for. I do have been volunteering at an organization for almost over 100 hours now, but is unpaid work okay to be considered as a strong LOR?" ]

[ "masters", "recommendation-letter", "transfer-student" ]

[ "Do non-ACM events/conferences publish & index their final proceedings in the ACM digital library?", "I am looking into options to submit my research paper to this conference:\n- http://www.icbdr.org/ or - http://www.iccbdc.org/index.html\n\nBoth of the links indicate that after acceptance, the paper will be published in ACM library and indexed in Scopus and EI. But after I discussed with my colleagues they said that there is a chance of being a scam.\n\nI checked the ACM main events but did not find any of the above-mentioned conferences but instead, I found them in Non-ACM Events http://www.acm.org/conferences/non-acm-events.\n\nDoes it mean that the work will be published and archived in ACM library?\n\nUPDATE: I contacted the Elsevier Ehelpdesk and got the following reply: \n\n\n Dear xxxxxx, Thank you for reaching Elsevier Ehelpdesk regarding\n Scopus Indexing. The 2017 International Conference on Cloud and Big\n Data Computing (ICCBDC 2017) is set to be published under the\n International Conference Proceedings Series by ACM as seen on their\n site http://www.iccbdc.org/index.html. I can confirm that the\n International Conference Proceedings Series by ACM is already indexed\n in Scopus which has several conference titles already indexed. Once\n a conference is is published, the publisher will be processing the\n title to be included in Scopus to be indexed. I hope I have provided\n you with everything you need. Should you have further query, please\n don't hesitate to email me back. Kind regards," ]

[ "publications", "peer-review", "acm" ]

[ "Is there an efficient way to give a large class of students feedback about their assignments?", "I am the course lecturer of a large undergraduate course\nwith about 700 students in the course.\nOne of the challenges of teaching such a large course\nis grading the assignments and giving students feedback.\n\nHere is some information about the grading process:\n\n\nThe students submit their assignments electronically,\nusing a learning management system\nThe graders grade the assignment by filling in a spread\n\n\nI would like to give the students two types of feedback:\n\n\nStudents would receive their scores for each question part,\ne.g., 1A: 10/10, 1B: 5/5, 1C: 2/5, etc.\nFor each question part where marks were lost,\nstudents would receive some comments about why they lost marks,\ne.g., wrong units in 1B, did not round to an integer in 2A, etc.\n\n\nIs there an efficient way to give a large class of students\nsuch feedback about their assignments?\n\nI considered asking the TA to email each student\ntheir score for each question part and the mistakes that they made.\nHowever, this seemed to me to be very time consuming and impractical.\n\nResponse to questions in comments\n\nQuestion:\nHow many students does each TA handle?\nIs the group of a particular TA consistent throughout the course?\nThat is, does the TA handle the same students for the course?\nAre the \"graders\" also the TAs?\n\nAnswer:\nWe have about 5 PhD students who take the role of graders,\ni.e., their job is only to do grading.\nWe also have 1 TA who is a recently graduated BSc student,\nwhose job is primarily to do admin work,\nalthough she also helps out with a little bit of grading.\n\nQuestion:\nWhat is the learning management system?\nDo you know all of the available features on this system?\n\nAnswer:\nWe are using the Canvas learning management system.\nIt is possible to give comments for each student's assignment;\nhowever, to the best of my knowledge,\nthis has to be done one assignment at a time,\nwhich means that giving feedback this way would be fairly time-consuming." ]

[ "teaching", "grading", "feedback" ]

[ "What would happen if I don't have a published research paper during my education?", "I am a 3rd year Ph.D. student. My field is computer science. I've worked on my topic for a long time, but finally, I found out that there are a lot of parameters correlated with publishing a paper. So I don't have hope for publishing a paper, since I should do it all on my own. What should I do now?" ]

[ "publications", "advisor", "computer-science", "paper-submission" ]

[ "How to organize my binder of activities for review of time as assistant professor?", "I am up for review and I must compile a lot of materials from my time as an assistant professor. Everything has to be submitted in hard copy in a binder. I would like to make it as easy as possible for the committee to read. I must submit the following:\n\n\nA cover letter\nA CV\nList of all courses taught, along with syllabuses\nMy annual reports (about three pages per year)\nEvery student evaluation from every class taught\nLists of various activities that include scholarship, professional development, and service.\n\n\nI thought I would organize it so that each of the categories above would get their own tab in the binder. Each of the categories in (6) will get their own tab as well. My main concern is the evaluations from (5). I teach three or four classes per semester. So, I have dozens of classes with evaluations. If I only give a single tab to all the evaluations, it would be hard to navigate. And, each class getting its own tab seems excessive. Is there a way to have (1) through (6) have tabs that are easy to pick out, while still maintaining some kind of sub-tab system for each semester? Or, is there a better way to organize all this stuff? Thanks." ]

[ "evaluation", "paperwork" ]