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Should computer science indexing sites be considered in rating research?
I am currently working at a university of applied sciences, in the field of Computer Science. Recently there has been formed a section that is in charge of giving stipends related to research. This group has put as a rule that they will only fund research that is indexed in Scimago and in Scopus, but that this could change over time. They have in mind that this would help the institution for increase their visibility in terms of research.
My question is, for our field, should there be other criteria considered, such as if the publication has been indexed in ACM, IEEE Xplore, or DBLP? I mean, there are some conferences that are not considered in Scimago or in Scopus, but that have a good reputation. How to propose that change? What do you think about considering these indexing venues also?

This seems like a horrible rule. In Computer Science, any of ACM, IEEE, and especially DBLP are more useful for judging the seriousness of research than Scimago or Scopus. That being said, any strict rule you put out that takes the form of "X units of money for Y publications of a certain type" is likely to lead to gaming of the system rather than great research impact.

Another huge problem with this kind of rule is that publication rates (papers per researcher per year) and citation rates of papers vary dramatically between disciplines.  It may be appropriate to use these measurements to compare two researchers in the same discipline, but nto across discisplines.

If you have any experimental particle physics group, as @BrianBorchers says, you may as well give up; those guys publish 300 papers per year.

@xLeitix thank you for your comment, sorry for asking, but do you have in mind any study that could backup it? I am starting the fight to make them to consider this indexing sites and I need all the help available

@Layla I am not aware of any study, but look at attempts like CORE (http://www.core.edu.au), which classifies computer science research for Australia, and cross-check how many of the things rated A*, A or B in CORE are not even listed in Scopus. If you accept as a premise that the people behind CORE are not complete morons it should be easy to deduct that Scopus may be a tad incomplete for computer science. Edit: ah, one of the answers mentions CORE anyway.

@Layla Similarly, take DBLP which does not rank but at least list computer science publications, and cross-check how few of the papers in DBLP are not in Scopus.

Computer science is typically badly under-represented in the "traditional" citation indices, which do not consider conferences to be peer-reviewed publications.  As any computer scientist knows, that is a bad joke: many computer science conferences are much more stiffly reviewed and difficult to enter than most journals.
It is for this reason that DBLP was created, to actually index relevant and reputable computer science publications.  I believe that DBLP should cover everything in ACM DL and IEEE Xplore, so getting just that accepted by the university should be sufficient.
Unfortunately, what you are seeing is another instance of a long-running and frequently waged fight.  Take heart, however, that this fight has already been won at most top institutions, and can be won at yours as well.

In addition to jakebeal's answer, let me address the "How to propose that change?" question.
Surely the requirement to have work indexed at Scimago and Scopus was instantiated to have some "measurable" guideline -- the initiators of the project probably wanted to avoid any discussions on what papers should count and what shouldn't later. While this is understandable, it has the problems of (1) giving people an incentive to game the system, and (2) keep people away from supporting new publication venues that are not yet on a list.
So all you can do is to have them make the list of acceptable publication venues as inclusive as reasonably possible - and you will need to follow their "visibility in terms of research" line of thought to have strong arguments. Here is one idea for doing so, although it means a lot of work.

Check how many venues that are not already in Scimago and Scopus have been used to present research that was mentioned in connection with the Turing medal. Surely, if venues that had such an impact are missing, your request for making the list more inclusive would be reasonable.

There is a CORE conference ranking - Quite a lot of effort has been put into assembling it and it is or was used somehow for research funding allocation in Australia (someone else may know more about that). While such rankings are not unproblematic (and this one is based on the Australian perspective), publications in conferences ranked "A" in this list should surely count. If you find some conferences on the list that are ranked A and are not indexed in Scopus or Scimago but are indexed on DBLP, this makes a reasonably strong case for the inclusion of DBLP.

You may also need to provide evidence that conference papers are so important for computer science. I think that publications on this matter have been mentioned here at academia.stackexchange, so you should also be able to find them.

On a related note, I'm not sure if all IEEE Xplore publications are indexed by DBLP. There used to be quite a significant lag between IEEE Xplore publication and addition to DBLP (>6 months), which is very late if the data is to be used for scholarship allocation. Also, IEEE Xplore used to contain proceedings of some "spamferences", but they may have kicked them out in the meantime.


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How to use copyrighted images in an article?
I have developed an educational software in which I make use of some copyrighted images, for example from Disney, and am now writing an article about it.
How should I reference or cite that those images are copyrighted? Should I put it on a footnote or just blur the images inside the article?
I would not like to have problems of an article rejection because of that.

Tou should cite them as instructed by the copyright owners when you obtained their permission to reuse their images. You did ask them, didn't you?

@JeffE Permission to use the images in the software doesn't necessarily imply permission to use them in an article about the software. This is a question to ask a lawyer.

Are you asking for citation style or for answers from a copyright and legal aspect?

The images are copyrighted. You are not allowed to put it in the article unless you obtain an explicit (and preferably written) permission by the copyright holder to use it there. If you obtained a permission to use it for research and you would like to consider it a permission to publish it in an article, you better consult a lawyer, but the odds are that you can't do that. As well, do not forget to check whether the journal's copyright transfer is not conflicting with the permission you obtain from the picture's copyright holder. You'll very likely need an exception from the Editor to be allowed to use the image.
To see that this is an issue, remember that the usage of the famous Lenna picture led to legal complaints raised by PlayBoy who is the copyright holder. They decided to cancel the complaints, but it was just their choice. (Source: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~chuck/lennapg/lenna.shtml)

I would cite images using footnotes using either the MLA or APA image citation guidelines. However, there are some extra citation requirements for disney images see the walt disney terms of use web page http://www.waltdisney.org/terms-use pay particular attention to the section on fair use.

