text:
Should students who copy homework answers from somewhere else state how they obtained the answer?
I'm an 3rd year undergraduate student, and this semester, I'm taking graduate course in one of my departments.
We have homeworks each week, and while doing the problems on those, I sometimes get stuck. In that case, sometimes I go to the instructor for some hints and discussions, and sometimes, if I really haven't made any progress in that question for long time, I search the answer onthe web (for example math.SE), and write that answer if it satisfies me.
In those latter cases, I put some notes/a disclaimer on the top of the question stating that "I've done these and these, but couldn't solve it, so I looked at the answer from the xxx website".
However, is this something that we indeed expected to do, or am I just making myself sometimes look like "incapable of solving even an elementary question" in the eyes of my instructor ?
Edit:
My question is about the general norm in academia, not whether it is considered cheating or not.

possible duplicate:
https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20182/would-it-be-considered-cheating-to-ask-for-homework-help-on-the-internet-if-i-o

If you do not say where you got it, then you could be accused of plagiarism, which is viewed very negatively in academia.

It is good to be honest in all that you do. You should, of course, ask your professor whether your "researches" are proper or not. I would treat asking someone on math.se for a solution to your exercise as improper, for example.
The reason for that is that you don't learn the necessary lessons by reading a solution that you do by creating it. So it is mostly an educational issue, not an ethical one. But your instructor will give you the most useful advice.
The professor hasn't asked you to solve a problem because he/she needs the solution. The question has been asked because solving the question will advance your  education and finding a solution will be much less effective at that.
Education is about changing how your brain works. In mathematics, especially, you need to do your own work in order to cause the brain to reorganize itself to make advancement possible.
Asking the instructor for help is better in this regard than asking someone else, say on math.SE. The reason is that the instructor can give you a hint that will help you advance, rather than a solution that won't. It may even be useful for  your instructor to know that you are struggling with some ideas. You may get advice that gets you past the block. Math.SE is very unlikely to do that. The answers you likely get there will be too helpful.
Becoming a mathematician is about changes in your brain, not about proofs printed on paper.

Thanks for "The professor hasn't asked you to solve a problem because he/she needs the solution."  Before retirement, on the first day of classes I'd tell my students, "I often already know the answers to the homework problems," and then explain the goal as you've done in your answer.

@BobBrown, It always surprises me that this isn't obvious to students. But, of course, it isn't. They forget that they, themselves, are the product.

One caveat to add to this, is that it may be useful to use an external resource to overcome a particular block so that it become possible to work on the rest of the problem your self. If a problem has 3 stages, but you can't sort out the first one, then the other two are lost to you.

@IanSudbery, perhaps, but a dangerous suggestion in general. There are degrees of acceptability. Using wikipedia, for example, to get background to overcome a block is probably ok in most cases. But seeking/finding an explicit answer probably not. Also hard to judge in general. The first bit may be the crux with the others less important. I urge caution here. Seeking help from the prof is the better way, I suggest.

+1 although I usually express the main point differently. When instructors assign homework, we aren’t asking you for solutions to those particular problems. We’re asking you to demonstrate your skill at solving a certain type of problem and communicating your solution to another human being. (For purposes of this goal, instructors are not human beings.)

Seeking help from the prof is clearly better sure. But if its a choice between getting step one done for you and doing steps 2 and 3 yourself OR not doing any of the problem at all, then its got to be more beneficial to be able to do 2 and 3 tahn not. As long as you acknowledge this so the instructor can see where you are having problems.


text:
What should I do if the lab I am studying at uses a language that I do not understand?
The lab I am studying at is using a language which I completely do not understand at the current time. Almost all of the discussions and presentations are in this language. Sometimes the lab members explain what they are going to talk about before starting their presentations but is it extremely brief compared to what they present in their native language and I think I am missing a lot of knowledge because of this.
It is the official language of the country I am studying in. But because of the fact the the lab is researching at the area of computing and my supervisor and some of the lab members have participated in international conferences, I did not expect the communication gap to be this huge to the degree that is hard for me to understand the research environment at my lab.
I understand that I should learn the language my lab is using but it takes time and I am currently spending most of my time studying for my master degree (in computer engineering) and doing research and I think this has more priority than learning the language...
One of the reasons of joining labs is to get a chance to discuss things with people who have almost same research interests as yours and I feel this goal has not being accomplished because of the communication gap.

What do you mean by "the lab is researching at the area of computing"?

I don't have any advice for you, but my experience is the same as yours. Everyone is going to tell you that your priority needs to be learning the language, and while it is a priority, I don't think it should take greater priority than your work. I've begun pulling away from meetings / group lunches because it ends up being a waste of time, but this isn't a good method either. I'll let you know in two years if I've come up with a solution.

Keep in mind that people might be willing to forgive your language difficulties and help you initially, but after you've been there long enough that you should be better than you are, they may lose patience.

@ASimpleAlgorithm In reserach institutes, where international researchers are welcome, this should not be the case. My professor never bothered learning the language of the country he was working in. All information was available - often only available - in English (which was not a language of the country)

@Mark in that case wouldn't it have been better to move to an English speaking country?

@gnasher729 I venture that from the many reasons researchers have to move to a specific, non-English speaking, country, "because I love the local language" ranks very low. In Europe, it's very common that your professional best offer is in a country whose language you don't speak, and you accept it despite, not because, of having to move.

Let's assume you want to stay where you are.  (If not, well, then the problem disappears when you change institutions.)
You are right that it would take a big time commitment and many months to master the language.  However, a reasonable time investment can yield a partial pay-off.  Attend class for three hours a week, put in six hours of practice and study per week at home.  That should be doable, don't you think?
What would this accomplish?  This would show good faith.  This would get you somewhat better connected to people.  This would enable you to understand a few words here and there in the discussions.  Which would help you be more engaged in the group sessions.  The people in your working group will view you differently, more positively, when they see you struggling to say, "Where can I buy a pair of gloves?"
The main things that are going to help you in a direct way:

Prepare for the group meetings.  Have someone explain to the group that you would like to read documents related to each date's topic(s) ahead of time.
Find a meeting buddy or two.  The meeting buddy will be sitting next to you in meetings, jotting down helpful notes.  It is surprising how helpful it is to know what is being spoken about at any given time.  Work out a signal with your meeting buddy, to indicate a reminder to write down the topic.

To recruit your meeting buddies, you will need to be outgoing, fearless, and friendly with your colleagues' children.  Perhaps offer to babysit, tutor them in English.
If you can afford it, you could hire a translator to attend meetings with you.

Also, if your meeting buddies are fluent in both languages, they could do you a favour and double as interpreters.

And start doing other everyday activities in that language: watch TV, read newspapers, books, ..

When I knew I was moving to a foreign country where I didn't speak the language, the very first thing I did was get a basic language course and started working my way through one or more lessons per day. By the time I got there, I was far enough through the course for "basic" communication. Immersion took care of the rest.

@CrepusculeWithNellie - Those resources weren't at all helpful for me as a beginner, but I have known people who did find them helpful.

@aeismail - Thanks for sharing your story! // I had two weeks in which to move out of student housing after graduation and pack for the move overseas.  I did manage to buy a book before I got on the plane.  I remember reading the introductory chapter about pronunciation on the plane.  I think I got to the final chapters of the book, covering the subjunctive (very important in Spanish) at about the six-month point.  As you say, immersion did a lot for me after that.  However, there are so many factors.  Immersion did nothing for me (in terms of the language) in Denmark....

source: Stack Exchange

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

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

sort: votes


text:
Meaning of 'high-level overview' in a Maths talk?
I am a first year Maths PhD student in Singapore.
As I am going to give my first talk at a Mathematics conference soon, I look for  some tips on how to give a good talk.
While googling,  I come across Terrence Tao's blog post entitled 'talks are not the same as paper'.
In the post, he stated in third paragraph that,

Instead, a talk should complement a paper by providing a high-level and more informal overview of the same material, especially for the more standard or routine components of the argument; this allows one to channel more of the audience’s attention onto the most interesting or important components, which can be described in more detail.

I have difficulty understanding the meaning of 'high-level'.

An illustrative example:
Let's say you have been working for a very long time on a great paper in which you finally manage to construct a widget which has some amazing properties, which have important consequences for some other area of math.
Now, most of the paper consists of the construction which is extremely deep and technical (this is, after all, why nobody else had been able to construct this widget before you).
To give a high level overview of your work, you need to talk mainly about what the widget does, rather than how it is constructed. Talk about these properties and the amazing consequences to other areas in generic terms that can be understood by everyone.
Maybe towards the end, you can talk a bit about the construction. But you should still keep it high-level, meaning that you can talk for example about the main ingredients ("we use a construction analogous to the one for constructing wadgets, but whack it with a hammer in certain places to make it fit our needs"). But leave out any actual technical details.

I love the idea of Maths students whacking wadgets with hammers to make them into widgets.

if you whack a widget's "i" hard enough it turns into a w_.dget

It may help to consider an analogy: flying over the topic at high altitude (=level), the details can't be seen, but the shape of the whole landscape can be appreciated.
This is "high-level" in the same sense as a high-level programming language, i.e. highly abstracted from the fiddly details.

