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Can I submit more than 3 reference letters with my grad school applications?
Is it acceptable to attach additional reference letters to an application under the supporting documents category of an application? Say I have 3 references from my masters institution, and another 2 from my undergraduate institution. I would think that if they are all positive, that the more is better. Would this be acceptable or is it a no-no? I am particularly thinking about top-10 universities.

US universities.

@GHP: Other schools explicitly tell you not to submit anything beyond what's required. So don't shoot yourself in the foot by not following directions!

No!
US institutions expect that you have never seen your recommendation letters; your references are supposed to upload/submit them directly to your target departments.  But presumably you are uploading/submitting your own supporting documents.
If the application web site somehow restricts you to naming only three references, then you only get three letters; choose wisely.  If it's a paper application, just ask all your references to mail in their letters.
(I assume you are applying to a graduate program.)

Moreover, many schools now no longer allow additional recommendation letters. If they ask for three, they want three, no more, no less. Four is not allowed, and five is right out.


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How far do you commute to graduate school?
I decided that I want to go to graduate school. I started looking into some local schools, but none of them have any programs that are very appealing. I found a program that is two and a half hours away and classes are held on Saturdays. Is this ridiculous? How long is too long of a commute? As much as I would love to just move there for a few years, I have a husband and a toddler. I can't uproot them as well. My only other option is to take the program online. Do people even take online programs seriously in the job market?

Are you doing research or just taking classes?

Is this for a masters or a Ph.D ?

More and more universities are offering programs that can be taken as a mix of online and resident classes. That is, you might be able to complete part of the program online, which would mean less commuting, yet you'd still have the advantages of being an on-campus student for at least some of your program.

And if this is a research degree: In which field?  Some research absolutely requires physical presence in a lab; other research requires only portable computing equipment and internet/library access.

Indeed, it matters if it is just a course-work based program or if it requires research, lab work, etc.
You'll need to check with your program to be sure what's expected of participants, and if you reach out and contact an enrolled student (or if their admissions office has a student they could direct you to for such questions) you can ask them for their experience of "what it really takes", and what options you have.
For one example, all around the USA there are "weekend {MBA/etc}" and sometimes "executive" programs. These are designed precisely for people like you, people who are working full time during the week, who live far out of town, etc.
The first step is determining what is really needed - is that one day all you really have to be there for, in person? Are there demonstrations, oral reports, projects, group meetings, etc, that must be done on any other day of the week?
To continue with this answer, we must assume the answer is "yes, the program really only requires you to be here Saturday, and everything else can be done at your home, email, web, etc".
As a matter of my experience, I have not done this myself, but I've worked with about 4 people who were doing exactly this. They would finish their work on Friday, commenting about how they had a long drive ahead of them. If they had a morning class some would go down on friday night, stay in a hotel (or couch surf, or stay with a friend/family), and then go to their classes. When they were done they'd drive home and be there in time for dinner.
Some others drive down early on Saturday, did class, and drove back all in one day. This is doable - they were doing 3 hours each trip, so 6 hours of driving in one day. But I must warn you - according to psychological/cognitive research, people do not habituate to commutes of this length. If you find a way to enjoy the drive as an experience, like your chance to listen to audio books, loud music, be by yourself to meditate and think, etc, then that's fine. Most people just always hate it - it's one of the few things we, as human beings, suck at just getting use to.
In the experience of my coworkers, none of them liked the drive. But in the case of all of them, they decided that the unpleasantness was worth it because their degree was important to them, and all it cost them was a chunk of their weekend. They didn't like it, they always looked a bit down to have to make the drive the next day, but they did it anyway. Another coworker stayed with family/friends and stayed the whole weekend, driving back Sunday night.
My father was actually going to do this for his PhD in English Literature, but found 1.5 hours back and forth while working 50-60 hours entirely too unpleasant, and stopped before even really starting it. Your value and personal situation - and how you handle long stretches of time in the car - will heavily influence your experience.
In short, "Your Mileage May Very". There is no "too long" or "too short" to commute. Commutes suck. As humans, we universally tend to hate them, especially while driving. As a personal note, I've found that anything over 20 minutes per day (if every day) starts to wear on me, and anything over 45 minutes is very displeasing (unless I'm on public transportation, which I find relaxing and can easily do double the time). Meanwhile, some people drive an hour and a half and just "deal with it" temporarily. I find road trips for 3 hours ok, but the ride back is rough even if I did very little that day, and I spend most of the next day tired. You'll kind of have to find this out yourself - might I suggest some trial runs to scope out the campus?
Finally, you could also try to find creative solutions, which will depend on your personal situation. Some couples, if they are both off during the weekend, will travel together and one will go to school while the other has a Family Fun Day. Since this is almost always done on trips to a larger city than one lives in, there are often museums, parks, movies, etc. This can be anywhere from relatively cheap (pack a cooler and picnic, choose low/no cost fun things to do) to prohibitively expensive.
As to online classes, that really is a separate question you might want to search for, with lots of good answers all over. To give you an executive summary: it depends on who you ask - but some people say they worked for them just fine, and there are some people who give them no value. What percentage of hiring decisions will consider them a negative? No one seems to offer good data, and I'm aware of no quality comprehensive studies for any area of degree. Education is strictly "let the buyer beware" in the USA, with little exceptions. (They are starting to crack down on some aspects that involve federal student aid, but only on the worst offenders.)

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What is a post-print of an article or research paper, and what is it used for?
Today I ran across the wording "post-print version" of an article (on ResearchGate). I'm aware of terms pre-print, in preparation, under review, published, etc., but I have never seen the term "post-print" before. What does it mean and what else should we know about it (i.e., when to use it)?

I did some reading online and now understand the terminology better. Still, if anybody wants to share their perspectives on and/or around the topic, they are welcome to do so.

Can you please write up a self-answer, then?

@jakebeal: Sure, I'm planning on doing it. There will be some delay, though, due to a number of much higher-priority work-related tasks I have to cater to.

Related: Does a preprint include revisions made in response to peer review?

Just to clarify, what are benefits, if any, of archiving a post-print version, if the time difference between a would-be post-print and a journal publication is not significant (I assume several months to a half a year is not a big deal)?

A postprint is the final version that is given to the journal for copy editing and typesetting.  It includes changes made in the refereeing process, but not the journal's typesetting.  It is often referred to also by the phrase "author's final version".
In contrast, a preprint most specifically refers to a manuscript as it was before peer review.  However, the term preprint is often used more generally (for instance, when referring to a preprint server) to refer to any version of the manuscript besides the journal's final typeset copy.  Thus it is common to find postprints on arxiv.org, which is commonly referred to as a preprint server.
Postprints are mainly used as a way to provide green open access. Many publishers allow authors to distribute postprints through their own website, an institutional website, or a preprint server.  Many institutions (e.g. Harvard) assert a non-exclusive right to distribute postprints written by their employees, regardless of publishing agreements.

Thank you (+1) - I have already read that, as I said in my comment above. However, what is not clear to me is what is the point of distributing this document (via posting it to an e-print server, etc.), when the time frame between current and next step (publication) is not quite significant (which, most likely, is field- and journal-dependent, though). I mean, once a paper is officially published, many journals either prohibit the distribution, or place the paper under embargo.

I appreciate your edit. You've added some info I was planning to add as a part of a relatively comprehensive self-answer - now I'm considering abandoning this idea for obvious reasons. If you will update it even more for more comprehensiveness (if feasible, of course), I will abandon the idea of self-answer completely and will gladly accept your answer.

I'm not sure what else you're looking for, but you are free to edit it and add more.

Wait. I am used to a postprint meaning a version that is newer than the published version (e.g., a version that was updated to reflect mistakes found after publication, or an electronic reedition). Is this really standard terminology?

Wikipedia agrees with you ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postprint ). Ouch, I am pretty sure I've spread my "alternative definition" to a few places...

A standard definition comes from SHERPA/RoMEO:

[...] this listing characterises pre-prints as being the version of the paper before peer review and post-prints as being the version of the paper after peer-review, with revisions having been made.
This means that in terms of content, post-prints are the article as published. However, in terms of appearance this might not be the same as the published article, as publishers often reserve for themselves their own arrangement of type-setting and formatting. Typically, this means that the author cannot use the publisher-generated .pdf file, but must make their own .pdf version for submission to a repository.

For green open access purposes, self-archiving the post-print is preferable to self-archiving the pre-print, as it is the post-print that contains the content improved after feedback from reviewers.
Publishers may use different terminology: For example, Elsevier uses "Accepted Manuscript" instead of the word post-print in its sharing policy.

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What to do when a referee asks for changes I am not willing to make?
I have submitted a paper later that was reviewed by four reviewers. I submitted my revisions to all reviewers. Three accepted the review, while the last is still asking for modifications.
The problem is that the reviewer is asking to measure the performance of our work using performance metrics that were never taken into consideration before in the literature (and our problem is well studied - at 30 references !) ..
These performance metrics would require a complete Master Thesis.
Is it fair to judge a paper based on performance metrics that were not taken into consideration by the authors at the first hand ? (noting that none of the previous work considered these metrics) ..
I hate to say it, but the reviewer seems to be reading a paper about my problem for the first time ever, and some of the reviewer comments are contradicting.
Note: I am sorry if this have been asked before. I could not find any thing related.

is it a conference or journal paper? is the final decision of acceptance/rejection in the hands of this reviewer or someone else?

it is a journal paper, the decision is the hands of the editor, I guess. But I think the editor is using a template to answer me.

