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Can I pursue a PhD in Operator Algebras after a Master's in PDEs?
I am about to start my second year of a Master's program in Partial Differential Equations (PDEs), which I originally entered due to limited options. However, my true interests lie in operator algebras and related areas, which I have mainly self-studied because they are not popular in my location. I have a solid foundation in the fundamental mathematics subjects expected of a student in these areas, but I lack formal coursework or an "official" background in more specialized topics within the field. (For example I have taken functional analysis and spectral theory, but not a course in operator algebras which i self studied.)
Due to financial constraints, I couldn't apply for a master's abroad and chose the PDE program at my university. While I enjoy aspects of PDEs (such as elliptic PDEs and Sobolev spaces), I am concerned that this decision may limit my chances of pursuing a PhD in operator algebras or other pure areas of analysis. Most of my letter writers and connections are from the PDE field, so I am unsure about my chances of transitioning.
Is it still realistic to apply for PhDs in operator algebras or similar fields, given my situation? How can I build connections with experts in these areas if my network is mostly PDE-focused? Cold emailing feels like my only option, but I’m unsure if that approach is reasonable. I also can't afford to simply travel around to conferences.
I understand the importance of being flexible and open-minded as a PhD student since I have likely only scratched the surface of these massive fields. However, I still want to steer myself toward an area of mathematics that I find interesting, which I can only describe as abstract functional analysis.

Welcome to academia.SE. However, your question will probably be closed because it seems to be about mathematics. This is a site for questions about academia itself, with people from many disciplines; it is not for questions about a specific academic field.

In most places, that shouldn't be a huge problem. You have at least gotten some generalized mathematical insights. Specific insight within a narrow subfield requires more work, but that is necessary in any doctoral program.
The only real difficulty is getting accepted to a program, and that, might require finding a supervisor who is willing to take you on. But you don't learn that until you try it. Note that requirements differ widely around the world, both for application and for earning the degree. You need to learn those requirements and make a good application.
Note that competition for many programs is very high. And, you don't enter a doctoral program to prove that you don't need it. You are expected to learn what is necessary.
To see specific requirements typical of various countries see: How does the admissions process work for Ph.D. programs in Country X?


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How to build my knowledge base so that I can come up with research ideas?
I am beginning my career in research. I recently joined IIT Kharagpur as a researcher under a professor. I am thinking about publishing research papers, but I cant think of any ideas. I lack the advanced knowledge base to come up with unique ideas on the field.
I know that I want to research AI and that to about Computer Vision in Healthcare. So I know the broad area, I know how to write programs in the field. I have started to read research papers as my professor tells me to. But my professor isn't in medical image processing.
How do I explore my field and get to a stage, where I can make connections or innovations that I can research. How did you do it. Did I read more papers, do I watch more tutorials or lecture etc. Going to the next stage has been frustrating and confusing.
Thanks in Advance

I'll still stand by my answer to https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/192470/how-to-find-research-gap. Build a circle of collaborators, globally if necessary. And note that that question, also linked by @Ben, was closed.

You want to ‘[publish] research papers, but […] cant think of any ideas.’ Why are you interested in publishing research papers?

I actually had 3-4 ideas while working for a company but on arriving at IIT, The prof said that the the domain was outdated and not worth publishing, but he said it was interesting. So I know I have the potential but not the base

There may be different opinions on this, but I feel that the best place to start is to look at literature reviews and mapping studies. These often give a very good overview of the field and may also identify potential research gaps. At the start of my PhD, I did a systematic review. While this was very insightful, it was also incredibly time-consuming - hence why I would recommend looking at literature reviews that have already been written. After identifying where others feel there are gaps in the research, take a closer look at what research has been done to close those gaps. This will help you avoid making a contribution to a research gap that has already been done before. It's worth noting too, that I think a problem that's common among early career researchers is what they consider a novel contribution. Remember, it does not have to be ground-breaking. I would suggest making an incremental improvement on something that has been done before, or, identifying a flaw in other research and proposing an alternative to address that problem. Good luck!

Also replicating a study can be a good place to start. Unfortunately, publishing such a study can be difficult in some fields. So if you want to do that look for journals in your field that publishes replications. If you cannot find one, then this is probably not worth it.