This means that you don’t derive each equation shown in the paper but focus on the, perhaps generic, results and conclusions.

As referenced in Chris H's answer, this use of "high-level" is the same as when computer scientists speak of high level and low level:  there is a spectrum of different ways to view something, with "more physical, more detailed, more concrete" at the "low" end, and "more abstract, more theoretical, more conceptual" at the "high" end.
We might describe an action at the lowest level in terms of electrical signals.  A slightly "higher" viewpoint would be to talk about network packets.  An even higher viewpoint would be to talk about email.  At the highest level, we would talk about the user interactions of a little girl sending a birthday email greeting to her grandmother.
All of those are describing the same activity but at different "levels".  The choice of levels depends on what topic you're trying to address and the familiarity of your audience with that topic.
And of course, those aren't truly the lowest nor highest "levels" of how to view that activity, but only the lower/upper bounds which typically involve computer scientists!  :-)  Lower ones would involve physicists, higher ones would involve sociologists.
Also important to keep in mind that "lower" and "higher" in this context are not value judgements.  None of these viewpoints is better, but some might be more applicable than others to solving a particular problem.

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


text:
Chances of landing a post doc (Banach Space Theory) and tenure track position?
Currently I am a 2nd year PhD student in Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. My research interest lies in functional analysis, particularly Banach Space Theory.
I would like to know what are the chances to land a post doc in this field after my graduation and subsequently a tenure track position. If possible, I would like to have some statistical information to observe the trend.
I frequently visit (literally everyday) Mathjobs to get an overall idea on how many post doc positions available on analysis (no PDE, by the way). Unsurprisingly, it is not a lot.
I know that it is extremely difficult to land a post doc nowadays due to oversupply of PhD graduates (I assume most PhD graduates would like to stay in academia). However, I do not want to stuck at working post doc and cannot rise to tenure track. I think this defeats the purpose of doing a post doc, as it is an intermediate step of obtaining a tenure track position. If this is case, then I think it would be better to work elsewhere straightaway after graduation.
EDIT: Geographically speaking, I prefer working in developed countries such as USA, UK, Korea, Japan, Singapore, Australia, etc.

I'm not in maths and I don't know your topic at all, but if there's any way you can give your profile an "applicative touch" that could help, as there's often more funding from industry and.government bodies for domains which are close to applications.

You should say something about where geographically you are willing to move to. Are you looking in East Asia, USA, Europe, ... ?

@Yemon Choi preferably developed countries like USA, UK, Europe, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Australia, etc.

Statistics won't help you here. Getting a job isn't a random selection process. Every candidate is different. Every position is different. The selection process is designed to match skills with requirements, even if it does so rather poorly. But on a purely statistical basis, assume that your chances are zero.
If you want a job as a math prof, independent of sub-field, write a lot of good papers. Learn to be a good instructor. Get some experience in advising others, etc. Then look for jobs that seem to match your skills and background. Become known in your sub-field and in the larger world of mathematicians (attend conferences, say). Use your advisor(s) to meet people elsewhere through introductions. Do some collaborative work with people elsewhere. Assure that your advisors are extremely happy with you and with your work so that you get marvelous letters of recommendation.
Expect that the process will be very competitive. You need to find a way to stand out from the crowd. When 200 applications arrive for any position you want to have yours wind up in the short (explore further) pile rather than the tall (no interest) pile.

Actually I have a question since I started my PhD. How to collaborate with people elsewhere? Do I read some papers and suggest few future work in the hope of getting collaboration?

Also, I have been in dilemma whether to priorize quantity or quality of my paper(s). For example, I foresee that I might be able to publish  my PhD thesis in a reputable journal (journal of functional analysis). However, other professors in my department mention to me that I should publish more papers instead of just one high quality paper. I am in a lost now.

To do collaborations you need to meet people. Lots of ways to do that. Your advisor can help, so can conferences, but so can suggesting it with someone whose interests overlap. Don't take the quantity v quality as an absolute. Try to find a happy medium. While working on the big impact research try to spin off smaller ideas that stand alone in some way.

Thanks for the suggestions. May I know what can I do so that I can wind up in short pile rather than tall pile?

Pretty much everything I suggested, plus saying that effectively in any application.


text:
An important information is missing from my paper under review
I have a paper under review (Second round) after a minor revision. The journal has limited page length and I contacted the editor to ask whether I can add additional pages but he said that it is only possible after acceptance. One information which I thought less important seems very crucial, where other researchers asked me about it after a presentation of my research. In addition, the lack of this information in the implementation will completely deviate the experimental results.
I am wondering how I can add it after the acceptance of the paper. Should I inform the editor for another review round?

Responding to my own question. I informed my supervisor about the situation, where his opinion is that in research is totally normal that author miss some explanation which is mainly related to the implementation part or to its importance compared to other parts in the paper. They may be wrong due to their familiarity with their work and this is the reason for the peer-review: to extract all useful information from the authors that they may miss.

He continues, since it is not a mistake and the referees did not complain about it, they may understand it and found it also abvious and does not worth to be written. Otherwise, you will find every day small technical problems in your previous papers and you will have to revise all of them.

Since it is a crucial piece of information that alters the content (and possibly the result) of the paper, the most fair would be to contact the editor and explain the situation so that the reviewers (which seem that did not catch the missing piece) make a better and more informative decision.
The new version should be refereed. I think just adding supplementary material on an accepted (but possibly flawed or at least weaker) version is not suggested.
So: Contact the editor. S/he probably let you submit a new version which will go to the usual review channels, probably with the same reviewers. As for the page length, probably you will have to squeeze in everything, which means a lot of re-writing.

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


text:
Who pays for TAs?
A TA normally has a hourly contract for working with a professor. Who pays for this contract? The professor's external funding is for research, not education.
If the department pays for that, how the budget is distributed among professors, as every professor (almost any) would appreciate having TA.

There are many problems with this statement. TA's are not paid an hourly wage; they are expected to work a certain number of hours per week on teaching. There's a big difference between these two ideas. Moreover, in some places, some of the funding given to the professor by the university is for teaching, not for research.

@aeismail I said normally (i.e., mostly). Though, it was not the key point in the question. Sorry, I meant external funding, not university funding.

But neither an RA contract nor a TA contract is hourly. They receive a stipend or a salary, not an hourly wage.

@aeismail I meant they are not employees with fixed salary, they get paid based on the hours of working like adjunct professors.

@user13854: Neither of those is accurate in my experience.  TAs usually do receive a fixed salary.  There may be policies dictating a maximum number of hours that a TA should be assigned to work, but they get paid the same even if they complete their duties in less time.  Adjunct professors also get paid a fixed amount per course that they teach; the number of hours they actually spend working does not affect their pay.

Your question makes assumptions that are not necessarily valid.
For instance, in the US (where I studied), the contracts for TA's are normally paid for at the departmental level. The department gets a budget from the university to cover a certain amount of TA's, which it allocates to the different courses taught in the department, usually based on the expected enrollment. Courses that have traditionally enrolled more students (usually intro classes) as well as lab courses tend to have more TA's than smaller, more specialized courses.
By contrast, in Germany, the expectation is that the individual professors' research groups are responsible for providing the funding for teaching assistants. In part, this is done through the contribution of faculty-wide teaching resources, as well as having permanent positions called Planstelle which have teaching duties associated with them. So the money in large part still comes from the faculty, but the organization process is at the scale of an individual group.

where was my assumption? I asked A or B, and you answered both!

The assumption that it's an hourly contract, and that the professor's budget is only research-related (which is not always true, as I've shown).

As I mentioned, it's a function of how the system is set up. In Germany, it's done at the level of the professor. This is likely not the case in most other countries.

In the schools with which I am familiar,the department pays for all teaching activities, including Teaching Assistants.

Of course, in the end the hard cash probably comes from a university account. But I am also most familiar with a situation where the department is given a certain budget by the university, and they pay TAs from that budget. So the department has the decision-making authority, but the actual money still comes from the university.

In Sweden, PhD students and Post docs are paid with the PI research money for doing research. Teaching is optional (but in some departments it is expected or strongly encouraged), in which case it is paid from the department's teaching budget.


text:
Why dissertation has no score in GPA in United States?
I saw the PhD transcript of a colleague graduated from a US university. There was no score for the dissertation, just stated Pass with no effect on the cumulative GPA.
Is it common?
How the dissetation quality controls the final GPA?
Isn't the major academic credit (40 - 60%) of a PhD program its dissertation?

Yes, this is near-universal in the United States.  Dissertations are not graded, and the GPA includes only course grades.
For the most part, people do not care about course grades in Ph.D. programs once you've completed your dissertation.  The GPA is understood to refer only to courses, so the GPA is also not considered important.  In particular, it is not viewed as a summary score for the whole program, but rather only for the initial coursework.
Dissertation quality is measured by reading it, gauging where it was published, or reading letters of recommendation.  For any job where the hiring committee cares how good the dissertation was, they will be reading recommendation letters, so there would be little benefit in having a numerical score in addition to the letters.

