text:
Preventing authorship conflict
As a PhD student I have been part of my fair share of projects where multiple students are competing for leadership and the first-author title of a paper. This is because project PIs often simply ask several students to go off and work on a problem, without any explicit designation of who should lead the work. Authorship is then only determined at the conclusion of the project when the paper is submitted.
While this causes stress, the advantage is that the competition can sometimes force students to push themselves and produce better work to 'outdo' other students. Additionally it can be hard to pre-assign authorship as this can cause non-first authors to be less motivated. And the pre-assigned first author may not necessarily be the most productive student.
As a graduating student who will soon be a PI of my own lab I would rather not create such competitive situations, but at the same time, there will be projects with multiple students that needs motivation. What advice do you have about defining projects in such a way to meet these requirements.

If it is possible to determine at the outset who will make the greatest contribution to the research, then you may do so, and set the author order in advance.
In the (more likely) case that you have to actually go through with the research in order to see who contributed the most, then it's probably best to save discussions about author order until the end.
I'm not sure I understand your concern about students competing to "produce better work." If students are overstating their own contributions or sabotaging each other's work, then that is an issue to bring up with the PI. But anything short of that can only be good for the research project, no? How inclined would you be help out with a project if you were told at the outset that you would be the lowest-ranked author?
Participating in the research for its own sake, rather than because you think that doing a little more will earn you the spot of second author instead of third, is an essential component of academic maturity. But because people aren't perfect, allowing the final author order to adjust in acknowledgement of participants' actual contributions is the best way to incentivize active research participation.
In some fields, you may also consider alternative author-ordering schemes such as alphabetical.

In the (more likely) case that you have to actually go through with the research in order to see who contributed the most, then it's probably best to save discussions about author order until the end.

In such cases, using CRediT - Contributor Roles Taxonomy may be of help.


text:
Moving between institutions
For tenure-track assistant/associate professors that change jobs to move between institutions, do they normally get letters of recommendation from the colleagues and collaborators at their current institution? This seems to be a bit awkward, especially if the job search fails. What are the typical practices for soliciting letters in these cases?

This is a somewhat related question

Also related, potentially duplicate: How to get a "teaching letter" when I don't want my department to know I'm looking for a job? What reference from current insitution is required/advisable for pre-tenure move?

You probably need letters, especially in the US, but they don't necessarily need to come from colleagues at your institution. Other collaborators or your old advisor might be fine. But, I hope you have a few friends who will support you and keep it confidential if asked.
Many job changes are due to opportunity, not dissatisfaction, so it need not reflect badly on you if you leave. Some even leave for personal reasons, not related at all to the profession. Better climate, even.
And, "failing" in a very competitive job market isn't really a stain in any case. Relax.

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

sort: votes


text:
Showing letter of recommendation to student
When I was applying for jobs one of my letter writers sent me the letter he wrote for me after I submitted his applications. It was a very nice and touching letter, and I think he had meant for it to be a token of encouragement I could remember him by.
Now I am in a position of writing a letter for one of my students. Would showing them the letter after they have submitted their applications be considered ethical?

I show my students drafts. See my answer to a related question: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/202781/top-3-in-reference-letter-when-applying-to-yale/202786#202786

It is ethical, it's just not a good idea. When you have something genuinely positive to say about a candidate, you might as well say it to their face by showing them the letter. The problem is that that sets an example you might not want to follow through when you have to write a letter for someone you don't think is brilliant -- you don't want to show a lukewarm letter to that person. As a consequence, it's probably a good strategy to just never show people letters.
(As humans, we should also always strive to tell people good things when we think positively about them. But that's a separate issue.)

Note, however, that in some parts of the world a curious student can request to see the letter and is legally entitled to do so. Although in practice few will.

When you can only write a lukewarm letter, you should probably discuss that with the student before writing the letter, anyway

@ScottSeidman You get the idea. Not every letter we write can be equally good. Some necessarily need to be better than others.

I show letters to my students/former students once they have the offer, and specifically if they are going into a position that is in academia/national lab where they will also be asked to write letters for people. It is difficult to know what a good letter is like if you have never seen one. This is part of the training process.

There is absolutely nothing unethical about showing a student a letter which you have written for them.  The anonymous nature of letters of recommendation is there to protect the writer from being pressured by the person for whom the letter is being written, and to ensure that the writer feels free to be open and honest in their letter—someone who knows that their letter will be read may not be so candid.  So it might be ethical concerns if writers were required to disclose their letters, but there is no problem with writers choosing to do so.
In addition, contrary to Wolfgang Bangerth, I do not see any others causes for concern if you decide to show a letter to someone for whom you have written a letter.  That said, I would recommend that you establish an all-or-nothing policy:  either you are willing to show anyone the letter you write for them, or you are not.  You don't need to be overly public about this, but you should at least have some internal consistency.  This removes the concern about showing great letters to great students, and not showing lukewarm letters to others.
For myself, I would never agree to write a letter for someone if I was not comfortable showing them that letter.  When a student asks me for a letter, I have a frank discussion with them about the kind of letter I will be able to write—if I can only say lukewarm things, then I will explain this to the student and give them the option to find another letter writer.  If the student is okay with a lukewarm letter (or, indeed, insistent that I write them a letter), I will write that for them, and happily give them a copy of the letter.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Is it worthwhile to put small grants for cloud credits on a CV?
I applied and got a small grant of $5000 to use cloud credits on Google Cloud as a PI for my lab:
https://edu.google.com/intl/ALL_us/programs/credits/research/?modal_active=none
Is it worthwhile at all to even put these small grants in my CV?

Depends on what else could fill the space, and what the CV will be used for.

It's just a regular academic CV, there's no limits to space. What I'm trying to determine is if people put this sort of thing in CVs at all.

Just a quick note that if you are in the US and apply for federal funding, this would be considered in kind support, and should be disclosed in your grant applications.  You should make sure you disclose this in your documents as appropriate.

Still, if you are a professor at an R1 school in the US with million-dollar grants, you might not bother. If you are a professor at a small liberal arts college with minimal grant funding (if any at all), then it could well be important. Academic CVs are still all about selling you to the next job application committee or grant funding agency review committee.

Yes. Applying for grants is one of the bread and butter types of work that academics do. For this reason, any successful grant application, even with a relatively small monetary value, would be great to put on your CV. I have seen tenured professors mention such things in their CVs. (Not that it’s necessary a very impressive achievement for someone at that career stage, but it’s at least worth mentioning like many other things.)
Of course, everything’s relative. If you won the Nobel Prize, then the $5K cloud credits are irrelevant, and would just clutter up your CV.

Instead of looking only at the absolute numbers ($ brought in), you could also consider different sources of funding. While 5k may drown in the face of an R01, getting money from companies through whatever means as well as from other agencies/foundations on different topics speaks to your versatility and agility as a scientist. From that perspective I'd put it in (and at least keep an academic master CV with all these details). You can always delete later and/or as you see fit depending on the circumstances and how the rest of your CV and future career aspirations develop.

I'm not a PI, but as a grad student I secured Cloud Credits as Collaborative Grant and it is on my resume. My peers often mention that when they introduce me to people in those circles. So it might not matter a lot in terms of the amount of funding, but definitely has impacts when networking in related communities.


text:
Reusing text for grants
I am currently submitting a few small non-federal grants to private companies and foundations (think tech companies like Google etc.). Am I allowed to reuse text and submit highly similar proposals to these entities concurrently? I have not found any submissions guidelines banning this practice (I understand this is not acceptable in the context of federal grants).

Do you apply for the same project in parallel? I think that is an important consideration.

I see no ethical reasons that would argue against being able to re-use text. Obviously, you want to make sure that every application is targeted to the specific opportunity you are applying for, but that does not exclude the possibility that you re-use some text.
(In fact, I also don't see a specific problem doing the same when applying for federal grants.)

Good advice. Just make sure the projects are different enough that if you get multiple funded then they are for different projects.

A very reasonable question! Comparing to journal submissions, right, simultaneous submissions "bad", for various good reasons.
Similarly, NSF and some related funding agencies do not want a simultaneous submission of "the same project". Yes, there is an issue about what "the same project" might mean.
While I do think that this is an intellectually silly concept, I can see that it may be "necessary" from an administrative viewpoint. Sigh.
Operationally, as others have said, the only way to know what is administratively acceptable is to read the rules...


text:
At what point do you start writing grants?
Throughout my PhD all my mentors wrote grants about projects or collections of projects that were at least 50% done, at a point where they may have already submitted a paper on parts of the grant to a journal/conference.
I am starting out as a new assistant professor without preliminary/feasibility data under my belt, and I am struggling with this cold start problem of having the time and energy to write grants, but without preliminary data to write convincingly and deeply as PIs who have basically already done half of the proposed technical work.
Does anyone have solutions or ideas about when is a good time to begin writing grants? Or how I can write a good grant without preliminary data.

In many cases, you won't even see an offer unless you can explain what Aim 1 is, where you intend to send it, and when.

