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Should academics be concerned about professorwatchlist.org
There is a relatively new website: http://professorwatchlist.org/ whose mission:

is to expose and document college professors who discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom.
Help us identify, and expose more professors who have demonstrated liberal bias in the classroom.

What are the likely consequences for a US academic that is exposed as having a liberal bias in the classroom?

(This is not an answer, just additional information that I felt were relevant when looking at this website) It appears to be aggregating articles from online newspapers, not anonymous reports. Presumably, it also means that the professor must have taken action based on his "radical views", enough that it makes the news. And "leftist propaganda" seems to be a dubious shortcut : some of the professors here are (presumed) holocaust deniers or supporting terrorism, for example...

A significant proportion of the articles reference a source on campusreform.org, which I believe could be another example of websites for this question.

In my opinion the likely consequences are nil -- but I don't believe anyone can be sure.

Liberal bias meaning supporting the scientific consensus on evolutionary theory, anthropogenic climate change, etc.?

While its heart is to my taste on the wrong side of its chest, I don't see anything truly harmful or worrisome about this site.  On the contrary, if I were the kind of academic who felt strongly enough about my political views to promote them in the classroom and/or on social media, I might perhaps enjoy the PR.  One of the professors whose color photo is on the main page, is described as "an admitted socialist." The horror, the horror!

If it makes you feel any better, there are 'conservative' professors out there getting raked through the coals too.

@Hobbes it doesn't. Is there a conservative watch list also? I am happy for my question to be less biased.

Nothing like this, it's mostly just a case-by-case scenario.  I was thinking of this specifically: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-37875695

@NajibIdrissi not an ad. It is all over my social media feed, covered by the NYT and BBC, and written about by InsideHigherEd. I, potentially erroneously, thought it was a well known thing. The concept of being on a watch list is a little disturbing to me. The closest thing I can think of is the PETA lists.

The list is fairly short and each of the professors I clicked on already have a Wikipedia page talking about their beliefs, so this doesn't seem problematic at all to me. They also all seem to be quite extreme so most profs won't need to worry unless you're building bombs or brainwashing children.

@NajibIdrissi, It's popping up on blogs, twitter, and news sites.  I guess I don't see it as dangerous, or particularly useful, since it is a private website.

If that website is really about what it says it's about, then I don't think there's anything to worry about. Academics should be open to criticism, especially if they are vocal about their political opinions. Academic freedom means the government should not interfere with what professors teach, not that they should be shielded from criticism. There certainly is political bias among university professors and it's not unhealthy per se to question that via independent media.
Off course, this website is very partial and lumps together extremists, people under FBI scrutiny or who were convicted with people with simply non-conservative opinions, and people whose research actually contradicts some of the American conservative positions. That last bit is probably the only worrisome aspect.
I suspect readers of that website are really looking for a confirmation of opinions they already have. I don't think it's going to have a lot of traffic from random people (apart from the one you're generating with that link). That is also true of blogs and website from the other side of the political spectrum.
If such websites challenge facts because they conflict with their political opinions, then there is a threat and it's our job to fight it with science, not with political activism.

In terms of "traffic" it has inspired a bunch of twitter posts and a couple of articles/posts on inside higher ed.

I very much doubt we need to be concerned with it at this point.
Collections like this have existed for a long time. When I was an undergrad, a minor incident on campus got spun up into Clear Evidence of Oppression (tm) and gets trotted out now, more than a decade and a half later. The site is, at the moment, pretty poorly designed, primarily a collection of innuendo and "X professor was mean to me", and like many user-submission dependent sites, is currently somewhat inundated with obviously fake examples.
Beyond that, the very pretense of the site, that there's a clear bias in favor of professors pushing liberal ideas that pervades and dominates academia also implies that exposure of a professor doing just that...won't do much, because an academics career is primarily dictated by other academics.
The list is only a threat given moves to shift the evaluation of academics into the political sphere. But those are separate actions, that should (or should not) be opposed on their own merit, because they have implications far beyond a random PAC's website.

Could you give an example of an "obviously fake example"? Does it carry a source, and if yes, is the source spreading obviously wrong information?

@T.Verron They appear to be trying to clean them up, but at one point fairly recently both Professor Dumbledore and Professor Henry "Indiana" Jones Jr. were on there.

@T.Verron There are others, such as the UNC Asheville reports: http://professorwatchlist.org/index.php/watch-list-directory/search-by-school/106-university-of-north-carolina-asheville that, given the source's track record I would be extremely skeptical of.

I think this is obviously backlash from the University professors who have been publicly named-and-shamed over the past 4 months for holding conservative views. Jordan Peterson and  Michael Rectenwald are the first that spring to mind, however there have been others.
Frankly, I don't think it will have the same effect and there's nothing to worry about. In all the examples of conservatives losing their jobs for speaking out against liberal views publicly (or privately and getting dox'd), the Dean of the institution or some other power figure within the university was the one to make it official and actually punish the conservative professor. Get them fired, academic leave, open letters, etc. The reverse just doesn't seem anywhere near as likely - an overtly conservative dean punishing a liberal professor? You'd have more chance of finding a unicorn. What i'm getting at is that liberal privilege exists within universities, and conservatives, ironically, don't have much sway over things. Liberal professors really don't need to be worried - but i'd still say that for the next 1 or 2 years i'd try and check as much of your own political baggage, whatever it may be, at the classroom door.


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Can student be the corresponding author?
I am working in a research project (not PhD and after Master's degree). I have completed a work which my adviser thinks is publishable. But he has such a heavy schedule that he hardly has time to respond. Can I take the whole charge of writing the manuscript and communicating the paper with his permission. (I have not yet asked him.)

There's no problem at all with a student being the principal author (in the sense of “being in charge of the writing”) of an academic paper. In fact, I think it's very good that you consider doing so. Here are, however, some thoughts on the matter:

Discuss this with your advisor before writing anything. Once both of you have established that there is sufficient matter for publication, and that you want to publish it, you should make plans for doing so. It includes determining (right now!) the authors list, the order of authors on the list, and plan who will do what.
The corresponding author (or corresponding authors), often indicated by an asterisk in the authors list and their contact details in a footnote, do not necessarily need to be the person(s) who actually did most of the writing. The contact author is the one who is the most central to the project, and who will be able to deal with correspondence about it in the near and not-so-near future. For that reason, some groups (including mine) do not consider students a good choice for corresponding author: in two years, they may be gone to a new job and not interested any more with the paper's research.

A few more comments for first time authors:

If you've never written a paper before, don't underestimate the task. Writing a paper from A to Z is a complex project, even for experienced authors. It requires using many different skills, and is truly an exercise in both scientific reasoning and communication, with very specific constraints (style, formatting, length limits, …). Assign a lot of time to writing, and don't hesitate to get help if you're stuck!
If in doubt while writing, put yourself in the reader's shoes. And specifically, a non-specialist reader's shoes. That should be the guiding principle.

That was helpful.

+1 for "put yourself in the reader's shoes".  Indeed, that should be the guiding principle.

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What to do on finding a major flaw in a conference paper?
Most new findings in Computer Science are now published in conferences. While journals have some policy on reporting of errors in the papers that they have published, I have not seen any conferences having anything related to problems. I have found a major flaw in a paper published in a top conference. So what should I do in this situation?

@StephanKolassa No, its not my paper. I have found a flaw while reading a paper.

@StephanKolassa Thanks -- I have now added this information.

@Arani I am not sure if this is uncommon in computer science but (major) flaws do occur in some mechanical engineering conferences. The reason for this is usually that the deadline for the conference paper submission is much earlier (~6 months in advance even) with respect to the actual conference presentation. Hence the paper is not up to date. What does happen is that the author has already taken note of this and has made sufficient adjustments to their PRESENTATION. They might have forgotten to do the same for the paper. Your best bet would be to contact the author and ask them about it.

Related: How to address a mistake in an old paper in a very prestigious scientific journal? and What should you do if you spotted a non-trivial error in a highly cited paper? and What should/can I do on finding an error in a published article?

First contact the authors of the paper, and discuss the issue with them.
When the flaw is small and does not affect their results too much, they might simply put an erratum on their website. When they are unwilling to do so, let it rest (it is a small flaw).
When the error is significant, you might co-publish together with the original authors a new conference article that addresses this (it might even be called 'Erratum on paper XYZ')

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When should a faculty candidate notify schools about a competing offer?
If a candidate has been notified that she is going to receive an offer from another school, at what point should she notify other schools at which she has interviewed? In particular, if it's known that the other school is on a much slower trajectory to make a decision—say, six weeks or more—what should a candidate do, either to determine if other offers will be forthcoming, or to expedite the process?

Are you asking for a pragmatic perspective, an ethical perspective, or both?

Mainly pragmatic. (See slight revision to question.)

I think it depends on the deadline the offering school gave you. If it's after you expect to hear from the other schools, maybe waiting will be OK. If it's before, then you may have to light a fire under the slower schools. Also, there's a big difference between being "notified that she is going to receive an offer from" the first school and actually receiving it. I wouldn't do anything until you have the first offer in hand (or email).