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Major revision and re-submit as a Technical Note
I submitted a manuscript as a Research Paper last May 12 to Journal A. Now, 6 months later, I have received a decision letter recommending "... undertake a major revision, and re-submit a revised version of your paper as a Technical Note". Talking with co-authors we disagree and would like to submit the paper to a different journal (Journal B). What should I do? Should we submit the paper to Journal B if it is still "under revision" in Journal A? I have sent a letter to the Editor of Journal A, explaining that we'll not re-submit the paper as a technical note, but I have not yet received any reply.
Thanks for the advice!

To make it clear to the editor, formally withdraw it from consideration. Then it is yours to do with as you please. They have no hold over you or the paper until you formally sign copyright away. What you have sent is likely enough, actually, but a formal notice of withdrawal leaves no ambiguity.
In most places I think that giving notice is enough and their reply isn't needed. But you need to keep records. Formal mail (sneaker net) with a receipt for delivery is sometimes used for such things. And keep the receipt.

I have sent a letter to the Editor of Journal A, explaining that we'll not re-submit the paper as a technical note

I would consider this to be withdrawing your submission, assuming the explanation did not include any request to reconsider your paper in another form. You can now submit it someplace else, it's not necessary to wait for your withdrawal to be acknowledged or for the software to change your status from "under revision". There is no work the journal is currently doing on your paper, they are just waiting for you - it would be very different if it were out with reviewers.
However, if you haven't already revised your paper based on the comments you received I would highly recommend doing so before you submit someplace else. Even if you disagree with the reviewers' suggestions there must be something useful you can extract from them to clarify and improve your manuscript.
If you do submit it someplace else, and afterwards the original editor comes back and changes their mind and says you could resubmit as a Research Paper (I think this is incredibly unlikely, just including this to be thorough) you will have to politely tell them that you intended to withdraw the submission and have already resubmitted elsewhere.

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Resignation from a postdoc without appropriate notice period (UK)
I am 3 months into a 15 months postdoc in the UK, so I am still into the initial 6-months probation period. My contract specifies I have to give 3 months notice before leaving (plus some further clauses about not leaving mid-term, but I think this is mostly for teaching positions, while I only do research).
This week I got a really unexpected offer for a 3-year assistant professor position in my home country. It is a fixed-term contract without tenure-track, but for various reasons I still think that accepting it will greatly increase my chances of finding a permanent position in my home country (which is my long-term career goal). Overall I think it is really a unique opportunity and I was really lucky to get the offer.
I explained the situation to current my supervisor, who understands the situation and supports my choice. I have already plans to continue the research even if I leave my current institution and I plan to bring the research project to the end.
The main problem is that, due to exceptional nature of the funding, this position must absolutely start in January 2022, so I can give at most 1 month notice and everything needs to happen very quickly. My supervisor emailed HR (while suggesting me to not email them for the moment), but we still have to hear back from them.
I can't deny that I would be devastated to lose this opportunity just due to some bureaucratic impediment. Thus, in the meantime I'd like to know if anybody has had similar experiences, i.e. leaving early without the appropriate notice period, especially with UK institutions. Do you have any advice? Thanks!

I'm not sure how applicable this is to academia, but I know generally workplace advice is to not quit your current job until you have a contractual yes from the new job. You don't wanna be caught quitting your current job and then the new job rescinds their offer (for any reason), leaving you jobless. Not an answer, but relevant advice.

Thanks for your advice! I haven't signed a contract for the new position, but the position (with my name on it) has been already approved by the chancellor of the university, so I'm pretty sure about the offer.

Three months notice is very unusual for postdocs in the UK in my experience. It should be 1 month at most; 3 sounds insane. You should also carefully double-check whether there is any notice period during your probation period: there really shouldn’t be! That’s (part of) the point of probation.

based on my experience 3 months notice was entirely normal for a UK postdoc

read the contract. Often enough,  the notice periods only apply AFTER the probation period, during which the notice time can be a lot shorter

@Hobbamok unfortunately there is no explicit mention of this option in my current contract, but actually it was there in my previous postdoc contract with the same university, so hopefully the rule is somehow still in place... Anyway, I'll know tomorrow. Thanks for your input!