+1 for "Dissertation quality is measured by reading it"!

Is it common?

Yes

How the dissertation quality controls the final GPA?
  Isn't the major academic credit (40 - 60%) of a PhD program its dissertation?

The quality of the dissertation has no impact on the final GPA because nobody cares about the PhD GPA.
The only real indicator of the quality of a PhD student's work is the research he/she produced over the course of the PhD, which can't be reduced in a meaningful way to a single number.

Does masters thesis also has no score, or this only applies to PhD dissertation?

Nobody cares about the PhD GPA. Sadly, this is not the case in the corporate world, where many large corporations do have GPA guidelines, even for PhD's!

@EnthusiasticStudent That sounds like a new question. Why don't you ask it?

@EnthusiasticStudent, masters theses also lack a grade.

More accurately, Nobody cares about the PhD GPA, unless it's below about 3.5.

@JeffE, I think even that is a bit strong, it probably reads more like "Nobody cares about the PhD GPA, unless it's below about 3.5, and your field values coursework." Some fields don't even look at the GPA and in some fields (at some schools) no courses are even taken during the PhD.

It is my (not-well-founded) belief that PhD dissertations are not graded because grading is (or should be considered) essentially foreign to academia, and it is industry, or the commercial world, which has the basic interest in placing people on a unidimensional numeric scale of who's better than whom. It is (somewhat) humiliated to be stamped with a number or grade. When you've made a significant research contribution, you are respected by not being graded any more.


text:
Can a department disallow a student-advisor pairing in order to distribute PhD students evenly among faculty?
When a department enrolls x number of students based on the capacity of the department and its professors, the ideal desire is fair distribution of PhD students among faculty members. However, students are attracted to attractive professors (by different factors such as fame, personality, etc), and there should be less or no request for some faculty members.
Assuming a student and advisor mutually agree that they would like to work together, but the department would rather have the student work with another faculty member who is short on PhD students. Can the department limit the number of students that may work with each faculty member, so that new PhD students will be distributed among faculty?
In a hypothetical situation, there are 10 PhD students, and 10 faculty members. Can the department set the limit of one PhD student per faculty to ideally distribute the students among faculty members?
Note: This question is not about the cases in which a candidate specifically apply for working under supervision of a specific professor (due to the admission system or funding source).

@ff524 I changed the question based on your comment. My question is: can department set the limit for faculty members? Department says He's not available, but actually he is available and interested. In a hypothetical situation, there are 10 PhD students, and 10 faculty members. Can department set the limit of one PhD student per faculty to ideally distribute the students among faculty members?

Such a scheme seems to be in absolutely nobody's interest.

@fkraiem my question is about possibility (legally) rather than interest.

I don't think anyone can answer "legality" generally. It depends on the policies of the individual university/department.

@ff524 the policies of universities for academic freedom (e.g., tenured faculty) are similar. Isn't it part of (or connected with) academic freedom?

This is not about academic freedom. Academic freedom is the right of academics to communicate ideas or facts without being punished by the university for it. It has nothing to do with being able to demand a particular advisor.

Similarly, a faculty member can't say "I want to teach Linear Algebra, and you must assign the class to me even if another faculty member wants it" because "academic freedom." That's not what it's about at all

@ff524 I meant something like academic freedom for students. To have the right to choose.

Academic freedom does not include the "right to choose" or any other arbitrary right. It is about a very specific freedom: the freedom to communicate ideas without being punished for it.

@ff524 my bad! I named academic freedom to explain what kind of policy I am referring to.

Your version of freedom seems to be "Students have the right to decide everything about their own PhD." There is no such generally accepted right.

@ff524: this does not seem to be about students having the right to decide everything. Rather, it is about a professor and a student agreeing to work together, and the department forbidding it. A related situation would be if a professor decided to collaborate with a different professor (from the same or another university), but the department forbidding it for some reason. I would argue that at least this second situation clearly violates academic freedom, and so I would say that the department forbidding mutually agreed advisor relationships is similarly iffy.

@Stephen A student-advisor relationship is not like a collaboration in this sense. It would be inappropriate for the department to forbid collaboration between the student and his chosen advisor, or the student and a professor at another university, because this amounts to restriction on communication of ideas and direction of inquiry. But it's perfectly reasonable to set a policy that a professor at another university can't be the student's advisor. So why is it suddenly violating academic freedom to set rules on the eligibility of professors in the department to be an official PhD advisor?

@Stephen don't get me wrong; I think this "equal distribution of students" is a policy that would benefit nobody. But it's not an academic freedom issue; students don't have a right to the advisor of their choice. It's well within the scope of the department's responsibility to set a policy on who may serve as an official advisor to students in the department.

Questions like this show the importance of understanding the perspective of faculty members.
Can a department tell a student and advisor not to work together? Who knows. It will come down to the department.
But it is much more likely the other faculty would try (in private) to convince a "greedy" faculty member not to accept so many students. Faculty have a longer perspective than students - students graduate in a few years, but tenured faculty usually stay at their institution far longer, with the same colleagues. So there is usually more risk for a faculty member who harms their relationship with their colleagues, compared to just turning down possible students.  There will always be new PhD students next year... At the same time, if a faculty member really wants to work with a particular student, no other faculty member is likely to want to "steal" the student.
What about the hypothetical situation from the question?

It would be extremely unusual for a department with 10 PhD students and 10 faculty to tell the 10 faculty that they each have to find one student, and none of them can take 2 students.
It would also be unusual for one faculty member of the 10 to work with all 10 students.

What happens in most cases is that the students naturally gravitate towards faculty they like, and faculty who don't feel they have enough students will make more effort to be friendly and reach out to possible students. If a faculty member doesn't want to work with a student, or a student doesn't want to work with a faculty member, they don't work together. In the end, the students all find mentors, although it may take some students more than one attempt.
The situation is different, of course, when students are required to select an advisor while applying to the university, because then there is no doubt who each student will work with.

My graduate department had exactly such a policy. In part, this was because they had a few "really big names" who would be able to grab a number of students each year. The basic rule was that no advisor could take more than two sole-advised students in a given year.
There were some exceptions made to this rule. First, new faculty advisors could get three students, and co-advised students were exempted. From the students' perspective, faculty members could not formally commit to specific students. Instead, students submitted ranked lists of projects and advisors submitted ranked preferences of students. The department then tried to match people and projects within the above constraints.
This seemed to work well enough, as I never heard of anyone who got less than their second-ranked project.

This unfortunately happens in many institutions, and not just to distribute students evenly among faculty (sometimes it may be to distribute students evenly among areas covered by the department, or to get enough students to run research projects/labs that are cash cows for the department).  I have known numerous cases of students leaving without a PhD because they could not work with the advisors they were assigned.
One issue is funding: a professor with funding will automatically get a student if that funding is the (only) source of support for that student.  However, office politics and biases/preconceptions on the part of grad program administrators, department heads, or deans does play a part.  Another issue is that students' interests do evolve over time, but not every department/institution respects this.  Sometimes the policy is that a student is paired with an advisor early on (before the student is mature enough), with no scope for change later.
In general, it is good to ask of an institution or department if it has a formal and well-defined procedure for a change of advisor.  If not, the chances are that students are locked-in, probably from the beginning, possibly without their own wishes being considered.

There may not be such an "automatic" mechanism as you imagine in the second paragraph. There may be other determinations as you state beneath that. The professor might be restricted in terms of number of advisees regardless of their funding source. And this makes sense unless their funding source can fund time, then a new advisee takes away from the advisors time in an irreplaceable way.

It is "automatic" in the sense that hardly any professor would fund a student (for other than a short time like a semester) and not be an advisor for that student.  It can happen if there is a research group with multiple professors involved (where the funding is also shared), where another professor than the PI on a grant is the primary advisor, but otherwise the principle applies.

I took the sentence as written to suppose the opposite sort of automaticity: if you have money, you can advise students. That's how I took the adverb placement.


text:
Is there a university that has only graduate programs?
Is there any university in the United States (or Europe) fully committed to graduate programs (master and PhD)?
Why this is not a common scheme? Why research universities are not interested in this model? Without huge number of undergraduate students, a university can save money on campus expenses, and heavily uses its resources for research.

http://www.ttic.edu/

What do you mean "fully committed"? I can imagine that many of them are rather committed. Do you mean that they have no undergraduates?

@DaveClarke yes I meant no undergraduate program, only graduate.

This isn't worthy of an answer, but regarding the financial savings, at generalist universities there can be huge cross-subsidies between undergraduates in cheap disciplines (humanities, law) and postgrads in expensive ones (sciences, engineering)

In CZE universities are public, there are no tuition fees, the universities get money from government "per head". So more people means more money.

How about middle east? i.e., KAUST kaust.edu.sa

It's a bit of cheat, in terms of the question posed, but both Oxford and Cambridge include postgraduate-only consistuent colleges: Oxford's are Green Templeton, Linacre, Nuffield, St Cross, and Wolfson; and Cambridge's,  Clare Hall and Darwin (+ more?). I don't guarantee that's a complete list!