Scientific publication is neither education nor non-commercial. Also, you transfer the copyright to the journal publisher, which may be a problem, and is certainly not implicitly treated by the ToU.

source: Stack Exchange

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How to overcome feeling that published articles lack public interest?
I am a MSc graduate student, still trying to get a PhD position, but with no success at all. During and after my graduation I struggle to publish some articles (right now I got 6, mostly published in IEEE conferences or indexed in Scopus), but I do not feel happy at all.
The problem is that I see my publications as having a lack of public interest. I would like to publish more interesting, formal and mathematical stuff (I am in the field of Computer Science), but the problem that I have is that in my current place of work almost all my time is dedicated to lecturing. Also, and because I am working in a university of applied sciences; the research made here is highly applicable and less theoretical. All this things has put me in a state of deep depression.
What should I do to start looking to my research and my made publications with a different attitude? Should I seek for medical counselling?
Thanks

I think all research suffers from a lack of public interest. I'm surprised that applied science makes you depressed. Theory definitely won't have much public interest.

(right now I got 6, That is too many papers for a master student. You maybe were able to publish, but that does not necessarily mean good papers.

Should I seek for medical counselling? If you are suffering from a clinical depression, certainly. What you have described in this post are feelings. Seek medical help if your feelings are adversely affecting your general well-being (which may or may not be the case for you - only you know).

"deep depression" - yes go ask a good councellor about it.  Here is a very helpful checklist that might reassure you whether you need to or not: http://www.beyondblue.org.au/the-facts/depression/signs-and-symptoms   As a person prone to depression, I can highly recommend actually getting good help.   There's nothing to loose from trying it out (help).

You should use technology to disseminate your findings, please refer to my answer below.

When you say "public interest", do you mean that you want ordinary people to be interested in your work, or do you just mean other academics?

"That is too many papers for a master student" That is an absolutely absurd comment without knowing a lot more information.

Publishing in IEEE conferences means nothing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCIgen#How_many_SCIgen_papers_can_be_found_in_IEEE_Xplore.3F

What should I do to start looking to my research and my made publications with a different attitude?

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that your problem isn't that you are working in applied sciences vs. theory. Further, I am not sure if your problems are of medical nature (but this can of course not be ruled out from what you wrote). Let me recap some things you wrote and provide some interpretation. I am not sure to what extend this will answer your question, but I hope my ramblings will provide input and perspective anyways. Maybe somebody else will provide a more direct answer to the question.
You are a master student who published 6 papers during his masters at a university of applied sciences. All of the papers have been in IEEE/Scopus venues. Yet you still can't get a PhD position.
First of, IEEE conferences or indexed in Scopus isn't the quality label you maybe hope it is. There are terrible venues for which both of these things are true. The fact that you say you have very little time for research, and still wrote 6 of those things indicates that the quality of your papers may be not all that super. If this is the case, the problem that prevents your papers from having impact isn't that they are applied, it is that they may simply not be very good.
This may also be the issue with your PhD applications. For me, and many others, papers below a certain (subjective) quality standard count for next to nothing. Really bad papers may actively work against you. Again, "IEEE conferences or indexed in Scopus" does not rule out either of these cases, so try to evaluate your publications independently of these labels. For instance, pick a few PhD student papers from the group that you are applying to. Try to neutrally evaluate whether your papers play in the same league as those. If all papers of PhD students of the prof. or lab you are applying to are much better, and/or have appeared in much better venues than your papers, I am uncertain how much your publications will help your case.
You worry that your papers do not have a strong impact.
I think this point warrants some additional explanation. One of the sad realities of research is that most papers in all but the very top venues of your field (think ICSE or CHI for applied computer science) have very little to zero impact on the research community - and even the papers in the top venues often have close to zero impact on anybody outside your research community. Papers that really get the attention of your fellow researchers are few and far between. I have written papers that I personally consider good to great, which remain pretty much uncited (and, presumably, almost unread) to this day.
You want to progress as a researcher, but you work almost exclusively as a lecturer.
Try to see your situation as it is. Similarly to above, your problem isn't so much that you are working in a university of applied sciences - your problem is that your current position is incompatible with your career goals. You want to do research, but your job is teaching. Your situation would be none the better if you worked as a pure lecturer in a research institution (maybe this would in fact be even more frustrating for you). What you need to do is either (a) find a job or stipend that allows you to do what you want to do, or (b) accept that you are currently not on a research track.

I would imagine it may be helpful to ask for someone else's help is evaluating the quality of the papers and looking for ways to improve. Who would be an appropriate person to ask?

Can I read one of your papers that isn't highly cited?  I'm always interested in good publications that get overlooked.

I think that to be happy in research, you have to be doing it for you.   Not for external validation.
Are the papers that you published in your opinion good?   Did it give you fulfillment completing them?
And ... most importantly ... are you looking forwards to doing more?  Looking forwards purely because you like doing them, and it fulfills your academic curiosity?
If the answer to these is no, then you may have a problem of doing what you're doing for external validation (IE you want to feel good about yourself based on what others say about you).
As a comparatively senior (age) person I can tell you from life's experience that this is a recipe for depression.   In order to have a fulfilling life, you need your validation to be coming from inside.    If you are relying on others for your self-worth, you are always going to be let down.
This is true in any field of life, but especially so in academia, where lets face it no-one really cares about your little area, no matter what it is (unless you are one of the lucky lucky few ... do you want to base your happiness on that chance?).
This stuff sounds simple but can be hard to get your head around and mentally fix up.   A good counsellor can help a lot: you don't need to go to them because you are "depressed", you can go even if you are basically healthy but need to have your self validation improved to enjoy life more.   Cognitive Behaviour Therapy is one good technique for this, if you are wondering what "kind" of help to look for.