You mean you'd wait for the official offer?  Why?

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How can we promote better writing skills in academic education?
This question may be too wide or in some perspective perceived as unclear but covers a key issue (for me) in academia, namely, academic writing.
Students start their academic career with varying skills in writing. Often, and this the case in my department, there is no thought through progression to go from beginner through novice and proficient to expert level (the latter perhaps in graduate school) or some such scale.
My question is therefore how to get students to progress in appropriate steps through an education. In other words what is a reasonable progression of writing skills through an education. I am looking for suggestions of appropriate expectations for, say, an annual or semester wise increase in difficulty or complexity of exercises with the aim of learning academic writing skills through an education including graduate school.

That is an excellent question. We have the same issue in hour lab. Sometimes, it seems that the ability to write is something really difficult to acquire and that the issue is not academic writing but just writing. ..

The answers might differ depending on discipline. Academic writing in mathematics requires different (but overlapping) skills than academic writing in chemistry or psychology or economics or history.

Just been through a (horribly buzzword-laden) process to specify and unify this in my (quantitative sciences) department and despite the buzzwords and coolaid something has probably been accomplished. That said, the short version is "require the students to write and grade them on it" (something that I was doing before we began). The discipline specific bit is determining what they should write and how to grade the writing they do.

@dmckee Requiring the students to write and grading them on it measures their performance. What is your department doing to teach them how to write?

@DavidRicherby We talk about it in the context of making the assignments, we show the rubric and exemplars of good writing and we make them hand in drafts for comments.

In my lab, we were required to produce three-to-four page white papers, including figures, every time we presented at a lab meeting (approx. every 6 weeks).
This had two significant effects. Firstly, it forced the student to write down their progress, which was invariably ridiculously useful when the student actually started writing their thesis. Staple together a few of these sections and the methods, and often a good part of the background, was written for you.
Secondly, it gave everyone a chance to practice their professional writing in a casual lab setting. No one felt threatened and everyone improved. We would even review the articles being written by the lab professor, as there were always improvements we could suggest to him as well.
I strongly recommend this practice.

Note that this practice only works if the group actually reads and provides critique on the writeup. If no one provides feedback, the person writing doesn't learn, and the exercise becomes much less useful.

This is a nice way to force everyone to write on a regular basis, but doesn't take an awful lot of time? Making lab presentation already take some time, so writing an additional report is even worse. Any idea what was the work lead for such practice?

@Wiliam - That's the beauty of it - sooner or later everyone will have to write up their research anyways, be it for an article, proceeding, book chapter, or dissertation. This simply forces them to do it incrementally rather than all at once.

I ask all my students to submit a weekly summary of their work. There are no length or format restrictions—it's just a summary of what they've done, and what they plan to do. It makes meetings much more productive, since we already have an agenda worked out.

@William, yes, it takes time now, that as the first comment says, is saved later. And the results are much better. I encourage my students to show me drafts often, and check/proofread/rewrite themselves.

@aeismail, related but not the same. You need to encourage "write early and edit often" instead of some big-bang theory

HAVE them write.  A lot of times students don't write because they simply aren't asked to.  (Keep in mind the corollary to this is you're going to have to do some reading!)
Have them research!  Many times students don't make the leap on their own between reading, writing, and then (hopefully) thinking that's incredibly obvious to those of us who have devoted our lives to teaching.  I've seen a lot of lightbulbs go on when I've been able to help a student make the connection between research, writing, and work output.
As gman started to say above, if your school has an academic writing center go there and ask lots and lots of questions.  Usually people who work in these departments have thought far more deeply about your question than you might ever be able to.  They might even be able to give you exercises or assign a tutor to monitor your class.  At the very least, make sure the students know the writing center is there and that you expect them to use it!

As a grad-student I really appreciate this question. As a Humanities student most of our writing is text. I found even at under-graduate level a substantial amount of time could be taken up going over the same writing issues (usually after assignment hand-backs) over a number of course modules. It amazed me that there was not a module to at least give the basics in academic writing.
I have noticed though in Ireland(my home country) that there is a number of Academic Writing Centres starting to set up in Universities. At the moment they are voluntarily drop in centres where you can get advice on your writing.
In the case of the university I attend

The AWC offers free one-on-one tutorials on essay writing for NUIG students. Last year, AWC tutors helped over 500 students to overcome recurrent problems with grammar, punctuation, spelling, and essay structure.

They also run group workshops at certain times of the year for different levels within the University, so some are aimed at under-graduate and some at post-graduate. Normally at these workshops you bring some of your writing and as a group you give each other advice on improving our writing style.
Finally they run an online course which works in the following way.

Online students are assigned weekly writing tasks and editing tasks. Editing tasks consist of specific questions which assist students in providing constructive feedback rather than criticism. Guided editing tasks help students to re-evaluate and improve their own writing. Students then rate the usefulness of the critique they received.  In this way, points are awarded for effort rather than existing ability or experience. The entire process is strictly anonymous. The AWC takes on a supportive role for the duration of the course. Students receive weekly readings and emails.

A number of other universities also have a academic writing centre in place. See here and here
While this is by no means a perfect model because it requires the student to want to participate it is a step in the right direction for improving a persons writing skills.

To build on eykanal's answer, if you run a lab then have a lab blog and encourage or require your students to contribute to it. It is a great way to structure writing and improves research, learn how to communiate research, encourage active learning, and even improve technical writing. The public nature of a blog, puts a bit of pressure on the student, and you (or a senior student) should help them edit their first couple of posts, but afterwards give them freedom to roam. This is especially useful during thesis writing, since a student can package partial progress into posts. Finally, by requiring students to blog, you let them build a web presence and let them make connections in the field that don't depend exclusively on your klout or their papers (which usually are few and concentrated toward the end of the PhD for many students).
As a graduate student, I chose to blog on my own and it has been an incredibly rewarding experience. It has allowed me (along with other parts of my online activity like G+ and SE Q&As) to develop papers faster, feel part of a bigger community, and make new contacts that lead to new independent collaborations. I can't recommend it enough.

We start by getting all students evaluated by our Teaching & Learning Centre. TLC staff will recommend an action plan for students that are struggling with their writing skills. Additionally, in most courses we ask students to write essays and summaries of any lab work, which is returned with specific comments on the quality of writing. After all this, most students will somewhat improve their writing; however, many will never be great at it.


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Variation in drop dates, and effect on student outcomes
(This question may be specific to US university systems.  Also, sorry it is long.)
US universities usually have some provision for students to drop a course.  Within the first N weeks of the term, if they decide they don't want to continue with a course they are taking, they can drop out of it.  Their official transcript will show no record that they ever took it, and it will have no effect on their GPA.  If they are paying tuition per course or per credit, they may get a refund.  Usually they have to stay enrolled in some minimum number of courses, so this can probably only be done for one or two courses per term.
Students may have many reasons for dropping a course, but obviously one common reason is that they are not doing well in the course and are afraid they may fail it.
(There may be another option to withdraw from the course up to N+K weeks, but with a note on the transcript saying that they enrolled in the course and later withdrew, maybe listing the pseudo-grade of "W".  This usually doesn't affect their GPA but may look bad to prospective employers, graduate schools, etc.)
I realized the other day that there is very wide variation between institutions in the value of N.  At Institution A, the medium-sized public university where I currently work, we have N=2.  At Institution B, the small private college where I got my bachelor's degree, we had N=11!  (I had vaguely remembered that N seemed to be larger at B, but I was still startled when I looked back at an old B calendar to check.)
(One significant difference: at A, students very often pay by the credit, and get a refund if they drop, so the university has a financial disincentive to let them go.  At B, most students paid a flat tuition fee per semester, and didn't get any refund if they dropped a course.)
Anyway, it seems like this could have a rather profound effect on student outcomes.  When N is small, students have only a short time to commit to their schedule, and can more easily get in over their heads.  By the time they've had a midterm exam and realized they are in trouble, N weeks have already passed and they are stuck in a course.  Most likely, they end up with an F (or several, if the time they spent trying to pass the hard course hurts their work in their other classes).  Their GPA drops, hurting their eventual job prospects.  It may drop below the institution's minimum for continued enrollment, in which case they may quit college altogether.  I'd expect an overall negative effect on retention and graduation rates, job placement, and other common measures.
On the other hand, if N is large, then by the time the drop date approaches, students may be more than halfway through the course, and may have taken several exams.  If they are likely to fail the course, they probably know it by now, and the obvious course of action is to drop it.  In an extreme case, the result may be that students hardly ever get D's and F's (because they drop those courses), and grades may inflate.
So I have two questions:

What factors do universities actually consider in choosing or changing their value of N?
Is there any research studying the effect of N on student outcomes?

Feel free to help with tags.  I was hoping for something like "academic-policy" but didn't see anything that fit exactly.

(And for mathematicians reading this, no, we didn't have N=39916800.)