This is from my perspective of mentoring early career faculty, and my own experience.
Unsurprisingly, my University put a tremendous amount of pressure on us to write and submit grants as soon as we got there (with nearly 60% overhead, why wouldn't they). My labs weren't even cleared for use yet, and I was sitting in workshops on how to submit an NSF Career grant. I see them continuing to do the same with incoming faculty. I don't think this is particularly fruitful as soon as you start. The only caveat is for grants that are only eligible for your first few years of tenure track (which often don't require any preliminary work).
Presumably you have negotiated some start-up support (which of course varies by field and university). This typically sees you through your first three years. I encourage starting faculty to just get organized in their first year and start generating some preliminary data. If you can publish anything in that timeframe, even better, it shows that you have been very productive (unfortunately failed grant applications show nothing to the outside world). Use this time to recruit students, build your website, get your feet wet with teaching, make connections internally, and attend a conference or two to maintain an external network (those are the people on grant panels after all).
Then in year 2 start testing the waters with grants - don't expect anything, but you never know, you may get lucky. What is most valuable at this point is that program managers start seeing your name, and hopefully you at the very least get some solid feedback to build on. If your grants get declined but you get some good feedback, keep improving and resubmit next cycle, don't give up. For NSF as an example, it often takes a round or two to finally get an idea funded. With that in mind, it is worthwhile to always have a few proposals rolling, don't rely on just one getting funded.
Good luck!

Good advice. I am submitting smaller ~100k grants anyway to "grease the wheels" mentally speaking. Maybe one will get in. And it helps with idea conceptualization anyhow.

First, get advice from your colleagues about what works in grants they have written. Ask them to review anything you propose.
Second, it is better to get started than to wait as an assistant prof. Grant seeking activity will probably be viewed positively by your colleagues.
Third, an old time grant strategy, perhaps still used, is to ask for a grant when the work is nearly done so that it is guaranteed for success. If you are granted funds, then submit those papers and use the funds to enable the next project. Then repeat... While this seems like deception it was widely used in the past. Ask your colleagues about this too.

Yes, the strategy in your third paragraph is how I have seen it done by everyone I know. But obviously there is a bit of a cold-start problem as an assistant professor. Basically I want to start writing grants immediately, even as my first projects are too nascent to bear fruit yet.

@user2562609 You're not starting research from scratch. What happened to your work from your PhD and Postdoc?

@user2562609 in some fields (mine included) that is looked down upon. Your independent career begins at tenure track, all previous work is that of your advisors.

@user71659 That research will be used by my former PIs for their own grants! That is not research I can really use as the main part of the grant where I serve as the primary or sole PI (can be used as supporting evidence of competency only).


text:
Grant money not enough to cover project
I am applying for a 12-month long grant that is valued at $100,000. However, this is not even enough to pay for 12 months of a graduate student tuition and stipend at my institution to complete the proposed work. And we haven't even gotten into the other expenses related to the research project.
Should I simply state in the budget that I will use other sources of funding (my startup money) to cover the remainder needed to fund the student and equipment to the full 12 month period?
Or will the grant reviewers view this negatively since I won't be able to complete the proposed work solely with the money from the grant.

The answer will depend on where you are based and which grants you are applying for. Can you specify?

Check the rules of the grant scheme. In those that I am familiar with, co-investment from another source will be viewed postively.

So if a graduate student participates in your project, the university expects you to cover not only the stipend but also the full tuition?

@quarague yes for PhD students that is the standard across US R1 universities.


text:
How important is networking at conferences really?
I'm a final year computer science PhD student and I've been to several conferences so far.
My thoughts:

Typically I've talked to other PhD students and postdocs about research/ life. But there's never really been any lasting value from these conversations.
Collaborations don't really emerge from these conversations. In my lab, collaborations are arranged between people at our institution who would provide a clear strategic benefit to a research project.
I find that I learn about new topics and techniques from the talks and social media, not from 'networking'. And I myself use talks and social media as the primary way to market my research.
From talking to others and reading anecdotes, I find it quite rare that networking at conferences results in a concrete career or reputation boost.
I find it rather pointless to engage with a researcher just because they are 'elite'. The elite researcher is often tired of junior researchers trying to approach them like paparazzis approach a celebrity.
If you do want to approach a researcher, it seems best to do it over email (so there is a written record and they don't forget), and you can clearly articulate the purpose of the interaction.
It seems that in computer science a lot of reputation is really achieved through 'structured' mediums like talks, social media, citations, usage of artifacts, etc. I am told that a lot of senior professors simply don't go to conferences anyway because they don't really get anything out of it, and junior professors are there to be physically seen and appear visible (i.e. it's a performance).

I would like to hear your thoughts about whether you think networking at conferences holds much benefit to your career/reputation.

The above points summarize my views as well.  Further, given that I'm located in Australia, attending conference is expensive and a waste of time.  I hardly see the same people at conferences, and thus it is near impossible to build anything concrete.

@VitaminE That really depends on the kind of conference you are attending. I saw many people repeatedly. As in more than 10x, not just a few times. On smaller regular conference series. In Australia it may make more sense to attend Australian ones, but the continent is much less populated than Europe so distances are big.

This was exactly my experience with conferences too. Internships are the way to go to establish any meaningful connections outside your university/research lab.

One needs to note this all seems specific to computer science, perhaps one university.  In my experience, senior professor go to a lot of conferences.  Many collaborations start at conferences.  More people cite your work after you go to a conference and talk with them about how your work connects to other peoples work.

"If you do want to approach a researcher, it seems best to do it over email (so there is a written record and they don't forget), and you can clearly articulate the purpose of the interaction." You're missing the crucial point that people are social creatures and react differently to cold emails from unknown researchers and to emails from people with whom they already have some sort of social connection from a conference.

I am an attorney that occasionally writes legal academic papers rather than a more traditional academic, but networking in legal conventions has led me to mutual-referral relationships more than once in addition to gaining insights into legal issues I might not have received otherwise.

If you happen to be in a position where you understand the research that some other scientists at the conference are presenting, and you have some interesting questions or related ideas about their work, this can make a very good impression and can lead to future collaboration (much more likely than through a cold email). Also, conferences are like parties -- ideally, people go out to restaurants and bars at night and become friends, and then tend to support each other throughout their careers.

I've gotten new jobs through contacts I made at networking at conferences.  If that doesn't count as important, what does?

In your career stage, I would have said exactly the same thing. I went to many conferences and meetings (my advisor insisted), but rarely talked to people more senior than me, mostly listening to the talks and hanging out with other students, people I knew, and some professors that my advisor introduced me to. I sometimes wondered if my university really got value for money for the not inconsequential amount of money all these trips costed.
Years later, I observed that, somehow, I had a network (despite never trying to create one), as opposed to other people in similar career stages whose advisor was less well-funded and/or less keen on sending students to networking opportunities. People knew my name, I got invited to PCs and editorial boards, and my work got cited more than the work of peers. I have a hard time pointing to any specific event that had a clear impact on this development, but as a whole the effect compounded (as Paul calls it).
Networking is one of these things where the payoff from doing it ocassionally, as one-off short-term activities, is basically nil. It starts paying off when you go to conferences that are small enough often enough that you keep running into the same people repeatedly. I have also found that in terms of networking what you really want are small, specialised conferences, workshops, or meetings - in a conference with 1000 participants you can spend a whole week and not really be remembered by anybody; but if you participate even a little actively in a one-day workshop with 15 participants 5-10 of these people will remember you going home.

If one stays in "the game" long enough, then some of those PhD students you hang around with eventually become the Profs of the future. This is your network.

@FlamingGoose True, but most researchers can't wait that long (there is a tendency that one needs a network that includes researchers that are a fair bit more senior than oneself at various times in one's career). In that sense one should also network "upwards" a bit - but in my experience this does happen organically if one goes to a sufficient number of events.

This seems like short-term thinking, though at your career stage that would be natural. I'm at the other end of the career arc (retired) and have a different perspective. I found meeting and talking to people very important in generating both thoughts and collaborations.
I'll try to address some of your points specifically:
In CS, (our field), the big ideas are often seen widely at conferences for the first time. There can be a lot of buzz, as there was at the OOPSLA conference when there were talks on Software Patterns and the GOF book hit the stands. (I nearly got trampled in the stampede to see the book.) I met the authors there and later collaborated with one of them and had other conversations with "patterns-adjacent" people. Long term it was very fruitful, though I was a skeptic early on.
I once had a workshop with the creator of the Ruby language, sitting next to another collaborator I'd met at such a conference. We had a great time figuring out how Ruby contributed to the language spectrum.
But, you can't just chat up a few folks and expect much to happen when you first meet. Maybe later if you have common interests, but your career might last 40 years so the early investment in time and effort can pay off.
When you go to a talk the people around you are probably also interested in that topic. They are good people to have a coffee (tea, ...) with afterwards and talk about the ideas. Ask questions, introduce yourself.
If you've met someone interesting and want to suggest a collaboration later (email) they are more likely to respond if they've met you and had an idea-based conversation with you earlier, maybe at a conference.
I've met luminaries in the field over coffee at conferences and workshops, some of which have led to collaboration, though not immediately. My experience is quite different. Most of the superstars are actually quite human, though I've met exceptions also. But if you seem like a leech it will probably be noticed.
Often enough a "big name" will be sitting at a table between talks with a few other people. If you are interested in their work, those others at the table might be valuable to get to know.
I never looked at conferences as a way to "market" my ideas, but a way to learn and share. I found a lot of others, both the junior and the senior folks to have similar focus.
I don't know if people do this anymore (and doubt it), but I have quite a large collection of business cards from people around the world. Some of them are big names (some were students of the big names), but some of them are just interesting folks to share ideas with. It is that sharing that can make the difference.