@DrakeP, but you also don’t want to sign a contract which you cannot fulfill without breaking another contract.

@justmyfault but a probation period is explicitly mentioned? Then it's not unlikely that this probation is referencing default contract/employment law, aka the shorter notice period might still be in effect. But I'd try to go the unanimous route: if all parties of a contract agree on dissolving it, it can be dissolved (wrong word probably lol). Aka if HR is on board you can leave without doing anything wrong.

What will probably happen in practice: a contract can generally be lifted without respecting the notice period if both parties agree, so you will be fine if your supervisor agrees. But HR might take a couple of weeks to process that, and the contract is only legally lifted when you have the agreement signed by HR and you. So hopefully HR is fast and the period of uncertainty is short...

Thanks everyone for the input, the situation has been resolved positively.
For people who will possibly end up on this page with a similar question: my department's HR office told me they can accept my resignation with a shorter notice period, as long as my supervisor is happy with it.

As a matter of contract law, the notice period can be truncated provided both parties agree. It doesn't sound like there are any particular reasons here for the university to insist that you serve your full notice. (If you were teaching, or were responsible for feeding the lab monkeys, there might be a need to keep you around until a replacement could be hired.)
Your supervisor is probably the only person in the university hierarchy who actually knows or cares what you were hired to do. If they are supportive, I would expect HR to shrug and agree to whatever departure date you want to give.
Even if they say no, you could decide to break your contract. They are not going to send the SAS to find you and drag you back to your university desk. I am not a lawyer, but I believe the university's recourse would be to sue you for costs reasonably incurred in order to cover your duties during the notice period. I am quite confident that this is not something that the university's lawyer wants to waste their time on. (In theory, breaking your contract would be something that would be entered on your HR file and might impact your ability to get a good reference in the future. In practice, you will almost certainly approach your supervisor, rather than HR, for the reference - so provided they're happy it probably doesn't matter too much.)
Edited to add: My comment that the university is unlikely to pursue someone who 'breaks their contract' is specific to the situation of a postdoc who has no responsibilities beyond research, and who is unlikely to cause the university any substantial loss. The situation might be different if, say, you are halfway through teaching a major lecture course. Then, the university might incur substantial costs (either to get someone to step in, and/or to compensate students for the ensuing disruption) and might be inclined to pursue you pour encourager les autres.

Thanks for the answer, it is reassuring!
I hope HR will agree on truncating the notice period, but it's good to know that breaking the contract is a possibility that usually doesn't have serious consequences.

surely that would be “pour decourager les autres”? You hardly want to encourage them…

Add to this that you'll be sued in the UK, but any award of damages (which would be next to impossible for the uni to prove) would presumably unrecoverable if you weren't in the country,

@ZeroTheHero  It's a quote from Voltaire.  https://wordhistories.net/2016/10/22/pour-encourager-les-autres/

Even if they do sue and you end up settling (because no one wants to go to court), surely the prospect of a great carreer jump is worth paying a months salary for!

The most that usually happens when you "leave without proper notice", is that they may be allowed to dock your back pay and/or accrued benefits.  But, legally pursuing a postdoc into another country for insufficient notice is not on anyone's todo list.

Great, the consensus seems to be that it's very unlikely to have serious consequences. That's what I believed, but I'm very grateful for all your comments confirming this idea.

I once resigned from a post-doc in the UK with less than one month's notice. I did this by emailing my Head of Department and his secretary, after talking about it with my supervisor. The secretary replied the next day to say that this was fine. There are two reasons to recommend this course of action:

Given my experience of working in several UK universities, I would expect that the person who has the power to waive your notice period is the Head of Department, and not your supervisor or HR. Sometimes, but not always, this has been explicitly stated in my contract. If your supervisor is happy for you to leave and you have no teaching or other duties, then it would be surprising for the HoD not to approve this.

In all the departments I have worked in, the HoD's secretary/PA has been the person who has dealt with HR matters that can be handled within the department without requiring the involvement of HR specialists. This includes responsibility for staff arriving and departing.

Admittedly my experience has all been in maths departments in research-intensive universities so I can't be sure that practices are the same elsewhere.
Since you are still in the probation period, I will also mention that some but not all of my contracts have stated that the notice period is reduced to 1 month during the probation period. This might be stated either in the section on termination or in the section on probation. I assume you would have seen this already if it was the case.