There are some universities that offer primarily postgraduate degrees; Wikipedia has a list. Some notable examples on this list are Rockefeller University (US) and the Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel).
However, this doesn't necessarily save money; undergraduates in the United States typically pay tuition, after all. Other sources of income for universities in the United States (such as federal Pell grants) also apply only to undergraduate students. Furthermore, having a local population of undergraduate students allows budding academics (PhD students) to get teaching experience.

Not sure why they qualify their list "primarily". I suppose in order not to exclude an institution that once awarded an undergraduate degree for some obscure special case, or maybe a program that "rushes" students through a bachelor's degree into postgrad?

@SteveJessop a school that offers undergrad degrees as part of a dual bachelors/masters program but not as stand alone BA/BSes might also qualify.

@SteveJessop At least one institution on the list (Cranfield, UK) used to offer undergraduate degrees; so (a) there could conceivably be stragglers who complete the requirements for their degree later than their cohort, and (b) the decision to stop admitting undergraduates does not necessarily mean that the university statutes are amended to remove the option of admitting undergraduates.

I don't think it's a common scheme, but such places do exist (e.g., the Austrian Institute of Technology).
In Europe, the main reason why there are not more of these places is that it is damn hard to get public funding for them (and most universities around here are funded almost exclusively by the state). Simply put, the main incentive for the government to fund universities is undergraduate teaching, hence getting them to pay for a university without any of those is a tough sell. We tended to half-jokingly mention that teaching undergraduates is our day job, which we do to support our breadless research.
The above-mentioned AIT is a special case, in the sense that it is pretty young and mostly the result of a political process. That is, it was not a "scientific decision" to get the AIT started, but a political reaction to divert public attention away from the ever-sinking buget for the regular universities.

Behold the Claremont Graduate University and the Keck Graduate Institute.
It's a little of a cheat, though; both are part of the Claremont Colleges consortium whose other five members are undergraduate-only institutions.

There is also the Pardee Rand Graduate School.

University of California at San Francisco offers only graduate degrees. From the aforelinked web page:

UCSF is unique in that it only offers graduate degrees (meaning it does not have an undergraduate student population).

UCSF is primarily a medical school but also offers masters and doctoral degrees in health-related fields: bioengineering, neuroscience, etc.

What you call is a research institute, not a university.
For example, my institute ICFO - The Institute of Photonic Sciences does not have undergraduate students (except for some visitors/interns). Some Master's and mostly - PhD students.
And at least in Europe such institutes are common (or at least - not uncommon).

a university can save money on campus expenses

Undergrads are the ones bringing money, if anything. ;)

As an undergraduate, I attended an "institute",  and some of the postgrad-only places in the Wikipedia list I found are named "university". So I'm not sure this distinction is entirely accurate.

@ff524 "Institute" by itself is a generic word (and mean anything, from an independent organization to some faculty/department). I know research institutes providing education at selected levels. When it comes to university, at least in continental Europe (or at least in Poland?), there is a strict law saying what can bear its name (and certainly not every higher education institution); in US it not regulated http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University#Classification.

I think Research Institutes typically cannot grant degrees by themselves - they usually cooperate with a university to do so. As such, they are legally somewhat different from a university that only has gradudate students. However, research institutes are certainly more common than postgraduate universities.

@xLeitix You are right. But still the question is about running postgraduate programs, not official grant-giving organs (in my case, I never visited its campus or anything).


text:
Is it legal to use tourist visa waiver for academic visits?
All countries have visa waiver for certain nationals, but it is only for touristic purpose. People use this scheme for attending scientific meetings (isn't it some kind of business trip?).
Anyway, academic visits, in which the guest is paid, is definitely a business trip. For example, when an academic organize a paid two-week course in the host university, or when visiting for a join project in which he is paid.
For example, a German academic traveling to the United States for two weeks for working on a NSF-funded project in which he is paid.

Is it theoretically illegal to travel without Business Visa for such academic visits?
If yes, how often it happens in practice?

I am a U.S. citizen. I have traveled several times for academic conferences in countries where I can get a visa upon arrival (without contacting the embassy beforehand). This includes the EU, Canada, and Japan. I usually mark the "business" on the visa form that I must submit when I arrive. The immigration official then asks me why I am traveling, and I say it is for an academic mathematics conference. They have always gone ahead and given me a temporary visa to enter the country. I think they find me nothing more than amusing. Of course the law may vary from one country to another.

I am not a US citizen and am not  covered under VWP. However, when I travelled to Canada for a conference, I needed a "tourist" visa. In several countries tourist/visitor visas may be used for conferences, meetings and even negotiating job offers depending on your country and the country you are traveling to.

To add another data point, my experience as an EU citizen attending meetings/conferences in the USA mirrors that of @OswaldVeblen.

@OswaldVeblen In the EU, you haven't been issued a temporary visa, merely an entry stamp. If you could not enter without a visa, you wouldn't have been able to board the plane.

The visa waiver program of some countries allow for business trips.
For the USA

You are eligible to apply for admission under the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) if you:

Intend to enter the United States for 90 days or less for business, pleasure or transit
Have a valid passport lawfully issued to you by a Visa Waiver Program country

For US passport holders to the UK

You don’t need a visa if you’re coming to the UK for activities allowed under the following visas:

a business visitor

One answer is that what people commonly call “tourist visas” really aren't. The distinctions are more complex than business vs. tourism.
For example, short-stay Schengen visas are valid for many different purposes (you do need to declare what you intend to do on the application form and if you are going to work you also need a separate authorization but they are by no means restricted to tourism). The US B1/B2 visa also covers various purposes.
Similarly, visa waiver programs or their equivalent also cover many purposes. So if your citizenship allows you to visit the Schengen area without a visa, you can certainly do it to participate in an academic conference or meet colleagues for a joint project.
At the same time, as others already wrote, working usually follows other rules and it seems your scenario would fall under this category in many countries. In the US, even a “business visa” is not enough in that case. In the Schengen area, you would use the same visa than for a conference (or no visa at all, if your citizenship allows it) but you would also need a separate authorization to get the visa. You wouldn't get the visa without either lying about the purpose of the trip or presenting that document.

To clarify the comments on the original question, there is a huge difference between attending a conference, speaking (uncompensated) at the conference, and being a headline item at the conference.
If you are simply attending a conference / meeting you can typically use a visitor visa. These are short-term, no-money-to-you events that happen daily, immigration has a standard process.
If you are doing something and getting paid by your home country / primary employer for it, most places will consider it to be the same. A company in their country hired a company in your country to do something, you are the something. Technicians, trainers etc. are similar.
If you are doing something and getting paid in the other country then you do not fall into the (slightly expanded) Tourist/Short term visitor category. A featured speaker would be considered "working" no matter how the money is handled. Another way to think about the distinction is "Can another person do the job just as well?" In the case of a technician, the answer is usually "yes".
Also note that immigration in many places (UK, AU, CA, US etc) interpret "compensation" rather broadly. If you received anything of value in exchange for your services, you are working. If the local contact is charging money for you specifically, you are working. Plenty of people have been bounced because their plans were building a deck in exchange for accommodation & entertainment (items that normally have value).
Notable examples you can find on YouTube:
A puppeteer was refused by the UK because he was intending to do a weekend seminar that charged participants. No work visa.
A chef was refused by AU because she had "tools of the trade" (kitchen knives) in her baggage. Knives are not a problem, but when you are a chef and also have 30 resumes in your bags......
A very large (all muscle), tattooed German man was going to AU to supervise work his company in Germany had been contracted to do. Immigration had no problem with the work - it fell under the technician principle. They refused him because of several criminal convictions and a decent amount of jail time, all of which he noted on his documents. And he probably scared them (although he was actually very pleasant and polite, that could probably change very quickly). They also said that if he applies for a formal visa through the embassy he will likely be accepted.

Academic exchanges are generally handled very differently than the cases you cite above.

Then describe, in detail, how the money is handled.

For instance, we've had speakers come from foreign countries and complete "work contracts" to give seminars in our department. This is not considered "work" because it's not a full-time employment.


text:
Can individual international scholars apply for US federal funds?
When checking the grants.gov I found that individuals can directly apply for available grants. Since it was not mentioned that individuals should be US citizen, I thought that everyone can apply, and judgement is based on the proposal.

Can international people apply?
Should the project conducted in the US territory? Or they care about the results no matter where it has been done?
If yes to 1 & 2; can an international person apply, and upon success coming to the US to conduct the project?