FWIW, at your stage of the game I hadn't attended any conferences at all, though I was in math where such things may be somewhat less vital. But conferences, and the people I met there, helped me advance both my ideas and my career.

That is interesting, my opinion may become more moderate when I become a professor and I have more say in the types of projects and collaborations I work on.

The networking in conferences needs to be thought of more broadly than initiating collaborations.
If you're looking for a job being (and especially presenting) at conference gives an opportunity to gain exposure for your research (hopefully increase citations) and for yourself. It helps a lot if someone on a hiring committee thinks 'I remember this person, they gave a great talk and do really interesting work' rather than 'I've never heard of this person before, are they any good?'
You have the opportunity to build a network. Keep in mind this is a slow process. Even talking to other PhDs/Postdocs socially about research/ life, going out for dinner/drinks, etc is important. These junior researchers will eventually be professors and colleagues. Regularly seeing the same people at conferences is how friendships/collaborations are built. You get to know each other, build trust. After the conference maybe visit, invite/get invited to each other's institutions, etc. When the right topic comes up for a collaboration they will think of you (or vice versa). It might take years before the right context for a collaboration comes up.
I also use conference to meet existing collaborators who are not local to me in person to discuss and progress our work. These are people I've spent years building relationships with that have eventually led to fruitful collaborations.
Your expectations need to be realistic when interacting with senior/famous people at conferences. They already have an established network of collaborators. They are not likely to bring you onto a project / start a collaboration with you. Get to know them socially, often they are at the centre of a wider circle of researchers - see if you can wrangle yourself into getting invited to dinner/the bar with their group. Your goal is for them to know who you are and what you do (see jobs point above). They also likely serve on grant committees, etc so some positive interactions/familiarity is to your advantage. You may be able to build on this with time, but start small.
So yes, I do feel conferences (in particular the in-person variety) have been/continue to be beneficial for my career/reputation.

When the right topic comes up for a collaboration they will think of you - Or even just, "hmm... I wonder if this is true... oh this person I met may know... I'll email them"  Which then may turn into a collaboration.

As the other answers... indeed, accurate and specific, ... indicate, indeed, there may be scant immediate payoff. But, as with retirement investments, compound interest, and such stuff, the things you do early-on are very important for later "payoffs".
That is, do have people see you, perhaps hear you give a talk, know that you are "in the game", and so on. No, this won't get you tenure immediately... but it will certainly have positive (if subtle) effects on peoples' perceptions of your preprints and so on.
But/and, I'd suggest NOT just hanging around with people your own age, but trying to be (at worst) a hanger-on while more senior people are chatting or dining or whatever. :)

It seems to me that to get any sort of academic position, the people on the hiring committee don't actually read all the applications because there are too many, and they have to personally know the applicant. Is this true?

@cgb5436, these days, I think every application is read, at least a sort of first pass. Personal acquaintance with the applicant is certainly not necessary! :)

Yes, being seen and meeting people at conferences definitely helps garner interest in your file when you're applying, arguably the biggest benefit to young researchers.

I think the maxim "The rich get richer" applies to academia. If you want a position of power (which is what being a professor really is), you have to align yourself with powerful people.

As a computer science researcher, I fully agree with your more
negative observations as a PhD. I had the opportunity to go to several
conferences, schools, workshops, I've worked in several non-scientific
projects with industry, using all these activities more or less
naturally to get in touch with a whole bunch of people, mostly other
PhDs, workers from industry, and postdocs and senior academics to a
much smaller extent, though. We discussed ideas (sometimes suggesting
a future collaboration) or just had a nice chat between nice
persons. The outcome for me, however, was that at least 9 out of 10 of
such encounters were surprisingly superficial on the one hand and of
interestingly little professional use on the other. I can say that even after a few years of postdoc.
However, things changed quite rapidly to the positive after my
PhD. Connections made in these years turn out to be significantly more
substantial, lasting, and characterised by a short-term benefit and an
authentic mutual interest people develop for each others' work and
life. As a matter of fact, my existing network largely builds on my
postdoc activities and several years of self-driven initiative.
@xLeitix's answer includes an interesting but perhaps ideal
perspective I was once indeed told and, hence, hoping for to enjoy
when I started out as a PhD. Unfortunately, my experiences differ.
Although I'm still not too long in the business, from several storytellings of senior academics, I grasped that our academic field (computer science,
software engineering) seems to have changed quite a dramatic bit over
the past three to four decades. There are more and much larger
conferences, the publish-or-perish paradigm/philosophy has turned good
parts of the academic discourse into a seemingly ruthless,
non-scientific, and hyper-commercialised rat-race (please, excuse my
slight exaggeration).
An obvious factor driving the structure and utility of your network might
of course be doing research in a trendy field. That, however, can be in
conflict with your personal interests. (E.g., in AI/ML research, you will hit the ravages of time but your efforts might drown quickly in a vast ocean of hardly distinguishable perhaps not even novel
work.)
Overall, networking is undoubtedly key to academic success. But I am
in increasing doubt as to whether the usual regular conferences in our
field are a good networking platform. They often turn out to be
unnecessarily expensive, wasting money that could otherwise be used, for example,
to get good equipment for lab work or even to fund/extend contracts.
Seeing networking as a highly individual thing, my conclusion is: If I
were to do a PhD again, I would have probably tried not to waste too
much time with conferences during my PhD, focus even more on my
research and a few very good publications, attend some schools, and
ramp up my global networking activities only in the last PhD/first
postdoc year. Based on my experience so far, I can thus recommend PhDs (and also postdocs; as already indicated in the other answers) to

do internships,
engage in local collaborations within and across the departments,
spend mobility times (something you should intensify as a postdoc),
go to smaller workshops,
visit (summer) schools,
attend seminars/project meetings, and the like.

There, people get to know each other much more naturally. One thing
not to forget is that as a PhD you are more likely to meet other PhDs
on conferences rather than seniors, they are often far less
approachable.  And most of the PhDs won't stay in academia for a whole
bunch of reasons discussed elsewhere.  So, the benefit of academic
networking as a PhD is somewhat limited merely because of that fact.

authors: Vladimir F Героям слава


text:
Why are the acceptance rates for publications in subfields higher than others?
For example in computer science, systems conferences have low acceptance rates hovering around ~20% as listed here: https://www.cs.ucsb.edu/~almeroth/conf/stats/
But in robotics many of the conferences, even the major ones, seem to have acceptance rates of ~40% (ICRA, IROS) as seen here: http://www.adaptivebox.net/CILib/CICON_stat.html#ICRA
Why is this, and are any steps taken to equalise the playing field between subfields? Does this simply mean that those doing systems research are just going to have a harder time publishing than those in robotics?

You can't judge a conference by its acceptance rate because you don't know what is in the rejection pile. For example, I know of a computer science conference that regulates its acceptance ratio by determining it in advance and then just setting the number of parallel tracks to fit.

+1 .. but tell that to university administrations that give associates credit and funding based on figures that are solely based on rejection counts.. :-(

@pystarter What sort of figures are those?

@TobiasKildetoft Practically this is an approach to ranking based on the approach that conferences of high quality and impact reject more publications than those of lesser importance.

Doesn't a very low acceptance rate just suggest that a lot of wildly over optimistic people work in that field?

I am a little confused by your question, as the answers are rather straight-forward:

Why are the acceptance rates for publications in subfields higher than others?

Well, because some subfields have more active researchers, hence the popular conferences get more papers, hence they also have to reject more. Of course you could argue that these conferences should just get proportionally larger, but this is in practice unattractive. Cloud computing, for instance, is kind of a hot field right now. Acceptance rates for all reasonable conferences hover around or way below 20%. Of course we could accept twice as many papers in each conference to have 40%, but then all these conferences would be huge and take two weeks to run, and there would be even more mediocre related work to keep track of. I don't think anybody wants this.
This leads to the other, related, reason: not all papers are made equal. Hot topics tend to attract a lot more complete thrash than other fields. I am in the PC of conferences in software engineering and cloud / services computing. Both fields are reasonably established, but SE is more of a long-standing, existing field while cloud is a hype topic. SE conferences have substantially higher acceptance rates, but I feel the "floor" in terms of quality of accepted solutions is higher than in cloud conferences (that is, the worst paper at an SE conference is miles better than the worst paper at a cloud conference with much lower acceptance rate).

