text:
How to ask my co-author to put our paper on arXiv?
I am a math postdoc who defended his Ph.D. two years ago. I have been working on a project with some senior mathematician for 1.5 years. I also invited him to the university where I am affiliated for two weeks. We finished some preliminary versions of a paper, and then he told me he will send the complete version by June. After some time, he dropped an email to me that our technique works for a more general version which is why he was rewriting the paper. Then, I got another email from him that he was slow and asked me to extend something to a more general case. I sent him the extension, which was not complete as I was not not sure about some minor problems, but he hasn't replied to my email yet.
I told him some months ago that I am going to apply for some grant which is why we need to put the paper on arXiv, and he said "sure, I understand you". But, now, there is no news.
Question
I want to send an email and ask how the project is going on, but I am ashamed to ask as he does most of the project. On the other hand, I need to put this paper on arXiv because of the grant proposal. As I said, I want to send an email to him, but I am scared he tells me "what you did and why you expect to finish soon".
Remark
It is too late to finish the project myself as he changed most settings, so it takes a lot of time.

what impact will have on the grant comitee an arXiv paper instead of a paper that is mentioned as "under preparation"?

@EarlGrey: Paper published means referee(s) did not find errors, paper in arXiv means you see no errors, paper in preparation means "there might be fatal errors". See the difference?

"In preparation" sometimes means "will never be finished". I would guess that "in preparation" will count much less than preprint.

Ever heard about this thing called a phone and having a conversation with him about it? Talking helps.

@Oбжорoв That is my question. What I should tell him?

@Adam in your question you say you want to send an email to him. That is not talking to him. Talk to him and raise your concerns and try to find common ground to go forward. Emails often create more problems than they resolve. Talking is better.

@Oбжорoв ?He lives in a different country. That is why ?I should send an email to him

@Adam You cannot call someone who lives in a different country? Seriously?

@markvs what impact will have on the grant comitee an arXiv paper instead of a paper that is mentioned as "under preparation"?

@EarlGrey: A positive impact. ArXiv is much better (a publication would be even better).

@markvs better with respect to what?

With respect to possibility of getting the grant. If I get a proposal which lists papers in preparation, I automatically reject it,

@markvs it is a very hard filter, funnily enough coming from a mathematician and not from a bureaucrat.

@EarlGrey: When I am on a grant panel, I am a bureaucrat. And there are 12-13 others there too. The goal of the panel is to find out why the grant should not be given. Too many proposals.

@markvs I understand, but then it is a rule in your own specific discipline, it is not you rejecting something, it is a grant rule: not all the academia works like that.

@EarlGrey My discipline is indeed not the whole academia, just mathematics. But in every discipline the panel is searching for reasons to rejec:t. Why give them the reason? Unless it is explicitly written somewhere that this cannot be the reason. Then the panel director will interfere,

Why not going back to the very specific case, put that one in arXiv and then work with the needed time/effort toward the more general case? This way you put some pressure on him to finish the most general case, before someone else extend your arXiv paper.

Thank you very much for your answer. What exactly I should tell him?

"Dear X., I am going to apply for some grant, I need to have a referrable proof that I am working on topic Y, so I will put a reduced version of the paper on arxiv, presenting the solution for the specific case.
Do you agree on being co-author?
Best regards, "

I agree this is the best solution in this situation

@EarlGrey : Isn't it rude to write the last sentence? Definitely, he is a co-author as he does the most things.

@EarlGrey : Do you think that he will tell me e "what you did and why you expect to finish soon"/

rude: maybe, you are welcome find a milder way to get confirmation about him being ok with the co-authorship.
About his questions: who cares, answer them honestly, you can be 100% sure or 100% unsure about finishing "soon", but without the grant finishing will be 100% sure much harder.

“Hi, just a quick reminder, I was hoping to put a version of our paper on the arxiv by DATE, before I apply for GRANT. Any chance you think you might have a draft we could upload by then? If not, could we put up the previous version for now, just so I can refer to something publicly available in my proposal? We can always add the new version later. Thanks very much”

"could we put up the previous version for now," If uploaded to arXiv, it is up forever, not just for now.

Literally the next sentence: “We can always add the new version later.” People add preliminary versions all the time. Sometimes you have multiple drafts, with even significant rewrites. If it’s majorly different, they can even add it as a separate submission.

Strictly speaking, if you are a co-author of the work, you are welcome to submit it yourself. However note that bell "cannot be unrung", so once it's announced it cannot be completely removed.

It's very important to have consent from all coauthors before doing this; you cannot just submit it yourself without their permission.

Important and ethical? Yes. Legally speaking? It's not required if you're a co-author of the work.

Curious what legal doctrine you are working under; I don't know that it is illegal anywhere, but I would be very hesitant to claim it's legal everywhere...

US Copyright Law. Under normal circumstances, any full author would have the legal authority to grant one of the available licenses in arXiv. In general, if you're an author of the work, legally speaking, you would have the authority to grant the license.
Ethically? No, you need to have permission.

US copyright law tends not to matter outside the US.

While true, arXiv is based out of the US therefore only US Law is considered when making such decisions. It's the responsibility of the submitter to ensure compliance with local laws, however for the purposes of managing arXiv, only US law applies.
It's a rather pedantic answer, but it's the governing principles behind what we do.

The real world is governed by far more than laws, because others can make decisions that affect your career based on their judgment of your actions. Submitting work without your coauthors' permission is a short ticket towards not having any coauthors, which is a short ticket towards not having a career.

The note on the arxiv webpage you link is really funny. It's a very old and unviersal legal principle that two people (e.g. you and arxiv) cannot make a contract that infringes on the rights of a third person.


text:
Realizing I should have graded more harshly at the end of the class
It's my first time teaching a college class as an instructor. My grade breakdown is as follows:

Worksheets 15%
Lab attendance and participation 15%
Homework 40%
Final Exam 30%
Discussion forum 3% extra credit

I have two TAs who have been doing the homework and worksheet grading. I provided the rubric for the homework to my TAs and they told me that there was a "distribution" in the grades. But after the initial check-in, I never checked the grade distribution again.
Now it is the end of the term and after receiving the (published) homework grades from my TAs, I see that they have a 98% average with virtually all students having a grade above 95%. That is: 55% of the students' grades are nearly perfect.
The attendance and participation grades have not been published yet and the final exam has not been written. Since this is my first course as an instructor, I fear the department's response because the grades might be too high.
But irrespective of the department's response, I'd like to have a grade distribution that's a bit more spread out. I've been writing and re-writing reasons for wanting a grade distribution but it turns out finding these reasons is harder than I thought. I guess it's just an intuition.
Obviously, I'm to blame big time for not having more grade components, to begin with. I'm also partially to blame for not keeping up with my TA's grading but I also told them repeatedly that I was looking for a "distribution" on the homework and feel like they did not warn me that the grades were very high. It's too late for all of that now.
Be all of that as it may, my students will take their final exam soon and they have not received their participation grades yet. I would like to see a grade distribution that roughly ranks the students according to their skills and that makes the testing harder than it has been so far. What are my options, and which one is best? Make use of the participation grade? Make the final exam harder?

Update:
Thanks for the amazing support, your sympathy with my situation, and your helpful responses!
The class I'm teaching is an intro STEM class at a highly selective school. This particular STEM major is very popular, so I imagine that the department wants to use the grading scheme to reduce the number of students.
I based my homework assignments on those from a previous instructor who had a more stereotypical grade distribution. If anything I made them a bit harder. So it's probably the grading instructions to my TAs that led to the differences.
Few of you have said anything about the role of participation grades. Most students were not particularly engaged during lectures (despite me trying to interact with them and using tools like jamboards and surveys etc). So I've been considering not giving every student a 100% for participation but more like something centered around 90% and differentiating from there. I said nothing about the way participation would be graded in the syllabus.
I also didn't specify the grade cut-offs in the syllabus. AFAIK, I can determine the cut-offs myself, within reason. Some students will understandably be annoyed if the cut-off for an A is set at a 93%.

Much of this would depend o things like where you are teaching, what department are you with, what level are the students, and so forth.  I was in a very challenging US EE dept, but for example, it was considered normal for grad students to get very high grades and also for students in  lab courses to get very high grades.

How endemic is cheating on homework at your institution? I tend to give higher weight to exams and individual projects than to homework, so that I’m relatively sure the grade reflects the individual’s work.

Cheating is probably a problem. I used original homework assignments but I also encouraged collaboration among students, as long as they would write up their own responses.

Hmmm. Then it isn't cheating.

Yes, I agree. I mentioned the collaboration just as another way of explaining the high homework grades.

Wouldn't it be expected that an "intro" class in a "highly selective school" would end up with mostly/all high grades?

@MichaelRichardson: Not necessarily.  “Highly selective schools” often put very challenging material into their introductory classes, for various reasons (cover more material quickly; introduce the students to a culture of working hard on touch problems; ensure strong students get stimulated rather than bored/complacent, …).

"encouraged collaboration among students" - After/during the pandemic students have had much larger groups and more effective use of communication to coordinate working together on assignments, for both good and for ill.  It is very possible take home assignments have simply been taken by the entire class, particularly if they are instructed to work together.