Usually, you can follow links or do a google search to find the original text of the Call for Proposals. The full text of those almost always provides clear criteria for who is eligible. Almost always (probably unless otherwise stated), the PI has to be from a US institution, but contrary to the other answer here, I am not familiar with the PI needing to have any particular academic status (especially not tenured already as an associate prof, and certainly all the kinds of non-TT research scientist positions), provided they have a position which their institution officially lists as being eligible to be sponsored as a PI. Sometimes, a post-doc, lecturer, or adjunct prof might be eligible. Remember, the grants go to the institution primarily, and the PI merely executes them on their behalf. The granting agencies defer the responsibility for administering who is legally OK to conduct the research to the accredited institution. Policies can vary between institution, so you'll need to ask your local administrators.
Certain kinds of award from private agencies or those who work with sensitive information, e.g. DARPA, DOD, or DOE, might require you to be a US Citizen (not even just a LPR), but that should be clearly listed. I am pretty sure that "unrestricted," in this context, means that there is no such restriction on immigration status.
You are always free to shoot an email or call to the cognizant program officer for a particular grant, to ask for clarification. They will expect you to have read the full, original CfP, unless you want to put them in a bad mood that might bias the review of your prospective application!

At least for DARPA, it depends on the program, like with the Air Force, some of them openly state that you can apply even if you are a foreigner with a PI position, others state that you cannot.

You wrote,

I found that individuals can directly apply for available grants.

This is true only in a few rare cases - generally, grants are awarded to PIs with an organizational affiliation. As per grants.gov's section on Grant Eligibility:

Although there are many funding opportunities on Grants.gov, few of them are available to individuals

Unless specified for Individual Eligibility, funding opportunities on grants.gov are open only to those affiliated with an eligible organization, as further stated:

Individual applicants may only apply for grant opportunities, on Grants.gov, that indicate individual eligibility within the Synopsis and Full Announcement.

and elsewhere it says:

The only time it is appropriate to register as an individual with Grants.gov is when you are submitting an application that specifies it is open only to individuals, such as for an individual fellowship or traineeship.

If you click "Browse Eligibilities" on the grants.gov homepage, you can click through directly to the grants for which individuals may apply. (These are basically a handful of fellowships or extremely specialized grants - currently there are ~20 open opportunities. You will have to read the extended details for these to determine if they have any additional eligibility requirements.)

As far as I know for many of the grants, at least for DARPA, NSF, NIH, NASA, you need a PI located in a US institution, you may be located somewhere else, but the main PI should be from a US institution.
For the look of it grants.gov is more like a splash age from where you can search grants in diverse institutions. I can only talk of those(DARPA, NIH, etc..), since are the one I'm familiarized with.
Also, the PI applying for the grant usually needs to hold at least an associate professorship, there might be other grants that do not have this requirement but again, those are the ones I'm familiarized with.

in my gran opportunities, it states: Eligible Applicants: Unrestricted (i.e., open to any type of entity above). I was unable to find a statement for the requirement of holding associate professorship in a US institution, particularly for the case of individual applicants where no organizational affiliation is needed. Can you elaborate or link to some references describing these requirements?

Is not like one institutions gives money in general, usually the NASA (for example) will release a grant call for a specific project, that particular project might (or might not) have requirements like a US based institution or a PI with an associate professorship. The same institution may have different requirements for different grants.
For example, the NASA Roses do not allow for collaboration with Chinese institutions and do not allow international organizations to participate.
Different grants different requirements


text:
Create something impactful or just generalize results?
I am a second year Pure Maths PhD student in Asia. My research interest lies in functional analysis, particularly Banach Space Theory. My aim is to work in academia as professor.
Recently my PhD advisor told me that it is not good for academic career if I just simply generalize some results. For example, if someone has done A+, then I should not just consider doing A++, as this kind of research very hard to continue.
Instead, I should create something on my own and try to investigate it. This will make my research more doable and more lively.
Now I am a bit loss. I know that if I can create something significant then of course it is a good thing and it will impact my future academic career. But I know that it is not easy in research to just create something impactful, especially I left 2 years only for my PhD.
I am not sure whether I should follow my advisor, that is, spend a bulk of my time to think of something completely new , or should I stick with my original plan, that is, try to generalize some results?

The people who can truly follow your advisor's advice are actually very rare. The advice is good, but not necessarily the best way to begin your career. In the long term you want to look at what can be done that is entirely fresh, but in the short term, you need to finish your degree and find employment.
If you want to make a big impact, IMO, you need to be able to work in a highly collaborative environment in which a lot of productive people are willing to share ideas in seminars and such. Depending on your current university, that may already be happening around you. But when it comes to finding employment, seek a place with a larger, rather than a smaller, faculty. Or, if it is small, make sure that they collaborate closely on semi-related ideas.
However, you need to follow your advisor's advice enough so that s/he will approve of and sign your dissertation. Most people at your stage of career are happy enough with A++. But it is even better if in doing that you gain insight into the larger issues of mathematical creativity.

Thanks for your reply. I get your point, that is, finish my degree and seek employment first,. Then try to do what my advisor suggests.


text:
What should I do if my final year project supervisor does not answer my questions
Currently I am working on my Final Year Project. I have worked with the current supervisor for 4 months. In the first month, everything went smooth. Whenever I email a question to her, she will answer it within 3 days. However, as times goes by, she started to ignore my question. This happens from 2nd month onwards till now. I don't know whether she hates my for asking so many questions or simply don't have time.
What should I do to deal with this kind of situation as my Final Year Project's grade depends on her. If I don't have a good relationship with her, I think my grade will suffer.

Why don't you meet face-to-face?

Why haven't you been regularly meeting face-to-face for 4 months?

Email is a terrible way to supervise work for both parties involved.  It's difficult to ask a good question over email and it's difficult to address a misconception over email.  From your question, there's no way of knowing which of several types of problems you are experiencing with your advisor.  The answer to all of them, however, is to have regularly scheduled meetings that are face-to-face if possible, or over a video link if you are doing distance learning.

I would add that you may want to figure out what mode of communication your supervisor prefers in general, and with regard to advising students on final projects in particular. Pushing for a meeting might work, but it could also add to the supervisor's load if s/he is already overburdened with meetings with advisees. I would recommend to stop by her office, explain that you are looking for some additional feedback from her as you work on completing the project, and ask what she would prefer as as plan for communicating about it. Chances are it could be a mix of email and face-to-face.
Also, you could significantly increase your chances of hearing from the advisor by email if you adapt to her emailing style. People tend to have preferences in terms of how they communicate by email. Some like long, drawn-out emails with lots of detail. Others are absolute minimalists, writing barely a line in response to an inquiry of any length. A good rule of thumb is that if one writes short emails, one also prefers to receive/read short emails.
I do not believe I ever met someone who asked me to write them longer emails! (except my mom perhaps ;) So reviewing your past communication might suggest adjustments you could make in your emailing style, so it is "easy on the eyes" for the advisor. This small adaptation can pay big dividends in the long-term, as you teach yourself to consider your conversation partners' preferences and adapt to them. They will subconsciously perceive correspondence from you more favorably, which in turn will increase the chance of quicker and more positive communication.
This might seem trivial, but many people never intentionally learn good emailing practices. They just assume that if they get responses, their emails must be good enough. However, it does not take much effort to advance from 'good enough' to 'very good', but it could make a difference at critical times in your work or career.
A couple resources:
Effective E-mail Communication - guide from the UNC-Chapel Hill Writing Center
Writing Effective Emails
Good luck!

they all have their works and their tasks. they are so busy .
it difficult for a adviser to just answer your  emails and ignore his/her tasks.
also the same time, as your project goes on he/she need to  bit google-search to help you. this a bit google-search or even thinking about your issue in your in your perspective  is few time tackle, but they are really busier to READ, think, search , TYPE and send your answer.

So try to see him/her.

I would add that the person asking should, as normal practice, do enough preliminary research so that no further 'googling' is needed from the advisor. The questions ideally should not be solvable by reference to additional relevant information that could be easily found online, but rather draw upon the supervisor's specialized knowledge and experience for suggestions on procedures or choices that have been researched and offered as alternatives by the student. Of course this level of interaction is not achieved overnight, but it is probably what most advisors would applaud and like to see!


text:
Is it possible to earn a PhD in mathematics with emphasis in teaching?
I am currently a final year undergraduate, majoring in Pure Mathematics. My aim is to become a Maths lecturer in a university. With this in mind, I need to apply Phd in mathematics in the coming year. However, I'm not the person who likes to do research (not to the extend of hate, but I would not dwell myself for the whole day just to do research) while Phd is mainly research-based.
Question: Is there any university which offers Phd in mathematics with emphasis in teaching? Also, what are the alternatives to become a lecturer in university besides applying Phd in mathematics?
UPDATE: Anonymous Mathematicians mentions 'Doctor of Arts' (DA) in his answer below. Here is the list of graduates from DA program offered by Idaho State University. Don't the data give a sense of difficulties, in such a way that it is difficult to enroll in the DA program? Also, I see most graduates end up working at university.

What country or countries are you looking to work in? Things may be very different from place to place. In the U.S., the academic system in math revolves around research. Even if you are looking for a position at a liberal arts college where teaching comes first, you will get that job by having an excellent vita in teaching and research. This may be only tangential to the actual question, but you should investigate the employment "hierarchy" in the country where you want to work, to see whether "lecturer" is a reasonable career goal for you in their system.