Does this simply mean that those doing systems research are just going to have a harder time publishing than those in robotics?

Not necessarily. See above - one thing I have learned is that the acceptance rate really is a crude measure to judge the difficulty of getting a paper accepted.

are any steps taken to equalise the playing field between subfields?

Not that I know of, and I see this not as a pressing issue that needs addressing.

I suppose I am confused why in the field of robotics, which is quite an established field, the acceptance rates for the top confs are ~40%...

@user2562609 If I had to guess, I would say this is because Robotics requires some investment into, well, robots and field trials, while many other CS fields only require a laptop and internet access. Hence, it is easier to get into, say, Software Engineering than Robotics if you are working in an under-funded third-world university.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
What happens to unproductive professors?
I notice that past a certain age (sometimes as early as 50), some professors tend to be significantly less productive, to the point that they essentially do not publish or have graduate students and only teach classes (as that is really the only 'required' activity of a professor).
I've also noticed in some rarer cases of professor 'dropping off the grid' right after they get tenure. And this is reflected in them being an associate professor indefinitely.
Are there any consequences to this? Is their pay reduced if they are clearly not doing any research? Or are these professors effectively retired but still receiving all the monetary and social benefits of their job without having to conduct any of the required work?

Closely related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/5663/1033

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

This depends on a lot of things, including how you define productive. I think you mean "produces publications", but there are other definitions. In particular, some professor who hasn't done a lot of recent research, but is otherwise well known, might, on the basis of letters of recommendation, send a lot of undergraduates to great doctoral programs. That would be highly valued in some institutions, especially small ones. In some other places, grants received, measured in dollars/euros/krona/yen/..., is the main measure of productivity.
While there are many (many) exceptions to the following, in general, assuming this is the US, an Assistant Professor who isn't productive won't get tenure and will likely not advance in an academic career. A tenured Associate Professor won't be advanced to Full Professor and will receive only minimal raises over the remaining career. S/he might be a bit ostracized by colleagues, but that depends on other aspects of "productivity". A Full Professor will probably only get minimal raises, but might be able to use such things as textbook revenues or consulting to supplement a relatively poor salary.
My experience was mostly in Professional, not R1, universities. Where I worked we had a sensible system in which a Professor (even a Full Professor) was evaluated each year. The professor was allowed to set the terms of the evaluation, within limits. The stated "things of value" were Research, Teaching, and Service. Different universities will value these differently at different times and an individual can also value them differently as their career progresses.
But the process might work like this: The professor writes an annual dossier in which s/he comments on contributions to the main criteria, and others if desired. This dossier is a few pages and lists papers and conference talks, grants, professional contributions (conference chair...). It discusses contributions to teaching, such as courses developed or improved. It also discusses, as appropriate, service to the university, its students, and the general community. The dossier can also include a suggested plan for the coming year mentioning each category.
Then, after the dossier is submitted, someone, such as the Dean, reviews the dossier and comments on it. Some of the comments are laudatory and others point out places where the "contributions" are less valuable as seen by the university at that moment. The reviewer will also suggest a plan for improvement, if necessary, that becomes an expectation for the following year. For a tenured professor, the job itself isn't in jeopardy, but the level of compensation normally is. But the university also sets ranges of possible changes in compensation and the bottom is normally greater than zero. Actual reductions in salary would be rare, and possibly illegal. But inflation catches up pretty quickly if your salary is stagnant.
I consider this to be a reasonable evaluation plan. In an R1 university using such a plan, research would be the category most valued and most weighted by the reviewer who looks at the dossier. In a teaching university or college, Research would be expected, but at a lower level and teaching and service to students (especially) would be more highly valued.
But the beauty of the system is that an individual initiates the evaluation and can establish their own "most valued" contribution and, while it can't ignore the value system of the university, need not adhere to it absolutely. For a university, even an R1 university, it isn't necessary that everyone treat research as the most important thing at every point of the career. There are other things of value and other sorts of valued contributions. Carl Sagan, for example, may not have done a lot of research in later years, but was highly valued by Cornell and others. It is enough, for the university, that all of its goals are met and that overall, there is a good balance (as defined by the university) between the valued elements.
In fact, it is possible that a Dean in trying to optimize something like research contribution at a micro level, actually sub-optimizes it at a macro level, creating an unhappy and unproductive environment.
Of course, some people get lazy as they grow older. But if you have a valued position at any kind of university it is probably true that your personal goals align pretty well with those of the university. You do what you love to do and it is just about what the university wants to see done. So there is a lot of personal drive, even inertia, to keep doing that. If you've been doing research since forever it is likely that you love it and want to continue doing it. For many people, it is harder to get them to stop than it is to get them to do more.

+1, particularly for pointing out that a professor or dean optimizing their own research output may not be the best for the research output of the group/department. I know professors who spend pretty much their whole time making sure their group can work smoothly (particularly finding money, fighting burocracy/doing adminstrative chores etc.) - and it's highly appreciated. If in addition, such a professor takes authorship rules seriously and doesn't get automatic authorship for being group leader research output for the person may seem low. The same if a professor starts research projects...

... and then more or less withdraws to not be in the way of the more junior group members who do the legwork of the project.

It is a common misconception that professors with tenure "can't be fired".  They cannot just be "let go" but the American Association of University Professors recognizes three reasons why a professor, even with tenure, can be fired:

Moral turpitude ("messing around" with an undergraduate student certainly.  A grad student less certainly.  Bringing the college into disrepute certainly).
Financial exigency:  the college can no longer afford to pay the professor.  Here, the college must show that they have already taken all possible steps to reduce costs or increase income, such as firing un-tenured faculty before firing any tenured faculty.  In particular, the college cannot fire tenured faculty, replacing them with untenured faculty with lower salaries.
Incompetence.  This can include failure to do research if the faculty members contract specified research as part of the job.

The difference between "tenured" and "untenured" is that an untenured faculty member can be just dismissed or "let go" for any reason or without giving a reason.  Dismissing a tenured faculty member must be done "for cause" and almost certainly the college will have to defend that "cause" in a law suit!
(I was once "dismissed" because I (at the time chair of the college chapter of AAUP) had strongly protested a new policy the college president was implementing.  I had the AAUP intervene (a single letter to the board of trustees) and the result was that the college president resigned and I became chair of the Math department!  I was also at a college (not the same one) where no student had majored in physics in the last 10 years.(!!Yes, really!) The entire physics department was abolished with the few tenured physics professors moved to the Math department.)

I believe it's sometimes called a "service department" or something like that, when a department's only role is to teach introductory courses for other majors, like physics/math/chemistry for engineering and other technical majors. Doesn't necessarily mean they are a bunch of slacks, just getting no strategic importance from the administration. I've also seen them as combined math and physics departments.

Its worth noting that while no staff in the UK have something called "tenure", the three reasons outlined above for dismissal pretty much cover the three legal reasons for dismissing anyone in the UK, teured or not, University employee or MacDonalds server.

I’d say that these cases are rather uncommon. There can be several explanations to what you observe
1. Senior faculty tend to take on more managerial roles (department heads, vice deans, research directors etc)
2. They may also be teaching more, or taking the large annoying classes no one wants.
3. They serve as journal editors or conference chairs.
From what I can tell, in the rare cases where professors do very little, department heads usually have a way to convince them to be more active. Even if you can’t be fired, your department head/school dean can still make your life miserable if you’re being uncooperative. For example, increasing your teaching load, messing with office/research facilities.

@qotaqzheme: The IAS is an extreme case; but my impression (from a couple of years as a short-term fellow there, interacting with several permanent members) is that yes, members are free to just sit on their butt indefinitely if they so choose.  The IAS is essentially taking a gamble: that freed from pressure and responsibilities, members will on average be more productive in the long term.  On the whole, this gamble seems to pay off well for them.

"department heads usually have a way to convince them to be more active" this happens literally nowhere in the world.

@qotaqzheme in the case of the CNRS (in the french system), you can actually get fired for not doing research, even after getting tenure. less drastic sanctions include a mandatory teaching load

@qotaqzheme when you have a CNRS position, you have to write an annual short report about your research, and a longer report every 4 years. those reports are read by a committee, and sanctions can be taken if the committee finds your research activities to be insufficient. in the case of Fields medallist, I very much doubt that this could ever be the case though, if only for political reasons. On the specific cases you mentionned, I am obviously not qualified to comment.