In your question, there is no mention of an editor for the journal to which you have submitted your work. If you disagree with one or more of the reviewers, there is nothing remarkable about that; it is common, a review is an educated opinion about your work, supposedly based on facts. Normally you would provide an account for how you have met the comments (as you seem to have done) and in the cases where you disagree, you provide an account based on facts and reasoning why you think your way is better than that of the reviewer. It should then be up to the editor, not the reviewer, to decide whether your revisions make the manuscript acceptable or not. In some cases the editor will request a second round of reviews, this is normal, particularly if the revisions have been so substantial that the manuscript is quite different from the original.
This is what I see as a relatively typical way for a review process to take place.

particularly if the revisions have been so substantial that the manuscript is quite different from the original. I think this is my case then. Thanks,

I agree with the other comments that it is ok to not satisfy the demands of all reviewers and that in the end the editor makes the call.
However, it is still possible that the reviewer has a good point that the other reviewers missed. It is entirely possible that common metrics in the field are problematic and that since the other reviewers are "from the field" (and so are you, for that matter), they just don't give it a second thought. I have encountered these kinds of situations before. Remember that ultimately, you are the one responsible for what you write in your paper - not the reviewers or the editor. Therefore, I suggest that you keep an open mind and think deeply if the reviewer has a point and how you want to address it and act accordingly.
I am just mentioning this since it is sometimes easy to become overly defensive and dismiss reviewer comments as bad judgement.

Can you elaborate more how the discussion has proceeded? If I am under the correct impression, you don't have to agree with every reviewer nor do everything they suggest. Instead, you need to tell them that their comments have been seriously considered. You should be OK by writing the same statement that you wrote here: you disagree, your point of view is supported by previous research, and so on.

If I may relay a piece of wisdom that was passed down to me many years ago, even if you are convinced that the reviewer is a complete idiot, it only means that your paper was obviously not completely idiot-proof.
If somebody managed to find fault on what you considered a trivial point, then the point may not be as trivial or clear as you think. Applied to your specific case,
you could show, in your manuscript, that the results shown are sufficient to make whatever point you want to make, and that other specific tests, i.e. the ones suggested by the reviewer, would not contribute to the result.
In any case, though, my first step would be to talk to the editor in charge of your manuscript. She/He will be making the final decision, so it makes more sense to discuss with her/him directly, and not engage in a lengthy -- and essentially pointless -- battle with an individual referee. In such cases the editor can usually tell you how she/he would like to see the referee's points addressed, and that will give you something to work with.
I also echo Bitwise's sentiment that, in the end, it's up to you. If the journal, via the referees and editor, makes demands that you cannot live with, then you can live without that particular journal.

Your mentioning trivial reminds me of The use of words such as “clearly”, “obviously” etc. in a technical paper


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Attributing contributions to academic work that occur in Stack Exchange
Sometimes we may ask questions on stack exchange or online forums wherein the response is helpful or even essential to a piece of work that gets published in an academic journal. If this occurs, how should credit be given to those involved in the exchange? Should they all be included as authors? Should a link to the forum be included as a reference in the paper?
Once something is in a stack exchange or forum, it's "published". Perhaps in the future, the current peer review model will transform into people writing blogs and posting in forums and databases. But for now, how might this issue be dealt with while forums, blogs, etc coexist with journals?

This issue has come up on CS Theory StackExchange; the most popular recommendation is to copy the BibTeX that MathOverflow generates when you click on a "cite" link.  Several questions and answers from both of those sites have been cited in journal articles.

@JeffE Many thanks for the reference. I suspected that this sort of question might have come up in other places but it was sufficiently difficult for me to find that I thought it was worth posting another question here. I think that, as I have seen mentioned in some of the answers below, the way in which the issues I've raised are dealt with vary significantly by field so it is good to know how they might be dealt with in computer science.

@EnergyNumbers I think I understand your perspective on the second paragraph, but the first part of the question scratches the surface of a deeper issue the way I see it. If it is a rant (...written in a wild, impassioned way), then it is one I expect to resonate to some degree with others. I think the political aspects of science are real and should not be swept under the rug in discussion. What I will do is remove what is less relevant to the question and post some of my comments as an answer.

@EnergyNumbers Here's one reference for the debate about whether or not Stack Exchange is considered to be a forum.

@JeffE it's nice to know that journal articles cited several articles from MO and CS Theory, are you able to give any example that was picked up by Google Scholar? i.e. Google Scholar shows that a Stack Exchage post got cited significantly?

@JeffE but when you said "Several questions and answers from both of those sites have been cited in journal articles", are you able to give some examples? I'm very curious!

@user1271772 Sorry, I spoke too soon.  Here's one (self-serving) example: this Google Scholar link shows four citations to this StackExchange post.

@JeffE I was confused because when I saw "J Erickson" and stack exchange, I immediately thought it was Jon Ericson, who is the one that implemented the "cite" button for certain Stack Exchange sites, and I thought "that can't be right", so I clicked on the papers that cited it, and thought "ahh Jeffrey Shallit! The one I passed by on the Waterloo campus frequently over the last 15 years! But why is his username JeffE instead of JeffS ?" ... Then I figured out that your last name is actually Erickson, so confusion resolved! Thank you :)

Issue of citing authorship
Starting from first principles, I think in most instances on StackExchange it would be the original poster of the quoted answer that would be the relevant author. The person asking the question is useful but it is typically the information provided in a particular answer that would be the typical candidate for citation.
That said, I imagine there could be instances where the question itself or an overall exchange represents the unit of citation. In such a case, it would make sense to cite all relevant contributors.
Does something learnt from StackExchange need to be cited?
A lot of learning goes into a journal article. This learning comes from many sources. That which gets cited is only a small fraction of that. A scientist might (a) read a statistics book; (b) ask a friend;  or (c) ask a question on Stats.StackExchange.com to learn more about how to analyse his or her data. In both cases, the person has devised an analysis plan based on having learnt something. However, generally these sources are not cited. In each case the scientist has learnt how to do something, but ultimately the knowledge is already established in the literature.
I also think that the vast majority of posts on StackExchange do not constitute a citable unit of original research. That said, where this does occur and it it influences your work, it makes sense to cite the source.

cstheory regularly generates original proofs (although we are not too great at keeping track of these), some of them out-performing the best in the literature, I assume the same happens over at MO. If you did learn something important from SE, even if it is not citable, I feel that you should mention it in your acknowledgement just as you would if a colleague gave important suggestions during a coffee break.

Yes, something learnt from StackExchange needs to be cited, just as "something learnt" from a journal article needs to be cited.

@JeffE If part of my result was learned on StackExchange, yes. If I learned on StackExchange what abbreviation X means or how to use my statistics software, no.

I don't really agree that SE should never be cited or that an answerer necessarily deserves more credit than an asker. For most journals it would probably be wise for the paper's author to verify the information from SE in peer-reviewed / scholarly sources and cite those as well, but credit should go where it's due. Certainly for other publication types like blogs, books, lectures, etc. it's good to have a standardized recommended citation format and to encourage fair attribution. For my part, I intend to cite SE threads in my book, in addition to other sources I used to verify them.

Citing a forum post is very close to "personal communications".
The benefit of actually citing (instead of thanking the author in the acknowledgements) is that you:

explicitly say what was their contribution,
give more details or provide the context(sometimes the post is longer, with more threads than those mentioned in the paper),
implicitly build visibility or prestige of the forum/SE site/MO/...

When it comes to the author(s), there is no established approach. Typically (default from cite on the MathOverflow and link -> cite on the StackExchange) you cite the exact post (e.g. the selected answer with its author). However, if you want to point explicitly to more authors (e.g. actually you base on two answers or the question itself is non-trivial), then it may be a good idea to include them as well.
If you consider that their contribution is substantial, then you can decide to have them as coauthors (of course assuming they agree). But then the rules are no different from talking in person. (Except for the fact, that on fora some people may be unreachable).
Moreover, if something is simple (but not trivial, i.e. present in standard textbooks), citation is welcome. For that reason people quote tables of integrals and for the same reason I think that simple findings you base on should be cited as well.
I think that hiding one's sources is neither productive nor fair.