I'm referring to longer-term outcomes like graduation rate and overall GPA.  (And I'm afraid there may also be a language barrier - I think what you call "module" is what I call "course" or "class".)

A [tag:policy] tag might be appropriate for questions about how university rules are applied. Hence, we now have one.

This question does seem sufficiently specific to the US system to me to warrant the [tag:united-states] tag, but I'm not sure enough to retag myself. Thoughts?

It is interesting that N looks to be a university-wide figure. Surely an appropriate N varies quite significantly between courses? A logical way to do this would be to allow a withdrawal (with or without a refund) only before a certain % of assessments or lectures have been completed. For example: once a 20% weighting of assignments and/or tests have been completed, or 40% of the lectures have been given (whichever comes first), the student may not withdraw. Perhaps the apparent lack of consistency or logic in such policies signifies that there is little research or consensus on the matter.

I don't see how this question is specific to the USA. Don't all universities have withdrawal policies, regardless of country?

@Moriarty: "40% of lectures" would reduce to N=6, since classes normally meet a fixed number of times per week for a 15-week semester. Exams are usually spread approximately uniformly through a semester also.

@Moriarty Agreed. Since it's primarily about grades and not about money, it's relevant for universities everywhere.

@Moriarty: Indeed, different N for different courses at the same department do exists, at least in Germany. Here are my 2 data points: Both had a fairly high value of N=8 and N=14 for lecture-based courses (1-2 lectures/week +1 homework session/week + final), and a pretty low value of N=2 and N=-4 for seminars (each student is given a paper to read and then each week one of them does a 30-90 min talk, topics are given out at the end of the previous semester, so N=-4 is possible). The reasoning was that a student more or less would have little impact on a lecture, but a lot on a seminar.

I'm not personally aware of formal studies on the subject, but at my undergraduate institution there was a carefully thought policy that seemed to work fairly well.  They had not one, but two different drop dates for classes, with different intentions:

The first drop date, ~5 weeks in, left no record at all, and was intended to allow "class shopping" and academic risk taking. This made registration a low-stakes decision. A student unsure whether they could handle a hard class or undecided between two classes could simply sign up, try things out, and then make a decision after a couple of weeks, before investing too much.
The second drop date, ~12 weeks in, left a record on the internal transcript, and was intended to allow a failing student to triage and focus on their remaining classes.  It still didn't show up on external transcripts (except as a light-load semester).

With these two dates as long-standing and well-accepted policies, professors tended to include them in their planning.  Most of the early "shopping" drops happened in the first week, so professors tended to wait until the second week before doing things like arranging tutorial sections or setting presentation schedules.
Similarly, grading policies mostly tended to assume that D, F, and late drops were synonymous.  Thus, many classes set their first quiz before the first drop date, to let students have their first serious assessment of their progress before that decision deadline.  Likewise, curves were often set to assume the worst grades would have gone to the students who dropped, meaning that students who stuck out the class were not unfairly penalized (though they could still fail if they did that badly).
These policies I'm sure do create some statistical GPA inflation, but I doubt it has much significance because 1) it would not generally affect the stronger students, and 2) significant failures are still visible as gaps on a transcript.

At the institution you describe, were there any financial effects from dropping by either method (e.g. tuition refund)?

@NateEldredge Typically it would not have even been a question, since most people would not drop enough to shift from "normal" to "light load".  In the case where somebody did shift past that boundary, I believe the policy was fairly complex and based on an idea of 'fairness' - maintaining tuition revenue was clearly not the primary concern in drawing up the policies.

Ok, so your institution had a flat tuition rate for "normal" loads. At mine students pay by the credit, so if they drop a course they might receive a refund for those credits, even if their remaining courses still constitute a "normal load".

There are similar multiple cutoff policies at my institution, with the added wrinkle of 4 undergraduate colleges, all with slightly different dates and policies. Even within a single class.


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German language for Phd courses in Germany
Can PhD students study in universities in Germany, in engineering courses, without knowing the German language?  Can they research and live without any problems?
Does applying to these universities require knowledge of the German language?

I thought this is a legitimate question. Why downvotes?

Specifically I'd like to know more about engineering courses.

I'd say that the answer is yes in general, but at some point you are going to need some help with bureaucracy and papework. Sooner or later, you are bound to find something which is in German only: some set of university regulations, or a rental contract, or a registration form at your local municipality. You can ask a colleague or a friend to help you.

@FedericoPoloni: I'd say that at least in some fields, the answer is "not necessarily", because PhD candidates in Germany in some fields are often university employees who are supposed to teach and research. While the external issues you list might appear, being unable to speak German and thus being unable to support teaching in classes that for one reason or another is held in German, or to attend meetings with German-speaking consortiums of projects that fund your position could be much less avoidable obstacles.

I know programs in other fields where the official graduate school language is English (e.g., my undergraduate alma mater - over 20 years back even), but am not personally familiar with engineering in Germany. You need to check the online program description for the universities you're interested in. They certainly exist - here is one example. The entire page is in English. It's an interview with international students about their experiences in the program, so it might be helpful, or at least interesting as well.
I had an Israeli professor who didn't speak German. He was tenured, taught in English even at the undergraduate level, and still managed to be probably the most popular teacher. While Germans generally speak some English, you just face a somewhat restricted social life, and should learn German while in the program to enjoy your time in a PhD more.

+1 for informative answer. However, I heard that living in Germany as an international student who could not speak in German may be impossible. While, I heard that this is not the case in Swiss, Netherlands, and Sweden.

@Eilia: I'm not sure where you heard that, and why someone considers it impossible? I've left Germany 24 years ago (to live in the U.S.), so things could certainly have changed; but even back then English was commonly spoken. In fact, as most Germans speak some English, they tend to like to practice it with you - which might be an issue if you try to learn German. Especially in the big cities, and with a new generation no longer learning Latin in school but English, I don't expect much of a language barrier. Good grad schools teach in English for the most part anyway.

@Eilia: Sticking to language, it's hard to compete with Sweden. Swedes have some of the highest non-native speaker English competency in the world. Dutch are also good English speakers; not so sure about Swiss having an edge over Germans (they are kinda (at over 50%) a German dialect user after all). If you have other concerns - xenophobia or something like that -, that exists everywhere to some extent, but I don't see Germany stick out. That all said, if you live in another country, you should always learn that language to better socialize. Good luck!

Thanks for the informative comments. Learning a new language to live in a different country is a must; however, I have concerned of the early steps! Now, I'm more confident :)


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Should I use "I" or "We" in Peer-Review Journal Submissions?
I am the single author for a journal article which focuses on the measurement and validation of two scale instruments. This is a purely quantitative report for submission in a top-tier educational psychology journal. Where appropriate, I have used the plural first-person "we" in the article, as "I" sounds very peculiar to me. I also feel as though it is disadvantageous to write singular first-person when submitting for blind peer-review. At the same time, I don't want readers thinking I have multiple personality disorder as more than one person. ;)
In your opinion, should I be using "I" or "We?"
FYI I'd rather not use passive voice. It's madness for this article.
Thanks for your thoughts in advance.

What do similar papers in your field do?

Follow the conventions in your field. I suspect that in most fields papers use 'we' since most papers are authored by more than one person. I would personally use 'we'.


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Grant "pre-approval" issue
Background:
I work in a public university as a staff member, and also a part-time lecturer, allowed to teach only 1 class (per Union).
Last year, I applied and received multiple grants/awards for my teaching position. I already completed the work and received payments. The grants did not require any approvals from department/dean.
Recent development: Now, our dean approached me with the following conversation:
“You need to send me info prior to your grant submission..
You are only a lecturer…
We hired you just to teach 1 course…
You have a limit for a course teaching… you have a limit (per Union)...
You need to consult with the dean and the department chair about any grant’s proposal and share your idea with us…
 I know that you are not required to submit for internal review to the dean, but since I knew nothing about it, I was in a dark, moving forward you must inform me about your plans… You need to work with a tenured faculty on grants…”
My question:
What do I suppose to do in this situation? I obviously do not believe dean’s well wishes, and would like to apply grants in the future without “dean’s blessings”. I also feel that the dean would go behind my back and ask for denial of my proposal. I do not wish to share my ideas for free.

Why not finding an tenured ally in the faculty and work with them? That would make it harder for the dean to sabotage your proposal (if that is indeed what you fear).

Tenured ally  are absolutely not interested to do extra work. And I rather do everything by myself.

It's not about my trust in administration. My intellectual property does not belong to the admin.

@CP I don't see how the admin is claiming your IP. Sending an email to the dean would provide a paper trail that it is your IP. If you want to get into IP discussions though you will have to consult a lawyer, since the university may be able to claim any IP related to your work anyway.

If I shared my ideas for the grants, I believe I would not be a recipient of any grant. The deans statements are directing me to stop applying for the grants. I believe the dean has no authority here, it's out of the scope.

@CP I'm not sure what country you are in, but I would interpret the dean as being your boss's boss and would have complete authority over this, especially if the grants have any relationship to your university position. You should definitely bring this up with your department chair to clarify.