Mostly a duplicate of: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/116460/grades-are-too-high-for-the-department-what-should-i-do?noredirect=1&lq=1

Just out of curiosity, is it usual at your institution to have homework make up such a large percentage of the grade? At my R1 university, for lecture courses, exams almost always count for at least 80% of the total grade.

How many students are in the class? If it's 20, you can easily just have a good group. If it's 300, your assignments were too easy, or people shared answers on a massive scale.

If you haven't been told that your course is intended to reduce the number of students (you wrote that you "imagine" it is), I can't see why you should strive to do so or feel guilty for not doing so. Students will be annoyed if the grade cutoffs are revealed late the game to be unusual. That said, I spent my entire grades 7 - 12 at schools where 94% - 100% was an A, 84% - 93% was a B, etc. I had no idea that was unusual until university.

I'm concerned about your statement of "so I imagine that the department wants to use the grading scheme to reduce the number of students"... don't imagine it is. Find out from your department leadership if it is. Then you will know if it is, or is not a fact.

Does your school expect a particular distribution of grades? E.g., do they try to fit most classes to a normal curve? I can't figure out why you have "distribution" in quotemarks but don't specify the distribution.

Let me add a few points to supplement the excellent answers of Juan and cag51.
There are some reasons why you might have such a narrow distribution, including an anomalous group of students. This happens, and statistically is guaranteed to happen (very) occasionally. I've had such a group in the past. I had to work especially hard to keep up with them, producing challenging work. They did well, but they earned it. There is no need to "spread" the distribution for a group of hard working excellent students. Doing so artificially is actually unethical.
While some institutions frown on it, it should be possible for every student in a class to win full marks and possible for every student to fail. If a group is motivated, and if you do your work well, the former is possible. If they are disengaged, don't care about the subject, the latter can happen. I've usually told my students this as a motivator. I've rarely had to fail anyone who actually worked on the material. I wasn't as "enlightened" early in my career, but grew into the role of instructor and mentor.
You are new at this, and novices (even novice teachers) aren't perfect. You may have made some mistakes in targeting the course to your audience. The solution isn't to change the expectations late in the game ("Oh, by the way, this isn't a hundred-yard dash, it is really a marathon. Heh heh heh"), but to rethink the process for the next time you deliver this (or another) course.
Your assignments set your expectations. If the students meet those expectations, then they should get the rewards. You can set higher expectations, but not in mid-stride.
As a learning experience, you might ask a colleague or two to look at your assignments and exams, etc. to give you advice. Perhaps they will have something to say that will help you set more appropriate expectations for the next course. And perhaps they will just say that you did fine.
I'll also suggest that if there was an error on your part, it may not have been grading too leniently, but not offering enough work that was sufficiently challenging.
Teaching is also a learning experience.

"it may not have been grading too leniently, but not offering enough work that was sufficiently challenging" ... my thought exactly. TAs do sometimes tend to grade too leniently, but if everybody did (almost) perfectly the most likely explanation is that the graded homework just wasn't difficult.

This is an excellent answer, and I want to highlight this portion: 'There is no need to "spread" the distribution for a group of hard working excellent students. Doing so artificially is actually unethical.' More teachers need to keep this in mind.

This is a valid point, particularly because students may learn and work together and for sure they communicate, so high motivation of some socially influential students may spread through the whole class. There is a temptation to think of students as independent and therefore to expect that roughly the same "quality distribution" will appear in every class, but in fact there are good reasons to expect that extraordinarily good and bad classes occur from time to time.

But, if 98% of the students are achieving above a 95% in the class, they're obviously cheating. That's what my current university professor brother-in-law told me when I read this question to him....

@CGCampbell, your brother-in-law is making some assumptions that may not apply. Simple work and lenient grading can lead to such a result even with "ordinary" students.

The goal of a test is not to deliberately establish a grade distribution. There is a standard to you need them to meet and the test should reflect that. If they all pass the standard comfortably then they should all have high grades.
I understand most courses have a different distribution from what you describe here, but I think it is best that you produce the test without being influenced by the current grades, and just honestly set a bar for the standard you need the students to cover on the subject, nothing more, nothing less.
I think the best way to shield yourself from criticism is to produce tests and assignments that follow the standard required of the course. That will be your best defense even if someone criticizes the test scores later.

If all the students merit high grades, there may be an admissions issue (or students being advised to take modules below their level of ability).

@DikranMarsupial Before a course, the required outcome or what is required to master can be easily accessed. Either you master these requisites, or you don't. If my peer and I both have the same expectations on ourselves after the course, but my peer performs higher than me, this should not be a reason to fail me, but both should pass. The idea that grades should be a distribution is stupid in my opinion. Either yuou know what you shoiuld after the course, or you don't.

@DakkVader students benefit from taking courses that push them hard to maximise their potential.  Where there is no failure and everything is easy for you, there are no grounds for a sense of achievement or satisfaction.  I want my students to have a sense of achievement.  This is not a criticism of the course or the teaching, just a suggestion that the problem may lie elsewhere (and thus don't make changes to fix a problem that doesn't exist).

@DikranMarsupial so you'd fail students or give them lower grades based on each others performances, and not on their performance in the topic? What if one year the average performance is lower? or higher? do you just shift the bell curve?

@DakkVader What part of "and thus don't make changes to fix a problem that doesn't exist" makes you think I would want to do that?  I don't believe in marking to a distribution either, and nothing I have written should suggest to you that I do.  But if all students score highly on a module, that means there is either a problem with the module, with the program or with admissions.

@DikranMarsupial "But if all students score highly on a module, that means there is either a problem with the module, with the program or with admissions." Why does that mean a problem exists? Why is it not possible for all of them to have earned that high score?

The goal of a test is not to deliberately establish a grade distribution. This is a normative claim that is not true in every cultural context. I like your answer, but without a country tag on the OP, there is no reason to suppose that this statement is true. The goal of some tests is to establish a grade distribution, often because the department can only allow a limited number of students to continue on in the major and needs to weed students out.

Sure but even if the goal of the test was for a distribution, if all the students get good grades with their own abilities you wouldn’t adjust them to a distribution after the fact usually…

@whipdancer I most emphatically did not say that they had not earned their mark.  The point is that if all of the students are getting a high mark it means that they are not really being challenged and are not making the most of their ability.  Say you allow French citizens to take beginners French in a U.K. college.  They will all have earned near perfect marks (as they have demonstrated that level of ability), but they have not really gained anything, and the course has not "added value".  That would be an admissions problem - they should not have been admitted onto the course.

Rather than there being a grade distribution, I think it is probably better to say that there is a distribution of students.  If the output distribution is binary it means that the educational resources are being used inefficiently and learning opportunities are not being maximised.  So there ought to be an emergent distribution of marks (at least across a sufficient number of cohorts) assuming that there is a good program design and the students are a reasonable match to the nature of the course - if efficiency and  adding value is the aim.

IMHO, marks are a means to an end.  We don't teach students so they get high marks, we teach them so that they improve their understanding of the subject and become more capable.  That should be the aim.  Giving everybody high marks suggests that aim is not being fully realised.  The OP is doing exactly the right thing in questioning whether the distribution of marks is a good thing, but that doesn't mean the problem lies within their module - it may lie elsewhere.  I'm finding it hard to understand why that should be a contentious issue.

@DikranMarsupial I agree that everyone having high marks suggests that something is suspicious possibly, but when you are teaching a course regardless of how much you want to challenge students there is a limit, you wouldn't put calculus on an elementary math test final because they all aced addition. You try your best to challenge them and improve their knowledge within the scope of the course

@Juan you are missing my point, which is that "but that doesn't mean the problem lies within their module" e.g. admissions, so I was warning against making changes to the module until that had been investigated.  For example, you shouldn't allow students that already have calculus to take an elementary maths course, because it would not be a challenge, they wouldn't learn anything - so change admissions not the course.  It surprises me how often people comment without appearing to read what they are responding to!

Obviously, I'm to blame big time for not having more grade components, to begin with.

Actually, your grading system seems reasonable. You have a test, homework, a lab component, and a participation component. Having more than one exam might have been a good idea, but your system is totally defensible.

I'm also partially to blame for not keeping up with my TA's grading but I also told them repeatedly that I was looking for a "distribution" on the homework and feel like they did not warn me that the grades were very high.

Actually, I think you should consider this more carefully. You have multiple TAs: did they both grade the same way? If so, it sounds like you were not as clear as you thought you were. If not, then you may have a bigger problem: students who had one TA got lower grades than students who had the other. Either way, you should have caught this before now.

It's too late for all of that now.

Yes, it is. Try to understand what happened, but it would be unfair to regrade the homework or change the grading scheme at this point (unless one TA was way harder than the other, in which case, you may need to "normalize"...which will reduce your distribution even further).

What are my options, and which one is best? Make use of the participation grade? Make the final exam harder?

It would be unfair to give an insanely-difficult test just to force the required distribution. Instead, give a reasonably test with a reasonable grading scheme. "Reasonable" is a broad term...you can choose something on the more difficult side of reasonable, but don't overdo it.
As for the participation, it is likely too late there. You should have been clear from the beginning what the participation requirements were and how the grading would be done. And if you were not, you will have to use some reasonable, commonly-accepted standard.
Finally, consider the conversion between numeric grades and letter grades. If you have already defined how percentages translate to grades, you should not change them now. But if you have not, you may have some flexibility here. As before, don't overdo it -- it is not fair to say that 99.5% is an A and 99.3% is a B; if you end up in a situation like this, you will have to award lots of good grades and take your lumps from the department. But on the other hand, a curve like 93%=A, 85%=B would be fine, even if a curve like 85=A, 70=B would be more typical for certain types of courses.
One last suggestion: warn the students (without blaming the TAs) that many students have very high grades going into the exam, so the exam scores will be very important. Students are rightfully upset when they go from an A+ to a C after an exam, especially when the exam is only 30% of their grade. Telling them that this may happen in advance will soften the blow.