"Don't the data give a sense of difficulties, in such a way that it is difficult to enroll in the DA program?" I'm not sure what you mean by that.  It's a small program, if that's what you're getting at.  But I've certainly seen smaller.

What about research in math pedagogics?

PhD in teaching w/ emphasis on math does sound like a more useful path... except for schools insisting on a terminal degree before they grant tenure...

The "doctor of arts" degree was created in the 1960's to solve this problem.  It's like a PhD, but it doesn't require original research for the dissertation.  The goal is to prepare students for teaching careers that do not involve research.
Several universities in the U.S. offer DA degrees in mathematics, but they have never become popular.  Many people aren't even aware that such a degree exists, and those who know about it generally consider it inferior to a PhD.  Even institutions that do not expect their faculty to conduct any research at all often prefer to hire candidates who have some research experience in the past, in which case they would prefer a PhD to a DA.  (And many institutions require at least a little research to get tenure.)
For most people, getting a DA would be a bad idea: the time and effort required are comparable to a PhD, with worse career prospects.  However, there are some narrow circumstances in which it could make sense.  For example, some institutions (particularly high schools and some community colleges) don't require a doctorate at all but pay a higher salary to faculty with a terminal degree.  In that case, a DA might work just as well as a PhD.

Regarding your first sentence: the following is a short but interesting article (especially for mathematics insiders and/or Harvard graduates): http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1961/2/18/math-department-split-on-proposal-to/.

Quoted from the article: "Recommended by the Mathematical Association of America and the American Mathematical Society, the proposal is the latest attempt to do something about the shortage of college mathematicians who have Ph.D.'s. If adopted, the plan is expected to more than double the present yield of about 280 doctors a year." Um, wow.

"Lecturer" is a title with very different meanings in different countries.
In the US system, the title typically indicates either a part time instructor or a person who is a full time teacher but not a tenured or tenure track faculty member.  In the UK and many other commonwealth countries a "lecturer" is the equivalent of an assistant or associate professor in the US.
My answer below is in the context of the US system.
Within the US system, if you want to be a "professor" of mathematics at a prestigious university then you have to be an active researcher.  It is sometimes possible to earn a PhD and do some research and then move onto a career as a tenured faculty member at a less prestigious college or university while doing very little research after the PhD.    However, the competition for such positions is extremely intense (hundreds of applications for a tenure track position are common) and many colleges that wouldn't have cared about research in the past can now expect to hire faculty who will be active in research.  Many universities at all levels have non tenure-track positions for instructors, but these jobs typically are part time or pay very poorly and offer little job security.  Finally, there are full time and permanent teaching positions at community colleges where some of the instructors may have PhD's, but its also common for instructors to have only a master's degree.
The typical career path is for students to complete a strongly research oriented PhD program and then (after one or more post docs or visiting assistant professor positions) to attempt to find a tenure track position at a reputable university.  Most of these students end up either leaving the field entirely or end up in teaching oriented position at a lower ranked college or a community college.  A relatively small number of PhD's end up with tenured faculty positions at research universities.  However, the system still very much requires students to complete a research oriented PhD before "settling" for a teaching position.
If you're not seriously committed to research and you really do just want to teach mathematics, then I would discourage you from entering a PhD program.  Rather, you might consider an MS program that has a good track record of getting its graduates into community college teaching.
I should also mention that there are PhD programs in "Mathematics Education", but the focus in such programs is typically on education more than mathematics. Graduates with PhD's in math ed are highly employable in the US right now.  Typically, they are hired to supervise developmental, remedial and lower level courses (up to say the level of calculus) while regular tenure track faculty teach higher level courses.

I should have mentioned that there are also PhD programs in "Mathematics Education", but the focus in such programs is typically on education more than mathematics.  Graduates with PhD's in math ed are highly employable right now.

So your point is tenure track position is a harder to get compared to teaching position?

Of course a PhD in Mathematics Education still requires research, but of a very different nature to the research for a PhD in Mathematics.

This cannot be overemphasized: "Many colleges that wouldn't have cared about research in the past can now expect to hire faculty who will be active in research."  This is particularly the case for most public "regional" campuses in mathematics. They will expect excellent teaching and quality research - perhaps not as much as would be expected at an R-1, but more than just a paper or two. And these are programs that don't give a doctorate and may not give a master's! On the other hand, there are still campuses that focus only on teaching - but it takes investigation to tell which.

It sounds like the type of research one could do as a math ed PhD may be what OP is looking for,  though.

I am not allowed to comment, yet, so I will post here.
I attended NCTM (National Council for Teachers of Mathematics) in 2012 in Philadelphia.  It was a great experience, and learned a whole lot about new ways to teach.  The main focus is on the public schools, but coming from a community college, I still found applicable material.
One of the talks that I attended was on choosing a Doctorate program in Mathematics Education.  The main take-away was that you will need to do a lot of research into schools that will pay you to do your doctorate, and whether you get a PhD or an EdD won't really matter, as long as you do it well.
Additionally, if you are interested in "getting your feet wet," many community colleges (like mine) hire students with Bachelor's degrees in Math, or a related field, as adjunct faculty.  I did this for three years, while earning my Master's degree.  It helped me refine my teaching, as well as prepare myself for the community college students, and how different they are from University students.
After working at my college for three years as a full-time faculty member, I'm not sure that I would enjoy going into a University, except into researching Education.  Our community college has a fairly heavy emphasis on Education research, and encourages faculty to "play" with different pedagogical ideas.
Good luck!

If you are teaching in high school, I think it's quite right that an EdD versus PhD will not matter: if anything, the former may convey more applicable skills (e.g. many high school principals have EdDs).  Teaching tenure track at a four-year college or university is unlikely with an EdD.  Note that there are certainly PhD programs in math education (and the better ones are highly research focused).  I don't know enough about the community college circuit to say how viable an EdD is, but I certainly know math PhDs who are taking jobs there, and the market is rather poor.  So...check it out.

I'm guessing you will be able to teach in Education Departments, or anywhere that you are working on educational research, rather than mathematical research.  Either way, find information!

There is a whole field of research called Mathematics Education. Some mathematics departments have groups devoted to it. Doing research in this field is nothing like doing research in pure mathematics; it is more like sociology. Perhaps you would be interested in doing a PhD in this field? Then you would still have the qualifications to become a mathematics lecturer.
Edit: sorry, I just noticed that this was also discussed in the comments to another answer. You might also consider the field of ethnomathematics.

One alternative is to slightly drop where you aim to teach. In Quebec you can apply for positions at CEGEPs with just a masters (reference), and half of the students are at the same point in their education you would be teaching as an instructor in a US university. In the UK the same level positions exist at sixth form/further education colleges, but you'd need a teching qualification. There are probably equivalent positions in other countries too.

authors: Vladimir F Героям слава


text:
Editor's comments differ from those of reviewers
I have recently received reviews for a journal paper I submitted a few months back. The verdict is a major revision (three out of four reviewers requested this, the fourth said accept with minor revisions).
Many of the reviewers felt like we did not justify our approach sufficiently, to which we agree and can improve upon. The editor; however, in their comments to us, stated that we should take a different (much more complicated) approach altogether (even though none of the reviewers suggested changing the entire approach, only to justify why we chose the approach we did).
Question: How should we proceed when the editor's comments seem much stronger than those of the reviewers?
It is not feasible to accommodate the editor's requests by the deadline. I'm unsure if the reviewers made (stronger) private comments to the editor requesting larger changes or if the editor interpreted the reviewers comments much differently than we did. The paper will go back to the reviewers after we make the requested changes.

It's the editor's call, and since you have no right to get your manuscript published, you don't really have a basis to ignore the editor's request -- if that's what the editor wants, then that's what you likely have to give him/her.
That said, while the manuscript management systems most journals use typically give you a deadline by which you have to turn around revisions, these are not actually enforced. That's because if you need to, you can always let the deadline pass and submit your revision as a new paper -- if you mention in your cover letter that it is a resubmission of a prior manuscript, then it will go to the same editor and from that person likely to the same reviewers.
The better approach is to discuss the timeline issue with the editor. Email the editor back and state that you're looking forward to making the requested changes, but that you can't do it in the requested time. Ask whether you can get an extension, stating how much time you need. As an editor, I can't see a reason why that should not be granted.

Better than just letting the deadline pass is to inform the editor/handling person that you won't get things done before the deadline, and ask for extension. Alternatively, inform them on time that you plan to resubmit after making the changes. Not only friendly (the editor knows what to expect), but also, some systems may block resubmission automatically for some journals.

First, determine for yourself the answer to this question:
If it was not for the revision deadline, would you be willing to follow the request of the editor for the revision?
If the answer is yes, it's going to be easy: just follow the answer by Wolfgang Bangerth and request an extension of the deadline.
If the answer is no, you'll have to explain to the editor why you are not going to do this. In that case, instead of doing a full revision round with just answering to this comment negatively, I'd recommend taking a shorter route and directly communicate with the editor about this issue. You can for example explain how you understood the editor's request, why you don't think it's the best thing to do for the paper, and ask whether there might be a different way to get the paper ready for publication in this journal. You could also state that none of the reviewers seemed to make the same suggestion, and, depending on how detailed the editor's comments are, ask for more background information as to the editor's reasoning. It could well be that the editor has misunderstood some reviewer comments or got a wrong impression of the methodology somehow else, and the direct communication will help clarify this.
Of course there's a risk that the editor just won't accept publishing the paper without you following this request. If you're not willing to do it, that may mean moving to a different journal.