A lot will depend on the culture of the department and the university. I would say that even at most R1 departments, if a professor whose research is trailing off makes major contributions in other ways, such as being an excellent and hard-working teacher or doing a lot of quality service for the department or university, then people tend to look the other way and there won't be any consequences.
On the other hand, if a professor generally slacks off, there might be consequences. Sometimes there are post-tenure reviews but even these can be shrugged off I suppose. Reducing raises to zero or near zero has an effect over time. Teaching schedules can be made highly annoying and the most undesirable classes can be assigned. But I think the biggest consequence would simply be that the people around him/her would lose their respect. It's not pleasant to show up somewhere several times a week for years and have the people you interact with think you shouldn't be there.
Believe it or not, there are some R1 departments that don't care about research productivity. I was at one once, and I remember hearing one of the senior professors (who was actually one of the more productive ones) counseling us junior people on how nice being at the department was. You just had to get a grant, then you'd get tenure, then you could take it easy forever. Many people in the department took that philosophy and there were quite a few people who hadn't published anything in years. I have to say they didn't seem to be enjoying themselves.. for the type of person who has the drive to get tenure at an R1 to begin with it's not natural or healthy to stagnate afterwards.

I've seen the following four approaches to the problem of unproductive (in research) tenured faculty.

Give them lousy (or non-existent) raises every year.
Two such professors were excellent teachers, and the department chair (presumably with the dean's approval) made a deal with them, that if they teach 50% more courses than usual, then no research would be expected from them and they would get the same percentage raise as the average of other tenured faculty in their department.
The dean asked the department chair for a list of such professors, and all of them who were old enough to be eligible for early retirement got a letter from the dean suggesting that they retire immediately and offering a financial incentive for them to do so. (The reaction was mixed. Some recipients of the dean's letter were outraged at being considered deadwood. Some happily took the deal.)
The department chair, seeking a way to get some productivity from one such professor (who wasn't doing well in research or teaching) decided to appoint him associate chair, i.e., let him contribute to the department administratively. (This did not work out well.)

Note that 3. is illegal in some places. Such financial incentives need to be offered to all "eligible" candidates, though the university gets to define eligible. In my case it was everyone (in the university) over a certain age and with a certain number of years of tenure at the place. The incentive was a year's salary. The reason wasn't an individual issue, but a sense that the faculty was too "top heavy" and some "young guns" would be a valuable addition. But to have offered it to only a few individuals (by name) would have been illegal. My dean would have liked to keep some who jumped.

In the department I did grad school in, there was not a single professor that matched the description you mentioned (out of 30+).  All were still taking grad students and publishing.  Of course, I'm not saying inactivity never occurrs but I wonder if it is rare.  At least at R1 private schools.

Responding a bit tangentially: in terms of the risks one takes in playing the academic game, in trying to do "research" (whether in science or humanities or...), the idea of "tenure" (in my opinion) is that people should get a large reward for their person risk.
In particular, if people will not at all be rewarded for speculative investigations (failed or successful), not be able to make a living, then this discourages even the fairly altruistic from doing anything other than the most short-term practical.
So, quite seriously, I think "tenure" is the reward for risking oneself. To say "oh, you've pooped out..." is not appropriate, I quite seriously think (even while I'm not necessarily a fan of people who have pooped out), because that judgement is that even after you've risked a lot, and succeeded, you're still not secure. That changes the calculation of risk... in a way that would demolish academic stuff apart from "vocational training".
In any case, yes, this is a thing people should think about, for cultural reasons.

The consequences depend very much on the country and the institutions.
In the US, professors are usually not paid by the University for the summer term (unless they teach summer courses).  Unless they have a grant that can provide some income, they take a de facto pay cut for not being active - or at least not having a grant.  (The salaries can be spread over 12months to keep benefits).
In Mexico part of the income is directly tied to research so those doing teaching-only duties are on much reduced income compared to those who are research active.
In Canada it doesn’t make a direct difference although course assignments, teaching relief, salary increments are often tied to research productivity.
Most systems find a way to recognized directly or indirectly research activity.
It is possible to have a comfortable but boring lifestyle in the US or Canadian system if you are not research active, although many who are tired of chasing grants often prefer to contribute in non-research ways: through curriculum development, teaching, administrative and committee duties.  The more burdensome of such  contributions are often recognized by granting a leave of absence or some such arrangement to the person transitioning from administrative back to teaching or research.
It is possible to completely game the system and really do the minimum once you get tenured, but this would be unlikely to produce collegial relations with others.  Of course some (few) feel entitled to do just that: hopefully they have an interesting hobby else their life must be lonely.

Actually, in the US, I was paid an annual salary with no drop in income over the summer, though I had no duties then. Teaching a summer course resulted in an additional stipend. The magic of accounting. This never changed in a forty year career over several institutions. It is just accounting.

@Buffy edited to clarify my answer.

"I notice that past a certain age (sometimes as early as 50), some
professors tend to be significantly less productive, to the point that
they essentially do not publish or have graduate students and only
teach classes (as that is really the only 'required' activity of a
professor)."

I think you may have it the wrong way round there.  At least in some cases, teaching and administrative duties are accumulated to the point that you no longer have time and energy to remain research active.  This is especially true if your research does not require substantial grants to hire research assistants.
There are no consequences to this (as you are pulling your weight) except lack of job satisfaction and prospects for promotion.


text:
How did you or your advisor’s behavior change after obtaining tenure
I am curious (if you are a professor) how you changed consciously or unconsciously after obtaining tenure and (if you are a student) how did your advisor change and did that affect you?

That is a hard question to answer as a lot of things have changed simultaneously. For one thing I have just grown older (that makes me sound very old), got married, became a dad. All of these things affect who I am and how I view and interact with other people. My time as a PhD student was for me the first time in and employment relationship. Since than I got experience with other work positions, other bosses, and been a boss myself. This again changes how I view my advisor, independent of having tenure or not. At the time my dissertation was very very very important to me and this has decreased over time as well. I suspect that these changes were a lot more important in how my view of my advisor changed than the type of my employment contract.


text:
To what extent do PhD students in computer science collaborate equally with other PhD students when working on a research project?
I hear a lot that PhD students are expected, and for the most part, work independently on their research projects. This seems to be reflected by how being a 'first-author' on a paper is highly valued as that implies he or she has done the vast majority of the work.
However, I've found from my own experience that I'm a lot more productive with my ideas if I'm working together with one of my peers on a research project.
So I'm wondering how often does equal collaboration between peers occur. If it does not happen often, why isn't it encouraged more?

The golden rule is you must be able to identify your individual contributions, and those contributions on their own must be good enough to justify the award of a PhD degree.

Some subfields of computer science don't have "first" authors; all authors are listed alphabetically. "Equal collaboration" happens more often in those subfields, in my experience (if not by definition).

The PhD is generally awarded to students for their individual contributions to science. That's the whole point. It's not only about advancing science, but advancing science yourself. Otherwise, we would grant a new PhD to each member of a research team every time they had significant new results. Everyone is aware that it's possible to be more productive in teams, but the degree itself is really only about what you can add. So the encouragement to work on your own is there to make it easier to demonstrate what you have personally added to the body of knowledge in your area. Distinguishing your work from another student's could be very hard if you do everything together. This is the traditional view at the very least.
All this being said, discussions, brainstorming, help diagnosing problems should all be a part of students working with others (students, postdocs, researcher professionals, the supervisor, and other faculty). You just have to keep your work separate enough that you can make an easy case for yourself when it comes time to defend your dissertation.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
Popular science magazine for a scientist
Background:
A month ago I successfully defended my PhD in computational fluid mechanics (yay!). As a present, my parents want to give me a subscription to a science magazine of my choice. I'm an avid reader, so I very much appreciate the gift, but I am not sure about what magazine I should choose. I used to subscribe to a local pop-sci magazine in the past, but as I progressed from high-school student to PhD student I found it to be very lacking (no proper references to the "recent science", generally poor/clickbaity reporting, History Channel-like focus).
Question:
What general-coverage science magazines  are appropriate for the working scientist?
From some googling around, Scientific American is currently at the top of my list. What I would like is:

Something printed on dead trees, monthly (or even less frequent) issues.
Balanced reporting, not breathless praise for the latest hype that will solve all problems, not simple reprints of university PR office stuff.
Broad coverage, at least all of STEM, a bit of medicine and social science stuff is also interesting.
Reporting that doesn't shy away from technical/advanced topics, and which assumes the reader is intelligent enough to learn something.
Proper references to the actual studies mentioned, and preferrably also conflicting viewpoints highlighted.

A few examples of science reporting that I like include APS's "Physics" magazine (online only, narrow coverage), Derek Lowe's blog "In the pipeline" over at Science Translational Medicine (same "cons" as above), Scott Aaronson's blog, the "Fuck Yeah Fluid Dynamics" blog (if you'll pardon my French). I also subscribe to Foreign Policy, and generally like their reporting.

If the physical prints are a soft requirement, you may consider going for a digital subscription.

No, physical prints is a hard requirement for me. I know from experience that I never get around to reading digital subscriptions, and holding and reading from paper is very nice.

@ff524 I see where you're coming from with the "shopping question" label, but I personally think it's still a hood question. Do you think this question can be improved to fit the scope better?

I'm not sure how. Maybe ask on [meta]?