I'll add that the most likely outcome of an "insanely difficult" final is a similar distribution, but with lower numbers, punishing everyone. Just. Say. No.

Indeed. Worse, too-difficult exams tend to be arbitrary: the students who perform best tend to be those with stronger backgrounds or more experience working under pressure, rather than those who have the best overall mastery of the course material.

"students who had one TA got lower grades than students who had the other" The easiest way to prevent this problem is to have one TA grade (for example) the even numbered problems and the other grade the odd numbered ones, so that any variation between the TA's is distributed evenly over all students.

I believe at the institutions I attended as a student there was always a regulation that some percentage of points be at least an A, B, etc; instructors had more freedom to make an 85% grade an A rather than a B, but not a 92% grade a B rather than an A. In any case, those thresholds are pretty important to include in a syllabus, especially if they are unusual, and that might make a problem for OP where they cannot assign lower letter grades to the current distribution.

Even if not actually disallowed, I would not recommend using a very aggressive conversion range. The range I suggested (93=A, 85=B) is likely fine though -- this is the standard scale for many humanities classes in the US (and students are familiar with it from high school), though it's more unusual in STEM. FWIW, I usually had the opposite problem -- students would be very upset about getting a 75% on an exam, and I had to assure them that a 75% was already a high B and would probably become A-range once the homework and everything was factored in. But students don't like low numbers.

In many institutions, grade distributions are set in stone by the syllabus and nothing short of a global pandemic would allow you to change an A from 90% to 95% (for instance). The one instance I've seen them changed after the semester started was classes moving from letter grades to pass/fail when covid hit with a few months left in the semester, but that was to make things more lenient rather than less lenient.

@cag51 I would discourage changing the grading scheme to be harder to get high marks. I feel this is only ethical if done at the start of the semester and outlined in the syllabus. Otherwise you're moving the goalposts in a way that harms the student. Suppose someone needed an A to meet some GPA cutoff so was shooting for a 90%, and then last minute you tell them 90% is now a B. They should do this adjustment starting next semester.

I never suggested changing the grading scheme!  I specifically wrote: "it would be unfair to regrade the homework or change the grading scheme at this point." In my experience, conversions between points and letter grades is usually done at the end of the course and the cutoffs are not defined in advance. If OP has already specified the cutoffs, then I would agree that they should not be changed. Edited to clarify.

It would shock me if there isn't aren't default grading cutoffs at the university to be applied if the course syllabus doesn't specify something different. The instructor should absolutely not change this late in the semester unless it is to the students' advantage. This would be a clear student win on my university's grade appeals committee (which I have previously chaired).

Once again, I specifically wrote "it would be unfair...to change the grading scheme." Not sure why everyone is complaining about this point.

@cag51 "The range I suggested (93=A, 85=B) is likely fine though -- this is the standard scale for many humanities classes in the US (and students are familiar with it from high school)" I'm genuinely curious. I'm not in academia, but am in school (again). Some 200 credit hours later, I've never encountered this. School has been exclusively in Texas, 5 different institutions (so far). Is this documented somewhere?

@whipdancer - In my experience, grade ranges are fixed in high school by the high school; college instructors can set whatever range they want. Certainly I taught several courses in multiple institutions and was allowed to grade however I saw fit. As for this range specifically, the top google search result for "high school grading scale percentages" gives this result which provides two common scales, one of which is well-aligned with the one I provided.

I think the reason people are  commenting is because you are suggesting surprise (from the students’ perspective) non-standard grading cutoffs. At least I find them to be non-standard.

I guess standard grading cutoffs are more common than I realized. I have never encountered them since high school.

This is of course just an anecdote from universities I have experience with, but the best advice I can give is this: always prepare the class with the assumption that the grades handed to you by the TA will be so high as to make no difference to the student's final grades. As a result, I would try to make sure the big-ticket items like tests are graded by you, or via scantron. TAs are for labs, homework, etc, while the tests are for distribution enforcement.
At least in my experience, most TAs will universally grade too generously, as it's often what they're taught to do, and what the departments prefer as well. And furthermore, asking them to be the ones that make or break a student is not fair. They don't have the professional training to assume so much of the University's (legal) responsibilities, and it's just a heavy task.
It's little help now, but prepare your future classes expecting your TAs to keep handing you universal scores of 90+. Because among every TA I've ever known, that's pretty par for the course.

For "too good" graded homweork: I don't think that really exists. If they all actually tried to do the homework, they should all get max grades on it. Homework grades IMHO are for effort and trying. Exam grades are whether you actually did learn it

Obviously this is only relevant for future occasions, but personally I'd assign a higher percentage to the exam, less percentage to homework (as it is relatively easy to submit good homework without actually having done good work themselves), and I'm reluctant to grade participation and attendance at all, because I don't like the students to participate or even attend because there are marks to be earned. I prefer them doing it out of genuine interest or the insight that this will likely improve their performance where it counts, and give them useful knowledge for their later studies and career. If grades are won through participation, this encourages annoying and meaningless contributions from students who think they should do this to improve their grades.
Note also that rather than grading some components, if your department allows it you can make it compulsory to achieve a minimum standard there for even qualifying for the exam, e.g., somebody needs 50% of homework marks to qualify, 75% attendance, and/or once present something in class, but these marks are then ultimately not counted.
Even though exams are not 100% reliable at assessing the achievements of a student, I think they're still much better than the other components, and you also give yourself more control of the final mark if you rate the exam higher.

Why not answer this question with statistics?
How many students are taking your class? If this is a large subject group, then there is bound to be a greater spread and less likely that all will maintain a higher grade. You never showed the actual class size.
Second, how many have taken this class before. Pre STEM classes are absolutely everywhere right now.
On a long enough timeline, with a large enough subject pool, you'll see regression to mean. Perhaps you haven't given it enough time or large enough pool?
OR perhaps you're not doing anything wrong...
The last thing, and I honestly don't understand this, is why would a college want their students to fail? I spoke to a mathematics department about a computer program teaching mathematics. The end of the course resulted in a pass/fail final. From this I found that of the students who took the class, completed all of the homework and received 100% on participation and cognition, studied and tried... 17% would fail the class for no discernable reason. And I don't mean because of issues with mental health, stress, family, death, disability as those would allow the students to withdraw from the course. I mean failure for 'no discernable reason'.
I realize schools need to make money, but you shouldn't continue to use programs which fail students intentionally. Perhaps you're doing nothing wrong.
It's easy to forget you have an ethical obligation to your students, not just your college.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Grant/Funding question: "Expected Benefits and Outcomes for attending the conference"?
I have acceptance for a conference in my field (Telecommunication and networking), and now I am applying for a conference travel grant to attend this conference. Can I please have an idea what should I respond to the following question?
What are your the expected benefits and outcomes of attending this conference?
I know that this conference is a major conference and it will earn me a good reputation, but the funding agency will not be interested in any of my personal gains and they will be concerned with their own benefits (in this case, providing internet connectivity to this country).
Any idea to respond so that I can convince the reviewers of the application that I am worthy to get this fund?

Depending on the funding agency, I'm not so sure that I would immediately discount the personal gains that your attendance would offer you.  However, I suspect that you might find this prompt easier if you start to think about the overall gains and extended effects that this might offer to both you and your institution/group.

Allow you to build connections with researchers at other institutions. You can also expand this in terms of types of institutions (academic, governmental, corporate) and locations of institutions (is this a regional conference, does it draw from around the world)
Allow you to identify potential collaborators for multi-institutional work
Allow you to learn about the current research in this field
Allow you to bring back information about the current research to your organization. Depending on the grant sponsor, you may want to explain how you will be distributing that information (presentation to the department, lunch talk with a research group, etc.)
Boost the reputation and visibility of your organization with the greater community
If your department is hiring faculty and the grant is funded by your university, you might be able to distribute information about the job search
If you know what the presentations are going to be on, then you can also be specific. E.g., "Meet with Professor YYY and discuss her work on field XXX", "Learn about the latest in VOIP infrastructure rollouts".
Identify potential collaborators for internet connectivity rollout in your country

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


text:
Can I share my results published results/research on my personal website or Medium blog post?
Is it OK to share my results on Medium blog post or my personal website when I have signed a copyright form with IEEE or IET?
In the paper submission, I only shared the method and results. But I want to share the exact codes that I used to produce the result. Will it violate the copyright?
The second question is if I publish my result on my blog post before submitting my paper, will it cause any trouble with the reviewers or reviewing process?

Can you - probably yes but may depend on what you signed with your institution.
Should you - no - peer review exists for a reason, and also if you make your results public how can you then produce a paper from them - especially if someone else publishes a paper based on your results. so you can make the code available after publishing your paper...
Edit: Buffy said it best in one comment below: Exploit your work first then publish the background.