Ideally, yes. Reality, the department chair does not care about it.

In the US, it's fairly normal to require approval of grant proposals by the administration before they are submitted.  You haven't specified what country you are in or who you submitted these proposals to but in the case of major federal funding agencies in the US such as the NSF, grants are awarded to the university rather than to individual faculty and staff members.

Once again, my grants did not require dean's approval. It was approved by a special university committee. I am in the US.

Why don't you want to just get the dean's approval? I don't see any reason they would say no, it sounds like they're just annoyed there's N dollars in their department now that they didn't budget for.

Of course, if you take this attitude, you might get a "no."

Incorrect. The additional budget comes to the department for the grant with my name.

I think I clearly stated that I do not wish to share my ideas prior grant submission with anyone. And I do not believe dean's well wishes.

"I was in a dark"  No manager wants to be surprised by something going on in their organization.

It is not unheard of for software companies in the US to, in their contracts, lay claim to anything their employees create while an employee. What makes you think that while being paid by a university, your ideas should be hidden from it, and that if your employer asks you to share your ideas, that they are in the wrong?

@CP If your "Incorrect" comment was directed at me, I don't see how that's right, when you followed it up with saying "the additional budget comes to the department ..." which is exactly what I just said.

@CP Again, if your second comment is also directed at me, you need to explain why you are so damn protective of your teaching ideas. That is not normal academic behavior, and we are all very confused by what you think is going to happen if you just get the dean to rubber-stamp your proposal.

@CP Not "all" of us are confused. Majority doesn't mean "right". I see your point. Hopefully you will find the best way, and update here on how things came out.

@Scientist, thanks again. A lot of politically correct responses were given, and someone below even got into embezzlement.  I lost desire to respond.

@CP I think this community is biased towards defenders of institutional establishment. I have seen it in several other threads about e.g. student vs. professor conflicts, advisor vs. advisee. Perhaps posting here what looks good to department fellas. Anyways, perhaps I am in the wrong, or just out of tune with local practices somewhere. I believe you've seen different views, and this is what counts.

@Scientist There are very nasty bureaucrats around, no question. But nothing in the question of OP suggests evidence for that. There is just the position that OP doesn't want to share ideas, without further explanation. "It's mine!" is a comfortable position when you will be indulged or can afford it, i.e. a little kid, or a very powerful businessperson, but in most contexts life is a compromise of give and take. Unless therefore OP has evidence of being scammed out of ideas, this should at least be considered. It's not PC, it's simply practical. If OP believes that they can go against...

... the dean, then why do they ask the question here, to random strangers on the internet who know neither OP nor the dean? Either OP are formally allowed to go against the dean (because the committee is independent and the grant not under control of the dean) or not. In which case, the dean cannot stop the grant, but sabotage OP in other forms, including continued employment. Again, this is not PC, but simply reality. It has nothing to do with defending institutions. Gravity, like institutional bureaucracy, sucks, whether it's being defended or not. OP can ignore this, at their own peril.

@CP: it seems that your edit essentially erased the whole question.  Whether intentional or not, this isn't allowed, so I reversed it.  If there is information you need to add or clarify, you can use an edit to do that, but you can't delete the whole thing.

It might help to understand where your Dean is coming from. I work for my university's research administration department, and I can understand his position. For context, we are an R1 university in the United States.
There are likely a few things going on:

Grants often create liabilities for universities. There may be cost-sharing requirements or other implicit costs which the university will be required to pay. Administrators need to keep a close eye on these requirements in order to keep the university functioning smoothly.
Grants create risks for universities. There are many legal and ethical rules surrounding grants. Although some of the risk is on you, much of the potential penalties are assumed by the university. For this reason, many (if not all) research universities have dedicated research administration departments and all grants are required to flow through those departments.
There are legal issues. In all of the grants I've seen, the grant goes from the granting agency to your employer. It is not a grant to you personally. You should be careful about accepting money on your own. Carefully re-read the grant terms to be sure that this is not the case here.
Not all the reasons are bad: universities often like to reward individuals and departments who do a great job of soliciting grant dollars. If they can't keep an eye on grants, how are they supposed to that?

Other answers have mentioned intellectual property. I'll only repeat what they have said: if you work for a university you should not assume that any intellectual work product is your own property. Make sure you understand what the rules are in your location.
Overall, I would treat this as an opportunity to develop in your profession. If soliciting grants is an important part of your career (current or future!) then it would help to understand how it works. It's not as simple as just applying for a grant - and for good reason!

My points and more good ones. (+1)

I would add one point to this. The dean has some responsibility to know what is going on among lecturers they are supervising. Having grant money appear without prior knowledge would make the dean look inefficient.

What also may be consideration - when does one work on the grants? Since they are related to the perk of job (the 1 course) one could rationalize that OP's time on job should/could be used in researching grants available, writing the grants. But, then what does this take away from other staff responsibilities and is it worth the effort for the course being taught? Wouldn't that be a normal discussion between admin staff and their immediate manager (Dean?) before getting too involved?  (I would have expected teaching a course would have taken up almost all extra flexible time!)

#4 (providing rewards) is unconvincing as a reason here. If the administration lets it be known that they will reward grant winners, then people will automatically be motivated to inform the administration after they get one. #1-3 are reasons to prohibit cowboy grant-writing; #4 is not.

I agree that is unlikely to be the answer to OP's problem, but I am leaving it in because other readers may find it informative.

If you aren't willing to do what upper administration is directly telling you to do, then either:

Be willing to accept the consequences when you go against the dean.
Look for a new university with administration that you can trust.

To summarize my responses to you in the comments:

You seem worried about your intellectual property. However, the university may already own this. You'll have to check your university policies and talk to a lawyer. If you document your ideas (e.g., an email to the dean with your grant proposal draft) then you would be able to show that you authored it.
You seem to think the dean has an ill intent. However, you haven't provided any evidence of this. From what you have said, it seems like the dean just wants to know what is going on and possibly protect the university and or you from liability issues caused by the grants (e.g., it is outside your job description, you claimed your university affiliation when applying for the grant, you are using university resources for grant work without approval).

In other words, if you are receiving grant money (or doing anything) in what appears to be an official capacity of your work position (lecturer at a university), then the university has a right to know about it (and to prevent you from doing it).

It does not make sense. The dean has no right to make me share my intellectual property without my agreement.

@CP There is nothing in your question about IP. Can you clarify the original question?

Since you work for the university, the IP situation is complicated anyway; especially if the grants you request are supported by your affiliation with the university. If you have a reason to distrust your admins, and no support from the other faculty, you really have no chance but to change to a more congenial environment. In our department, you cannot even submit proposals for grants without getting signatures from at least 3 levels of admin.

I had some teaching ideas, applied for the grant, implemented them, got payments, the dean did not like that.

The grants only needed my proposals. No other approvals.

You were talking about IP. Please clarify. In the meantime, Austin's response is pertinent.

My proposals are IPs and the extra work I did for it to implement the proposals. It was my extra work designed for the grants. Not sure what else to add.

Still unclear: it may not be your (or your complete) IP if you did that work when paid by the university. This is a different issue from whether you want to prevent your dean from stopping you submitting or whether you do not wish to share ideas with your colleagues but rather make sure only you get the credit. Three different questions. Which of these is your goal?

My goals: 1 Get paid. 2. I am not obligated to share any ideas if I do not want to. 3. Get more grants.

@CP Goals #1 and #2 might contradict each other.

The IP is mine, since I created the idea. The result of the idea (implemented product) does belong to the university since yes I got paid for it to implement it.

If I share the idea(#2), I will not get paid(#1). Yes, they do contradict, I am trying to avoid that.

IP is a legal term. So, you may not own it if you work for the uni. It's different from authorship.

The idea is nothing then? In my case, I call my ideas - IPs, since I see someone's trying to steal it. I do believe the university does not own my ideas. I am in US.

I did not say that the idea is nothing. But IP is a legal term. It's not for you to decide how that is interpreted, there is a precise legal framework for that - especially as lots of money may be involved with it. If you can apply without asking the dean, it's one thing. Which consequence this will have for your status in the department is another. Also, it is not typical that grant money can go directly to an individual, but if in your case it is possible, that's good news for you.

@CP: In every other job in the world, you have a responsibility to keep your bosses informed about the work you are doing, in as much detail as they request.  Academic jobs are no different.

@CP  "I had some teaching ideas, applied for the grant, implemented them,got payments..." There are two possible issues with this: 1) The dean may not like you do experiments with teaching a class. It is hard to elaborate more without knowing what exactly you implemented, but there are many teaching innovations which require approval before being implemented... 2) You got hired by the Uni to teach a class, and then you received money from other sources to make changes to that class. That could be problematic...

Technically speaking, many grants are made to the university and not to
the applicant personally. University grants offices are typically paid a small
percentage of the grant amount for administering the grant and in many
cases a larger percentage of the grant amount for 'indirect costs' (library
usage, computer facilities, etc.).
For such grants it is usually a requirement
for deans and university grants officers to approve the application.
I am not saying your dean is a 'nice guy'. Or that union contracts make any logical sense. I'm just saying make sure
you know the rules of the granting agency and the university before you
make grant applications.