Aim High, target top conferences and take your time when doing research.
@xLeitix gave a nice answer. I would speak from my experience here.
I was in a similar situation when I finished my Master degree. I published several papers with my advisor, all in ranked C conferences and two in unreputable journals. This was partially because I was new to research. I thought publishing anything anywhere is something good; obviously this was not true. I am now 2 years into my PhD and I have not published a single paper. The result: I am happy now that I have a manuscript that has a good chance to be accepted in a top conference.
I assume part of your feeling of depression is because you do not believe in your results. You do not see them as being as good as other (even uncited) related results. This might be true. And this is a good sign that you are in the right track of becoming expert in your field. Take your time in doing research. Instead of publishing every single small idea you have, try to combine them into one more solid paper. The bottom line: if you work on something, you have to believe in its merits and fight for it.
For theoretic versus applied research, I believe this is a personal preference and interest more than anything else. If you see yourself more as someone who is into the theoretic aspects of the problem, then do theoretic research. Either ways, the joy of research is that 1) you give crazy ideas a try 2) believe what you did is something really good 3) people (at least the reviewers) either admit it is good or provide a learning experience through constructive criticism.

You are not alone
I somewhat recently wrote a paper that makes multithreaded programming easier, guarantees that there are no data races and offers more optimization potential. Seeing how multithreading is one of the major topics at the moment and how much my system improves that I expected to get the Turing Award by now. I sent my paper to a couple of experts on the matter and only got one replay that said sorry no time. The conference I sent it to said Sorry, this is off-topic this year. I am not even convinced my professor actually read it. This is probably the greatest contribution to science of my life and nobody cares. It is indeed very frustrating.
Medical help
Seeking medical help will most likely not work out for you. I am no psychologist but the gist of it is that if you get sad because something bad happened that is normal and there is nothing to be done about it. If good things happen to you and you still get sad for no reason that is a depression that can be treated. Seeing that you are upset about a real problem, solving the problem will help whereas therapy will not.
Solving the problem
Send the paper and presentations or articles about it to conferences and journals. When they reject your paper (they will!) they will give you reasons. Some of those reasons actually make sense, so you can fix your paper. Find local meetups or study groups to present it and get feedback. Sometimes you just didn't word the point in a way that people understand it and in a live audience someone may ask the correct question. Keep improving the paper. Make real applications that solve real problems, don't just keep to theory and paper writing. This is a lot of work that we should not need to do and are not particularly good at, but I hope eventually someone will "discover" us and it will be worth it.
TLDR
Don't give up, keep at it.

This medical advice is wrong and irresponsible. Feeling sad about something to the point that it affects your general well-being is a mental health issue that can and should be treated, regardless of whether you are sad for a "real" reason or not.

If you really want to write for the public, consider trying to write "popularizing" articles for magazines/newspapers/websites that the public reads. There's definitely a market for well-written articles that explain new discoveries -- or even old discoveries, interesting techniques, and basic principles -- on a level suitable to someone who is science-literate, generally curious, but not deeply steeped in your field.
Scientific American used to have magnificent examples of this kind of writing, though my perception is that they've gone downhill in recent years. Technology Review magazine often has good examples, though they're obviously biased toward articles contributed by the MIT community.
Steven Jay Gould's extended series of essays in Natural History magazine were a great example of explaining fairly subtle aspects of science -- and of the history of science -- in near-layman's language. Anthologies exist covering just about the entire run -- including pieces where he corrected his own prior essays when new information became available.
As a much older example of the scientific essay form, Berton Rouche was just about synonymous with the "medical mystery" form, in which a puzzling (preferably real) case is presented in semi-story form, which is then used as a springboard to discussion of the biology, chemistry, history, diagnostic technique, or whatever else the essay is really about. Most of his pieces were originally published in a magazine (the New Yorker?) but subsequently collected into anthologies; it shouldn't be too hard to find them and they're fun reading if you're a scientific omnivore.
Of course those two were excellent writers as well as having scientific knowledge. I'm just suggesting that, if your focus is on the public, that's the kind of ideal you might aspire to. You'd need to be able to write well and clearly, have something to talk about which they'll find interesting (or that you can quickly convince them they should be interested in), and be able to discuss it in terms of things they're already likely to have at least some knowledge of (or be able to define your terms as you go without losing the reader along the way).
Of course as with any kind of writing, don't expect it to come quickly or easily. Popularizing articles are a craft of their own, the market isn't huge, expect to see lots of rejection letters unless you're "self-publishing" onto the web (fewer as you hone your craft)... all the usual platitudes and advice about writing for the public apply.
And as Gould demonstrated, this can be done alongside a productive research career producing results not immediately accessible to the public. Doing both simultaneously is a lot more work, but it's one way to reconcile the conflicting goals of advancing the field and advancing public knowledge about the field.

I was always thinking about the visibility issues and finally I come up with a reasonable strategy, I also hope that these steps can improve the data dissemination of your research.

I may suggest using arXiv preprint server for your works and of course you should have a web page and googlescholar account.
If you developed a simulator for your work, try to improve it a bit and make it opensource (upload it to github or something similar).
Prepare a walk-through for your simulator and upload to youtube.
Prepare a presentation for your paper and prepare a video of your presentation and just the sound via a video editing tool. Uploading this presentation to youtube also improves the visibility and dissemination of your findings.