Hmmm. Mystified about the downvotes here.

@Buffy may be linked on how the other answer uses mine as it was voted up before that appeared... sometimes I just ignore downvoters...

Ignoring is a good policy. But still, mystified. A careful reading of both suggests they say the same thing fundamentally.

@Buffy I'm not the downvoter, but this answer says "Probably yes you can, but you should not." The other answer says "Probably yes you can, and you definitely should." So, I suspect others are not reading them as saying nearly the same thing.

@BryanKrause, read deeper. Exploit your work first, then publish the background.

@Buffy that’s it exactly. Perhaps I should have phrased it that clearly in the beginning...

The edit button is under your mouse.

@Buffy Yes, but this one is not nearly as enthusiastic about sharing. I'm just guessing at the voters' motivations, not saying which answer is better.

yes, opinion rules, @BryanKrause. I have a pretty high standard for down  voting. I don't down vote because I don't like an answer, or think another is better. I reserve downvotes for situations in which taking the advice would be actually dangerous for the OP. By that standard, this answer is actually better than the other. If you give up your IP without reason you can harm yourself. In a perfect world it wouldn't matter and publishing/sharing would be advisable, but I think we are not in that world.

@Buffy sincere apologies, edited. Sorry.

No apology needed, we are all just folks here.

In light of your edit, I have edited the reference to your answer out of mine.

In most cases, yes you can, but you should ask your university if they have rules regarding hosting on websites/blogs with research products. Some places for example require that such a site is university hosted, can not be hosted abroad etc.
Should you do it? Absolutely, with the proviso that you should publish your paper first, or together with the code. With scientific results becoming more and more complex, it is often necessary to have access to various codes, for the purpose of reproduction. If your code is useful, it can also be quite profitable in terms of citations - remember to require people to cite your paper when they use your code.
Note that there are several journals (depending on your field) that actually specialize in publishing manuals for such public codes. CPC is a prominent example for physics (https://www.journals.elsevier.com/computer-physics-communications)

Do not worry about copyright: copyright is about form not ideas, and you will not violate it unless you copy-paste copyrighted text.
On the other hand, some journals will only publish "original" work, and may not want your article if you have shared the results before. This strongly depends on the field and on the journal.


text:
Faculty advisor is leaving, any way to turn this into a good thing?
Asking for a friend who is a grad student in a social science.
They have just finished their coursework and passed their quals. Upon entering the program, their faculty advisor suddenly left the department. After 18 months with a new advisor, this professor is also leaving. Neither advisor was great in that they were unresponsive. So my friend is not overly devestated to lose their second advisor.
Yet, since being abandoned by two advisors doesn't feel like a great thing, it still feels like a setback. Is there anything my friend can do to turn this situation to their advantage? I mean aside from being able to now work with a professor who is more supportive (should such a professor exist).
To be more precise, are you aware (or can you conceive) of situations in which a person who suffered a similar fate is compensated in one way or another (I don't mean monetarily)?
Edit:
PhD program is in the US. Second, my friend's age and stage in the program doesn't really allow them to start over in another program.

Honestly,it sound as that department is highly toxic, I would advise your friend to leave also.

@SSimon, I disagree that you can conclude it is toxic. People leave for better opportunities all the time. In a large department in the US there can be turnover of junior faculty, especially. Junior faculty can also be "unresponsive" if they are working toward their own goals - especially tenure. (US perspective)

Did your outgoing advisor offer to take you with them to their new institution?  Did your department offer to help find you a new academic advisor (and a funding source if necessary)?

@buffy I don't agree with you. It is 2020 and it is really hard to find possition. If many people are living same workplace fast than ever I would see that as a red flag.

@heutl Yes, in the United States. brian, my friend hasn't had this conversation with the advisor yet.

@SSimon it’s 2019 for me at the moment.

In my opinion your friend should talk to the director of studies or whoever is in charge of the PhD program. They should explain that their situation is far from ideal and ask for advice. The objectives of such a meeting would be to:

Appear on the institution radar as somebody who may have face difficulties due to these circumstances. This can help the institution anticipate problems if they can, and could make them more responsive in case of more serious problems at a later stage.
Take any advice that can be offered: this might include suggestions to work with a particular professor or any other kind of help.
If they already have an idea of somebody they would like to work with, make a case for it: the institution might encourage the academic to take them on.
Gauge the level of attention/care given to their problem: for example if it turns out to be difficult to even talk to the person in charge, it says something about how much the institution cares about their students.

In general it's a sign that your friend should not count too much on supervision in this institution. Maybe they can turn their attention and efforts towards collaborations with external researchers related to their topic. Depending on the institution response, maybe the positive perspective would be to embrace being autonomous and having more freedom to work with people they like.

Thanks for the advice, Erwan! Particularly the external research opportunities sound like a promising way forward. Sometimes the faculty advisor has certain formal responsibilties so that they cannot be circumvented, like signing certain paperwork for the grad student, do you have any advice on when they don't?

@TeaTree: a supervisor must at the very least fulfill their administrative responsibilities. People can be busy but signing paperwork is not really time-consuming. If a supervisor cannot be trusted to do this kind of basic task (within a reasonable time frame, say a couple weeks to be generous), then they are not doing their job and should be reported to the administration.


text:
I may subject a "Figure Reuse" problem. Please help?
please help me, and any advice would be greatly appreciated here.
I have published a paper with my advisor in a journal, which is one ACS publications. Recently I just published another paper on RSC journals.
Problem is for the most recent accepted journal paper, I used a figure from my previous publication. I mean, I didn't directly copy and paste the figure. The figure was revised, but I'd say they are still 90% similar. Because I thought that figure is mine, so I didn't get copyright permission from ACS first. But I cited the figure, referencing this figure is from my previous paper.
But these two figures are not the key part. They belong to "Model and method" part, which are used to illustrate the Model.
So I wonder that is there any way that I can make this mistake up? Like writing a correction or corrigendum? Please help, I just started my research career, and I don't want my career to be destroyed because of this.

Is this figure displaying data or is it an illustration?

Probably it's better to follow the advice of the second editor instead of our advice.

It is just an illustration to the model. It has nothing to do with the method part.

Did the new figure contain fresh data? Or the 10% change is just formatting.

It contains some more data, but that figure belongs to "Method" part. So, to be honestly, I'd say formatting are basically same, but I just added more data. But I referenced this figure belonging to a previously published paper

One should see the two figures to be sure.
However, giving the fact that

you properly cite the previous paper and especially that

you have modified a picture that you have already previously produced

means that no action is required.
While 1) is the correct practice to avoid a kind of (if one really look for it) self plagiarism, or anyway makes clear that part of the data were already published, 2) means that the figure is not reproduce and thus no need of permission.
This case also illustrates that plagiarism and copyright issues overlap but are not the same things, which is often not that clear in several entries in this SE site.

Thanks so much !! You know, I was super worried about this. I feel much better now. I do revise the figure. Of course, I will be more cautious in my future. Thank you again.

To be a bit clearer, the new file should look graphically different. Obviously a simple xy trace opens caveats... Still, these things are experienced by a lot of authors and everyone is aware.

Yes, they look totally different at a first glance. I am not sure if I need to publish a correction about this. Because we used the same model, so I just made minor changes. Thanks for your clarification.

No you don't as far I can see from here

+1, I agree there is unlikely to be an issue, but I recommend discussing this with your advisor.

Thanks so much for your advice.


text:
Found possible instance of plagiarism in joint review paper and PhD thesis of high profile collaborator, what to do?
I am a new assistant professor, and I just started my faculty career. I encountered a problem when collaborating with a tenured associate professor from an American University. I am a new faculty, and I need good collaborations and networks. However, I also know that bad collaborations can be a potential career-killer (e.g., Ranga Dias case). My research community is small, so I want to handle this issue properly, and I don't want to be percieved as an unreasonable and mean trouble maker by other professors who may reject to collaborate with me in future.
My research area is modeling and computation, and I collaborated with this tenured professor from America for 2 years. I completely admire and acknowledge his modeling and programming abilities, he is an absolute programming genius and can solve complicated problems, and we have published 2 high impact peer-reviewed papers already.
We are in the process of finishing a review paper, and I am the lead author. He forwarded his manuscript last week, and told me most of them were directly from his PhD dissertation. After putting mine and his part together, I used anti-plagiarism software (Turnitin) to conduct a full check. I do this out of habit, plus the fact that it is a review paper.
I found that there were two parts (around 11 lines in a word file) from his writings which were really sloppy verbatim copy and paste. Even if they are cited, I still feel it could be problematic, someday people might point this out on PubPeer. I double-checked all the data and algorithms immediately for our previous 2 published papers, and they didn’t have problems.
Out of curiosity, I used Turnitin to check his dissertation, and I found that his literature review part has surprisingly high similarity rate (>35%), and there are several verbatim copy and paste problems as well, even if they are cited. To be objective, the real part of his dissertation is absolutely high-quality, 100% original and creative, and each chapter generates high-level peer-reviewed publications. I know that in the science and engineering world, nobody is really interested in reading dissertations, and I also know the dissertation could be the worst publication in a researcher’s career. But I still feel a bit down about this.
So I wonder if I should point out this problem politely and ask him to revise, or if I should stop collaborating with him now? I know plagiarism accusations are serious in academia, and I have no intention to report this issue at all. Especially, he is a really amazing math and programming player, and I don't want his name on the internet, on sites such as "Retraction Watch". I know there are so many high-profile plagiarism cases more severe than this, and they all get away. Especially as his problem is just in the Introduction part.