You are using the department's resources (that includes your working time) to work on your grant projects. To do that without the departments knowledge is close to embezzlement. This dean is actually very nice to you at the moment.
He has every right to know before what you're applying for, and what you need for it. Desk space for a student, your working time, equipment, lab time, lab space, etc. The scientific details of your project are possibly of no concern to him, but unless you are hired as an independent researcher, he still has every right to demand that you share them. Because you are already using department resources to write the proposals.

It is not likely that the dean is out to get you (he probably has better things to do). Follow his advice and see what happens (he will have some expertise that you don't at this time). You are likely young and whatever happens is not going to have any lasting effects on you.
On the other hand you may discover that the dean is a nice person and make a friend.
In the worst case scenario, you will find that the dean's advice should not be followed and have a 'reason' to go back to your 'old ways'.

I believe you're in a tight situation. But do not feel singled out: I have heard of many such cases where department higher ranks exploit younger staff. The academia is unfortunately full of opportunistic predators nowadays. This person seeks to be put in a position from where he can blackmail and manipulate you.
I do not know anything of the local social & cultural standards of where you are, or whether you are a local, or an immigrant. I am afraid you must make a moral choice which will affect your personal life and career. This person probably seeks to parasitise and sabotage you. You must find a way of neutralising his actions with minimal damage.
The best for everyone else in the bigger picture is that you confront this dean head on. Offering open resistance and wide exposure directly weakens a bad workmate. If everyone resists, abusers cannot thrive. Problem is, it will likely cost you your peace at work, and force you to move away. Possibly confronting authorities may not be socially acceptable (e.g. China) adding to a bad reputation and extra enemies / penalties.
Another way is to scam the abuser. You may pretend to scared and frame fake ideas and proposals, provide elusive information. This will lead to a cold war and eventually he will realise, but it buys you time (e.g. a dean may be temporary).
Or you simply abide and pray for the best. This is probably what this person is used to seeing.
Evaluate your chances where you are, and whether moving on to a better environment wouldn't be the best for you. By all means, when you get the chance, please do neutralise this person. Time is your friend against abusers.
Good luck.

I have always resisted abuse, ever since school. I think it pays off but it is frequently uncomfortable.

I am now trying to find a way to resist in a smart way. It's hard. It's just killing me.

This person probably seeks to parasitise and sabotage you Where is this coming from?? Other than the OP's feeling, there seems to be no evidence of this. I interpreted the dean's request as being inline with their duties.

All the statements from the dean are saying "do not get grants". If you attempt to get them, send them to the dean. This is just a dead end game.

Doesn't seem like a parasitic move then. He may be trying to protect you and or the university. For example, since it is outside of your job description the grants might lead to liability issues for the university (are you listing your university affiliation when applying for them?) or they are using the universities resources without being approved.

@AustinHenley Yes, I read your answer. I read the move in a different way. Also I do not think the dean has a duty to control grant applications from everyone (what to say from specific targets).

@CP It is hard because you probably don't like playing games. Passive-aggressive, lying, faking smiles, scamming, implied threats, etc. It tends to become quite unhealthy. If you find out how to neutralise this person, it may end quicker.

I am curios how would you "neutralize this person"?

@AustinHenley I see you are a good person, with a good heart. This is probably way you do not see the hidden damage this negative person did. My husband is kinda like you. It must be really dark for him to see the damage.

@CP This is totally context-specific. Bad academics often publish obvious misconduct (e.g. in verbatim plagiarism or image manipulation), others heavily rely on a facade reputation or a specific collaboration, or even pinpoint protection. Some are actually desperate thus some resistance would suffice to cut them off (e.g. tenure or main funding is on a deadline). It is hard to say, one needs to study their enemies. This is why I tend to recommend just fighting openly and moving elsewhere -- it is easier and way healthier.

@Scientist I feel that I need to apply for another grant and see what this person does next.

It is not likely that the dean is out to get you. Follow his advice and see what happens. You are likely young and whatever happens is not going to have any lasting effect. You may discover that the dean is a nice person and make a friend.

@CP I was wondering whether you found a solution? Please also mind to select the most helpful answer for you in this thread. It would be interesting if it proves to have been this one. So many users here strive to maintain the current status quo of institutional oppression.

@Scientist Thank you for asking. For now, there is no new grant opportunity, so I am not applying at this time. I am also looking into non-job related opportunities where I can get a better level of satisfaction.

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


text:
Do universities have an agreement on when acceptance letters can be sent?
Most universities agree on the deadline of December 15 for graduate application submissions, and on the deadline April 15 for committing to an offer from the university.
My professor claims there is a similar agreement on how early acceptance letters are officially sent out (February 15, perhaps). User @NateEldredge expressed skepticism of this here.
Q: does such an agreement exist?

Dec 15 as a deadline for US universities isn't particularly common.  I just got done writing recommendation letters for a few students (in mathematics), and their application deadlines were all scattered through December, January and February.  Maybe there are certain fields where such an agreement exists, though.

Also, the April 15 agreement is specific to the US.  I'm going to add the [tag:united-states] tag.

At least in physics, 12/14 of the universities I applied to had Dec 15 deadline

Departments set application deadlines (as far as I know), not universities. Mine were also all over the place.

If some universities do have such an agreement, formal or informal, my R1 institution is not among them.

@Buzz As pointed out, this could be a departmental thing, so it may depend on the field (I am referring to physics)

Well, I am also in physics and on my department's graduate admissions committee.

It's hard to provide evidence that something does not exist, so we ordinarily put the burden on people making claims to provide evidence for them. If your professor makes this claim, can they point to such an agreement? If not, I don't think you should believe them. Not that you need to confront them about it or anything, but if you're sufficiently curious you could say you haven't found anything about it and ask where they heard that. You might also consider whether it actually matters to you at all: would this change your actions in some way? Should it?
The April 15 Resolution setting the earliest date for offers of graduate student funding to expire is well-known and well-documented. I've never heard of anything similar setting an earliest offer date, though in practical terms the April 15th Resolution organizes the application calendar; most applications will be due around December (+/- a month; I agree with Nate Eldredge that there is no such universal Dec 15th deadline), most interviews conducted in Jan-March if they happen, and decisions to offer admission around that same time, often contingent on whenever the group of people on the admissions committee can find an available time to meet. There's not much benefit to offering earlier because the expectation is that students will wait to see what other offers they have before accepting, because that's the whole point of the April 15th resolution: preventing a race against the clock for universities and unfair expiring offers for students.

Not an answer to the question itself, but worth stating nonetheless:
An "agreement" may be an unwritten and unacknowledged one, between just some universities who think that it would be a useful deadline to choose because many others use it as well, not because there is a formal contract between universities. In other words, there is an entire continuum between complete anarchy and having a written, legal, binding contract between all universities in the entire country.

An excellent point! (+1)


text:
Creating a website while a PhD student?
I am about to start a PhD this fall. As such, I am contemplating about creating a personal website to host various academic activities and projects. In addition to sharing my academic interests, I think it would be a great opportunity to share my excitement and passion for mathematics with a wider audience, while providing valuable information, such as a CV, contact information, etc.
Is it a good idea to create a website this early in my career? If so, how would you recommend building my website? Using HTML, WordPress, Google sites, etc.
In most cases, I see professional mathematicians use raw HTML pages, and very few of them maintain a visually pleasing website, at least in my opinion.

Instead of starting with some website you may use i.e. Github. Then create a separate repositories for things you already mentioned (CV, contact info etc.) and private repo(s) to brainstorm your ideas, document what you are doing etc.
Private but shared with others repositories are great for collaboration
Markdown is often good enough for anything from wiki docs, presentations, CVs. As you are in the math I guess Latex is also an option.

Yes, it might be good to do that. However, there are two caveats (at least)
First, keep it professional. Web pages can have a long life and things can come back to haunt you.
Second, don't get so tied up in web construction and all it might entail that it detracts from the important work of getting a degree. It can become an obsession.
Something fairly simple in structure that resembles an extended CV is a place to start.

First and second are antagonistic goals. I concentrated on First. The website was not very pleasing, but informative and easy to maintain/automate.

If you want to be in academia, a decent personal website is a must. In almost any interaction you have (applying for an internship, people interested in your work, potential collaborations etc), your website will be the first thing people would look for.
It can be simple and clean, GitHub pages is a perfectly acceptable option, or creating your own simple website is also fine. Keep it professional and tasteful!