P.S. You should start with the work that you are most satisfied :)

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Should I submit my revised workshop paper to a journal if I don't think it will meet the "30% new material" requirement?
Let me explain my case first. I submitted an article to a Computer Science Conference, and it got one rejection, and two qualifications as a borderline paper. The reviewer that rejected the paper only said that it was not in the scope of the conference and nothing more. The other two reviewers made thoughtful comments and the final verdict was that I should submit it for a workshop on that conference.
I made the necessary changes, submitted to the workshop and it got accepted. Here it was one accept, one borderline and one reject. So I changed some parts that the reviewers suggested and submit it for the final printing.
The thing is that there will be an special edition of a journal that is planning to consider the papers submitted to this conference. So the authors should re-submit their papers for a new review and they state that the papers should present at least 30% of new material.
Here is the point, the deadline is approaching fast and I am making the add-ons based on what the reviewers point me before (when I first submit it for the conference and then what was the suggestions for the workshop), but I am running out of ideas; by the way, I am the sole author of this paper. What should I do in this case? Should I just submit it with the changes? I just don't know if that would be enough. Or am I just wasting my time and should I left it because it has already been published in the workshop?

.."The thing is that there will be an special edition of a journal that is planning to consider the papers submitted to this conference" This is usually for the accepted papers on the conference and not the rejected ones, like yours.

...also 30% of new material rule always refers to new experiments, test cases, applications and so-on. It is impossible to add 30% more content more just by addressing reviewer comments.

What should I do in this case? — You should talk to your advisor.

@Alexandros Difficult, perhaps, but definitely not impossible.  (And his paper was accepted to the workshop.)

From an ethical point of view, submitting your paper is perfectly fine if you make clear what the changes to the workshop version are that make the paper contain something new.
As far as the question whether you should do it is concerned: If you cannot even convince yourself that you have enough new stuff in the paper to justify (another) journal publication, then it will be insanely hard for you to convince the reviewers that there is enough new stuff. So the submission is likely to waste your time (and possible the reviewer's time -- if the paper gets past the editor) as it is too likely to be rejected. If you are very lucky, some reviewer will suggest a possible point of extension that will make the paper strong enough for another submission.

My short answer would be, do what you think should be done and submit it. How anyone can put a fixed, in this case, 30% new material requirement on something appears ridiculous. To imagine a good paper would be rejected because it is not 30% new creates a sense of amusement in me. Either the manuscript is publishable or it is not. It can of course be deemed not appropriate for the issue but that is a different problem.
Apart from the idiosyncrasies of your system you need to assess the value of your manuscript. Is the work publishable or not. Will the thematic issue be the only way forward for this manuscript or will it be publishable elsewhere? Actually regardless of the answer to the latter question, sending it to the thematic issue would not hurt. You could get it published there which probably would attract attention to it since it is published along with other papers with similar focus. If it is rejected you will likely have additional feedback that would help when publishing elsewhere. I will point out to anyone thinking otherwise that I am not suggesting sending in something subpar just to get reviewers to help here!
In the end you need to see what you think can and should be done with your manuscript and make sure you do it. You cannot do much more, if you fall short of 30%.

The "30% new material" requirement is common and sometimes quite strict in my field (computer science/electrical engineering), where conference and workshop papers are considered "real" publications. Can you clarify whether your experience is in a field that has a similar publication culture?

@ff524: I believe you.  It seems to me only sensible to hold that papers must have a certain threshold of new material in order to be published.  So at first I thought I disagreed with this answer.  On reflection, I think Peter is saying "What's up with the 30% figure?  Is there some method for precisely evaluating the percentage novelty that some people know and that 28% new material would not be sufficient but 32% would?" If so, I agree: papers should be published if they are sufficiently new in a holistic sense, not as measured (how??) by a percentage.

@Pete Here is some relevant background on the 30% rule.

@ff524: Thanks.  Though (unsurprisingly) your link did not explain how to compute the numerical percentage of new material, it made interesting reading.  My eyes popped out when I read: "The new material should be content material, not just the addition of proofs or a few more performance figures."  Thankfully, the bizarreness of this assertion was addressed explicitly and at length later on.

Internet archive version of the page mentioned in @ff524's comment (now a 404 error): https://web.archive.org/web/20150117072755/http://tods.acm.org/30PercentRulePolicy.html


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How many journals can one follow at the same time?
I have been following 7 journals at the same time for may be about 10 years now. 4 of them are relatively unpopular and publish may be about 50 papers per year, so they are easy to follow, 1 has 100+ papers so it sometimes requires an effort to read about everything they publish but the other 2 are very popular and publish biweekly full issues with dozens of papers, so it is painful to follow them and I need to look at their webpages to see what is new almost every day. However, I'm interested in a field where I always need to look for papers outside of it and have to browse many journals irregularly to find possibly interesting information. That means I browse through dozens of journals irregularly and have to look through literally thousands of papers. And, oh God, it takes its toll. But the REAL problem is that my requirements only get broader with time, so I now can't just keep on. I think there are really too many journals and too many papers in them to browse through and I can't even manage to read through all the titles of all the papers that could potentially interest me, let alone read the abstracts.
This is why I would like to try to find someone who has similar problems and ask him/her how does s/he manage to solve them, e.g. what does it take to browse the maximum number of journals possible as far as search optimization, number of journals covered and time are concerned? Is it possible to cover a wide field and follow everything it happens in it so you could be aware of the new papers published in dozens of journals or is this simply impossible? I want to know how far can I get and how much time would the effort consume, so, if you could share with me your experience I would be very thankful.
Thank you very much!