Where are the 'two parts (around 11 lines in a word file)' from? Is it from some other paper written by your collaborator or is this from some paper/ textbook written by someone else?

@quarague They are from someone else paper, and  they are from his dissertation. Verbatism plagiarism

You write that these passages are cited. Do you mean the sources are cited, or that the passages are quoted?

@Tobias Kildetoft Yes, they are cited, but literally copy and paste, and not written as quote style

"He forwarded his manuscript last week, and told me most of them were directly from his PhD dissertation." -- Suggest this needs clarification, as I can't tell what's being said here.

Isn't the plagiarism check done by the journal as part of their process?

I'd give your colleague the benefit of doubt.

@WoJ. I did plagiarism check every time before I officially submitted something, in order to prevent from getting some troubles in future. I don't really rely on journal's plagiarism check.

@JosephDoggie I have the good faith of him absolutely, and I admire his research ability. I don't have any intention to report him, I believe this is an honest error, maybe not an error, because I am not a plagiarism athentication expert

@Part-timeEngineer sorry I was not clear. What I meant I that the journal would likely check for plagiarism anyway, so doing the check proactively can only be a good thing. Your collaborator should know that as well so either it was by chance/mistake (in which case he will be grateful to have found it earlier), or expected to slip in (in which case he will not be happy). In any case your action can easily be presented as standard operations when submitting a paper.

@Tobias Kildetoft Not written in the quote format. They are basically from someone else writing, basically identical, cited, but not in the quote format. If they are written in the quote format, I wouldn't have any problems

If the manuscript has not been published yet, then I think it is absolutely acceptable for you to bring it up politely: "thank you for sending me the literature review. You mentioned that it is based off of parts of your thesis; out of an abundance of caution I ran the manuscript through Turnitin and it looks like it registers some parts as plagiarism. Shall we revise those parts prior to submission just to be safe?"
In this way you're "blaming" Turnitin for the issue, rather than saying you don't trust this person, and not accusing them of anything.
Regarding the thesis: if the main part of the thesis is original work then I would let sleeping dogs lie. To be clear - it is objectively academic misconduct, but I do not foresee any good coming out of you raising this issue. The thesis has been submitted years ago, and the issue has not been caught by the advisor or any of the committee members. You could raise this issue to the academic honesty board (or equivalent) in that professor's Alma Mater, which would cause this person some discomfort and hassle. However, if the main body of work in the thesis is original and of good quality, their PhD degree won't be revoked. At most they'll ask him to submit a correction, but again, this won't have any effect on him except aggravate him or make him rewrite the lit review in his thesis. Worse still, if he realizes that it was you that raised the issue, then you have gained yourself an adversary over a relatively minor issue.
Regarding continuing collaborations with this person, that is really not for me to say. If this is an ongoing issue with this researcher (e.g. their publications have similar issues) maybe it's best to not to work with them. If it's only in their thesis, then perhaps they had a single lapse of judgement.
What you can do, however, is educate and mentor your own students. Bring up this as a story of how academia is an exercise in trust, and how easily that trust can be broken over relatively minor issues. In particular, if you are co-mentoring people with that professor, make sure that they are taught appropriate standards of academic honesty and integrity.

out of an abundance of caution LOL. Nobody believes that lie.

"What you can do, however, is educate and mentor your own students. Bring up this as a story of how academia is an exercise in trust, and how easily that trust can be broken over relatively minor issues." -- This.

Appreciate your advice. I don't have any intention to report this at all. To be honest, I admire that professor's research ability, and besides this problem I mentioned, he doesn't have any other problems

So I’d chalk it up to a human failure on his part, recognize it for what it is and move on.

@Walter "out of an abundance of caution" is an odd phrasing but OP did make clear in the Q that they used Turnitin out of habit and not due to any suspicion.

“Abundance of caution” is in use in the southern U.S., at least, and communicates an exceeding level of care to get things just right.

I feel there may be a US politeness thing I’m not getting across. “Abundance of caution” is a pretty standard phrase

Yeah... I would use the term "Habit" myself... Out of an abundance of caution sounds like "I am politetly not saying that suspected this article of plagirism" so ran turn-it-in on it.

Would suggest the OP does the work to redraft that section of the current paper and shares it at the same time as mentioning the turnitin thing. Then it is a solved problem and no project wrangling is needed about when it gets done, is it really important, etc.

If I am correctly reading your description of the nature and extent of the material that worries you, I disagree with most of the other answers. Eleven lines of properly cited paraphrase (or even word for word copy, if between quotation marks) is not plagiarism. Plagiarism is unacknowledged reuse of words or ideas.
You should suggest rewording anything you find sloppy, whether it's a paraphrase or original work. That's just making sure the paper is well written.
As for your coauthor's dissertation, I would expect a literature review to contain summaries, even paraphrases of what's in the literature. That's the whole point of a literature review.

You have two decisions to make short and long term.
Short term: How to save your paper?

Rewrite the section (not just rephrasing or mixing in synonyms) by yourself. Search for two or three new sources and add some value to your changes. Than your collaborator won't reject.
Confront him and ask him to rewrite it. Tell him what you told us about the paper. Leave out the dissertation, non of your business.

Long term: Keep collaborating with him?

After the paper, talk to the collaborator and ask him to not copy & paste passages into papers where you are an author.
Look for new collaborators and decline future joint work.

Both decisions are difficult to judge from distance and the information you shared. Do you have trusted person you can ask and who are familiar with your field and the actual person?

Thanks for your advice! I really appreciate you can take your time reading and posting your advice here!

At very beginning, I wanted to get some advice from my PhD advisor. But she has retired already, and I don't wanna disturb her peaceful retirement life.

You should only collaborate with people who you feel comfortable doing so. I think this case you describe is a very grey area. For example, were those referenced lines deliberately plagiarized by your collaborator in their thesis? Was it an honest mistake where they felt referencing was sufficient? Were those lines even added by your collaborator, or by someone they were collaborating with, or an advisor on a paper which your collaborator then used in their thesis?
It is hard to say, but I think it is enough of a grey area that levelling a strong accusation of misconduct at this point is not warranted.
For the work at hand, I would personally just return a Turnitin report and use that as a starting point to rewrite those suspect lines. If after that you no longer wish to collaborate, simply move on.

I really appreciate your advice. Thanks for your time reading and giving me some advice.

It seems that the plagiarism you mention can be most easily attributed to negligence.  For instance, the partially plagiarized part of the dissertation is the literature review, writing which is sometimes looked upon as a tedious chore.  Such negligence can complicate the process of collaboration, but I would not call it (edit: intentional) misconduct.
As a personal anecdote, my Ph.D. supervisor has once copied and pasted the first few paragraphs (about 500 words) of an introduction of one of his papers with another student into the manuscript he co-wrote with me.  I have to add perhaps that neither of us is a native English speaker.

Not being a native English speaker is such a lame excuse. In case of doubt, write the paper in your mother tongue and let it professionally translate.

@usr1234567 your comment seems to imply that the person who made such a silly thing as reusing an introduction to a different manuscript would care enough to get bothered with translation.  I don't think this is true.


text:
Should I send private email to department's dean after sending faculty job application?
There is one exciting job opportunity that I am willing to apply.
The dean, I think, may know me because I have met him in a couple of conferences and I have been on a discussion panel once (as a Ph.D. student) in a conference which his department organized.
But he is a big shot, and he may know a thousand young aspirants like me. Will it be wise to send him an email or will it give a bad impression that I am trying to cajole him?

If you have an honest question about the position that you think the dean is best to answer, by all means, contact them. Questions that clarify the role and, crucially, prevent you from potentially wasting the panel's time of you aren't right for the job or vice versa, are normal. However if the dean is either not the named contact for the position or you don't actually have any questions, you are best to not send the email. It sounds like this isn't a person you know well and an email with no other purpose than to get them to remember you likely won't be taken well.

If you really know him and have corresponded otherwise, then it would be fine. Otherwise I wonder, as would everyone else, what you are trying to accomplish.
But you haven't said that you have actually applied. The title is a bit inconsistent with the first paragraph.
However, if you get an email, after applying, thanking you for the application, you could reply to that, reminding him of your earlier connection. But it would probably be improper of him to take any action other than what he would do for any candidate. Likewise, if you get an interview, you could go visit him.
But probably not a cold email. Especially since you raise it as a potential issue.


text:
What to include in Abstract and Conclusion (and what not to include) of article
What I have understood till date is that abstract summarizes the work done in the research article (Journal + Conference), and so does the conclusion section.
However, the conclusion section not only summarizes the work (like abstract) but also give a hint of what results were produced?
Can someone best explain what to (and what not to) include in Abstract section? Similarly in the conclusion section

What exactly goes into the abstract depends on your field / research problem. It is helpful to remember when the abstract/conclusion is read and what purpose it should fulfill.
The abstract is normally read before the actual paper and the reader needs to decide whether or not the paper is interesting to them and if it worth to invest the time reading it. Therefore, it should include

the problem that was tackled (maybe with a motivation for that problem)
the methods used
what makes the paper stand out from similar work
what kind of results you got

The conclusion is read in the end and should sum up what you want the reader to remember about your work. A motivation is probably not necessary because they took the time to read (most of) your work so it is unlikely they were not interested. The content is similar to the abstract but more focused on the results.

the problem that was solved
the methods used
what makes the paper stand out from similar work
a more in-depth description of the results
limitations
future work

As for the abstract, it could include the following;

Minor background motivation
Short brief into existing limitation and problem
The objective of the paper
What questions have you answered
Approach
Most significant result(s)
Limitation.