I think it's a great idea, and I would say especially as early as prior to starting a Ph.D.! Since you mention talking about mathematics to a wider audience -- I think there's a side benefit to maintaining your own site and writing about your academic interests. If you write something regularly, like a short blog post or a short note on something you've been studying, you train yourself to become a better academic writer. This will become extremely useful to you in your Ph.D. It will help you in writing your future publications and a dissertation. The ability to write well academically is very valued by advisors because it saves them a lot of time in making corrections to your writing.
Like others who posted an answer, I also recommend hosting your page on GitHub since it's free and gives you a lot of leeway on what you can achieve. You can use Jekyll to convert markdown to HTML, it's super handy.
I also created my personal site shortly before starting my Ph.D. to showcase some of the past academic work, my scientific interests, and my fun side-projects. It has grown with content over the Ph.D. years, for example I've been adding links to my publications, links to the talks I gave, and I always keep a link to the most recent CV. This has helped many researchers over the years to find me and my work. It helps in science outreach and disseminating your research.
Best wishes for your Ph.D. journey!


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Staying in same lab for a while after finishing PhD?
I will soon defend my dissertation and been thinking on what do next after successful completion.
My situation is probably a little different than for most PhD students, since I have been working on my PhD while working full time in industry as engineer (for last 3 years). So, I have no urgent need to look for a new job after completing my PhD, unless I want a promotion (in industry) or to commit fully to research (which I been wanting to do).
If I put off doing postdoc or switching from industry to research, how would it look for me to continue working in the same lab, with same professor(s), to finish some unfinished projects or possibly get involved in recently awarded projects of my professor(s) (advisor and co-advisor)?

It is not unusual for post-thesis PhDs to hang about for a bit, as they look for a job. Too long, and you had better call it a post-doc and be actively looking for your next job.

The original intent of the post-doc, in addition to giving a young PhD time to establish a solid publication record, was to learn and develop a new skill, technique, or research area. A few decades ago, it was not uncommon for newly minted PhDs to go straight into a TT position; today, its quite rare, making the post-doc almost assumed, and many do elect to stay in the same environment.
In my opinion, for someone who aspires to an academic career, the best post-doc is completed elsewhere: it extends one's education beyond their PhD studies into a new (but probably related) domain, builds on their research toolbox, and introduces one to a new way of thinking (avoiding so-called 'intellectual inbreeding').
However, there's nothing inherently wrong with doing a post-doc in the same lab, except that it usually doesn't offer a whole lot of opportunity to learn something new. I can think of several individuals who landed a great TT position after a post-doc in the same lab. But do consider that doing a post-doc somewhere else might make you more marketable in the long run.


text:
Does having publications on a completely separate field helps my graduate school application?
I am currently a mathematics undergraduate with every intention to enter a top mathematics PhD program in the future. I understand that having research experiences as an undergraduate is one of the key aspects of making your applications sufficiently strong to be considered, and as such, I have participated/am participating in a couple of undergraduate research projects.
Here is the problem: While I have been interested mostly in number theory/analysis in my earlier days as an undergraduate, only recently have I realised that I'm most interested in set theory. I have completed one undergraduate research on number theory (not publishable but was published on a small, local mathematical journal), and am currently participating in a project related to PDE, which is very heavy on functional/nonlinear analysis (this project is expected to lead to a publishable article). As one can tell, these two projects have completely no relation to set theory. I also have one final project to undertake, which is my final year project, and I intend to research on set theory on this project.
Should I ultimately decide to apply for PhD under the set theory/logic department in the future, how much would my past research experiences in other fields help in my application?
I appreciate any advice provided.

Should I ultimately decide to apply for PhD under the set theory/logic
department in the future?

It's up to you. Nothing you have said indicates that you should not pursue your dream.

How much would my past research experiences in other fields help in my
application?

A lot.
When I read the title, I thought it was going to be that you're applying to mathematics but published in biology, or something like that.  After reading the question I've learned that you've published a number theory paper in a small local journal, and may publish a paper heavy in functional analysis, and you want to apply for a PhD in set theory/logic. These aren't "completely" different fields, they are all mathematics subjects and there is always some overlap.
Having a publication, no matter what the field, does show at least a bit of aptitude for research, and that you have experience in academic research and publishing. Not all undergraduate students that get into prestigious PhD programs have publications (though it certainly would help). Even fewer will have a publication in precisely the same field as their PhD.


text:
Is it disadvantageous to my research career in bioinformatics if my PhD work is mainly software development?

I am in the fourth year of my Ph.D. studies in bioinformatics. I have published two articles, one in my second year on the comparative genomics of a group of bacteria as a co-first author.
Since then I took up software development and published software for comparative genome analysis, assembled from the various programs I wrote for my first publication.
Later I generated a web resource of data from this software containing comparative genomics of thousands of bacterial strains. This may become one of my thesis chapters and another publication, hopefully.

So, the majority of my thesis would consist of software development without any direct clinical or experimental research.
Will that be a major concern for a future career in this field?
I am scared that I won’t be given research positions and become a programmer forever.

Ask your advisor. Nobody else can answer this question better.

My advisor is quiet confident that It won't be a problem. But opinions of unknown refrees may vary.

@blueText: Have you also asked this your advisor? In the fields I am familiar with, the referee reports (and the defense) are a formality and they won't say you don't pass if your supervisor says so (especially if the referees know your supervisor).

@Wrzlprmft I am concerned more about postdoctoral career. Should I edit this question or ask another. I am scared that I won't be given research positions and become programmer forever.

@blueText: I edited your question accordingly and think it can be reopened now. Please see whether everything is still according to your intentions and [edit] again if necessary.

Knowing good programming practices and software development standards in bioinformatics is a SKILL not a hindrance. You used that skill on a relevant topic and probably have good knowledge about comparative genome analysis. In bioinformatics there are always people that are more "bio" and people that are more "computer science" focused, and people who swap between those depending on the needs of their current projects.

This question is more like a discussion rather than a yes/no answer. But, you are not the only person and there are many in such a dilemma. So, this is a perfectly valid and relevant question to ask. I have upvoted your question as a F*** *** to the assholes who go around and mark every question as off-topic.


text:
Using figures from my thesis into publication post defence
What concerns may arise if I copied figures from my approved thesis for submission of research article. This may happen to many during their final months in lab.
My thesis is submitted to the University. Shall I have copyright on my accepted thesis or my University will have? I am not sure if I need to reuse that content who will provide permission for doing so?

Please [edit] your question to clarify: 1) Is this about novelty or copyright? 2) Is your thesis published or will it be? 3) Why are you focussing on figures? Unless we are talking about explanatory sketches or similar, the research leading to these figures should be the same as well.

@Wrzlprmft I included unpublished data into my thesis. We are now planning to communicate it as a research article.

Nobody here can answer whether you or your university have the copyright on your work. It depends on what contracts you signed, what employment status you had, and possibly your jurisdiction (e.g., is there an automatic copyright transfer in an employment situation?). Anyway, do you have any reason to suspect that your university does not want you to publish your results?

This is a quite common situation, so it will most likely be OK. The main points you will need to check are the following:

What copyright are you assigning your institution? The universities I have dealt with in the past all asked for a non-exclusive license, meaning you can publish all or portions of your thesis again if you want to. However, your institute's policies may differ; check your handbook or ask the administration.
Will your thesis count as a prior publication? This will depend on the venue you submit your paper to. In some places the thesis is even formally published (and has an ISBN assigned to it), which may increase the likelihood that the journal or conference will consider this work as already published. Check the venue's rules for submission and if necessary ask the editor before submitting your paper.


text:
Bias of single blind journal
I have submitted my manuscript to a single blind high quality journal. My idea is novel and based on an idea published in their journal. After two weeks, it got desk rejected because the data seems not interested (there is no restriction on the used data by the journal)! I have sent it to another journal and got rejected with many mistakes by the reviewers. Then, I have submitted it to double-blind journal, it got interesting comments, as the idea is excellent but not within the scope of the journal and ask me to follow their comments and submit it to another more relative journal. My paper is accepted now and got published. My question is: is single-blind bais? Do the reviewers judge the paper based on the author index or region?

What you have gone through seems normal, and that you have misjudged the quality or scope of your work with respect to a journal.   Submitting to a journal takes experience.  You need to tick all the 'boxes'; i.e., your article must look like it belongs.   It is like sending a half cooked meal to a customer, and asking the customer for comments.

The short answer to your question is that there is no way to know whether or to what extent bias was a factor in the rejections.
There is literature on the bias problem, using data on many submissions to many journals, but it would be hard to claim (and document) any single instance.
I'm glad your paper found a home.

No one can speak for all reviewers, but, at a reputable journal, that shouldn't happen. Single blind reviewing is to prevent pressure put on reviewers by authors, especially those with powerful constituencies.
You don't speak about the "quality" of the various journals, other than the first. There may have been different reasons for rejection. The first, for out of scope has nothing to do with the authors.
The bigger danger in single blind reviewing is when the author is a "friend" of the author. That should be revealed to the editor (by the reviewer) and they should probably decline the review.
Certainly, the system isn't perfect, but mostly it works as intended.


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Can dissertation be included in publication part in CV
In my CV, I include my dissertation topic within my education part like this:
From start-time to end-time
Master of something, University at somewhere
Dissertation title: something

However, I also see some people include their dissertation in publication part even though it's not published publicly. So, I wonder if doing that is acceptable and advisable.