People still follow journals? — Is it possible to cover a wide field to follow everything it happens.... — No.  It's not possible.

Then, what are the options @JeffE?

Realize that nobody knows the entire field, and that's okay, because  you don't need to know the entire field to make significant research contributions.  Figure out the small subset of the literature that you actually use and care about the most, and only follow that.  Google for key words/phrases/authors and chase references/citations when you need something outside that sphere.

I give the maximum I could squeeze out of myself at the cost of virtually every minute free time and even sleep-time I could get out of myself but still it is not enough @JeffE! I can't cover even a fraction of all the literature on all questions that interest me let alone find all the relevant literature in the fields I want to know about. The end result is that I must submit to the fact that I have huge gaps in my knowledge and I can't possibly fill it. But then how could I be sure I know everything there is out there to know about what interests me if I can't even make a

descent literature check!

I tend to agree with you @glauc but the problem is I want to know can I cut the costs in both the time I spend searching for literature online and the time between the article going online and me actually learning about it. Can it be done in some way?

how could I be sure I know everything there is out there — You can't.  It's not possible.  Stop killing yourself trying.

Closely linked to the former comment and more an addon: If you register for email alerts, you can most often decide how often do you want to be informed (every article that goes OnlineFirst, just a weekly or monthly email alert or only the final journal issue).

For my work, I differentiate between journals that are really close to my field of study and I should know immediately about any study that is published (and these are the journals in which I want to publish my work), journals that are important (often more general-interest journals), but cover such a wide range of topics that many published articles are not directly relevant to me, and thus, I just get a monthly email alert. Finally there are journals that are on the margin of my research interests (or situated in other disciplines), but I like to keep track of them. For these, I get only the TOC of each published issue.

With this strategy, I can also reduce the amount of time that I devote to skim through the new email alerts. I can't really tell you the exact number of journals that are in each category, but my feeling is that the number is from the first to the last category decreasing.

I hope this helps you?!


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Can research rejected by journals has any chances being accepted if it is disseminated by the social media?
I know it may sound somewhat out-of-order (if not outright crazy) to suggest it, but has anybody tried to use sites like Mendeley or the arXiv or some "social media" where you can upload PDFs to spread his or hers research even before publication? Has it ever been successful?
I know many scientists make profiles in diverse social medias to upload PDFs of their work (at least the ones they are allowed to) but I wonder how effective can it be if some "outsider" do the same? If I just create a Mendeley account and/or group and upload several PDFs there, write a short description what I am dealing with and the problems I face finding the right audience, do you think anybody will notice them or am I just making my situation worse? Do you think it will work? Or uploading them to the arXiv? Or just making a Google+ account? Or anything of this kind of "group sharing" of PDFs? I'm talking about papers turned away from journals because they are outside-scope and the journal is having problems to find proper experts to review them or outright deciding it isn't worth it to expand in this field. The more time passes the more I feel like I'm create a new field here and since it is brand new no journal is well-adjusted to take on it. Don't think I'm intentionally running away from the peer-review because I want to smear the academia. If enough people agree to at least view them (I'm not talking about agreeing with them just saying that there is something of a worth in them) can it spread enough to cause at least one journal to review it seriously? Can such a "buzz" strategy manage to spread awareness of an issue even if no one wants to publish it?
P.S.Please, be considerate to me and just tell me should I try it or not. Don't judge me, please, I'm just considering my options. I just want to reach somebody who can take me seriously, not get pushed back by the system because the reviewers can take the no-scope option.
P.S.2.What I am trying to publish s a paper laying the foundation of a brand new concept how complexity can arise. One which (as far as I know-I can't claim I have read everything about complexity which has ever been published-as you may know this is so HUGE field one can never claim such thing even if he reads about it all his life) contains ideas never researched before and has to include by basic thesis (3-5 pages of my core concepts) and a particular example how they are used. If I can get even one paper with the core in any journal, it will be very easy to start submitting many other papers in other journals citing it. Then I will be within the scope of these journals, but the big problem is this first one I must get in. I simply need a place which can accept my methodology and core ideas together with my example but it's this methodology which is so hard to understand and put in scope anywhere!

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

In my experience, even peer-reviewed publications are rarely read. There are a handful of influential papers in each field (from what I have seen) which are read and cited. But beyond these, a lot of work is only cited to keep people happy.
Therefore, I think that the chances of people reading the work without it being peer-reviewed are very slim.
If you want your work to get reviewed and it is being rejected before being read (this is what you're saying, I think), then you perhaps need co-authors that know the field better.

I haven't thought about that, thank you for the idea.

Interesting speculation but the evidence suggests otherwise: disseminating work (even if not peer reviewed) via social network can increase exposure tremendously.

@KonradRudolph I think this might depend on the field and where exactly the research is disseminated. Certainly in math, if you put it on arXiv and it is good, it will often get noticed, but I doubt the same would be true of pretty much any other place of dissemination.

@ZeroTheHero It's not rare. I don't know which field you're in but in physics for instance virtually all research is disseminated this way. In life sciences the tend is steadily growing. And in computer science, a sizeable fraction of publications are first published (and read, and cited) as (non peer reviewed) conference proceedings.

@KonradRudolph Which areas of computer science are those? As far as I know, those areas where conference publication is the norm, those conferences have peer review.