If the editor is requiring changes at this level, I would also suggest that you consider if this really a disguised rejection.
This could happen if the topic of the paper is acceptable, but for some reason they don't want to publish it. An outright rejection may be controversial, so they have instead asked for unrealistic changes, which you're not expected to meet. At this point, they can then reject the paper without feeling guilty.
My recommendation in this case would be to withdraw the paper and submit it elsewhere. As it looks as though all four reviewers did ask for changes, I'd suggest addressing any major flaws they've identified before submitting this to the alternative journal.

Well, you can only do what you can do. Since you do not have the resources to implement the editor's suggestions, all you can do is address those of the reviewers. Maybe you can include the editor's alternative approach somewhere in the discussion section if it makes sense to address it there, otherwise just note your reasons in the letter accompanying your revised submission.


text:
How to cite the supplemental material from the main text?
In order to meet the page limits of a journal, I am placing the appendices in a "supplemental material" document for the purposes of the initial submission.
I'm wondering how I cite the supplemental material from the main text (I need to do so because I am referring the reader to some equations and pseudocode).
For example, the main paper's title is:

A Really Lengthly Paper

The supplemental material's title is:

Supplemental Material: A Really Lengthly Paper

What should the reference look like? Furthermore, how should I refer to the material ("As seen in Eq. (S1) in the supplemental material [X]...")?

There are many different ways how to cite supplementary data/supporting information - whatever you'd like to call it. In general, your title for the supplementary data is perfectly valid. Within the supplementary data, tables and figures including pseudocode are typically numbered in a similar way as in the main text with the exception that they are labeled with the prefix "S" for supplementary/supporting.
Say you have figures (Figure S1, S2, ...), table (Table S1, S2...) and some equations in the supplementary data, there are several possibilities to cite them:

If you want to refer to the supplementary data, you might just do so, i.e.: For detailed information, see the supplementary data/supporting information.
If you want to elaborate on an aspect with further data in figures and tables, you refer to them similarly to main figures and tables, i.e.: see Figure S1, or cf. Table S1
In the case of pseudocode, the best way probably is to format them as figures and label them as such including the appropriate references (see above).
In the case of equations you might refer to them as follows: for detailed calculations please refer to the equations in the supplementary information

Another approach how to enumerate data in general in the supporting information is the prefix "S" followed by a running number, i.e. S1, S2 and so on. This way you can give each part regardless of figure, table, pseudocode or block of equations a title with section index.

If you want to refer to a section in the supplementary data, you might cite them as follows: see supporting information S1, or for detailed calculations refer to supporting information S2.

EDIT:
As suggested by jakebeal, journals also offer guidelines for authors including formatting of text, and labelling of graphics and tables. If there are not explicit guidelines available previous publications in the same journal are a good indication as well.

It's also worth noting that many journals have an explicit guideline for how they want authors to make these references, and also that you can model on prior papers in the journal.

@jakebeal Thanks for the input, I added your suggestion.


text:
Structure of a dissertation with two (fairly) disjoint topics
I am writing a PhD dissertation that contains two main themes/topics. These topics are fairly different from each other, but they do have (some!) common threads.
Within each theme, I have two rather related sub-themes. Each sub-theme is substantial enough to form a chapter.
How should I structure the dissertation. I was thinking about having two parts, as follows:
Ch.1 - Introduction (discussing general structure & motivation)

Part I - Theme 1

    - Ch.2  - theme 1 - topic 1
    - Ch.3  - theme 1 - topic 2

Part II - Theme 2

    - Ch.4  - theme 2 - topic 1
    - Ch.5  - theme 2 - topic 2

Ch.6 - Conclusion

Appendices and References

The above structure seems a little odd to me, though. Are the purpose of parts to partition the paper completely? That is, should each chapter belong to a part? In the above structure, Ch.1 and Ch. 6 are not in any part.
In addition, would including an introduction and conclusion for each part be appropriate?

Looks good to me - I think you are free to do what you find appropriate - ask your advisor. I had three different chapters in my thesis, with different themes...

What is the area of study? For Computer Science, at least, this would likely not be a good structure. In this case it seems like you would need to cover prior works for both themes. Do you also have two thesis statements? Why can theme 1 and 2 not just be individual chapters? Is "topic 2" an experiment? I think you could make the structure work for you, but I am not sure how you plan on fitting in prior works and experiments/results without ending up writing two dissertations.

Are these chapters also published as papers?

@JoshuaI.James It is similar to CS, I'm in electrical engineering. I agree, it seems like each part would be rather self-contained, requiring an individual introduction, lit. review, and conclusion. I'm not sure if this is avoidable.

@Bernhard Yes, chapters 2 through 5 are each a paper.

I'd add another part before the conclusion.

My recommendation is to consider "parts" as an auxiliary notion. The thesis should make sense to the reader even if he ignores the division into parts.
That's fairly doable with your proposed solution, it just needs clever organization of introductory and preliminary texts.
Actually, I don't think you can do much better if your 4 chapters are too long to become 2 chapters.

The only alternative I can think of is the following:
Ch.1 - Introduction (discussing general structure & motivation)

Part I - Theme 1

Ch.2 - theme 1 - deeper introduction & preliminaries
Ch.3 - theme 1 - topic 1
Ch.4 - theme 1 - topic 2

Part II - Theme 2
Ch.5 - theme 2 - deeper introduction & preliminaries
Ch.6 - theme 2 - topic 1
Ch.7 - theme 2 - topic 2

Ch.8 - Conclusion

Appendices and References

Also, as a last remark, if you realize there's nothing to put into the conclusions, I'm quite sure you can create the thesis without them, but better ask your supervisor.
Actually, have you discussed this with your supervisor?

Normally, it is not mentioned explicitly in thesis write-up guidelines. Therefore, it depends on the situation and the nature of your work.
In my PhD thesis, which I am currently writing, I first decided to arrange it into four parts:
Part-I: Two chapters
Part-II: Three chapters regarding literature review
Part-III: Two chapters on development and evaluation
Part-IV: Two chapters on conclusions

This way, the thesis resulted into more than 350 pages, with several things still missing.
Then I realized to organize it into two parts:
Chapter 01: Introduction
Part-I: Literature Review, three chapters
Part-II: Methodology (including results), two chapters
Chapter 07: conclusions and future directions

And, now it looks much better now with reduced number of pages as well. Also, it seems more concise.
Therefore, I suggest, do experiment with multiple options and see what suits you the most.
Hope this helps and answers the problems
--Rocky


text:
Are there any undergraduate research programs available online?
Is there something like an undergraduate research programme (given by a good institution) in mathematics/theoretical physics which provides a research opportunity in which I can collaborate online and leads to a publication?

I'm not familiar with any undergrad research program that provides courses, but that could just be terminology. Are you referring to a degree program, or a program that allows you to perform research while earning your degree elsewhere?

Sorry for the imprecise wording: I mean, a program (I would prefer it to be in english and held by a good institution) that allows me to do research and which suggests me some material to read and/or courses relevant for research (at undergrad level) while I'm earning my degree at my university.

Is your university not satisfied you? What's wrong with it?

@Ooker there's nothing wrong, but in that university you've to be a PhD student in order to do some research, so I would like to know if there are other research opportunities

there is no program for researching in student level? Or some contests?

@Ooker unfortunately there isn't

And no contest from the city or your country? Cause in my opinion, in the level of student, research with no physical contact is not a good idea. Have you ask some of the PhD in your university to help you to start a project?

In the course catalog for your university, is there any type of "independent study" option. I.e., the sort of thing where you pick a topic and pursue it on your own, with some guidance from an instructor, and you earn course credits. Even if there isn't something like this in the catalog, perhaps the university would create it.

@mhwombat there is not

The organized undergrad research programs that I am familiar with (i.e. the US NSF's research experience for undergrads) are conceived in part as mentoring programs and the participants spend a lot of time with professors, grad students and post docs getting both formal instruction and simple exposure to the culture.

there is not — I think it's time to transfer.

This question may help you: Finding a research group where I can work remotely?

I think you should check The Open University's site.
Under the Studying for a Research Degree section in the Faculty of Mathematics, Computing and Technology site I found this:

Part-time research students pursue their projects at a distance, under individual guidance from expert supervisors.

So maybe it is a possibility if you actually would like to earn a degree from that university, but since this institute is famous for the excellent quality online and distance education I think you should write them a message and ask for information. I guess they would have good suggestions about your question.
PS. I've taken an online course from this University on the FutureLearn site, and the material's quality was very good.