"Science" from AAAS. If you're a student/post-doc, $95. Otherwise, $160 (for personal subscription). Strong medicine component.
Nature, $119 for student/post-doc, $199 otherwise. Significant discount for a 2-year subscription.

I've looked at both, and there are two major cons AFAICT: they're weekly issues, meaning I'll never be able to keep up, and they're (to some extent) primary research papers which remain fairly technical, so for things outside of my own research I won't be able to tell what it means and how it connects with other research.


text:
Will it be a bad move for Master's to do summer internship in industry when trying to pursue a PhD program?
Currently, I am in second semester of Master's program in Computer Science and Engineering. Even though I am yet undecided, I lean a little bit more towards pursuing PhD program rather than getting into industry.
Many people tell me that research experience is the only factor in getting accepted to PhD. The problem is that I have a summer internship offer from an established industry, and I do not have any professors that will accept me as a summer research intern at this time.
Personally, I do want to try out the internship to see what it is like, possibly helping me decide whether to definitely pursue PhD or look for more industry options. However, as of now, I feel that it will be a bad move in terms of applying for PhD next semester, where I will probably lack research experience that other candidates might have. Meanwhile, I am trying to build research experience through course projects and directed research within academic semesters.
How much adverse impact will it have in PhD application if I were to choose summer internship at the industry?

A person who has had his finger in both the academic and industrial pie, and then tells me that they want to do a PhD, comes across as more credible. You understand what each has to offer and you are more likely to stick with your choice. As for research ability - it has to be quality, not quantity, at this point. The rest surely will come in the course of a good program.
If the internship is interesting I would take it. Just make sure you learn something while you are there - do more than "just your job".

I was in the same boat. What I found is that it doesn't hurt, but it doesn't really help much either unless the internship is in like R&D or some area where you're doing novel work. When push comes to shove, professors/admissions committees want to see strong letters of recommendation and a strong (or at least extant) publication record. If your summer industry internship can at least garner a strong letter or recommendation then you have something.
What I did was to take the industry internship position and join a research project in my extra time. I worked an 8-6 position at a tech company and worked out optimization functions and ran simulations and such on my lunch break and at night. It wasn't a full throttle research summer, but I got a decent publication (and a great letter of recommendation from my research collaborator) out of it...and I still pulled in a nice tech company internship pay too ;-)
After the summer, I decided I liked research more anyway so I went ahead with the PhD application. Turns out doing both simultaneously helped me make the decision.


text:
How to convince your PhD adviser about the research value of the topic?
I'm already in the second year of my PhD studies and my advisor insists on pursuing a very vague track, in order to produce some results that may be publishable. The problem is that the topic itself was extensively studied in the past two decades and there's little maneuver space without overlapping with others' past ideas (it's in applied Computer Science). My adviser seems to be constrained by his grant committee to have a solution for the topic's problem using a certain kind of technique that will be outperformed by other, more specific algorithms right from the start. Although it has other benefits, they're not interesting for this particular topic (since they're not going to be used in any way).
To put it simple, how can you tell your advisor that what they want you to do is like killing flies with TNT and then have the denotation site rebuilt in order to get rid of those flies? (in an elegant way, of course).
I should mention that my advisor has a different area of expertise than the one chosen for my PhD program and often seems not to having the slightest hints on what state of the art means for that particular field and why it is important not to reiterate past methods and algorithms just because they can be applied in a slightly different field from the one they were initially proposed for.

Do you have an alternative that is close to your advisor's plan?

Not quite, the problem my advisor wants solved is already exhausted and adding a new type of solution without any (if at all) considerable advantages seems futile if I want publishable material. Would you, for example, go to work using an antigravity platform that consumes more than a car and can't exceed the speed of the first Ford Model T just because you can levitate slightly above the ground as your main reason? That's my predicament with my research topic. Now that I've read pretty much all major contributions to the field, I feel like it's pointless.

I feel like this a much broader question -- How do you handle a supervisor who prefers incremental results, when your desire is more general -- that's a big constrained by your narrative and specifics. One particular solution to your conundrum: Find a new supervisor.

@GabrielConrad Immediate use and research are different. I would not use the antigravity platform to get to work. I would be in favor of research to find out the limits of what it can do, and possibly make it better.

I believe you are rushing ahead of yourself. In popular areas as applied CS, all areas one way or another may be considered overcrowded. Take any hot topic right now and you are going to see multiple publications with incremental updates / improvements. Still, a new dataset or a new test case ignites new research and so-on. No CS problem may be considered entirely solved. The fastest algorithm may be impossible to use for some datasets, its preprocessing may not scale and slower algorithms may be more parallelizable and more attractive to use. New hardware (CUDA / multiprocessor chips) change the way we write algorithms and so-on. There is a not a single criteria for what is the "best" solution. Stil, this is something you cannot know just by a literature survey.
Have you actually implemented any of the previous solutions to get a grasp of their advantages / disadvantages? Will you be able tomorrow to implement on your src code the state-of-the-art in this suggested problem or you assume it is too perfect to improve (to avoid the trouble of actually doing the implementation). Have you asked /contacted any of the authors if they can provide datasets or binaries for their solutions? Have you actually created multiple datasets to test previous solutions (and yours)? Or is everything just in your head. If yes, you must get them out of your head and into your PC.
If you actually implemented a quick and dirty (1-2 months) implementation of your advisor's suggestion, get some insight of how it behaves and 100% confirmed that your results are much worse than state-of-the-art solutions then no one (including your advisor) will object to you changing direction (no one likes dead ends). But this time will not be wasted. You have learnt what went wrong, you improved your coding skills and you see the research area more clearly. Maybe then, you can even come up with a test-case where your solution is way better than previous works, you perhaps know how to combine this problem with other related sub-problems and you have a solution that works (although not optimally) to partially satisfy the grant's requirements.
So, out of the books / papers and start writing some code!! It is more fun after all.

It is difficult to say very much about this without knowing some of the details of your research area. However, I think you are probably being a bit harsh on your supervisor, for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, every PhD student has to start somewhere, and replicating work from a good paper, or otherwise solving and already solved problem, is a perfectly reasonable way to getter a better understanding of the area you are working in. You will gain an appreciation for some of the subtleties of the area and some insights that will help inform your future, hopefully more novel, work.
Secondly, if this is part of a funded project then it has to be done. Gaining experience on a funded project, especially if you can collaborate with others, is good training for your future career and a good way to make contact with people you might work with in future. It may also be that follow-on funding from this work could become part of your own future work on your PhD.
Thirdly, if you can get a publication out of this work, even if it only obliquely relates to your PhD topic, will help you establish a reputation. When you come to your viva, if you have a authored few publications it will be difficult for your examiners to fail you since you have already demonstrated an ability to work at PhD level, as validated by the fact that your papers have been peer-reviewed.
I could go on, but you get the picture. Your supervisor probably has a number of reasons for wanting you to take this work on and it would benefit you to talk these reasons over quite openly. Don't assume that the work has no value!

If you have serious doubts about the value and success of your PhD project, try to change the supervisor and the laboratory. It is the job of the supervisor to persuade you that the project will succeed under the normal expected work input from your side.
The supervisor may use arguments like he and his laboratory has multiple published works in this area, there are some preliminary results that show good prospects, it has never been a failed PhD project under his supervision, etc. If heard and proven, these may be reasonable to consider. From the other side, your case as described looks miserable, if you see everything correctly.
Most important, do not try to suggest and push alternative topic yourself as you are not competent to do this. Even if the supervisor would yield at the end, your idea may actually be worse.


text:
General considerations about sharing referee reports
I have occasionally noticed that an author chooses to share publicly referee reports from a journal, usually because they are feeling aggrieved about a rejection. I also know that now and then people do share reports with (a few) close colleagues or friends.
What is generally considered good/bad conduct regarding sharing reports? I would hesitate to share my reports widely, mainly because I associate that behavior with cranks (as it seems to be cranks who publish them) and  would worry that it might come across as sour grapes and unprofessional.
Are there any clearer guidelines or reasons why we should keep the reports private? Is it considered a breach of confidence of the anonymous referee? Speaking generally, the reports are obviously a vital part of our scientific process, so it is strange that they so rarely see the light of day. Are there arguments within e.g. the open science movement to make all reviews publicly available?

An argument against sharing them is that they give information that may allow one to de-anonymize reviewers more easily. If you have all reports written by the same person publicly available, you can recognize a common writing style, formatting, etc., and you can match it to a person by checking the papers they get asked to referee.

It is not common in my field as well to publish the referee reports. I don't think it is a breach of confidence of the anonymous referee; (s)he remains anonymous anyhow. My guess is that scientists are human too, and when they receive criticism of their work they want to get it over with as quick as possible and then forget about it...
There are arguments for publishing all referee reports: An article does not become "scientific" because it is written by someone with a PhD or someone employed by a university, but because we give enough information that anyone can reconstruct how we reached our conclusions. Referee reports are part of the process, so being open about them would fit.
However, I would consider it unprofessional to selectively share referee reports. That decreases the openness of the process, as now the reader starts to wonder why this report is shared and the others are kept secret.
I have refereed once for a journal (BMC Medical Research Methodology) that had a policy of publishing the non-anonymous review reports with the article. I actually liked that process: there was interaction with the authors to make the article better. What is important for this question, is that that interaction is public so the reader can see the development of the article.