I think it is best to put your dissertation under its own heading "Dissertation". Even though this wastes a little space it makes the thesis easily identifiable. The value of a dissertation will diminish with time after the PhD so you can change its location later you want to conserve space. But, particularly in your early career many want to be able to clearly see what you wrote up for your thesis work.

But what is the advantage of separating dissertations into 1 section instead of including them as a part of education history?

@LongThai Ok, if you list your bachelors thesis, masters thesis or equivalent then that would make perfect sense as you say. I was not considering listing anything pre-PhD other than as degrees in the educational part of the CV. Any way would be good as long as he thesis is easily found. I would also add that a PhD thesis is usualy what counts afer the PhD. I doubt many would look for any thesis of a lower degree.

@PeterJansson: does that apply generally or only in specific fields (e.g.: computer science, mathematics)? I wonder if this also applies to social science and humanities.

I argue for including the dissertation explicitly as a publication item, preferably in a separate section "Theses", or "Theses, technical reports and pre-prints" (including other theses, such as master thesis, if publicly available). Of course the solution also marginally depends on the habits and regulations of the country where you completed the thesis. In countries like Germany, a dissertation thesis is required to be submitted to the university library, subsequently it is catalogued by the German National Library (Dissonline section) and receives an ISBN, hence it can be treated as a proper publication. As far as I know, also in the Netherlands, dissertations are published as books with proper ISBN assigned, hence proper archival publications too. In the past (not sure about current situation) some other countries, such as Slovakia, even master theses were required to be archived and made publicly available on request by the university libraries.

Rather interesting. Did not know this ISBN issue in Germany. In Austria, a dissertation has to be submitted to the university library (after grading) and it will be catalogued in prior (during submission to the educational institute) (but without an ISBN afaik).  http://media.obvsg.at/dissdb

I think your method (thesis title in the education section) is the standard one. Though I notice your example doesn't have the advisor's name, which should be there too. If the thesis was published separately as a monograph, or several articles, I would still list the thesis title in the education section as well as the papers/monographs in the publication section.

Some people publish their theses as part of a monograph series. In that case, it could appear under "books," but should still be identified as the PhD thesis.
In other circumstances, I would not include it under "Publications," but instead list it more or less as you suggest. (Under "Dissertation Topic" as part of "Education.")

yes, you can include it & you should include it because many persons would be eager to see an information regarding your dissertation.
btw If you are using LaTeX to write your cv, BibTeX provides an entry regarding dissertations - phdthesis.
when having an ISBN, then you can use the (BibTeX) book entry and your publication part.
without an ISBN, use (BibTeX) phdthesis entry within the education area of your cv which was proposed in another prior answer.


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What is a non-tenure-track assistant professor position in the USA and is it harmful?
I see some offers on the Chronicle jobs website (such as this one from UC San Diego) for non-tenure-track assistant professor positions.
Is the work of a non-tenure-track assistant professor exactly the same as the work of a tenure-track assistant professor, e.g. in terms of teaching/research ratio?
Also, would taking on a position of this type be more, less or equally helpful compared to, say, taking up another postdoc, for someone that would later want to apply to a tenure-track position?
Forgive me if this question does not make sense to you, but I have taken the impression from some sources that whatever professional decision one takes that is slightly outside the "normal" progression of an academic career can be harmful.

I think non tenure track assistant professors are usually more teaching-oriented positions at research universities. Essentially, "non tenure track assistant professor" is a sexier way to say "lecturer". However, I am not american, so take this with a grain of salt.

That being said, you should never assume a specific job profile from a position name anyway.

@xLeitix "Teaching oriented" isn't reliable enough to be a rule. In my field, for example, non-tenure track positions are often - and I'd guess the majority of the time - for strictly research positions.

The most important point is that jobs vary significantly by discipline. If you are in the field of Cognitive Science, or in a related field, you are in a better position to know what a job ad in that area is actually looking for. Unfortunately, the job ad linked in the question is written in a way to make it hard for those outside the area to know what it wants - it does not directly say whether they are looking for research or teaching.  There is no way to tell without asking what the teaching/research ratio would be.
In general, there are two common uses of non-tenure-track "Assistant Professor" positions in the U.S.:

Postdoctoral positions. These are not usually considered "harmful" to your career. In many fields they are a standard part of the academic job progression.
Teaching-oriented positions for which the candidate has a PhD. These may be full-time positions (as in the linked ad) or part-time.

The second type of position could be helpful, or harmful, depending on what sort of tenure-track position you are looking for.  You have already narrowed down the type of institution where you would like to have a tenure-track position, and started honing your CV to be a perfect fit for that type of school, right?

If your type of school is an elite research school, then another postdoc seems more likely to be helpful than a teaching position. This is the type of school where leaving the standard progression is most likely to be harmful to tenure-track chances.  If you are a likely candidate for this type of position, you probably know it already.
If you are looking at non-elite public universities, which have more of a balance between research and teaching, a single non-tenure-track teaching assistant professorship is not a mark of certain doom for your tenure track hopes. You can use the job to hone your teaching, move your research forward a little, and you can use the time to apply for tenure track jobs.
If you are looking at teaching-first institutions, or at community colleges, then you need to make sure you have excellent teaching credentials. You might be able to use a teaching-oriented term position as a way to do that.

Unfortunately, because of the excess of candidates relative to the number of tenure-track positions in many (most?) fields, and because the number of tenure-track jobs is not increasing, many academics work multiple term positions in a row.  This is especially common in the humanities, and it can be "harmful" for tenure track hopes, unfortunately. I was fortunate to find a tenure-track position, so I can't speak too much to how to handle the situation of multiple term teaching positions, but you can find a lot of discussion about it on the web.

There are at least two other uses: Medical schools, where tenure is often much more difficult to get, and 100% soft money positions in university systems where "tenure" implies some funding obligation.

Actually, in this specific case I think it may just be a mistake in the ad.
The application page linked from the Chronicle ad just describes the position as "Assistant Professor" and doesn't say anything about tenure one way or the other.  Certainly the default for an assistant professor position would be that it is tenure track.
Also, I attended UC San Diego as a grad student (in a different department) and don't ever remember hearing about any non-tenure-track assistant professors.  Full-time teaching-oriented faculty at UCSD have the title  "Lecturer".
So I think there's a good chance that these are ordinary tenure-track assistant professor positions, and that someone just clicked the wrong box when submitting the Chronicle ad.
I would suggest getting in touch with the department for clarification.

After reading the advertisement, my opinion is that this is most likely an error in posting the advertisement, and that these actually are tenure track positions.
There are at least three situations in the US where I commonly see non tenure-track assistant professor positions:

Limited duration "Visiting Assistant Professor" positions.  Here the candidate will be expected to cover the teaching load of a regular faculty member, typically because the regular faculty member is away on sabbatical leave or on an administrative appointment or unavailable due to health problems.  It's not uncommon for such a position to exist for a year while a department searches for a permanent tenure track replacement.
Permanent or limited duration "Research Assistant Professor" positions, typically funded by grants.  Here the candidate will be expected to perform research and bring in the grants to support their salary but won't have a regular teaching load.
Permanent "Clinical Assistant Professor" positions.  These are full time teaching positions with no possibility of tenure.  A similar title often used is "instructor."

The advertisement linked to by the original poster doesn't seem to fit into any of these categories, which is why I believe that the "non tenure track" on the listing is simply in error.

In my department, postdoctoral appointments, usually for a 3-year, non-renewable term (and thus definitely not tenure-track), carry the title of assistant professor.  Postdocs are listed on the department web page as "Post-Doc Assistant Professor" but in the university directory simply as "Assistant Professor of Mathematics" (with no indication that they are not on tenure-track).


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Where do the responsibilities of an MS GRA doing a thesis actually end?
I am doing a MS thesis in an engineering lab and I am fully funded by my advisor (tuition waiver plus stipend). We are a small lab and my professor is aiming for tenure. I am ahead of schedule and almost done with my thesis.I am good at programming and completed the project in 3 weeks (my professor thought it would take at least 3 months). Now, my professor is asking me to work on other things which involve developing apps for her other projects. I have protested by saying I am an GRA and I should only be concerned with my thesis project and my work in all other large projects in the lab should be at my discretion.
My advisor replied that I am pretty lucky to work for her since other professors have graduate students who work on 5 projects simultaneously (which of course is load of crap, I have other friends working in other labs who only work on their thesis). The other time I protested, my advisor said that since I am supposed to work 40 hours a week in lab, the project should be completed within 2 weeks easily. (These projects which my advisor wants me to do require some 80 hours of programming sometimes since I first need to learn the language and then write code for it). It's not that I don't want to develop apps, but I am more interested in writing journal papers for IEEE with deadlines in November, and I need all the time I can for that endeavor. I raised this issue but my advisor said that getting accepted in IEEE is remote, so I should concentrate on writing apps since there is a very good chance for her to get funded if I develop them.
I know that even if I refuse development, my advisor might throw a fit but my GRA will be intact because no advisor fires a student who is about to complete thesis. Also, I had asked my advisor if she would be interested in helping me with getting a PhD after thesis and she flatly said no. The advisor said I should probably go back to industry and work for 3-4 years and then decide on PhD. It seemed more like an excuse to make me get out of the lab. So it's pretty obvious there is no chance of a long-term relationship with my advisor.