The program you have referenced is not for undergraduate students. The "research degrees" there are at the M.S. and PhD level.


text:
Career options in scientific/academic publishing for PhDs and Postdocs
I finished my PhD a few months ago and am now settling into a postdoc position. The last 6-8 months of my PhD had been quite stressful (well, nothing unusual there, of course) and when it came to thinking about the next career step, all I knew was that I was a bit more inclined towards staying in academia than moving to the industry. So as soon as the offer for this postdoc came, I accepted. Just to prevent any confusion before I go any further: I am certainly not regretting that decision. As in, I am happy with my research work, one reason being its multidisciplinary nature (both physics & electronics are heavily involved). It is likely therefore that I continue on this career path.
But one never knows what life brings, so it is good to keep one's options open. So this is more about obtaining knowledge/collecting information for alternative career avenues.
In that regard, one area that sort of intrigues me is academic publishing. I have tried (by means of web-search, talking to the employees of scientific journals I met at a conference booth, etc.) to find out on how it is to be involved with the scientific-publishing industry, e.g., what does a typical day at the office look like, what are the challenges they face, what kind of freedom is possible in the various tasks, etc. But I somehow haven't received any concrete information based on which I could assess this as a potential career option.
So below are my main questions, asked from the perspective of a PhD/Postdoc. As such, any references (books/articles/memoirs) that may serve as a good introduction to this topic would be very much appreciated. Even more, if someone on this stackexchange community comes from a similar background, then it would be really great if he/she could share their experiences.
Q1. What kind of full-time career paths can be envisaged in the publishing industry?
(This is one advertisment that I recently saw. It sounds nice but I'd like a detailed description about the job role, for example).
Q2. How is the career progression? What kind of challenges does one typically face in this profession?
Q3. Are there any short-term jobs or internships suitable for PhDs/Postdocs in this field?
Q4. What are the typical exit options? For instance,

Is it easy to switch back to your research career (postdoc/professorship)?
What kind of secondary and tertiary industries, if any, be interested in hiring someone with an experience in the world of publishing?

As to Q4, to successfully switch back to a research job, you usually need to have a record of consistent research productivity, including publications. And that's hard to do if you are not associated with an academic institution, and have a full-time job doing something else.

What field are you in?

@jaybers : It would be electrical engineering and communication with a heavy focus on physics; I have included that information now.

I used to work in academic publishing. In the following answer, job titles are very variable; the word "editor" can mean one of a multitude of jobs.

Q1. What kind of full-time career paths can be envisaged in the publishing industry?

At the bottom tier there's the proofreader. You read the paper and make sure everything is in the right format, e.g. perhaps your journal follows a style where the word 'datum' is used as the singular form of 'data', and it's your job to fix it if you spot it. You don't really do copyediting, you only do proofreading. To do this job you don't really need a PhD, or even a Bachelor's. It's also (in my opinion) very boring.
Next up there's the journal production editor. When the editorial board accepts a paper, these people get it through to published form. This could involve copyediting, typesetting, sending to author for corrections, uploading online, etc., or (rather more likely) working with the people who actually do these things. The JPE acts as the overall coordinator and is expected to be able to answer author questions "my paper was accepted three weeks ago and I've not yet received proofs, what's going on?" For this job you'll typically need a Bachelor's degree.
Then there are the desk editors. They can do all the things JPEs do, and then some: they might for example be responsible for the content on the journal's website, they have to work directly with the editorial board (e.g. editorial board says let's take advantage of [this conference] to promote our journal, the DE is then responsible for getting management to approve the expenditure, work with the artists to put together flyers, posters, etc.), handle author questions "my paper was submitted three months ago and I haven't heard anything, what's the review status?", etc. There's also a good chance that desk editors handle books (JPEs usually don't, because they can easily handle papers from many different journals at the same time). Desk editors usually need a Bachelor's degree, but it is also a somewhat more advanced position than JPEs.
Next up is acquisition editors, who are tasked with acquiring new projects for the publisher. This could be new books, new authors, new journals. AEs write to academics and convince them to publish with [publisher]. They could conceivably be asked to attend conferences to promote the publisher's products. The better desk editors can conceivably also do the AE's job, but this is usually a more senior position for which an advanced degree is preferable - a Masters or PhD. Because of this advanced degree they can also be asked to resolve peer review disputes, make a final decision on a publication proposal, and so on.
This covers only the editorial jobs. Of course at various levels you also need marketing executives (who market the publisher's products), HR, people management, and so on, but these other positions are less specialized to the publisher and you'll have them in other industries.

Q2. How is the career progression? What kind of challenges does one typically face in this profession?

Progression kind of stops with acquisition editors - once you become an acquisition editor, the "next step" is doing it more, in more fields, manage other people doing it, and so on.
Right now I'd say the main challenge is dealing with people who think publishing is a scam and that you, by working in it, are complicit in the scam.
Description of typical day. Based on the description this person is at the interface of desk editor and acquisition editor - she both acquires projects and produces them.

Q3. Are there any short-term jobs or internships suitable for PhDs/Postdocs in this field?

You'd have to ask, but in my experience, no. You could get short-term jobs or interns as a Bachelors student, but not for the more advanced roles performed by PhDs and Postdocs. It's not something which you can easily hand off to an intern and then pick it back up when the internship is over.

Q4. What are the typical exit options? For instance, is it easy to switch back to your research career (postdoc/professorship)? What kind of secondary and tertiary industries, if any, be interested in hiring someone with an experience in the world of publishing?

Like with any field change you'll need to convince someone you have transferable skills. If you remember your research skills you could move back, although of course the longer you wait the less you'll remember and the harder it gets. Moving to another industry? Same thing: you could argue you can work under tight deadlines (if you did production), you are good at networking (if you did acquisitions), you can handle multiple different projects simultaneously, etc.

I'm in a similar situation, meaning that I'm also a recent (less than two months) Ph.D. graduate and currently focus my effort on a job search (both in industry and academia). The differences between you and me include the discipline (not essential) and my lack of postdoctoral (or any other, for that matter) job offers at the moment. Since I briefly have been considering a temporary career move toward a scientific publishing world, while I do not have a direct work experience in the scientific publishing industry, I think that I have browsed through enough job advertisements to form and share my opinion on the subject, as follows (certainly, take it with a grain of salt).
I consider the temporary career move toward scientific publishing that I've mentioned mostly as an industry career option and not an academic one. While in the context of scientific publishing, there is an intersection between classifying such career option as one of industry or academia, I believe that a career in scientific publishing cannot be considered as an academic career. Therefore, my first point is that, if you, as myself, consider academia as your main ultimate career avenue, going the scientific publishing route is not a good option (unless it is very short-term and due to circumstances). Continuing my road terminology analogy, the above-mentioned avenue and route are not parallel, thus, after some time traveling the scientific publishing career route, one can find themselves too far from the academia career avenue. That will most likely make returning back to academia very difficult, if not impossible.
Based on various job descriptions that I've looked at, a career in scientific publishing seems to involve much less scholarly activities at the expense of much more project management, marketing and operational ones (especially, for non-senior editorial roles). Moreover, internal organizational politics, tight deadlines and other time-related issues, as well as stress of juggling multiple publication projects add insult to injury.
Finally, I personally dislike the scientific publishing industry's negative role due to lack of openness in dissemination of scientific information and corresponding strategies and tactics they use (that includes their "implementation" of the open access paradigm). Therefore, it would make even more difficult for me to work in such environment and organizational culture.
Considering all the above, I would not go the scientific publishing route, even temporarily, but, instead, would try my best to join academia as a postdoc or junior faculty member and progress there or, alternatively, go the real science-related industry route (less perfect, considering the ultimate goal, but, can be either temporary, or long-term, combined - in a form of consulting - with academic positions).


text:
How to come up with research questions that are well-defined and suitable in scope and relatedness for a thesis?
I have decided on the area I want to contribute to, and have found a basic but huge problem for my research. Now my professor told me to redefine the area, so to break the, at the moment, huge area down into subquestions to create an interesting closed problem, which is addressed by my thesis.
At the moment I have come up with several different questions I have found. However, I do not see any pattern where these questions are related to each other. My questions also seem quite loose and do not define the closed problem I am aiming for.
A related question on this site is how to come up with research ideas. My question is not about how to come up with ideas in the first place, but how to define these ideas so that they can practically become a thesis.
Hence, any suggestions how to come up with several subproblems, which define a closed corpus for my thesis?

The usual algorithm for my students and colleagues' students is first get some research results, then write some papers, then choose a subset to bundle into the thesis, and only then decide/deduce what the thesis is about.

Depending on the local rules (and subject), it may not be strictly necessary for the material included to all fit one theme.

This sort of thing only evolves as the product of your exhaustive reading, and discussions with your supervisors and peers.
After that, at some point, your supervisor will say something like: "before you can really get into your research, just resolve this little thing - it should be fairly trivial."
That's your thesis, right there.

+1 just resolve this little thing - it should be fairly trivial; one could only hope!

+1 The core idea for my doctoral dissertation was the result of a lunch time conversation with my adviser, during which he asked me an apparently simple little question. Answering it took me several years of reading, thinking, and computer simulations.