Your question is how should you behave. Not should reviewing be open.
I recommend not to share reviews especially adverse ones. It looks like sour grapes and it violates either explicit or implicit confidentiality.
Plus it just makes you look weak.  A better response is just to move papers to other journals.   And quickly so soon as you see a holdup situation. Not get involved in long wrangling.
Try to write the papers as matter of fact as possible.  Clear writing.  Follow notice to authors instructions. Don't try to hide weakness or claim something sexy that isn't.

What is generally considered good/bad conduct regarding sharing reports?

Journals generally dictate their own policies for sharing referee reports. In many cases, sharing the report with anyone other than the authors can be considered a breach of trust. Refer to the confidentiality clause located at the bottom of the email you received containing the referee comments. If one does exist, sharing the report publicly will put you in the wrong and the journal may decline to review future articles authored by your person.
Many journals may not have a confidentiality clause, but still it is your responsibility to check the For Authors section in the journal website before you share the reports publicly.
Therefore, always make sure you are in the clear before sharing reports publicly.
Having said this, a statement must be made regarding the the types of review that are there. There are three basic types of reviews:

Open peer review: You know who is reviewing and they know you too. (Elife)
Blind peer review: You don't know who is reviewing, but they know you. (Nature Comm.)
Double blind peer review: You don't know the reviewers and vice versa (I cannot at this moment think of a journal)

I do not know of any Hitchhiker's guide to sharing peer review reports. But, if you are sharing the reports publicly, then in order of decreasing importance:

If this information exists, remove reviewer names, affiliations and any information that would make the reviewer identifiable.
Share the full report and quote it verbatim, this will put you in the clear if some misunderstandings arise later on.
Include a confidentiality clause when sharing the report.
Our world is very small, it is very likely that someone within your network is your reviewer. So, when sharing the report, do so from the standpoint of an individual who is receptive to the comments.
Be receptive to comments that are within reason, not the ones which say the author should travel to the other side of the universe, gather some pixie dust, de-constitute and reconstitute it and finally compare it to their pixie dust in three technical and 100 biological replicates.

Are there any clearer guidelines or reasons why we should keep the reports private?

Look above regarding confidentiality clauses and journal statements for authors.

Is it considered a breach of confidence of the anonymous referee?

If sharing the report is not a breach of trust from the journal's standing and information in the report does not clearly identify the reviewer, then no I do not think that is a breach of confidence. But, if I were the reviewer who asked you to gather up some pixie dust, I might get offended and consider it a breach of confidence.

Speaking generally, the reports are obviously a vital part of our scientific process, so it is strange that they so rarely see the light of day. Are there arguments within e.g. the open science movement to make all reviews publicly available?

A comment which is warranted, will be made however unjustified the authors may think the comment to be. For example, if you missed your commas or used wrong statistics, that will be pointed out or can be used as a cause for rejection both in closed reviews or open ones. You will get rejected because you don't come across as a professional person.
Open reviews protect authors from unwarranted comments such as gathering up pixie dust or doing 100 replicates of the same experiment.
At the same time, open reviews improve the article when peers from diverse fields provide their inputs, this leads to your growth as a scientist.
Also, I see a possibility for open review to hurt the peer-review process. When highly renowned authors submit articles for reviews containing very high stakes results, it makes a case for reviews to be closed.  In an open review when the author has no peer of equal standing, reviewers may show restraint towards the author to protect their own interests, as the author may be a person who is reviewing their grant applications.
This may be an unpopular view, but academia just like life is an unfair place.


text:
Is it normal for a graduate student's fate to depend on the success of a breakthrough idea?
I am officially a graduate student in a different department than where I have been working for the last ~6 months. (..(un?)fortunately this department where I were I now work is ranked almost the highest in that subject in the US than my previous...)
For a start, I work with two amazing assistant professors on an exciting project. The work we are doing is breakthrough historical stuff IF it works out. Obviously its insanely hard!
But then its also problematic that this project is so so hard. I get the feeling that my official status in the university and my prospect of getting any of these professors as my official advisers depends on the success of these projects! (I am not sure how to feel about it - its like I can continue in the PhD. only if I can may be also crack the most breakthrough question out there and get a Nobel! - thats what it feels like!)
How do I deal with this situation?
The psychological pressure is immense - its one thing to be involved in a cutting edge idea but its all together a different game when one's livelihood depends on its success! Is this a normal situation?

Have you tried discussing your concerns with your professors?  Your feelings about your prospects may be unfounded.  Very often there is a large disconnect between what a professor is thinking and what the student thinks s/he is thinking.

Might not be the best response but here I go:
Sometimes, it's better to think of a PhD as a process, rather than as a product. A graduate student's success is never solely dependent on a breakthrough, noble peace-winning result. Rather, it is dependent on a multitude of factors.
Will you lose your PhD should this result not work out? The short answer: Probably not.
Will this impact your 'status' at the university? I don't know, I don't think having 'status' is a good thing personally, as I think it creates disjuncture and limits our ability to produce good research when we get so tied up in politics (but I digress).
The PhD is not going to be your best work should you continue with Academia. Having a masterpiece, or breakthrough result will of course, heightened your prospects (should you be credited appropriately) but this is rare and not expected. The PhD is about fine-tuning your critical thinking and research skills, and prepares you for that road to noble peace winning, but it is not expected that you are producing amazing research at this level. If you do, it's a welcomed bonus. Many academics that I meet look to their PhDs 5-10-20 years down the road and laugh about them.
To help you not feel so stressed, my advice to you is:
1. Don't measure your self-worth on the success or fail rate of this project
2. Consider your PhD a process and not a product, and remind yourself that the PhD may be your best work (TO DATE) but will not be your best work in 5-10-20 years down the road.
3. Try to avoid viewing your PhD as something that has to be perfect, amazing and groundbreaking. This isn't to say that your research wouldn't relevant, interesting or groundbreaking in its own right. It just means that it might not be something that extends our knowledge to the point of receiving a Nobel Peace Prize. That also doesn't mean you won't get there either, you've got plenty of time :)
4. Stay informed about politics regarding status if this is going to impact your employability at your university or other potentials, but try to remain an observer as opposed to some who partakes. Doing so will keep you grounded but aware.


text:
Should I stay an extra semester to complete a second minor?
I am currently an undergraduate physics student in the fall semester of my junior year. Until recently, I thought I would have to stay an extra semester to complete my undergraduate physics degree, but after looking over my scheduling possibilities for the next three semesters, I've realized I will be able to graduate on time (spring semester of my senior year).
My dilemma arises from the fact that I am also trying to meet the requirements for two minors (one in computer science and one in math). The two possibilities I see are as follows:

If I choose to graduate on time, my curriculum for the next three semesters will consist of 9 physics courses, 2 computer science courses, and 1 general education. I would finish with my bachelor's in physics and a minor in computer science.
If I choose to stay an extra semester, I will be able to complete the requirements for both a computer science minor and a math minor, and I will be able to spread out my physics classes a little more. Additionally, I may be able to take one or two extra elective classes in either math or physics.

My plan is to go to graduate school after my bachelor's , so given my circumstance, is it worth it to stay that extra semester just for the minor in math? Will the additional time to graduate or the extra credential make any difference when it comes to physics graduate school admissions?

Will the additional time to graduate or the extra credential make any difference when it comes to physics graduate school admissions? — The extra credential?  No.  The extra time?  It depends.  If you use that time to build a stronger case for your potential for research excellence, then yes, definitely.  If you use it just to take some more undergrad-level classes, then no, probably not.

Basically, a second minor doesn't really convey any additional benefits to you in terms of admission. It just means you've done enough courses in a specific area to be recognized by your specific school as having completed a "minor." Some schools in the US (and most foreign schools) do not offer minors, so it won't make a big difference.
Also to consider—if you are planning to do graduate school after your bachelor's degree, taking an extra semester in the US likely means that you will have to wait a full year before starting graduate school. This can have significant impacts, as you will then need to find something to do in what would have been your spring semester. There is also the possibility that, because you will be out of school for a while, you may need to start repayment on any student loans you have. (Usually you're allowed a six-month grace period before repayment starts.)

Will the additional time make any difference in admissions? I don't think so, since you are pursuing more credits, it's natural that it takes more time.
Will the extra credits count? Since you're enrolling a post-graduate degree that is also your major, I don't think it matters much. If you're doing a master on Math, it probably matters. Don't forget you can always consult the admission office.
It sounds like you enjoy (or at least don't dislike) university life anyway, so if financial support is not a problem for you, I'd encourage you to take an extra semester. Besides earning the extra minor, you'll also benefit from a more relaxed schedule, which should improve your grades.


text:
For PhD admissions is it better to be a first author on a workshop paper or a co-author on a conference paper
In computer science being first author means you basically did all the work whereas if co-author does not indicate what amount of work is done. Which would be more well received on an application to PhD programs?