I am trying to understand what are the other job responsibilities of
     an MS student doing thesis?  There is no chance of working with my
     advisor after MS, so why should i work on her projects? I can very
     well try to get some journals papers published as it might help in
     getting a PhD admit elsewhere, or should I just develop her apps
     because I work in her lab?

Edit: There are 3 people in my lab now (2 MS students and one PhD student), but I am the only programmer.

As a practical matter: You will eventually need a strong recommendation letter from your current advisor.  Her letter will likely have more impact on your PhD admission chances than an IEEE paper. Digging in your heels now may not be the most effective way of getting that letter.

tl;dr Your adviser is not wrong. There are plenty of additional responsibilities and duties of maintaining a matured lab affiliation even as a MS student.
I think you went about it a wrong way. A little hill out of a molehill has been created.
Being a GRA in a lab does not mean that the buck stops with your thesis research. I am a member in a medium sized lab based in a ECE department.  Typically, we have 4-6 graduate students, 1-2 post docs and a gaggle of undergraduate and masters students at most given times.
My Responsibilities:

Thesis research. This is primary and takes up most of my time.
Collaborative research with another graduate student. This is my secondary project and takes up a little bit of my time.
Giving talks in the lab about our works in progress.
Guest lecturing for my adviser in his courses when he is away.
Mentoring REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) students when they come in summer.
Mentoring undergraduate and masters students from my own university in their own and lab projects.
Helping other lab members out with analysis - typically quantitative and some qualitative.
Reviewing articles written by other lab members.
Social engaging with lab members and lab visitors.
Designing presentations for lab funding reports and reviewing said reports.

I am sure I have forgotten a few more "responsibilities" but I can assure you that my work does not begin and end with just my own thesis research. It sounds like a lot but I can assure you that it really isn't and the situation is quite typical for my university and department. I have an excellent work-life balance. Now, I am a PhD student but once upon a time, I was a MS student and I had similar responsibilities.
The situation you describe is not atypical. I have seen folks in labs (which develop apps as a stepping stone to doing research) spend a lot of time actually developing the app. You are right. It takes time.  Being a member of the lab means contributing to projects which are not just your own. It is a team effort.
Your adviser has actually given you a sanity check in terms of getting a PhD admit and in terms of what other graduate students usually do. Getting a paper accepted in a prestigious IEEE transaction is quite a considerable effort and takes a long time. It seems to me that your adviser does not feel that your research will be accepted into such a venue. I also think you hit a nerve somewhere when you argued about quantum of hours and projects to be worked upon according to your GRA deal. It doesn't work like that. You are not a unionized worker.
Research takes as long as it takes.

What do you mean by "sanity check" in terms of getting a PHD admit?

Advisers generally give you hints about what they expect from a PhD student. We just had a REU student who was good, but not great in technical abilities. My adviser basically told him that if he brushes up on his technical abilities then he has a chance here. In order to brush up, he has to do something worthwhile like doing well in equivalent courses or appropriate work experience. It seems as if your adviser is telling you something similar.

i will be honest with you, since there is no reason in obscuring facts. I am the only programmer in my lab and i do all the app development for my research and other 2 GRAs.And we get funding based on those apps.My adviser asked me to go to industry.When i pushed her more ,she asked me to find an professor who has "just started". Well , my adviser herself started in 2012. So this is pretty insincere coming from her.

(from my association with her i believe is mostly due to personal reasons not because of my work .There were occasions in past when my adviser wanted me to help her out with carrying out few interviews of test subjects on weekends and i have flatly refused to help her with it .I will not work on weekends for anybody .That is my time. However ,other students willingly came forward and took the interview. Now these students are not very hardworking ,they slack of during regular times but they did it just to  gain her favor.Regular grad school blues.I think i lost her support cuz of this)

I think you are being a tad unreasonable and there definitely seems to be some kind of personal baggage between you and your adviser that I have no authority to comment upon. Having said this, you might have ticked her off by refusing to work on the interviews during the weekend. Mark, that I have worked many times on weekends both bidden and unbidden. When I have worked on weekends or on other holidays, there has been a tacit understanding between my adviser and myself that I will take some flexible future holidays as it suits everybody. Surely your adviser did not bar your from all holidays?

well working on weekend is an option but people getting bummed over my refusal to do that speaks of poor managerial skills. Academia seems more like slave labor where you have to go to any lengths just to please your advisor. Corporate seems to be a far better place after all these experiences.

@james234: Academia is not always slave labor. Not all advisors are created equal!

The way that I view my GRA position is that the university is paying your tuition and stipend.  There is expectation is that you will provide labor that will contribute to their projects.  It's a pretty good deal- you get an education with a mentor in exchange for work that hopefully you are interested in.  I would expect them to think of you as an employee.  At this stage, you work for someone and they tell you what they need and you do it.  It takes time and effort to mentor you, make sure you contribute everything that you can while you are there.

My role as GRA is to do research and i will do research as long as it benefits me and since thesis is research , the Univ. will fund as long as i am doing thesis. Now ,i can either work for my advisor on her project or try to publish . Since i am enrolled full time ,i can only do one of them(develop apps or write journal papers) at a time.

Now if i am successful , both of them will benefit my advisor .An app will get her funding and a journal in IEEE will help her in getting tenure ,although writing an app is much easier.
But for me, writing a journal paper is far more beneficial since it will help on my phd application. Now how is writing an app going to be beneficial?
I am an GRA but at same time i am not a mindless worker willing to toil on anything that people will ask me to do.


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Will there by any copyright issue if we decide to add ACM Computing Classification System to our theses?
Let us say that we decide to use ACM Computing Classification System in the undergraduate and graduate theses from our department. These theses belong to the field of Computer Science and Engineering.
Will there by any copyright issues from ACM side?
There is an ACM Chapter in our department.

Why would there be a copyright problem with classifying documents? Are you saying you want to publish the classification list yourselves?

@JessicaB No, we simply want to put the classification somewhere in the opening pages of the theses.

But whose copyright are you afraid to infringe? (Please [edit] your question to clarify.)

@Wrzlprmft Copyright of ACM. Because the classification is their property. Edited my question.

Copyright applies to the text of the classification, not to the use of it. Giving the classification of a document would be roughly like citing a result in another paper (and is the purpose of the classification). There would only be a copyright issue if you want to copy out part of the text.


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CEA vs CNRS for permanent researcher positions in France
I am trying to find a permanent researcher position in France. I'm applying to job openings in CEA and CNRS. Though I have some understanding of how CNRS operates and working conditions, salaries, etc, I have no experience at all with CEA.
For some context, CEA and CNRS are among the largest public research institutions in France (along with INRIA, INSERM, and some others).
What are the differences between the two institutions? In particular, what are the effects on the life of a researcher in terms of salary, funding opportunities, ability to attract students, career progression (i.e., how difficult it is to advance to director of research in CEA vs CNRS), and so on.

What are CEA and CNRS?

@Sursula I added some further comments to the OP. However, the question is intended for people who have some prior knowledge about this (hopefully there is at least someone in this forum).


text:
Apply for a cluster for scientific computing from a developing country for academic use?
I don't have access to a computer cluster in my university. Is there website that accepts applications for free access to a computer cluster for scientific computing?
Further information: I am in Cuba. I need something on the order of 30 processors, about 50 GB of hard drive, for a week or so. I need to run programs written in C++ and Python.

What sort of computing are interested in doing? Various different resources are available for different purposes.  For example, EmuLab offers free cluster access for purposes of network simulation, but wouldn't be appropriate if you wanted to do, say, fluid dynamics.

This question was cross-posted to the Scicomp.SE and should probably be closed here.

@jakebeal I am doing research on metabolic networks. I need to run simulations written in Python and C++.

You may get more responses if you can give some more detail as to your situation - eg what country are you in, what sort of scale of cluster do you need, etc

@SimonW I added some more information.

BTW, not sure about US-Cuba relationships - there might be legal issues with a US organization providing massive computing power to someone in Cuba.

Yeah, the US-Cuba embargo could be a problem.  Do you have contacts in Europe, Russia, or China, where someone might be able to get you an account?

This doesn't quite answer the question, but in case you have some funds available (but not enough to buy a cluster): Various cloud services - Amazon in particular but probably others - will let you "spin up" a temporary compute cluster on their servers. You pay for this by the minute, or sometimes by more complicated systems where the price is according to demand.
For small projects this approach can be quite economical, and so may be feasible in some circumstances where access to a dedicated system is unaffordable.

There is also the chance to get a research grant from AWS or Azure, or use the trial account which GCE offers (500 USD - which allows you to at least get some initial experiments in).

Thanks for the tip, but I don't have funds.