What merits a citation or coauthorship is a subtle question, but the answer doesn't change when people interact online.  The main difference is that the interaction is more visible: authors may feel awkward if they decline to cite a publicly visible (but unimportant) contribution, and the contributor may feel encouraged to complain.  This adds to the pressure of the decision, but it shouldn't change the answer, and the other issues and subtleties are the same as in offline interaction.
As for online contributions being "published", I suppose that's true in the technical sense that they have been made available to the public, but that's not what academics mean when they talk about publication.  For example, listing a stackexchange answer as a publication on one's CV would be considered at least eccentric, if not deceptive, regardless of how impressive the answer was.  (The best one could hope for is to list it somewhere else.)
I'm not sure what the relevance of the second paragraph of the question is, but here's a guess.  Suppose Alice is writing a paper and Bob makes an absolutely critical intellectual contribution via a stackexchange answer.  Normally such a contribution would merit coauthorship, but Alice might declare that Bob's work is already published via stackexchange and that she will simply cite it rather than making him an author.  That would be unreasonable and unfair to Bob, but if Alice was scrupulous in citing Bob's answer and giving him full credit for its contents, then it's not clear that Bob would have any recourse.  I'm not convinced this is more than a theoretical problem, since the number of stackexchange answers that could merit coauthorship is tiny (maybe not zero, but that's a good first approximation) and most authors are well behaved anyway.  However, I suppose it could happen.

There's a simple test for citing/acknowledging. Did you come up with the contribution yourself ? If not, then you need to cite whoever did.
Whether this amounts to authorship, and how exactly to cite the contribution (as a footnote, acknowledgement, personal contribution or whatever), depends on the conventions of your research area (especially for authorship thresholds). In general, if you're merely deciding between different kinds of citation, more information is usually better.
As for the entire second paragraph about conventions in publishing, I think that's irrelevant.

Naming a contribution in the acknowledgement section is not citing. There's a fundamental difference between that.

Your first paragraph is misleading, because it seems to imply that the reverse implication holds, too (if I came up with something myself, I don't need a reference). However, if I come up with a contribution myself and then I find out that it's a known result, good practice demands that I add a reference.

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If an author does not intend to make much revenue from a book, why not make it open-access?
Many authors do not intend to make much revenue from books (textbooks or research books) they contribute to, yet they don't make it open access. Why?

Because the publisher?

@ff524 Why not choosing a publisher that allows the book to be open access?

Probably because open access is relatively low in the list of considerations for choosing a publisher.

To me the real question here is "what value is added by the publisher".

Note that the publisher intends to make revenue from the book - or at least not make a massive loss - even if the authors don't. If you're planning to publish it entirely OA, you need a) to find some way of offsetting the publisher's production costs (which are very substantial); or b) publish it yourself. Which of these situations do you envisage? The answers are massively different.

Because it was a lot of work to write it, so whoever wants it should pay for it?

@gnasher729 Most money doesn't go to people who didn't most of the work (viz., the authors).

@DavidKetcheson That's indeed one of the main questions behind.

@DavidKetcheson oh I don't know, let's see: the publisher gets the book refereed (creating prestige for the author by agreeing to publish it following the reviewing process, assuming it's a reputable publisher with high standards); copyedit the book; design a front and back cover; print the book; market the book; sell the book on their website and on Amazon, at professional conferences etc.; send you sales reports and royalties. I suppose you could in theory do all of those things yourself or through a vanity press. Do you also grow and hunt your own food? Generate your own electricity?

@FranckDernoncourt: Where did I talk about receiving money? I talked about people paying. Demonstrating that they appreciate the work by putting their hands in their pockets.

@DanRomik Many Stack Exchange users do grow their own food or generate their own electric power. And Amazon is starting to offer more and more of those services through CreateSpace and KDP.

@DamianYerrick well I guess those would be the people who also self-publish the books they write, printing them on a homemade printing press running on their self-generated electric power, using paper made from a pulp they mixed themselves, while eating their homegrown food. I'm sure they would have plenty of time left over to do cutting-edge research to generate content for the books they're writing.

@DanRomik I do believe the publisher adds value.  I simply said that the question should be phrased as focusing on that, since that is the heart of the matter.

self-publish the books they write, printing them on a homemade printing press running on their self-generated electric power, using paper made from a pulp they mixed themselves, while eating their homegrown food. — Yeah, pretty much.  What's your point?

Easy answer: Something that's greater than zero is greater than zero.

Don't worry most of the books available are still open through GenLib.

@IgotiT yes

There are a number of reasons why not to, and they stem from the reasons one might want to publish a book, even if you aren't making much if any money:

The prestige of the publisher matters. For many tenure committees, professional organizations, etc. "A Book from BigDeal University Press" > "Some Markdown Files on Github" or what have you in terms of evaluation. In effect, you are getting paid, but in prestige and reputation rather than money.
Publishers take care of a number of things that, if you're self-publishing an open access book you have to do yourself, including copy-editing, layout, and most importantly, finding peer reviewers.
Seeing a book adopted widely (another part of the whole prestige aspect) will likely be more difficult for an open-access book, at least at present, where they are fairly common. Who is going to do the marketing? Has it actually been properly peer reviewed? Are there nice, hard-bound copies available (some of us like reading things on paper), etc.

That is not to say that there are not some very successful efforts in my field to do open access books. Hernan and Robins causal inference book, for example, has drafts and code available online: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/miguel-hernan/causal-inference-book/
But neither one of those authors is in the position to need much benefit from a book publication, and it's still being placed in a traditional press when it's finished.

Nice answer (+1). A slightly off-topic question for you, if you don't mind: can you comment on what are essential differences, if any, between the book by Hernan & Robins you've mentioned and the classic treatment by Judea Pearl (and, perhaps, other books on the topic)?

In your first bullet, I would go so far as to replace > with >> (or \gg).

@AleksandrBlekh As disclaimer, I am not a causal inference researcher. I use computational models, which cheat, and are inherently counterfactual. But I know people who are. My generally feeling is that Pearl's book is more technical and a bit heavier on graph theoretical framing of things. Miguel Hernan is particularly adept at making causal inference concepts clear, and IIRC the book is geared more toward potential outcome frameworks, which are more clearly applicable to epidemiologists.

@Fomite: I appreciate your insights (+1) - they are very helpful (and I have a similar sentiment about the Pearl's book upon a very brief review of its contents). I will definitely make sure to read the Hernan & Robins' book eventually, as I'm interested in causal inference.

@NateEldredge: This is true, but don't you find this state of things very unfortunate? IMHO, a publisher's prestige is a relatively fuzzy concept, based on questionable value (excluding the stance of tenure committees, professional organizations, etc.). By "value" I mean value to science and humankind's knowledge. (to be continued)

@NateEldredge: (cont'd) All those technical aspects could be easily outsourced to relevant companies (copy-editing, layout, etc.) and academic professionals (peer reviewing). This would take away an unreasonably significant power from publishers ("gatekeepers of knowledge") and place it to whom it belongs - to producers of knowledge (authors, researchers, peer reviewers, etc.).

@AleksandrBlekh: Well, I'm not saying it's ideal.  But this comment thread is hardly the place for a detailed discussion on the current state of academic publishing.

@NateEldredge: I guess, you're right about that :-).

For many tenure committees, professional organizations, etc. "A Book from BigDeal University Press" > "Some Markdown Files on Github" : where by "many" you mean "all".

Publishers, even "big-name" publishers no longer take care of copyediting or layout. They expect you to deliver camera-ready copy that they can put their copyright on and sell for a lot of money, giving you peanuts, if at all. I encourage you to self-publish, either by putting a PDF online, or through a self-publishing printers. We just have to educate the tenure committees that publishers are no longer academic, but money-making companies.

@DeboraWeber-Wulff This will come as a great shock to the copy editor working on a chapter I just completed, which is definitely not camera ready.

Freely available books are not unheard of in mathematics, either: for example, Allen Hatcher has put up his algebraic topology textbook on his website, white David Fremlin published (under a copyleft license) the source code of his four-volume measure theory monograph.

@DanRomik where by "many" you mean "all" — No, where by "many" he means "most", but (from personal experience) definitely not all.

@JeffE In fairness, my tenure committee's response would probably be "Why were you writing books at all?"

Regarding your third point, a lot of books are not properly peer-reviewed either.

"nice, hard-bound copies available" doesn't make sense to me -- you could have a print-on-demand version of your open-access book so people who want a hard copy can order one.

Many authors do not intend to make much revenue from books (textbooks or research books) they contribute to, yet they don't make it open access. Why?

First, while authors may not "intend" to make much revenue, that still does not mean that they will happily give up whatever revenue they are actually going to make (and keep in mind that the actual amount of revenue is impossible to predict with accuracy at the time an author needs to make this decision). So if an author feels that making their book open-access will lead to a loss of revenue, then unless that author is sufficiently generous, passionate about open-access, and/or financially well-off, not insisting on making the book available as open-access would be a completely rational decision, regardless of whether the publisher would give permission or not.
Second, and more importantly in my opinion, after you have spent a few years and a huge amount of labor and creative energy writing a book, the idea of giving it away for free is simply ... uncomfortable, even for purely psychological reasons. I decided to make my book open access and am quite happy with my decision, but I can completely understand and respect authors who have made the opposite decision, and don't think such a decision should be criticized by anyone who hasn't gone through a similar creative journey themselves.