Some of the above could be left out (such as background etc). However, your abstract should give a beautiful snap-shot of your entire work


text:
how to specify 'pseudo-random seed' in publication, any reference?
Following suggestions for my post here "Should results of a journal paper always be reproducible?", I have done the simulation using a particular seed in the first part of my result section. Now the issues are, how to mention that particular seed in the paper. I have not come across any particular paper doing so. For this reason, I am uncertain about mentioning it.
Any reference of how people do this would be highly appreciable.
Meanwhile, following is what I am writing

In practice, nodes can be distributed in a large number of topologies.
  However, the results in Fig. 2,3, and
  4 follow a fixed topology generated by pseudo-random
  seed (1010) to validate the scheme. Later, a more comprehensive
  analysis is shown in Fig. 5 and Table
  I.

A side point (covered in the linked question but which bears repeating): if your conclusions depend on the particular seed being used, you're likely doing something wrong. That is to say, people should be able to replicate your conclusions with any arbitrary seed - or indeed, any arbitrary (decent) random number generator. The particular numbers/examples might change, but the overall conclusion should be robust. Providing a particular seed is more "belt and braces", so that people can troubleshoot why they can't replicate with a different seed/generator.

A seed for a pseudo-random number generator is a sufficiently well-known concept in numerical simulations that the seed, on its own, probably does not require a citation—you can simply state which seed you used. The pseudo-random number generator algorithm, however, may need to be cited, particularly if it's not a well-known algorithm.

If you are aiming for your results to be completely reproducible, you will need the random-generator seed, however you will also need the source code (unless you use only one predefined method in a very clear way) and sometimes even other information such as the version of employed software, operating system, and hardware specs. The random seed is of no use to the reader on its own, and hence there is no point in mentioning it here.
In most contexts, I would only state in the main text which realisations are identical.
That you control this with seeds (instead of say saving and loading them) is a technical detail that should have no relevance to your results.
I would put the seeds together with the source code and other relevant details in a supplement (or similar).
At most I would mention the specific seed when referencing this supplement in a way that makes clear to the reader that this information only makes sense together with the supplement:

The results in Fig. 2, 3, and 4 were obtained for the same realisation of the topology (Supplement A, seed 1010) to validate the scheme.


text:
How to start the Background section of Research Grant application?
Should we directly cut to the chase in the Background Section of the Grant Application from the very first line followed by the proper (official) background of the problem?
OR
Should we give a proper background (WHY of our research), before introducing the problem (WHAT of our research) in the last line of the first paragraph?
Note that I also have separate sections for (i) Aims and Objectives, (ii) Research Questions and Methodology.

Do you have a separate introduction or do you use the term "background" synonymously with "introduction"?

No. No separate introduction.Abstract before that.

Assuming that the funding agency has no guidelines, you can write it so that it makes the most sense to yourselves and, hopefully, for your readers.
The why can go elsewhere, of course, such as in an introduction or abstract (if short). Whether it is a mistake to just avoid the why of it is a judgement call that only you can make. Some problems are well enough known that a reader will understand without any explicit statement. But not everything is like that.
Write it up and then make a judgement about how it fits together. Take the likely knowledge of the readers at the funding agency into account. If they are likely to be generalists, you may need to say more. Less for specialists.


text:
Career effect of embargo on doctoral dissertation
I have a question about how my dissertation embargo period would affect my future work, so please help and share your ideas. I will appreciate any thoughts here.
My PhD degree is high performance computation. I finished my PhD degree oral defense last week, and I am about to submit my final dissertation to the university. As for the dissertation embargo period, my university offers 3 options: (1) release immediately; (2) hold 2 or 5 yrs; (3) indefinite hold.
I personally want to embargo my dissertation for 5 years for publication reasons, but my PhD advisor recommended me for choosing indefinite hold first. He said because we are trying to apply for a patent which may take a really long time, and he also mentioned that some chapters are cooperated with industry partners and they don't want them to be released.
Most of my chapters have been published in peer-reviewed journals, which means even if my dissertation is under embargo, people can still know what my Ph.D. research is about.
But I still have a question: If I choose to embargo my dissertation indefinitely, will this affect my future career in a bad way?

Side question: do you habe any contracts etc with the industry partners?

Not really..... I just don't know if this indefinite hold would affect me or not.

I have no idea if anyone ever actually read my thesis outside of my committee. I know my parents didn’t. It really isn’t a problem if you have the papers out or in process of going out.

If you don't understand from the university and your advisor what an indefinite hold would mean, you'd better ask them.

I consider it an obligation for the university to make the thesis publicly available in a reasonable period of time.  For the university to impose an indefinite hold is unethical.  The student has no responsibilities to make their thesis publicly available, so they are free to choose the option that benefits the student.

Most parts of my dissertation have been published as journal papers, so reading them is equal to read my dissertation. But I still want to share it. Our university just offered this indefinite hold option for us and my advisor wanted me to choose it. I know some students who are funded by the government, their dissertations are restricted.

I do not see that embargoing your dissertation will have any consequences for your career. Until recently, theses and dissertations only existed in hard copy: at least in the sciences, people expect to read your papers and not your thesis. In all likelihood, nobody will ever notice that you've embargoed it.
In any case, placing an embargo on the thesis just prevents the university library from distributing it. There is nothing to stop you sharing a copy with someone (e.g. a potential postdoc supervisor) if you wish to do so.

So even if it is under embargo, it is OK to share it if it is from me, right? It is not a violation of copyright?

The copyright is the author's, regardless. The embargo is simply about whether Joe Public can access a copy through the library. It is fine to share it yourself (though it would be polite to discuss this with your supervisor/anyone else who has an interest in the work before doing so).

If the embargo is for possible future patenting it would be defeated if you were allowed to distribute it your self without the recipients signing NDAs. However the patent reason for the embargo doesn’t hold water if all of the inventions disclosed in the thesis are already disclosed in published papers.

@GeorgeWhite I guess you're always allowed to - it just isn't always a good idea.

My point is if the OP doesn’t understand the reason for the embargo they might accidentally defeat the purpose.

This is a new concept to me, but general principles would suggest that you keep as flexible as possible. If a, say, five year embargo really restricts you to that, then it seems a poor option. You can't read the future and it is known to hide secrets we can't see.
Perhaps that is the intention of your advisor in suggesting an indefinite hold. Assuming, of course, that you can submit it as you choose, when you choose.
The "really long time" might become a "really short time" if conditions change.
Another principle is to consider your own interests rather than being overly influenced by the interests of your partners. It is good if they align, but when and where they don't, take care.

I have nothing to hide. My advisor just said this option can be changed any time in the future if everyone is comfortable.But most of my chapters are published as journal papers (5 now), so holding it forever maybe not matter to me.


text:
Does objective scientific discussion on PubPeer affect me?
Recently I got a comment to my peer-reviewed publication on PubPeer. I am a new researcher who just started my research career, and I feel I am overreacting and over-worried. But please advise and help.
Long story in short: I published a manuscript in a top-level journal in my field (IF > 20). Recently, I got a comment on the “PubPeer,” and the person left a comment and challenged my research methodology. So I responded to the comment politely and defended myself, and that person said he/she appreciated my response. I personally do believe this is just a pure and objective scientific discussion about my paper. I welcome all the challenges and questions about my publications, and I believe these challenges are the driving force to push science move forward.
However, one of my co-authors called me yesterday. I could feel that he was not really happy that our paper appeared on PubPeer. At the very beginning, I really had no idea why he was pissed off.  Then I went over PubPeer carefully, and I finally realized that PubPeer is a website mainly dedicated to exposing research misconduct, such as manipulating data and faking figures. Therefore, I know why many researchers don’t remotely wanna associate with PubPeer in life.
But the bottom line is that my publication is clean and has nothing to do with research misconduct. It went through rigorous peer-reviewed processes and I have full confidence. So I believe this objective discussion about my publication on PubPeer should not affect me in a bad way, right? I am kinda worried and hope I am overreacting.
Thanks.

You don't get to choose whether your papers appear on PubPeer, any more than you can choose whether people discuss your paper in their lab meeting, in a journal club, at a coffee shop, or anywhere else. If you could choose whether your paper is discussed, you should certainly choose "yes" if you have any faith at all in your work: work that is discussed is useful; work that no one ever reads isn't really contributing much to knowledge (arguably still better to have published a paper that no one reads so that it at least could be read). You don't want to stop people from reading and discussing your work!
I don't think you have an obligation to respond to every comment on your work, any more than you have an obligation to respond to every comment on social media or this website or when someone asks you a question on the street. However, if someone has put effort into understanding your work and makes a reasonable commentary, it's certainly to the benefit of academic discourse that you respond to the best of your ability.
For a venue like PubPeer, it's important that your responses are well-crafted, as unlike in some one-off conversation, posts there will remain indefinitely. Because of that, you may want to consider working with your coauthors for sensitive issues (for example, if there are allegations of misconduct).