I put the disclaimer "in my experience", because in my area(s) (AI and to some extent Software Engineering and Ethics) work is disseminated via peer-reviewed conference proceedings and, often secondarily journals (but some more applied areas Journals are more prominent). It is true that Arxiv is used, especially with theoretical work. In this case I think peer-review involves mathematicians checking proofs etcetera. Some work submitted to Arxiv is never checked, due to being viewed as likely nonsense (e.g., anything with "A Simple Proof that P = NP").

@ZeroTheHero I’m not sure where to start. For example, you say that “some "top" journals (v.g. Nature) discourage pre-publication on arXiv” but that’s outdated information: virtually all top journals now embrace or at least accept preprint. NEJM is the one exception IIRC. Your claim about grants is likewise already somewhat outdated, and will be more and more outdated in the months to come. Many grant reviewers have voiced their displeasure with past policies and do consider preprints in their assessment. As for rejected papers that became famous through arXiv, I didn’t claim that.

@ThomasKing The disclaimer is all nice and well but, with all due respect, I posit that if you have no experience with social media then you may be the wrong person to answer this question. I can assure you that for scientists who do use social media, it plays a primary role in receiving recommendations, and disseminating, scientific work on many topics. This explicitly includes preprints, and they in fact constitute a large fraction of that body of work. It’s a shame this question got closed or I would have added my own answer discussing this.

That's scientists who do use social media in an area where dissemination that way works. In my area, and I do use social media, I have not seen that to be the case. I made that clear in my answer.

@ThomasKing Then you don’t seem to be using social media for science. That’s the long and the short of it. Otherwise you’d have seen it in effect. My Twitter is full of research reading recommendations. In fact, that’s most of its contents.

No, I do use social media for science/research. But in my area it is used for already published work, as I have stated. Perhaps you need to consider that your area is different from my area, in much the same way I put a disclaimer making it clear that it was my experience and I do not have a representative sample of all fields.

@ThomasKing OK then: then how do you think arXiv articles in your field are disseminated?

They're generally not. The workflow is conference -> social media. In any case, let's just agree, our fields are different, I don't think this will get us anywhere!

@KonradRudolph What do you mean by "how"? Why would they be disseminated other ways than arXiv?

One part of your question is very easy to answer:

If enough people agree to at least view them can it spread enough to cause at least one journal to review it seriously?

Journals only consider papers submitted to them.  They will not review your work because it is popular on social media.

I mean it after it has been turned down by a journal. I will go and edit my question now.

Generally true but I've heard of cases where journal editors have themselves voiced interest in preprint papers.

I agree. Journals are more old-school than you think. Journals do not understand popularity through social media, and I doubt they even follow if they were wrong to reject a paper.


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how to indicate permission when reusing a figure from a published study
This is a follow-up to my previous question regarding the inclusion of a figure in my grant proposal.
I followed the necessary steps and obtained permission, which was granted free of charge. I received an email with the subject line 'Thank you for your order with RightsLink / John Wiley and Sons.' However, I am unsure whether this confirms that I have obtained permission.
Assuming that I do have permission, what do I do with it? Should I include a statement in the figure caption indicating that permission was obtained (include the order number)?
I have observed instances in which figures from one study were reused in another study, but I have never encountered cases where permission for such reuse was explicitly discussed in their captions.
The linked post (suggested duplicates) is not an answer for how to indicate permission, although it provides an example in which permission is noted. In particular, it states that one way to indicate that permission is obtained is to say:
Reproduced with permission from [ref]
However, citing the paper for permission is not necessarily accurate when the permission does not belong to the published paper itself.
Also, is proof of permission (e.g., License Number) not needed? Do you only have to provide proof when someone asks for it?

Your second paragraph doesn't make sense. The first sentence says you obtained permission. The last doubts the truth of that. Which is it?

@Buffy This is because I did not know what proof of permission looks like. I purchased permission for $0 from a website and received the receipt, but I was not sure whether the receipt was considered proof of permission.
Later, I found a link in the receipt in which they state:
'This Agreement between ("You") and John Wiley and Sons ("John Wiley and Sons") consists of your license details and the terms and conditions provided by John Wiley and Sons and Copyright Clearance Center.'
So, I now believe that I have proper permission. The link also contains a License Number.

The typical way is to include, at the end of the citation of the original, "Used with permission" or "Included with permission". If the citation itself doesn't make clear who the rights holder is, then "Used with permission of John Wiley & Sons".

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


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Is it acceptable to ask another faculty member from different department to review my paper prior to submission to a journal?
I am a PhD student in Civil and Environmental Engineering and have just finished writing a paper which contains a statistical details. Is it acceptable to ask a faculty member in the statistics department in my university to revise my paper before submitting it to a journal to get it published?

Yes. You can ask even your brother's mother's son if you want to.
He/she may say no, if they are too busy.

As @DaveClarke writes, you can always ask. This question may be informative: When does a statistical consultant become a co-author or collaborator?

It is acceptable, but consult and inform your co-authors and advisor about your decision to avoid unwanted issues and problems.

Of course, as Enthusiastic Student says, you should check with your co-authors before sharing your unpublished work with anyone.  Once that is done, you can certainly ask.
Statisticians are very often asked to consult on the use of statistics in papers from other areas.  So it's possible that your institution has some system in place for such requests.  You should check with your advisor and/or other people who have done this before.  For example, some statistics departments have a "consulting pool" of graduate students who are available for jobs like this.
Some statisticians may only be interested if they would be doing enough work to qualify for co-authorship on the paper (see When does a statistical consultant become a co-author or collaborator? as linked by Stephan Kolassa).  Or, they may want to be paid.