As the entry level for self-publishing is now very low, there is a whole swamp of the low quality content. Once you join this swamp, it is very difficult to raise above it, as nobody can find you. A good quality content initially belonging to this swamp takes long time to be noticed, if ever.
It is critical to have the public reviewing system not for picking best of the best but first for discarding the really low quality junk. Automated search tools, even Google technologies, cannot do this properly, as the junkwriters are often much more experts in "search engine optimization". Hence they trash with lots of revenue generating ads around somehow always takes if not the first then at least a second place in the search results.
The only way known for me to mitigate this is to link (or publish in) the official website of the notable university. Web search will take this into consideration, but the option is not easily available for all potentially good publishers.
It is the lack of the serious public reviewing system that hinders publishing of the free content.

ff524 basically answered in the comment: publishers don't usually allow it. Just as with journal articles it might be possible to negotiate publishing under an open access license for a fee. Sometimes it is also possible to negotiate being allowed to publish a "preprint" version on your homepage or a preprint server such as the arXiv. Typically this is a version without the editing and layout work done by the publisher.
Of course authors can just decide to not publish with a publisher (or self-publish) and just upload the book to their homepage, as many people do. You will miss out on royalties (not a big deal, as noted in the question) and marketing efforts of the publisher.

"Of course authors can just decide to not publish with a publisher (or self-publish) and just upload the book to their homepage, but this has basically the same status as articles that are not peer reviewed." I must say that I disagree with this.  On the one hand, part of the peer review process is the prestige of publishing in the most competitive journals.  There is no "Annals of textbook publishing," and (at least) in many academic fields, publishing textbooks is viewed more like service than research...

On the other hand, I don't think that textbooks are "peer reviewed" -- parts of them are looked over by people designated by the textbook company, but not in the same way.  Moreover, textbooks are not published solely because their content is innovate or novel -- there is no way to explain the flood of nearly identical calculus textbooks in these terms.  They are published because the publisher thinks they can make money....

In my opinion, a high-quality self-published textbook nowadays confers most of the rewards of traditional publishing.  The main differences are: (i) the royalties, which are usually rather nominal but a few people (think Stewart of Stewart's calculus) can make real money.  (ii) the marketing.  Because the publisher wants to sell the text, they have resources available to promote it that most individual authors lack.  Those with sufficient web-presence or social media savvy can compete with this, but most academics do not have the time or skills for this.

By the way, in the above comments I had in mind mostly textbooks.  I see now that the OP didn't specify.  When it comes to a research monograph, prestige of the publishing company does play some role.

@PeteL.Clark: I agree with you, the distinction is not as important as for articles. And you are right that peer review of books in general cannot be compared to peer review of articles. There is however a selection procedure, in the sense that serious publishers don't publish anything that gets submitted to them. Of course if you are already an established and visible researcher in your field there may be little difference to publishing with a publisher and on your own homepage.

With the textbook company I signed with, part of the agreement is that they publish it for say... 3 years, and afterwards I can do what I want with it as all rights revert back to me. That could be fairly common.

-1 because the answer is incorrect. Most publishers allow open access books, the author just has be ready to pay for them the same way they pay for OA journal articles. See e.g. https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/open-access-policies/open-access-books.

@Allure: that's what I say in my answer: with many publishers you can publish under an open access license for a fee.

Your answer implies most publishers don't allow open access books though. I haven't done thorough studies, but my sense is that most publishers allow it.

I'm surprised at all the answers given because they all seem to miss the point.
If you publish something open-access, you need to pay for it. An author publishing a non-OA book receives author royalties. The same author publishing an OA book has to pay the publisher. The price is not cheap. Check out Cambridge University Press's website on OA books.

How much are your Book Processing Charges?
  Our standard charge for a monograph of up to 120,000 words is £9,500/$14,500/€13,000 (excluding any applicable VAT or local sales tax), and £55/$84/€76 per additional thousand words. We are usually able to offer a discount of £2/$3/€2.5 per page for camera ready copy.
  We do, however, consider each book individually. Additional fees may apply depending upon the complexity of the work.

It's one thing to write a book and make little/no money. It's another to actually lose money writing the book. Yes, CUP's website also says you will continue to receive royalties, but OA means the content is available for free. How many people will pay for the book when they can already read for free?
tl; dr: authors don't make books OA because it doesn't make economic sense.

Good point. Going through a publisher is optional though.

@FranckDernoncourt it might be just me reacting to the term 'open access', since it has a very specific meaning in my experience. If you're thinking of "why not just make the book freely available on the author's website without engaging a publisher", that would be a different question entirely.

"you need to pay for it" if you go via a publisher. These book processing charges don't represent actual costs that you would incur if you just hosted your book online yourself (which costs ~nothing).

There is a point about human nature - people tend to value things according to how much they have to pay to get them. An author might well feel that if people can download something for free from a website that it will not be valued. As a user of some excellent free software and the recipient of some excellent free advice here, I know that this is not always true, but other users and other authors might not agree with me.
There is also the obverse to this - that some people will ask, "If it's that good, why is she giving it away?" This meshes with the belief that anything which is valuable can be "monetized" and anything which cannot have a numeric value put on it, does not have value.
Again, I think that the internet is changing these perceptions, but not for everyone and not in every circumstance.


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What features does Adobe Illustrator lack compared to Microsoft PowerPoint for making posters?
I have used Microsoft PowerPoint to make posters so far, and I am considering giving Adobe Illustrator a shot for my next poster. What features does Adobe Illustrator lack compared to Microsoft PowerPoint to make a poster?
For example, one cannot generate bulleted lists automatically in Adobe Illustrator.
(I am aware of the question Software to use for creating posters for academic conferences?.)

Interesting choice. Why Illustrator rather than InDesign? Would you be doing a lot of vector drawing?

@EnergyNumbers I didn't think much about inDesign vs. Illustrator. I was simply given an Illustrator template I have to follow. I guess Adobe Illustrator vs Adobe Indesign for poster could be another question :) My understanding so far is that InDesign is more convenient for multi-page layouts and for handling text, and overall is easier to use than Illustrator. In my case I don't have to do much vector drawing if any.

Illustrator is more a graphic design software than a content placement software like PowerPoint. You'd probably get more mileage out of using PhotoShop than Illustrator based on my experience with it.

Illustrator/Inkscape posters can turn out MUCH nicer than PowerPoint. I highly recommend making the switch, I have switched to Inkscape and I have not looked back once. I can't think of anything in PP that I miss. (Also: to learn, you can follow along with the links from this SciFund poster class, here. I actually took that class, highly recommend that as well :) )

I believe you could get better results with latex/beamer.

You can't have fancy transitions in Illustrator.

@Oswald you can't have any transitions in a poster...

I wonder what kind of poster you would like to do and what format you content have. For example, if you are math-heavy or extensively using plugins from Office to visualize things, than you may have problems.

Please add version numbers to this question, as it will become obsolete without them.

@NewAlexandria I think it's best to indicate the version numbers for mentioned lacking feature. I currently use Adobe Illustrator CC 2015 19.0.0 64-bit, Adobe Illustrator CC 17.0.0 64-bit, and Microsoft PowerPoint 2013, on Windows 7 SP1 x64 Ultimate.

@ff524 Illustrator/Inkscape are for drawing vector files. Why don't you use InDesign/Inkscape? They are born for designing

I believe that Adobe Illustrator has many more features that MS PowerPoint for graphic design and image processing.
The key question is: what will you use those features to accomplish when creating your poster?
I created sever posters in MS PowerPoint and found that it had sufficient features and was easy to use.  The only issues came when trying to print it out, because the output of Mac PowerPoint wasn't compatible with the Windows PowerPoint that the printer used.
In my view, extra-fancy graphic design will not result in better posters.  Instead, what most posters need is bigger fonts, less text, bigger/simpler graphics and images, and headlines + call-outs that guide the viewer through the story.  You can accomplish all these goals using PowerPoint.

Thanks. I am aware that Adobe Illustrator has many features that Microsoft PowerPoint lack (but not necessarily to make a poster): in this question I would like to focus on the features that Adobe Illustrator lack compared the to Microsoft PowerPoint to make a poster, regardless of the fact that Microsoft PowerPoint may be good enough :)

A big +1, great advice. I would like to emphasize BIGGER FONTS. Bigger fonts for conference presentations, bigger fonts for figures in journal articles, and bigger fonts for posters. Pretty much all three the norm (or default in much software) is too small IMO.

Illustrator is nice for designing individual vector graphic elements (such as logos) but it is not for typesetting and page layouts. It will also probably be problematic when you try to combine graphics with paragraphs of text, like typical scientific poster. This is usually, what typesetting applications like InDesign do. InDesign can be used for a single page layout as well. On the other hand, if you do not know InDesign, it will probably be overkill to learn it for creating a single poster.
For scientific guys like me, with no artistic ability whatsoever, I found using latex / beamer with some existing poster templates the easier thing to do. It also has the advantage that you can copy text and formulas directly from your poster paper. So, I would strongly advice you to use beamer, since it is also what most scientific posters are usually done in CS conferences, judging from what I have seen in demo and poster sessions.
If you do not believe me, see this which is the most frequent poster design I have seen in conferences. It takes 2 minutes to do it in Beamer but it will take many days in either Illustrator or InDesign

I have used the beamerposter class extensively for scientific posters, as well as Illustrator. Beamerposter is quite limited in terms of flowing text from one box to another; flowing text around inset diagrams is a pain. Illustrator has no problem with paragraphs of text, as far as I have been able to determine.