Actually, if first authors means you basically did all the work, then clearly co-author (meaning not-first-author) also says something about the contribution (that it was hardly there). This is definitely not the correct way to interpret author ordering in computer science in general.

It is better to be the first author on the highest quality paper, regardless of workshop, conference, or journal publication.

The first author is not always the author of correspondence. In some cases, authors are alphabetically ordered. Nevertheless, it is a common notion that first authors are always considered to have the major contribution.
Coming back to your question, it is true that PhD admissions are more interested in papers with being the corresponding author.

I don't see how this answers the question, which is about PhD admission.

Edit confirmed.

While is usually true that first authors count more (I had a grant declined once citing that as a reason, but not on computer science), do not try to trick the committee...
What really counts is the whole of your publication history, that should have good papers, published in the appropriate venue.
Don't pass on networking options just because you will not be first author... Ideally, you should have both: articles directly derived from your work (thesis/project) with you as first author as well as articles that are related to your work (but derived from someone else's project, for instance) that you collaborated.

I'm afraid that all the answer we can really give you is: "It depends."
The reasons are:

It's not really possible to tell the relative amount of contribution of an undergraduate from their position as first or second author.  Typically the first author has contributed the most, but with inexperienced researchers there may be so much coaching involved that the value of first author is somewhat diluted.  Likewise, the second author might have contributed very little or might have contributed only a tiny bit less than the first author.
The value of a conference vs. a workshop depends a lot on the conference and the workshop and the paper.  A paper in a high-quality and well-respected workshop will be much better than in a poor conference.  Likewise, a marginal paper can sometimes get into a decent conference, while excellent papers are sometimes sent to workshops because it's the right place for them, for various reasons.

The real thing that will explain the value that you have contributed to a paper to an admissions committee is a letter of recommendation, from a person who knows the work you did.


text:
What are the biggest changes when transitioning from graduate student to professor?
I often hear the adage that graduate school never actually trains you to be a professor. I would be curious to know what were some of the biggest hurdles assistant professors had to overcome when they first obtained their jobs. Were these mainly interpersonal and managerial skills? If so how did you sharpen your skills in those areas?
Are professors as overworked as graduate students? It is a common fact that graduate students frequently suffer from mental illness and depression. Is this the same for professors? If professors are even busier than graduate students, how do they avoid burning out? How is the stress different?

While I could say some obvious things, there are a couple of issues with your questions: (1) you're asking several different questions---maybe it's better to just focus on the first paragraph in this post; (2) this is highly dependent on discipline, country, school, etc.  So it may be helpful to specify your situation.

Your question can be answered partly by the different time sharing:

link
Other bigger changes for a professor:
Much stronger independence and responsibility and expected to be successful, while balancing all of this correctly. With all its implications. Being an academic role model within and outside of your group, leading your team, but also leaving room for creativity and self-development to your group members. And this is sometimes still difficult for full professors, some apparently suffering under this pressure or trying to bypass it by shifting responsibility to co-workers, wrong managing of division of labour, scientific misconduct... without this correct balancing probably much less questions would be asked on academia.se?!
Though, in my opinion the most important and inobvious and maybe most argued change is that you are expected to give back to the society and public. It's not like you have won in the job lottery and can lean back more like for industry or civil servants positions and stick to your 40 hour contract. There is a reason why most professors work many more hours a week, it's a lifelong commitment to their job and its duties and privileges. And therefore it is a important life decision one should make before starting to pursue an academic career ending within professorhip.
On the other side, coming up, defining and realizing good/competitive research ideas over decades can be mentally exhausting, also a sabbatical nowadays has become an off-academia phenomenon and in academia typically meant having really time for finding and outlining new research ideas and questions apart from the other time-consuming task above in the graphic.
Soft skills are necessary and helpful like in every other job, but not sufficient. Many universities offer such courses specially designed for students and postdocs and getting such certificates is helpful (project management, academic english,...)
Professors are typically not taught to teach, they learn this themselves and in my opinion every student has experienced this result in a better or worse way. But evaluation of teaching of a applicant for proffesorship is often a crucial criterion to become full professor. Therefore, a proficient language level (if no native speaker) is often necessary and good feedback/evaluations by the students, if the professor is not outstanding in acquired funding and publication track.
This article on a "A year in the life of a new professor" on jumping from lab to classroom is also a good read to get a up to date impression of young professors
Disclaimer: I'm no professor, postdoc on the road maybe to become one...

I would say the biggest change is the necessity of multi-tasking. As a Ph.D. student or even post-doc, your responsibilities are focused and limited. You're working on a very narrow research question. Your teaching load, if any, is light. However, when you are a professor, you have numerous responsibilities with considerable weights.

Teaching: Your department might require you to develop and teach a new course. It could be time-consuming to develop a new teaching plan as well as notes. In addition, you might have to teach multiple courses per semester (depending on the discipline, usually between two and three courses). This makes the exam and assignment grading as well as holding office hours a fixed part of your schedule.
Research: Contrary to your Ph.D. dissertation, as a professor, you're usually involved with multiple projects. For example, you might advise or co-advise multiple students with different thesis topics. This makes keeping up with every one of them (e.g., advising, revising report/papers, helping with experiments, etc.) a time-consuming task. Also, the responsibility of managing research projects with industry and/or academic partners is of very importance.
Finding and securing funding and research grants: When you are a student, somebody else is securing the necessary funding to pay for your salary. When you are a professor, you are that person. This could be time-consuming and hard, especially if you have no prior experience with the necessary processes.
Service: Service includes many tasks such as reviewing journal/conference papers, organizing events (e.g., seminars, workshops, and conferences), examining theses/dissertations, etc.
Administration: A huge amount of your time, as a professor, will be spent in an endless series of meetings (such as group, department and faculty meeting). In addition, taking an administrative position would be a huge game changer, which would definitely affect your teaching and research plans.


text:
Can a good but unremarkable PhD student become an accomplished professor?
Given that PhD students and professors often need to use different skill sets to accomplish their jobs, are there instances of people who had good but unremarkable careers as a PhD student, but much more success as a professor? If this describes you, can you describe why this might have been the case? I personally feel that my technical skills are comparatively average to my peers, but my writing, conceptualization and framing skills are above average. My own PhD journey thus far is fine, but not remarkable. Assuming I manage to find a faculty position, do you think I might be able to have a more accomplished career than when I was a student? How might I do this?

I've met so many professors which are unremarkable or even (sorry) not good at what they have chosen to do. I usually believe they were outstanding PhD students... which simply is no guarantee for good performance in a different role ;)

See related question https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/127772/4484

By "professor" do you mean a tendured/tenure track position at a university?

Why not? It has been the case for bad, unremarkable students for centuries. And if someone likes the academic life, sometimes they are the best fit at any rate.

Yes of course.
Some PhD’s are really good at research, or they just prefer research.
Others however, like to pass on knowledge and when a student « gets » something they are pleased for them.
So being able to explain concepts to others and remembering or understanding why you found certain concepts difficult and using that experience to help other students can be very rewarding.
The downside is it comes with things like grading... But having clear marking schemes helps with that, both when you mark and when students want feedback.

Besides that a „successful“ professor might need more Skills in doing PR or finding Sponsors or convincing their staff and students to do the work than to be particular good in research or teaching.

Some people are adept at helping other people understand and realize study material and also have new ideas even though them themselves maybe don't have so many "original ideas". There is a big need for teaching professors as well as research professors. Sadly these days seems many professors end up being neither.. just a vessel for acquiring grants and doing administration...

Depends on what your definition of a 'Professor' is.  There are some professors who got to their position based on governance, teaching or/and research.  In terms of research, I know of big name professors who operate more like a business person, so an outsider would think they are excellent researchers.

Yes. Some smart students do realize this and it quite often repels them..

As I write this the other answers have missed one essential point, though they give good advice. But I'll note that your skill set isn't fixed at birth. You are what you make yourself.
Your early work is just that: the beginning. It may be good or not and you can do better or worse. That is up to you to a large extent. It matters how you carry on your career. How much you are willing to work with and learn from others can be a big factor. How relentlessly you follow your research ideas is another. How much effort you put in to the other aspects of being a professor. Are you willing to learn how to be a scholarly teacher? Will you do what it takes? Will you always give the same respect that you expect from others?
If you stay in academia, hopefully you get a good position and achieve tenure. Some people take tenure as an opportunity to get lazy (relatively speaking). Others take it as an opportunity to take on higher risk - higher reward projects. That is up to you.
There are lots of things. Some of them you have already practiced and others not so much.
But also note that to be an accomplished professor you don't need to be in the top ranks in every measure. You can focus on one of the key areas as long as you don't neglect the others. You can have the Dean gasp when you announce your retirement forty years after you earned your doctorate. The path is long and winding.