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How to react to unfair reviewer comments?
I'm in a situation where my paper is accepted conditionally, thus I need to revise it in some way as stated by the reviewers. While two reviews were encouraging and mostly constructive, the third review is way off from the other reviewers in their judgement and included sources that I "forgot" to cite and should mention.
Yet, there is a problem since the sources listed by the reviewer were published just ONE day AFTER the hand-in deadline of the paper. I was not able to anyhow know about them. I feel in a dilemma right now between acting "independent" as a researcher but also having to follow the comments made by the reviewer to have a positive outcome.

Am I obliged to follow their comments?
Should I react in the "review log" that I need to upload, that the "status quo" on which research performed is not based upon these sources (although they might be relevant), therefore I will ignore the sources named by the reviewer? I feel that I should at least mention it from a moral standpoint.
How should I behave for a positive outcome? I feel the review was written with negative intentions in mind.

If those sources are relevant to your paper, they should be cited. If they are not relevant, explain why in the review log. The fact that the sources were not available at the time of submission does not play any role. Try not to let the negative tone of the reviewer lead you to wrong scientific decisions.

To the very good answers you got, I recommend you ask some people around. They would be able to give you much better feedback if they can actually read the paper and understand the implications of the papers they want you to cite.

"not based upon these sources" seems totally irrelevant. If that's your only argument, you might be mistaken. At least in my field (computer science), related work should also cover things that are related even if you don't use them. Say, if problem A might be solved by approach X and Y, paper on X should discuss Y and viceversa, for instance to explain "why bother with Y when X solves the problem well?"

On the contrary - include the new citations, show that these "newer" publications reach the same conclusions - thus supporting your paper - And like suggested - be the bigger person - give credit to the reviser that hinted the newer reports ...

Get a punching bag, paste a copy of the review to it, and let them know how you feel... :-P

@einpoklum-reinstateMonica best comment

@CurzonDax: Unfortunately, also the most effective comment, since trying anything else mostly ends in failure and bitterness :-(

Take a very deep breath. The only way to react to a review that you believe to be in bad faith is to act as the bigger person. You can definitely mention that the reviewer disagrees with the other reviewers, but don't say anything about motives to the editor - there is no way that it can benefit you. The editor will have noted a difference in tone themselves and decided what they think about it. If you complain, and the editor has decided the review is valid, you just look defensive and bitter. If they have already decided that the third review is unfair, then you'll make no difference.
If its possible implement the reviewers suggestions, do so unless you think it seriously harms the paper. Whether you think they are fair or not, as long as they don't hurt the paper, do it. This goes double for citing papers if they relevant; 90% of citations in a paper will be read after the work it done.
"How should I behave for a positive outcome?" Open a bottle of champagne, celebrate your paper, be thankful you got through it despite the reviewer and forget about it. There is nothing you can do about this sort of thing. If you really want to do something support movements for open peer review and next time submit to a journal that practices it.

Thanks for your comments. I guess "take a deep breath" is what helps the most :). What do you think in particular about the papers that were practically impossible to cite when handing in from a moral standpoint? This feels like cheating to me.

Well, I don't see the problem. If the paper is relevant -- that is, if a reader might find it useful to compare your approach to what that other paper has to say -- then cite it. It doesn't matter to a reader whether that other paper was available at the time when you first submitted yours. Of course you couldn't know about it, but now you do and you have the choice to cite it. It's not uncommon to add references during the revision process of a paper, including to other publications that weren't around during your first submission.

I guess it helps to see the paper review from a different angle. To be worried that you are being penalized for not citing a paper that you couldn't possibly have at the time makes it sounds like a paper is kind of like an exam that is a mesaure of how good you are as a researcher. But a review is not a measure of your abilities or character. At its best a review should be a process to improve a paper to better benefit the reader. Even at worst, it should be an evaluation of weather the paper is the best representation of the field.

Where do you get a bottle of campaign?

Assume all criticism is valid unless/until you can prove otherwise.  The reviewer may be trying to make the paper as good as possible (in their opinion).  Give them the benefit of the doubt, but don't be afraid to debate them if you feel they're wrong.

Paper got accepted, thanks for the help! I opened a bottle of champagne with my parents and wife. Thanks so much this was the right strategy

It certainly appears as though the reviewer is making an unreasonable demand, yes. Unfortunately, this situation is too common: reviewers as experts, and thus often active participants in the field, have their own conflicts of interest and biases. Since your paper is conditionally accepted, I recommend you let it go.
Try to ignore the reviewer's intentions, but instead objectively evaluate whether you can meet his demands without compromising your paper in terms of quality or ethics. Specifically:
(1) I feel that since your paper is not yet published, assuming the suggested sources are indeed relevant, it is worth mentioning them for the benefit of your readers. In my own field (chemistry), where it is common for related (or identical) studies to come out during the publication process, we often include a note to the effect of: "After submission of this paper, several relevant and independent studies were published (ref. XXX)." This way, you can point the reader to them (which both the reader and authors of those papers will appreciate) and make it clear that your research was done without knowledge of theirs.
(2) Write a note to the editor to explain what happened: that you did not "forget," but are happy to cite those references. If the reviewer's intention is really to make sure your citations are complete, they should be satisfied.
I guarantee that the editor knows what a bad-faith reviewer looks like, and you taking too much effort to point that out will only backfire. It will make you seem petty and dramatic. Instead, you should focus on feeling happy about the publication of your paper! Congratulations!

During the publication of this answer, two other much better answers independently appeared :)

I ll give you credit anyways. Thank you very much. I appreciate your answer

Reviewers are not necessarily experts.