So I haven't kept up with how illustrator has changed over the years, but when I used it regularly (10+ years ago), I did primarily because of its ability to make vector based graphics.
I think (any one can correct me if they know better) that Power point has this ability, but not nearly to the extent that illustrator does. In my opinion, illustrator and power point are fundamentally different in what their intended uses are. Even back when I used illustrator extensively, I never used it for layout and design. I would import graphics from Illustrator into adobe Pagemaker (which is very similar to power point, and imo more appropriate for poster making).
I think it would be fairly frustrating to make a scientific poster solely in Illustrator.

My experience involves an unfortunate truth that I haven't seen mentioned in any of the other answers.
In many interactions with program managers here in the US, I need to create slides in PowerPoint because either 1) it is a required format for certain communications or 2) the program managers use PowerPoint to communicate elsewhere in the government and giving them PowerPoint slides makes it easier for them to include my work in their communications.
This, in turn, creates a significant network effect, because communication with program managers in proposals and reports often predates both papers, talks, and posters.  PowerPoint thus has a major advantage over other software alternatives (including Adobe Illustrator), in that my graphics are already in PowerPoint and it's much easier to move them to different documents within the same program rather than shifting them between different programs.

+1 that's the main drawback I have found so far in using Adobe Illustrator for posters vs. using PowerPoint. PowerPoint can take care of both slides and posters.


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I've reproduced a paper: where shall I share the code and findings?
The majority of papers don't share their code. However, I sometimes want to reproduce the results, and therefore re-code the experiments to try to reproduce the papers.
Where shall I share the code, findings, comments, and potentially some data sets, put aside from GitHub? Ideally I am looking for a common place where people share the work they have done when reproducing papers.
I am mostly interested in computer science papers.

@Matinking True. Is there any more centralized option?

Seems like http://arxiv.org would be a good fit, assuming that you write up your findings into something resembling a paper.

what's wrong with GitHub and or Codeplex?

@JimB Hard to see the list of reproduced papers.

@ff524 Thanks, nice, that's exactly the kind of places I am looking for. (my CS field is natural language processing)

I just tried it in codeplex- it lets me upload up to 500 MB of supporting docs per release

Look also at the ReScience Journal: http://rescience.github.io/

In the field of Computer Networks, there is the Reproducing Networking Research blog, which allows anybody to contribute replications of networking experiments, or original research in a form that allows it to be replicated:

This blog is a collection of network research stories, each of which includes full instructions to replicate experiments. Our goal is to kickstart a discussion of repeatable research in the network systems community, by showing that “runnable papers” are indeed possible, today. If every result in every figure of a paper could be replicated easily (by anyone with a local or EC2 VM), it would be much easier to build on prior code, results, and scripts, understand the concepts behind them, and most importantly: put them to practice in the real world.

If there is no such equivalent in your field, consider starting one. You can do what Nick McKeown did with the networking blog - seed the blog by teaching a class in which students are required to reproduce a published result as an assignment, and invite them to contribute it to the blog.

Sometimes you may even be able to submit a replication to the original journal or conference. For instance, the International Journal of Forecasting explicitly encourages short correspondences on replications.
If you are already writing up your findings anyway, it wouldn't hurt to submit them just to see what happens. The journal itself certainly does have a vested interest in replications of their articles. Of course, replications could be judged "too boring" and be rejected. However, the interest in replications seems to have been growing recently.

Alternatively: attempt to replicate 100 psychology studies, fail to replicate, write up and submit to Science. Better do this only after you got tenure, because this may cost you friends.

And even after tenure many won't publish such papers as it may result in missed grants/awards/...


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How to start a startup based on university research?
This is a follow-up to How good are entrepreneurial opportunities for faculty members?.
Say, a few researchers, professors and their students, at a university would like to start a company to exploit and commercialize their research.
Who owns the copyright/patent of their research? Will the university claim ownership of the startup company? What is the general procedure?

This will heavily depend on the specific country you are talking about. We have a so-called Innovation Lab that aims at encouraging "entrepreneurship and innovation by identifying, supporting and providing guidance for potential high-tech startups and spin-off companies originating at TU/e." Specifically, they guide researchers along the entire process: from checking whether the idea can be patented to actually establishing a startup / spin-off company.
With respect to copyright: lion's share of our research is being published so there can be no problems for companies to use the ideas presented in scientific papers. Using unpublished results might be more tricky but I can imagine that the university will agree to formally keep copyright and allow the company to benefit from it under some restricted conditions.

What about ownership of the company?

The university cannot claim ownership of the company as such, however, they can claim ownership of some intellectual property without which the company is worthless.
The only way how it could gain ownership of company shares is if you make a copyright/patent licencing deal which would include those shares as part of the compensation.


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Can I cite a URL only instead of author, title, etc. in a research paper?
When writing a thesis, is it acceptable practice to cite only the URL of referenced research papers where they are published electronically? Or is it compulsory to give proper authors, title, year of publication, etc... information?
Example:

Data mining is the process of analyzing large data sets in order to discover hidden patterns within these data sets.[1] Stock market prices do not follow random walk.[2]
[1] http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=5FIEAwyn9aoC
[2] http://rfs.oxfordjournals.org/content/1/1/41.short

It happened to me twice: I have once cited an article from wikipedia. Try giving the authors and date of publication for that one ;), the second time was to give the url where my source code could be found.

If one acquires information from Wikipedia, one should acknowledge this, otherwise one is being dishonest, quite literally. That this information is "disqualified" somehow seems to argue that one must never look at Wiki, because one is acquiring inadmissible info? What? This is crazy! :)

If you use LaTeX: biblatex has the type "online" which you can use to cite online resources...

No, it's not OK to cite URLs because firstly, you are citing ONLY the URL! The URL could change at any given time without notice. Also, you are assuming that everyone is reading your paper electronically and has access to the internet.
You NEED to give the name of the paper, the author(s), the Journal it was published in and the year it was published.

You may not be citing a paper. For example, you might be citing software, or a news article.

...in which case you still need to cite the author(s), date, and (for news articles) the name of the newspaper/magazine/website.

However, using DOI (Digital object identifier)  link (i.e. http://dx.doi.org/...) gives a permalink to a paper. However, it is a good to add it to the citation, not to replace it with it. Another choice is using arXiv id (e.g. http://arxiv.org/abs/...); in fact it is often used instead of the full citations (but on slides are other informal things, not in papers/theses).

I disagree with @Suresh (but I did that in the past) : software must be put in footnotes, unless you're citing a paper describing a software.

I would bet that DOI will outlive physical libraries of journals.

How would I cite a page like http://go.worldbank.org/CGC782MDY0, which has neither an author nor a title or a date (ok "last updated"), but a perma URL?

Absolutely not!  The other answers mention impermanence of URLs, which is an issue, but not, I think, the most important one.  The most important reason is that some of the information in a citation, especially the author and year of publication, is important context for interpreting a citation, and is therefore essential content to the paper itself.

I agree, but should add that the impermanence of the URL is closer to a non-issue in some cases. Take, for example, the arXiv which is rapidly gaining traction in the academic world. If you want to cite an arXiv paper, the most important part is the url (which is permanent).

@Shep: The arXiv identifier is certainly permanent, but in principle the URL might change (and in fact it has changed in the past).  One common citation method, which is recommended by the arXiv, is "arXiv:1205.0542", or "arXiv:1205.0542v1" if you want to specify the version number.  You can link this to the URL http://arXiv.org/abs/1205.0542 when someone clicks on it, but in the text it is best to focus on the arXiv identifier instead.

The point of a bibliography is not only to identify your sources, but to allow your readers to read those sources themselves, at some indefinite time in the future.  Bare URLs rarely serve that function, in part because URLs are (by design) transient, and in part because you cannot assume that your unknown future reader will have internet access.  This is the same reason why citations should still include page numbers, even though a quick Google search on the title and authors almost always finds the paper.
On the other hand, books go out of print, library subscriptions lapse, some conference proceedings are only distributed online, some papers are still preprints, and sometimes the source in question is a blog, a usenet post, a source code repository, or a StackExchange question.  For sources without permanent reliable offline access, I think you must include a URL in your bibliography, despite its transience, in addition to as much traditional identifying information (authors, title, journal/conference/book title, page numbers, date) as possible.

The MLA Style guide (via Indiana University) says the following:

World Wide Web Sites:
There are many different kinds of web sites, so it is impossible to give just one set of precise instructions for citation format. If you can not find some of the information needed, cite what is available. The following Works Cited/Bibliography examples are only guidelines; utilize the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers for additional examples.
What you need (at minimum):
   Site title (if there is no title use a description such as "Home Page")
    Date you accessed the information
    URL

What you need (if available):
   Author(s)/Editor(s) name
    Publication or last update date
    Organization/Institution name associated with the site

URL sources are a grey area.  When possible, cite the original source.  For example if you are citing books.google.* , then you need to cite that book as a book and not a URL. For academic publications, there is an OPTIONAL URL field you may use, but this should be in addition to citing the original conference/journal/workshop/etc.
There are circumstances where a URL is the best identifier of the resource, and in those cases, you'll have to cite the URL. For example, I used a URL resource from the libary of congress because it was unpublished historical (circa 1890AD) blueprints scanned into their library.