PubPeer is a website mainly dedicated to exposing research misconduct, such as manipulating data and faking figures

I don't think this is the goal of PubPeer, it just happens that these issues are of broad general interest. I'm sure PubPeer and advocates for open academic discussion and post-publication review would appreciate if the site would be used for more than just pointing out fraud.
It sounds like someone posted a reasonable critique/question, you were able to assuage their concerns, and there are no accusations of misconduct. If anyone were to view this interaction and believe that it reflects negatively on you that you are able to defend your work in public, that's their problem, not yours. I understand your coauthor's fears/concerns, but it's wrong for them to put any blame on you for this. They'll have to figure out for themselves how to handle the fact that published work is published so that others can read and react to it. I'd perhaps explain to them a bit how the site works, and clarify that if you did not respond, all that would exist on the site is the comment challenging your work, and that it's possible other readers would assume the lack of response suggests that the challenge cannot be countered by the authors (though I'd also recommend a bit of hesitancy in using this criteria to judge papers yourself, as participation on sites like PubPeer is not yet part of academic norms).

Thanks and I think you are right. I just hope all the comments on PubPeer are objective, and hope no kind of personally vicious comments. But yes, it is out of my control, seems anybody can post comments there.

@Part-timeEngineer Certainly it will vary, and some disciplines in particular will attract crankery and other unproductive responses. A recent example might be papers published about COVID-19, where commenters are likely to include not only people interested in epidemiology, virology, public health, etc, but also people who think the whole pandemic is some government conspiracy. I believe PubPeer does some limited filtering but I doubt they are exhaustive and I'm not particularly knowledgeable about their processes, but certainly those sorts of comments do not require author response.


text:
do's and don'ts of networking for a PhD student in a conference?
My field is Telecommunications (Engineering). I am going to a very huge conference in our field where I am presenting my work as well. I want to take this opportunity to hone my skills of networking, make some good connections, leave some good impression of my university and myself.
I want especially to meet professors who are elite in our field (I know few that are coming) and I am not sure if they will be kind enough to give their time to me?
How should I approach these professors?
PS.  Note that I don't expect (and don't want) to get a post-doc opportunity out of this conference, but I sure do want to make great contacts and learn skills of meeting

One could easily make a long list of obvious don'ts relating to basic conduct at the conference.  However, given your stated goals, here are some things I would recommend:

Do present your own work in a clear and simple way that allows the audience to understand your topic and get interested in your problem.  Be prepared to discuss your problem (and other research interests) afterwards and form collaborations if you find them useful.
Don't try to impress people by making your talk sound complicated - make it as simple and clear as you possibly can.  Impress people by your clarity rather than trying to bamboozle them with complexity and obfuscation.
Don't restrict your goals to meeting only the "elite" researchers.  Try to network broadly and talk to anyone else who has shared interests.  Focus on talking to people who have shared interests with you, who can have a clear and fruitful conversation with that imparts value.  You might find that your most fruitful interactions are with people closer to your own research level rather than the most elite researchers.


text:
difference between symposium and workshop?
I am not sure if it is too naive, but can anyone please let me know the difference between a symposium and a workshop.
I aim to submit my paper to a conference where call-for-paper is for the symposium and workshop both. I cannot understand where I should submit this paper.
Where are the chances of getting submission more? and what are the criteria in both?

There are two questions on our site. (1) Is there a difference between a symposium paper and a conference paper (2) What is the difference between a conference paper and a workshop paper?. Do they answer your question?

Forgot to mention, when you read the second question I linked above, there is another question linked to it that may be helpful: What is the point in publishing a paper in a workshop rather than in a conference?

One of them is spelled with a Y, and the other is spelled with a W

By your description it seems like the main or the principal track(s) of the conference are the symposium(s) and that the workshops are sided events. So, typically, workshops are smaller, more focused on a given subject or theme within a larger research field. The symposium is, typically, wider with several subjects being contemplated within a research field. For example, a conference in Software Engineering (wider) can have a workshop on Model-driven Software Engineering (specific).
So, usually, it is more easier to be accepted in a workshop, if and only if, your contribution is really focused on the subject of it. For the main track, it is typically more complicated because there should be clear contributions to the state of art in an area of study, with well-stated results and more detailed research.

So, if my paper is unable to get through to the symposium, can the editors direct it to any of the workshops?

That depends on the conference, but usually, you manually re-submit to the workshop in case of rejection. As conference organizers are aware of this, the workshop deadline is (most of the time) after the notification date.

In my case, the wkshp deadline is just 1 day b4 the symp. result announcement i.e. the wkshp submission deadline is 14th July and the symp. result will come on 15th. Actually, when I submitted, there was no mention of wkshp. There was only wkshp proposal and my supervisor thought that the wkshp proposals would go on till the final dates and told me to submit in open categories. Frankly, now I am worried as I have heard that rejection rate in symp is high and this is a v. good conf. in our field (IEEE GLOBECOM 2018) and I want to be attend this conf and have my paper there for sure :(


text:
How to justify research assistant's role in the grant application
How can we justify the role of Research Assistant in the grant application?
Everyone knows that faculty members are busy with teaching, admin tasks, writing grants etc. so they actually seek PhD and MS graduate students as assistants. But how to justify it in the grant application without mentioning that we will not be doing actual research, but supervising in fact.

Your question is not really clear.  You seem to imply that the RA is not doing research.
'supervising' is not research?  I would write it as a team consisting of the investigators (faculty members) and RA who will be conducting research into teleportation and the research questions that will be addressed by each team member.

The funders are more interested in the research question(s) you intend to pursue and your likelihood of successfully completing the research than they are about who, specifically, does what. Normally the PI has a guiding and supervising role over all team members and is the one to make critical decisions about the direction that the team takes. There is nothing unusual about that. Also, it is understood that some types of research require more than one person to be able to carry out the research in a timely manner.
I suggest that your application focus on the research questions and the need for a small team to be able to do the work in a timely fashion.
The supervisory role, properly construed, is appropriate for the PI. You guide and make important decisions. You provide the concepts/ideas that drive the research. Others help you realize those ideas and explore them. It shouldn't be a problem unless you imply that you wouldn't be "involved".


text:
Postdoc vs Research Associate title on resume for job application and ethical inquiry
This thing happens in the USA. I am working as a R&D research engineer in the industry, not academia.
Recently, our group recruited a research scientist, and we finally made an offer to a guy. In this guy's resume, he claimed his title/position as "Senior Research Associate" for his previous job in a university. However, after doing the background check, we found this guy's real title for his previous job is "Postdoc." His salary is a public record, and it showed us his salary is a regular salary for the Postdoc in the USA
The background team pointed this out to us. So I wonder if this title problem is a big deal? To our job review team, we don't really care about the title, and "Postdoc" or "Research Associate" are same to us, we care about applicants' research experience and competence.
I don't wanna make people feel that I am making a mountain out of a molehill. But in my opinion, I believe resume should be accurate and honest for all the experience and titles, and sometimes a resume is even considered a legal document. I wonder how the community think of this

In my opinion, the word "Senior" makes it CV fluff. However, whether CV fluff is a big deal or not is not really an academia-specific question.

The terms "Postdoc" and "Research Associate" are essentially used interchangeably in the natural sciences. Postdoc has come to mean any research position after PhD but before having full formal independence as a researcher. With very few exceptions Postdocs in the natural sciences do research associated with a principal investigator.
Whether the use of senior or not is justified depends on the actual role they played. Assuming they had been in the lab for a while they likely did play a more senior role than more junior postdocs. (But even if they had been there only for a year it could be that due to their previous experience they played a more senior role.) The distinction between senior and junior is not clear-cut / formally defined and not worth putting under a microscope.
In general, for postdoctoral researchers, job titles in academia mean very little, are used interchangeably, and often not even formalized (e.g., it is not unusual for postdocs to not even have a formal contract).
Your concern is thus unfounded. This is not even a molehill to make into a mountain. There essentially is no difference between calling yourself a "Postdoc" and "Research Associate" within academia.

Here's an example how UCSF defines postdoc "What is a postdoc? A postdoctoral scholar or "postdoc" is an individual holding a doctoral degree who is engaged in a temporary period of mentored research and/or scholarly training for the purpose of acquiring the professional skills needed to pursue a career path of his or her choosing. (Medical residents and clinical fellows are not considered postdocs at most universities, including UCSF.)" https://postdocs.ucsf.edu/postdocs-ucsf

And here are two example job ads for "Postdoctoral Research Associates": https://www.postdocjobs.com/posting/7139297 https://www.postdocjobs.com/posting/7139297 but there are many other postdoc ads in which different formulations are used from Postdoctoral Fellows, to Postdoctoral Scholars, Postdoc, Research Associates, Research Fellow, Postdoctoral Appointee, Research Scientist, Postdoctoral Associate for positions that all involve the same basic duties.

Employing someone without a valid work contract would be not only very unusual, but actually illegal in most developed countries, so the answer should perhaps specify which country(-ies) you are talking about.

My HR folks would disagree with this.

@JonCuster How so?