If the papers the reviewer is pointing you to actually have impact on your paper, the reviewer is doing you a favor, potentially extending the useful lifetime of your published work.
Read the papers, and incorporate them if it makes sense.  If it doesn't, don't, and explain why.If you feel compelled to make the point that you didn't "forget" to include them, but that they were published after your submission, feel free, but it likely won't help or hurt your chances of acceptance (so long as you do it nicely).
The review you got does not seem out of line, or at least out of the ordinary.  Your reaction to it seems too dramatic.

1) Am I obliged to follow his comments?

No, but ignoring all comments is unlikely to result in an (unconditional) accept.

2) Should I react in the "review log" that I need to upload, that the research performed is not based upon these sources (although they might be relevant), therefore I will ignore the sources named by the reviewer?

I recommend citing (in the paper) at least some of the citations and explaining why they are irrelevant. Other citations you might dismiss in the "review log," which I assume is a private document which will support your revised paper.

3) How should I behave for a positive outcome? I feel the review was written with negative intentions in mind.

Beyond following my suggestions above, explain (in your "review log") what you have done to address certain comments and explain why other comments need not be address, making sure you are polite and not drawn into a unnecessary battle with the reviewer who seems to have "negative intentions."

my paper is accepted conditionally

I'll improve my answer if the OP explains the above more precisely.

Thanks for your comment. "my paper is accepted conditionally" means I need to revise it following the statements of the reviewers/the editor.

@CurzonDax Yes, I understand that aspect, but how - in your case - will the decision to accept be reached?

What I usually do is take the comments that are more logical and reject the others.... sometimes you find instructive comments and sometimes reviewers comment to comment...but don't be too much affected it's your work after all. Good luck

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


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Do I have to pay back an Australian IPRS Scholarship, if I decide to quit my PhD?
I am currently in an application process for a PhD position in Australia and my advisors said that I might be eligible for an IPRS Scholarship.
Obviously this is a great opportunity, but at the same time also a major life changing decision to leave my home country for a three year PhD program abroad.
Before I make my final decision, I of course want to think of all possible risks involved.
So here is my question: Do you know if I have to pay back the funds recieved by the IPRS Scholarship or and University / Project money if I decide to quit my PhD?
Does anyone of you have any experiences regarding this issue?
Thanks!

Ask that at IPRS, not here. It is a perfectly valid question, and it should not mean to them that you consider quitting, just that you are asking about every eventualities.

I would say no.  When you are awarded an IPRS, you will get the conditions that you need to adhere to.  At my university, there is no clause that says you have to pay back anything if you quit.
If I were you, apply first, and if you are successful, look at the conditions carefully.


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How to start a collaborative online research project?
I am interested in solving some mathematical combinatorial problems. Besides the Polymath project, are there some other online projects where I can state the problems, my approach towards a solution, and then to expect some people to help and collaborate in order to solve the problems and then together publish the solutions?

I think this answer of mine to the following question will help you; Are there any undergraduate research programs available online?

I think one of the best collaborative mathematical websites is here on Stack Exchange; take a look at Mathematics on Stack Exchange to see how many different mathematical questions are posted with various topics and many professionals and mathematicians also collaborate in this site so the user can easilly can learn many mathematical things, find many professional answers and become familiar with new mathematical topics as well. Even by just reading the questions and answers on that site, the user gets familiar with many mathematical topics. It is helpful indeed, at least for me. I strongly encourage you to take a look at that website and enjoy mathematics.

Or, maybe, Mathoverflow?
http://mathoverflow.net/

@digital-Ink I think it is a little more professional than Mathematics website. I have never used it.


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Shared credit for independent discoveries
I've always wondered how credit for scientific discoveries is attributed. Take this example from Wikipedia:

The Merkle–Damgård construction was described in Ralph Merkle's Ph.D. thesis in 1979. Ralph Merkle and Ivan Damgård independently proved [...]
Ivan Bjerre Damgård [...] discovered the structure independently of Ralph Merkle and published it in 1989.

Here we have 2 researchers who independently discovered the same structure. One of them published it in 1979. The other published it a whole 10 years later. Why is it that the credit is not attributed to the person who discovered it first?

I don't know the specifics here, but you may be misinterpreting the article. It doesn't say that they did exactly the same thing, but ten years apart. I think the overall development and verification of the "structure" took some time. But independent work is pretty common and cryptography is a pretty closed world.

I also don't know the specifics, but in this particular case it seems that Merkle didn't actually publish it in a journal (Crypto) until 1989, in the same volume as Damgård. If so, it's likely that people just didn't read Merkle's thesis, and were introduced to the ideas at the same time.


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Is it acceptable to change affiliation to new employer when submitting an updated manuscript when old employer provided limited research support?
Background: I have published a paper with no co-authors in a CS workshop a few months ago. I have put as my affiliation the place in which I was lecturing at that time, say university X. The work was made by myself, with no use of resources from my previous place of work. I applied for some financial help to cover the expenses that I suffered (registration for the workshop, tickets and accommodation), but they agreed only to give at most the 10% of the expenses roughly. This amount has not yet been paid.
I now work at a new university that is research oriented; and there is the opportunity to submit the research paper that I was doing to a journal, after some modifications. So I was wondering:
Is it acceptable to change my affiliation from my old university to the new university when submitting an updated manuscript?
This is mainly because the former one did not bring any kind of support for this research activity.

I would recommend to use both. If the journal differentiates "address" and "current address", then:

"address" is X (where you did the research)
"current address" is Y (that's where people can reach you now, right?)

If the journal doesn't distinguish them, I would put Y first (you seem to consider Y more important). If the journal doesn't allow two affiliations, them the journal is strange; just try to put both affiliations in the one field and see what happens.