The best practice is to include standard bibliographic information, a relatively stable hypertext link for current readers (e.g. to the ArXiv), and the DOI.

(I think:) Definitely give a URL if there is one, with the date you down/up-loaded the paper, and perhaps give a revision date of the paper, if it itself gives one.
AND give the more traditional reference information as well.
The URL allows people to find an e-copy, at least for a while. The conventional references do not necessarily produce copies accessible through the internet, though sometimes they do.
For the time being, these two sorts of citations give different information, have different utilities. One may take the pose that one makes the other irrelevant, but I think this is not accurate. The common "objections" to internet-accessible things, that they are "transient", while physical references are "permanent", is disingenuous, upon some thought. First, many good things are transient, which is not an argument against them! Second, physical references are equally transient, if in a different way... usually that many different libraries throughout the world maintain "cached" copies. Well, maybe Google has cached the now-gone document at a vanished URL? :)
In summary, operationally, give all the information you have in citations, even while recognizing that some of it has an expiration date.

For everything that have been reviewed AND permanently archived then the bibliography is fine. For all the rest footnotes are the place to be.

No, it is clearly and everyone agrees, not acceptable practice to cite only the URL.  So download a PDF copy of the exact web page.  You can even state in the publication that you have a copy of the exact PDF which corresponds with your reference.  If anyone asks you for sa copy of the PDF, you may wish to do one of the following:

Immediately give them the pdf (which may be a license violation).  I feel comfortable to do this, in some situations, but not all.

or

Tell them you would like to give them your saved copy, after they convince you, that the web site will allow you to give them a copy.

It is not your problem, if the web site will not give you permission, to give others a copy of the saved PDF.  However a license violation would be your fault.


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What are ways that academics make money?

Possible Duplicate:
How do academics make money from applying their research?

What are the various revenue sources for academics? Are some ways to earn money more usual than others?
I'm asking this question per this comment.

What is the difference from http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1763/how-do-academics-make-money-from-applying-their-research? Perhaps these questions need to be merged.


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Why would the editor of a reputable journal act simultaneously as the editor of a potentially predatory journal?
Can anybody explain why someone who is editor of a reputable journal also act simultaneously as an editor for a potentially predatory journal?

Voting to close because Arun Bansil is likely the only person who can really answer this.

I’ve edited the question to focus on the central issue. Calling out an individual editor in such a manner is inflammatory.

We cannot know if this is really the case, but many disreputable publishers surreptitiously list well known scientists in their editorial boards, without asking their consent.

The editor is the only person that knows for sure. Some possibilities (note I do not know if ikpress is a flaky publisher - I'm simply assuming it is):

He doesn't think ikpress is a flaky publisher. Compare Frontiers and MDPI, both publishers that were included on Beall's list that also had established academics defending them.
He isn't aware ikpress is a flaky publisher.
He doesn't care that ikpress is a flaky publisher (for whatever reason).
He doesn't know he's listed as an editor, or he might have tried to be "unlisted" but the publisher has been slow at removing him.

Why you do not enter into the key issue? that is, what is reputation?

I don't see how reputation is relevant?


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PhD stipend continues being paid
I graduated with a PhD after 2 years (I was very efficient) and even though I have already received my degree and moved out of town, I'm still getting a stipend deposited into my bank account. I contacted my advisor about it but my advisor didn't reply at all, so I don't know what to do about this. Is there a minimum funding requirement or something like that? Or is it just a mistake? What to do now?

Have you tried contacting the department?

The most important thing is to not spend the money until you find out what is going on. If it is a mistake, the school may be able to demand the money back, and that can be awkward if you no longer have it.

Hi, no I have not contacted the department yet. Thought I want to check it out with my advisor first. I have still 95% of the money, since this whole moving out thing was harder than I thought and the stipend came at a relief, but I will be able to restore the full amount if demanded back. My question is, is there a minimum residence requirement and hence a minimum duration for the stipend in PhD programs?

We can't know in your case without knowing your specific employment details. But I can't imagine there being a minimum, and in any case, if you're no longer an employee/student at the university, then receiving the money must clearly be a mistake.

We can answer the "what to do now" part, but not the rest.  There's one vote to close so far.  I suggest you remove the part we can't answer (Is there a minimum funding requirement or something like that? Or is it just a mistake?), and also, contact the department first thing Monday morning.

The only possible situation where I can see this not being a mistake is when your contract is to work for 9 month (academic year) but your salary is paid over 12.  In that case, if you quit after 9 months, you'd keep getting payments for 3 more months, because it's money you've already earned.  But I think if that were the case, you'd probably already know and wouldn't have to ask.

As others have said, contact your department as soon as possible. I've had this experience and seen it happen with friends, and some departments will get fairly aggressive demanding the money back.

Contact your department, CC'ing your advisor.
It happened to me once: I was paid over the summer by my department even if I was out of the US for an internship at a company research lab in Europe.
I came back in September and found additional money in my US account. I told our administrator. she figured out what happened and she told me that in case I had already spent the money, the department would have found a way to ensure things would get straighten out with the university.
I still had all of it, so I just wrote a check to the university to return the money.

In any sane jurisdiction, somebody who accidentally overpays you isn't allowed to punish you for their mistake. So you can be required to pay back the money but they have to be careful not to cause you financial hardship.

@DavidRicherby: indeed I believe my department (and my somewhat-resource-rich university) also assumed so, and also probably wondered if I could have sued (I wouldn't have, but just in case), and they would have preferred to let the issue go in case I did not have the money.

@DavidRicherby Useful information considering the majority of recently-graduated students are entering a workforce with an abysmal expense-to-asset ratio and massive student loans to start paying back!

This is like someone giving you wrong change or the bank crediting you money incorrectly in your checking account.  You need to not spend it, let someone know and give the money back. Two reasons:  (1) ethical--don't take money that doesn't belong to you, when given in error and (2) they will likely find out about it and want it back (and legally you have to give back a check or direct deposit sent in error).
Don't contact your professor, contact the payroll or whatever person like that.  Make a call and send a letter.
P.s.  If your current job overpays you in error, how are you going to handle that?  What would you answer if this hypothetical was asked on a job interview?! You know the answer.  [This isn't even really an academia question.  This is a "what do I do if someone pays me too much in error" question.]

It could be possible, but unlikely, that the contract specified 36 monthly payments without any clause to stop them if you finished early... The only thing to do is to contact the payroll people and have your contract checked.

Is there a minimum funding requirement or something like that?

This happened in my case. There was a total amount of money dedicated to a project, payed in the form of a stipend. I finished the project earlier but the money continued to come.
Of course you should contact the relevant authorities (the ones who provided the stipend) and inform them about your case. This may be an error, in which case you are likely to be asked to give the money back (what happens depends on many parameters), or you may be in the lucky case I was in.

Contact university finance, your chair’s office, or bursars office. It is very likely you’ll have to pay it back.


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Sending a copyright transfer
The following sentences is in the Submission Guidelines of a journal:

Once a paper has been accepted for publication, the authors are assumed to have the copyright transferred to World Scientific Publishing Company.

I have an accepted paper in this journal, but I have not been requested to submit  the copyright to the publisher yet. Must I send a copyright to the publisher?

Odd wording. It seems to state what the publisher will assume, but not anything about will actually happen. Such loose language (perhaps a poor translation?) would make me want to check that the journal is real.
Every time I've submitted something to a non-open-access academic venue I've had to sign something explicitly assigning the copyright.
In terms of advice, I wouldn't do anything. They can assume all they like :-)

The key word in that statement is assumed. That means that they believe that your submission and their acceptance of your manuscript implies that you have agreed to transfer the copyright to them. They are basically saying "you don't need to send a form transferring copyright, because you did so by allowing them to publish.
If there is a reason this is not the case—for instance, all the authors are US government employees, so that the work is in the public domain—then the publisher should be alerted for guidance.

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


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Is it common to get a job (industry) after getting a PhD degree in Germany? (engineering field)
I am an engineering PhD student in Germany. I am planning to get a job in industry after finishing my degree? Is this common in Germany?
Thank you guys in advance.

Yes, many engineers do this. In fact, industrial partnerships with academia for PhD students are much more frequent in Germany than in the US. Many of these lead to job placements following graduation. So it certainly is a possibility—most of my grad students there decided to go to industry.

What about Computational Mechanics field? Or FEM? also same circumstances?

It's a little bit tougher, but it still happens—software companies, users of those packages, etc.

You mean Phds in the field of Computational mechanics are not in demand, relatively?

I just mean that the opportunities for industry may be more specialized since the number of computational mechanics people can be small.

In general, yes. This is very common in Germany. Broadly speaking, science and engineering doctorates are well respected in German industry and it greatly increases your chances of finding a job related to your given field. I studied a chemistry doctorate in Germany. All of my former colleagues landed well paid industry jobs very soon after graduating. I, however, returned home to the UK where I struggled to find any work related to chemistry in the slightest.
The situation may well be different in engineering, but in chemistry at the time someone leaving merely having completed their Diplom (later Masters) studies would have struggled to find work in industry. A doctorate seemed almost mandatory following an undergraduate degree in the sciences for employment in related fields.