I would say the main difference is that you generally can't be called a postdoc or a postdoctoral anything if you don't already have a PhD

The applicant is using the correct, formal term for his last position. Whereever the "Postdoc [sic] researcher" title comes from, it is casual slang. I suspect it's from a clueless PI's website, who doesn't understand the academic structure below lecturer/ ass't professor, which many PI's don't.
There are essentially three "ranks" for non-tenured academic staff:

Research Assistant
Research Associate
Research Fellow

Sometimes these have a modifier before them. Formally, a Ph.D. student's job title is "(Postgraduate) Research Assistant," for example.
A Research Assistant does not, by definition, have a Ph.D. It covers the whole gamut upto "Postdocs" who have yet to formally receive their Ph.D. A Research Associate is someone who has formally received a Ph.D. Finally, a Research Fellow is essentially an independent researcher, without a teaching post.
A "postdoc" is essentially a funding mechanism rather than a real job title.
A job title of "Senior Research Associate" is very clear to me. It is the correct title for someone who, (a) has a Ph.D., (b) has worked in the research group of someone else for more than 2-3 years but (c) did not get their own major grant to give them independence.
Whoever gave a title of "Postdoc Researcher" should be slapped on the wrist for being sloppy and your new hire is correct.

Depends on the place, I was hired with the title "Postdoctoral Research Fellow" (which I checked and is the title given on the offer letter) so postdoctoral is not just casual slang.

This needs a location tag - possibly country level, maybe even institution-specific. Literally no part of the discussion around titles in this post is accurate for my institution. Most relevant for this question, we do have many postdoctoral researchers whose official title has "Postdoctoral researcher" in it.

Postdoc is not a funding mechanism. There are many different ways in which postdocs are funded/paid.

In Britain, which of these you are is obvious from your paygrade:
Grade 6 = Research Assistant
Grade 7 = (Senior) Research Associate
Grade 8 = Research Fellow
Loose terms like post-doc will be used, but they aren't official positions.
In the USA, a research assistant doesn't have a PhD, whereas a research associate/fellow does. The difference there is their funding mechanism. Associates are salaried employees, and fellows aren't.
The modifier "postdoctoral" is used sometimes, but is technically only correct if in a training period just after PhD completion. It is oft misapplied.

In short, are the following true of the OP's applicant:
Did they have a PhD? If yes, they are either a Research Associate or Fellow.
Were they salaried? If yes, they are a Research Associate.
Is their seniority beyond a normal "post-doc" period of 2-3 years? If yes, then they are a Senior Research Associate.


text:
Where to search for 60's USSR literature
I am looking for some 60's Russian literature. I have found citations of the sources, but I cannot find places to access them. The university library said they cannot help me. I would appreciate any help in locating these papers, either in their original Russian language or in a translation. Here are the citations:
[1] E.L. Burshtein and L.S. Solov'ev, The Hamiltonian of averaged motion, Dokl. Akad. Nauk SSSR 139 (1961), 855-858; English transl. in Soviet Math. Dokl. 2 (1961).
[2] V.P. Vcherashnyuk, On the question of integrability of canonical equations with the help of the principle of averaging, in: Proc. Scientific Conference, Inst. Math., Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, Kiev 1963, pp. 20-24. (Russian)
[3] A.M. Fedorchenko, The method of canonical averaging in the theory of non-linear oscillations, Ukrain. Mat. Zh. 9 (1957), 220-224.
All three are cited in A M Samoilenko 1994 Russ. Math. Surv. 49 109
I know the stackexchange is not really meant for this question. So, if you know a place on the internet where this would be more relevant, please let me know. Thanks in advance.

[4] was published in Ukrains’kyi Matematychnyi Zhurnal, but the online archives lack anything from 1954-1991.

@Anyon The year 1957 (volume 9) is not available :/

Are you at a major university? Surprising (if so) that the librarian has no resources. I wonder if anyone can contact the library at Charles University in Prague. Or somewhere in Poland.

@Buffy Rather small university in Germany. The library seemed quite certain they could not help me.

Sometimes you have to go (physically or not) to a place with a larger library, or a library with more specialized collections. Incidentally, your profile mentions Leuven, and KU Leuven's libraries appear to have the volume in question of Doklady akademii nauk SSSR that contains [1].

I changed university recently. But that KU Leuven has a copy is good news. I could ask some old colleagues. Thanks @Anyon. Is there some website you used to find out which universities has a physical copy of a journal volume?

@drandran12 In general, WorldCat.org can be very useful, but tends not to be as good with (journal) titles in Russian. In this case, I tried KU Leuven's library search directly after seeing your profile. Your librarian should presumably know if there is some database with great coverage of German libraries.

The Doklady should not be overly hard, that is quite a mainstream journal; for instance, the University of Konstanz has it for 1961(!) to 1978. The Ukrainian journals are likely much harder. It may make sense to go directly to the online presence of a Ukrainian university. Journals in German libraries should be findable in the ZDB catalogue; it may be necessary to play around with transcriptions of titles originally in non-Latin alphabets, especially for "older" journals from times when the "German" transcription may have been different than in English.

LOL, I see in your profile that you are in Konstanz. Head down to the UB on level BS 2 and look for signature mat 2/s65 for that Doklady issue.

@StephanKolassa: Now I'm wondering what made the librarian claim they could not help the OP with at least a part of their request.


text:
How should I proceed if I am late in applying for postdoc positions?
I am submitting my Aerospace engineering PhD thesis in August. However, my colleagues have pointed out that I am very late with postdoc applications for this year. I should started searching much sooner.
Now, I am still being funded by my PhD supervisor, and she has said that I can stay in her lab after my PhD as a postdoctoral fellow until I find something else. I personally would like to do that because I have lot of publications pending and staying back will help me push those through. Also it would provide me time to learn a new modeling methodology which will significantly improve my profile and improve my chances of securing postdoc positions.
However, my colleagues are saying that doing postdoc from the same place is extremely bad for an academic profile. I do want stay in academia, and I am now regretting my delay in applying for postdoc positions.
How should I proceed? Is it true that my profile is going to be looked at negatively if I continue under my current supervisor for the next 6-8 months after my defense? At the moment, I don't have any financial debts or anything. But, I am really concerned how my future will pan out provided I have to stay here. This is really stressing me out.

This depends a lot on your individual financial situation.

People in your situation sometimes remain Ph.D. students for an additional  year. That may not be a possibility for you, but I think becoming a short-term postdoc in your current lab would be regarded, for the purpose of future applications, as essentially equivalent to remaining a student a bit longer.

my colleagues are saying that doing postdoc from the same place is extremely bad for an academic profile

Doing a postdoc only with your PhD advisor might look bad, because it looks like you couldn't get a postdoc somewhere else.  But a brief extended stay at your PhD institution is more likely to be seen as a no-op—most people will understand that it was just a timing issue—especially if you later have a productive postdoc somewhere else.
In any case, you don't have a time machine, so worrying about what you should have done is completely pointless.  Your job now is to make sure your eventual postdoc/faculty application package is as strong as possible.  Do that research!  Publish those papers!  Give those talks!  Build that network!  Cultivate those letter-writers!

Yes. Better to have a brief post-doc at your PhD institution than to be (academically) unemployed for a year... which is quite possibly the obvious alternative, given the way the academic calendar works.

Pay attention to Wayne Gretzky, "skate to where the puck is going to be", not where it is now.  Yes, of course, you were late applying for things before.  You should do that all of last year of Ph.D. school.  Of course, you can't go back in time, but change the behavior NOW at least.  (Your tone implies that you are considering not going after stuff even now.)
Think about "option value".  If you look, you may find something marvelous.  If there's nothing good, you can stay where you are and keep looking.  But not even looking?  Please.  Knowledge is power.  Go do a search.  Create options.
Don't be scared to leave the nest, don't be scared to be an independent researcher.  You can figure out that new modeling approach on your own.  Or correspond, or whatever.  Or find something else cool to do, all new.  Really, by the end of your Ph.D., in addition to being super productive, you should feel like you could do this stuff on your own.  Ideally, you'd move right to a PI position, but this is not the norm in the increasingly ossified overdeveloped academia infrastructure.  But at least a postdoc in a new place.  You will be a bit of a visiting scientist--is good for your development of independence.
Hanging out for a few months, sucking up pay, and doing some more work (while you search your ass off) is fine.  But no more dawdling.  Search is first priority.

Let's assume that it is the start of July and your funding ends at the end of August.  That gives you about eight weeks to look for a postdoc.  This is plenty of time, assuming you do not have too many other duties.
You only need to plan far ahead if you wish to apply for fellowships that are only available once a year.  Many postdocs are advertised throughout the year.
A bigger concern is how you will pay for your relocation costs and the associated gap in employment.

In the U.S., in math, it is necessary to apply for post-docs in the previous December, at latest. Is it really true that there are some contexts in which summertime applications will be considered at all? I've not heard of any such thing...

@paulgarrett Yes, I believe math postdocs are totally different from postdocs in other fields.  Physics and Engineering do not have a postdoc season, and of course summer time varies in different continents.

Ah. @Anonymous Physicist, thanks for clarifying. I had no idea!

There are many countries besides USA, and in many postdoc positions are open when someone gets funding, not on a tight schedule.

Huh. In computer science, there is a postdoc hiring season, which is roughly synchronized with faculty hiring, even though postdoc funding is not.