It is common practice. You can compare the number of PhDs with the number of postdoc-positions and then it's easy to tell that most PhDs are going to industry afterwards.
People from industry are telling me, that sometimes they are interested at the expertise of the person gained during the PhD (e.g. if you are doing Computational Mechanics, there are many companies looking for those people), but even more because you will learn to be self-organized, you'll have a certain tolerance against frustration, you can develop first leadership skills, etc.


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How can a paper accepted for a poster session be credible?
If a paper is accepted in poster session of a conference or workshop such that only one page of the article will be published in proceedings, how this paper can be credible? (in particular in computer science and in a workshop like this: http://deic.uab.cat/conferences/cbt/cbt2018/)

I'm not sure what you mean by credible. If you are a student, especially, being in a poster session is a really good opportunity to meet people in the field and impress them with your brilliance and future prospects.
As one of the senior professors who used to wander around poster sessions, I was honored to meet such new and upcoming researchers and learn from them. If I had anything useful to say, perhaps they gained something as well. You can usually, at a poster session, distribute a longer version of your work with contact information.
The same goes, I think, for young faculty, though to a lesser extent. But still, use it as a chance to make contacts and extend your reach.

The "paper" in a poster session is probably an abstract, rather than an actual paper. It is a record of the poster presentation, but may or may not have been peer-reviewed. Obviously you would not want to use it as a primary source of results or data but it could be used as a demonstration that a certain topic is being researched.


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Awaiting editorial office processing for more than 22 days, Is it appropriate to contact?
I have recently submitted an article to a tylor & francis journal which uses ScholarOne.
My co-author submitted the article 22 days ago, and since then, the status has remained as "Awaiting Editorial Office Process".
Is it alright that it hasn't been changed for so long?
Should I contact the editor?
How long does the process take normally?
NOTE: thank you for suggesting this page "What does the typical workflow of a journal look like?", I have read this topic. Unfortunately in this paper the average time for "Awaiting Editorial Office Process" was considered to be "A FEW WORK DAYS". My problem is I have waited for 22 days. If anyone have had the same experience, I would really appreciated answering me. Thank You.

I've waited far longer.

22 days? Start submitting to some obscure field of mathematics and it could easily take a couple of years.

I think the above comments may have misread slightly - the OP is talking about the gap between submission and being sent to handling editors or referees, not the time taken to hear a final decision

Unfortunately in this paper the average time for "Awaiting Editorial Office Process" was considered to be "A FEW WORK DAYS". So there's your answer. You've been waiting unusually long, and should contact the editorial office.

@Maryam: Shouting in capital letters is not a good way to communicate with  other users. The reason why they marked it as a duplicate is because most such questions have their “root answer” there. What you’re basically asking is “is my case abnormal?” And the answer you see from that page is yes, it is? For future readers, they’ll want to do the same. So that’s why it’s been marked duplicate. If users want to nominate it for reopening, they can.

@aeismail it's not shouting, I'm showing emphasize. Sorry, but no, that's not my question. I'm asking for other experiences and what others might have done in this kind of situation.

Yes, you should. 22 days before the paper is passed on to an editor is out of the ordinary. It's true that it's summer and people might be on holiday, but this is the publisher we're talking about - even if some of them are on holiday, they should have people to cover. Journals don't close shop when the staff are on holiday.
I would contact the publisher. If you know the desk editor's email address that would be the best person to write to; if not, you can use Taylor & Francis's author services contact form.

It's summer, and people are using their time for vacations, conference travels and research visits. Your editor may be climbing mount Everest or crossing Atlantic as we speak. A delay of ~1 month is not unusual in my area (mathematics) after the referee reports are secured. Bear in mind that the reports may contradict each other and your Editor may need more time to read your paper carefully themselves.
Waiting for the outcome is not easy, but at this stage I think that's the best decision.

I guess that's right; But I suppose the holidays are just for one week, not 22 days!!

Dmitry, it sounds like @Maryam is not waiting for referee reports; instead, the paper was submitted 3-4 weeks ago, and the online system is showing "awaiting editorial process" rather than "with referees". My suspicion is that the editor has asked for referees and they are being slow to respond, or the first choice has declined, etc

@Maryam Keep in mind not everyone is taking their vacation during the same week ... (not that "the holidays" are really just one week) so many slow downs are to be expected.

Thanks, to make it clear I'm waiting for EO to send the paper to editor! and not referees!!


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Professors and Liberal Arts Colleges
In general, do professors work at liberal arts colleges because they do not want to have to face the pressure of writing a lot of research papers? Instead they want their evaluations to be skewed towards their teaching quality?

Question sounds overly provocative. Teaching creates pressure, too. There are several deadlines every week (each lecture). Also, some people prefer teaching over research. I don't think they are trying to skew their evaluation, rather they are doing what they want to do.

I agree with what Dave Clarke and Pete Clark said. There's plenty of pressure in a liberal arts job. However, there is often more pressure related to being a great teacher, and less pressure related to winning a grant. There's certainly plenty of pressure to publish. As a math professor at a small liberal arts college, I have published over 30 papers in the past ten years, but probably could have gotten tenure with only 6 (good) papers. I certainly didn't choose the job to avoid research pressure. I chose it because I love teaching and research both.

You're not expressing the question in the most flattering way, but yes: most academic jobs are a mix of research and teaching (and also service / administration), and there is a lot of variation in the importance placed on each from job to job.  Some people are more interested in one than the other, and the faculty at liberal arts colleges have signed up for a job in which more emphasis is placed on teaching and student contact than a, well, a research university.
At a good liberal arts college faculty are still expected to be research active -- it's just that they spend more hours per week on teaching than their colleagues at a more research-oriented institution.  Someone who felt like writing research papers was pressure that they didn't want to face would probably be more comfortable at something like a four-year, junior, or community college, in which in most cases the research expectations are really nominal.

But a professor isn't prohibited from publishing a lot of papers even if he/she works at an LAC?

Prohibited in what sense?

Like is there a limit for example like 20 papers per year a professor can publish at a LAC?

No, there are no publication limits in any academic job (!!).

I wish there were limits :). "You shall NOT publish more than two papers a year"  - that would be so awesome.

As a professor in a liberal arts setting, I can say that publishing is possible but you have to be more ruthless in your time management. The institution is built to pull you away from research and towards teaching and service. I spend as little time as possible preparing classes and doing service and maximize my research time. Some fellow academics in my university think that I am not being a team player but that's ok. I don't see my colleagues as potential friends. In summary, I am convinced that most professors who end up in a liberal arts college in the humanities and social sciences would actually prefer to be in a research university. But they are thankful and grateful for having a tenure-track position in what is a desperate job market. Some also convince themselves that they actually like teaching more but I think this is just a coping mechanism to come to terms with the fact that they are not in a research university. The original question is poorly phrased b/c it is operating under the assumption that there is actual choice where you end up getting a job. Most academics--even those coming from the most prestigious grad programs--have no choice institutionally and geographically if they wish to have a tt job.

"I am convinced that most professors who end up in a liberal arts college in the humanities and social sciences would actually prefer to be in a research university." - this is certainly not true at the liberal arts college where I work. Most of my colleagues would be miserable at a research school. They prefer the community aspect, small class sizes, and emphasis on teaching.


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Computer Science PhD with Geology BS
I am planning to do my PhD in CS (Robotics to be specific). I will be completing my masters with a thesis and a publication in a field that is very closely related to CS. However, my BS is in Geology. So I am mostly concerned whether I will be considered for a PhD at a school since my undergraduate major is not CS. I feel this way because I contacted professors at some schools and they didn't respond back to me.

Did you take enough CS courses to fulfill the requirement for admission? Usually programs list them on their websites. Did you get good grades from those courses?

You should not expect to receive a useful answer if you "cold-call" (or "cold-email") a professor. They have too many time constraints, and if your email looks like a junk email or wild goose chase, the professor will probably treat it as such, even if it isn't!
That said, I suspect that coming from a field so far away from CS will have an impact on the admissions process, because it will be hard for faculty members in CS to adjudicate your performance as a bachelor's student in geology. You can overcome this through the usual methods (strong letter of recommendation, cogent explanations in the statement of purpose, and so on). Your primary challenge will be to coherently show that you are willing and able to undertake graduate level coursework and research in computer science.


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Can university revoke the degree when data were edited/fabricated? Is student or supervisor at fault? Can the student be sent to prison or fined?
Say a M. Tech thesis contains original experimental data, but some results were edited to show significant results, and is this is later found out. Can this editing result in a cancelling/revocation of the awarded degree, even if found after some years? Who can be held responsible for this fabrication (faculty, student, and/or supervisor)? What action will/can the university take on the student? Can the student be punished legally with prison and/or fine?

The "prison or fine" part will depend on what your country's laws say.  You haven't said what country that is, but I think that part is not really on-topic for this site.  (Though I don't know any country where prison or fine are possible for falsifying results in a thesis.  In grant-supported research, maybe, but still unlikely.)

Don't do it.

It will depend on who does the fabricating.  If the student fabricates data and the supervisor/faculty doesn't know, then they are not complicit.  If the thesis is only for school, prison is not likely; if it is part of a grant for developing a new drug, then prison might be an option.

the fabrication is only in answer. the experimental data is original. supervisor also know about it. fabrication is for making significant result. not related with drug, it is related with machining and cant harm anyone.is only student fault or supervisor. can court can take any major action on student

This is typically handled by the university and not the court. But you could loose your degree anytime, and that can have consequences for your employment. Often it only ends in court if you choose to appeal against the university's decision

if the previous results are also satisfactory but supervisor say for change some results for making results significant. the student is work according to the supervisor and dont know what is right and wrong. if thesis found wrong after award of degree, can university evaluate this and announce it OK and how the fault in thesis found later.

A prominent German example is former minister of defence zu Gutenberg. He lost his title and his job because of plagiarism years after the fact.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl-Theodor_zu_Guttenberg
However, this may very well work differently in other countries.

To underline Mr. zu Guttenberg is not just a one-off case, please also list his colleague Annette Schavan, or some other cases from this list.

Question is about fabricating data, not plagiarism.

True, but in terms of severity I would say they are comparable.

I'd say that fabricating data is ten times worse. If the contents of a paper is good and correct then I can learn from it, whether it's plagiarised or not. If a paper contains fabricated data and I read it, then it is actively hurting me because I learn things that are not true.

I disagree: Plagiarism undermines the very process through which academia works. Regardless, I think we can agree that both are very bad practices.

Yes. It happens and it can change national elections.
In 2013, US Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) was retiring.  Incumbency is always an advantage, so when Baucus retired early, John Walsh was appointed to fill his seat shortly before the election.
But then the New York Times published devastating evidence that Walsh had plagiarized his thesis for a master's degree at the US Army War College years earlier.  The War College revoked his degree and ground his name off a bronze plaque bearing the names of his graduating class.
Walsh was forced to withdraw his candidacy and his was one of the seats Republicans gained in that election.
It was later revealed that the source of the information was a researcher on staff with the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Question is about fabricating data, not plagiarism.

@MikeP, academic misconduct is academic misconduct.  Take your pick of how you do it, but if you're caught, this is what can happen.

@DanielR.Collins, yes, thank you for catching that, now corrected.


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Who applies academic CS research in the industry and how?
After a paper is published, say in CS, who reads the paper? How are the ideas presented there applied to business and industry? How is industry collaboration done?
I'm asking this question per this comment.

This is an extremely broad question, probably too broad to be answered in this level of generality (beyond "it depends").  Many academic papers are never directly applied to business and industry.  When they are, how this happens depends on the field and on the details of the specific application.

I think it is a good question if you narrow it down to one field. Would be great if you could mention the area in the Q.

I would point out that the industry also publishes papers.

I think it depends in large part on what the research is. Some fields lend themselves more readily to real-life application, while others like, say, theoretical physics, are a long way from being used by industry.
It also depends on the researcher. I am a firm believer in the "Last Research Mile" principle (disclosure: the man who wrote that is my advisor). The premise of the Last Research Mile is that a big part of doing research is taking it all the way through to implementation. Doing the early research provides a good start, but lots of important lessons, including research lessons, are learned as the idea is carried through to execution. I'm studying in an Information Systems program, and so my research is in business, computers, and people. While it would be easy to do the basic research and move on to another topic, I think it is important to continue to push and test the idea even in its implementation phases.
As a result of following the Last Research Mile principle, my advisor has created at least one company that sells the product of decades of his research. Many lessons were learned, and many publications resulted because of those lessons throughout the whole process.

We have a lab within our department that "...takes state-of-the-art methods, techniques, and tools on software product quality analysis developed during more fundamental/strategic research... and applies, validates, and deploys these in industry and government."


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Why don't professors start companies?
Why don't more professors attempt to use the knowledge gained during the course of their research work by starting a company and commercializing their findings?
I'm asking this question per this comment.

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/show/29232 “Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach, teach gym.” ― Woody Allen - Is there any truth to the "reverse" of this saying: Those who teach, can't "do"?

In Italy, if you're employed as a full-time university professor, you are legally not allowed to start a private business company. There are some exemptions for university spin-offs, but basically the law is that you should be teaching and doing university work full-time if you have a 100% salary.

They do, I can name five professors off the top of my head that have co-founded companies!

This question seems to be based on a misconception, namely that professors start companies substantially less frequently than they could or should.
The vast majority of professors, even in fairly applied areas like computer science (compared with literature, say), are simply not in a position to start companies based on their research.  You need a viable business plan, and they don't grow on trees.  Specifically, even really profound research with many practical applications usually just doesn't have obvious commercial potential as a stand-alone business, since it won't be clear how to monetize it.  Of course, there are exceptions, and plenty of important businesses were started by faculty, but only a small fraction of professors could do this successfully.
Here's another way of looking at it.  There's no reason why a business based on a professor's research needs to be founded by the professor.  If you see someone with great ideas, you can buy the rights to the ideas and found your own company.  If professors were missing a lot of wonderful opportunities to found companies, then you'd expect entrepreneurs to step in and do it, but that doesn't happen very often either.
Ultimately, this is why we have academic research.  The stuff that leads to obvious business plans could easily be funded by industry.  By contrast, one of the reasons why academia includes research is to make sure work that can't easily be sold doesn't get neglected.

I didn't want to submit this as a separate answer, but I think that XKCD explains it well http://xkcd.com/664/

Because we're having too much fun doing research to waste our time making mere money.

Lots of professors do start companies based on their research.  Especially in engineering, entrepreneurship is one of the signs of a healthy department.  But starting and running a company is a tremendous amount of work, requiring a very different set of skills than being a successful academic researcher.  Brilliant and novel ideas, even the tiny minority that are marketable in principle, are neither necessary nor sufficient to maintain a successful business.  Business plans are just the beginning.
Also, the metrics for success are very different.  Put baldly, academic research is successful if and only if your peers like it; a business is successful if and only if it makes money.  Academics tend to be more narcissistic than greedy.  As evidence: most faculty in science and engineering could easily double their annual salaries simply by leaving academia for industry.  If money were our primary motivation, we wouldn't be academics in the first place.
There's also a closely related issue of openness.  Academic research is (in principle) entirely public; academic researchers publish their ideas for other people to use, adapt, modify, and apply in ways that are completely out of their control.  Businesses, on the other hand, keep tighter control of their best ideas, either hiding them behind non-disclosure agreements or locking their use behind patents, lest some competitor use them to gain an advantage.  If you're an academic researcher, someone else using your ideas (usually) helps you; if you're a business, someone else using your ideas (usually) hurts you.  For academic researchers used to the unfettered exchange of ideas, the secrecy required for a successful business can be incredibly stifling, if not offensive.
Or maybe that's just me.

While this tongue-in-cheek answer is definitely correct, could you expand on it for those who aren't familiar with the research mindset?

I did that in the past (now it's my brother turn ;)), and trust me, you don't start a company for the money, you do it because you think it will be fun, and that maybe you will provide something that will change the world (or at least something). Sometimes it's work, sometimes not. In fact, most of the time you will work a tremendous number of hours, for a salary (if you are lucky) that will be just the average salary of an average guy. And at the end you can end up totally broke.
Almost 10 years after this experience, I don't regret it, but this is a completely different work than research, and for me this is less fun than research. However, being in the shareholders of a company, and just be there for giving advice is both interesting and fun, because all the "boring" work is done by others.

There's more to life than making money... teaching students, grading exams, obtaining funding,  being away from your family to present papers at conferences, correcting appallingly written research papers, reviewing similarly appalling papers, trying to get promoted.... It's a laugh a minute and we wouldn't change it for the world.
And it puts bread on the table.

One thing that I haven't seen mentioned yet is intellectual property rights. As an academic, you generally share intellectual property rights with the institution you are affiliated with, at least insofar as royalties must be shared. See How do academics make money from applying their research? for a related question with some more information on this and related subjects.

For any given concept or niche, there is often a huge gap between the time when it's interesting to research that topic, and when it's mature enough to commercialize.
No matter if we're talking about new hardware, new chemical processes or new AI algorithms, there tends to be a decade or two between the point where there are major unresearched and novel parts of the problem, and where it's profitable to scale it as a business; and the problems you need to solve in order to demonstrate a proof of concept are very different from the type of problems you need to solve to make it cheap, predictable and attractive to consumers.
Most researchers are (and should be) working on areas that are far too bleeding edge to be commercialized yet. Most new product development is working on technologies that are already too mature and 'boring' to generate significant publishable research.
In essence, if you see a new 'bleeding edge technology' product in any area, there probably is a 10-20 year old academic paper describing the concept with an implementation that sort-of works if the stars are right, takes impractical effort to make, and practical use requires complementary things that aren't available yet. After some time... the prerequisites have commoditized, someone else has driven the costs down, and you can implement a lot of time in polishing the concept in order to build and sell it - but most researchers would rather research new things than polish the 'old' ones for consumption.