Thanks, this is valuable information. Bypassing HR and writing to the HoD is indeed a good idea.
This is the second postdoc I'm doing at this university and in the previous contract there was indeed a mention of a reduced notice period during probation, but I can't find it written explicitly in the new contract.


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Is there a term to describe when students are in one classroom for most of the day?
When I was in elementary school, I was in a single classroom the entire day. I would have different teachers come in and give classes, but we as students wouldn't change our classroom. When I was in high school, we were in two classrooms, first half and second half of the day.
There seems to be a term for every single possible classroom arrangement, but I haven't found one for this. I've seen it once called "Homeroom," but the Internet seems to disagree (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeroom amongst other places). Any suggestions?
Additional context: The company I'm working for is building a school software so terminology is critical when initially setting up courses/classrooms etc. We've spent a ton of time researching terminology, but this one has us completely stuck.

Hmm, nothing comes to mind. Can you give an example of one of the other classroom arrangements that has a specific term?

The term I'm familiar with for different teachers with different subjects is departmentalized or platoon teaching. I looked for a more specific term to refer to your situation and didn't find one; places I found that described departmentalized structures and mentioned the possibility of either teachers or students moving did not associate any term with it. It's quite possible one doesn't exist. I pinged the math educators chat in case someone over there has experience, perhaps there is a term used in a research setting. Good luck!

All of my secondary school life (middle and high school) were in a fixed classroom, i.e. the whole class were in a fix class room, All of the teachers came to our class room to teach. Even music lessons were taught in our class. The location is Taiwan.The time was 5 decades ago.

This is (or was) the norm in Germany, that students stay put and the teacher moves from class to class. It is called a "floating teacher" arrangement. https://woman.thenest.com/floating-teacher-10350.html

Something close may be a “floating teacher model”.
A room is predominantly occupied by one instructor then another comes in during the primary instructor’s prep period to teach his or her lesson.  There’s no reason one room would be restricted to only two teachers in this practice. “Cart” teachers or “mobile” teachers are also commonly used terms for these roles. While there is research on this practice, I haven’t come across any where all teachers are subject to moving between rooms. That’s not to say a universal term for the structure does not exist.

In Italy, apart for subjects like gym and some labs, all high-school teachers move among classrooms. At university, it's the same.

My understanding from what I’ve read is that it works the same way in Japanese high schools as well. Not sure if they use the same term for it as this answer, though.

In the UK in the 1960s-70s in my grammar school (age 11-18 years), we called it a form room. The Cambridge dictionary https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/form-room defines it as "a room in a school where members of a particular form (= a group of students) go for their teacher to record that they are present, usually at the beginning of the day", but we had all our lessons there unless special facilities were required (sciences were taught in the laboratories, art in the art-room and so on).

I'm not sure I've ever had a situation where all of the classes where taught in the same room. Disregarding the obvious such as gym classes, in elementary school we did have a solitary classroom for most of the subjects though.
I am however not familiar with a specific term that exist to describe this though, perhaps you can simply refer to it as having a "designated classroom" that is specific to the class as opposed to having subject specific classrooms? This is a fascinating question, will need to explore this one further.


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Referees ask for more content but this lengthens the paper dramatically
So, my situation is as follows: I submitted a paper to a journal and continued to work on that line of research, specifically on the open problems I mentioned in the submitted paper.
Now, in the received reviews the referees call for more content in the form of addressing one of the before mentioned open problems in particular. I am fine with adding more content, especially since I have already done the work.
However, the solution to the problem fills an additional 25+ pages, an amount which would pad the paper to a very long length. I am not sure of how to proceed as I am quite convinced that merging the two projects would be too long for the journal.
I don’t know if I should

merge the projects and hope for it not being too long,
disagree with the referees opinion in my revision and state the situation,
contact someone and get information before conducting the revisions?

Maybe as a more general question, how is it in general perceived to get a large lengthening in return to a call for more content?

Duplicate? https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/137435/is-it-acceptable-to-say-that-a-reviewers-concern-is-not-going-to-be-addressed-b

First, share your concerns with the editors. The reviewers may not have realized the extent of the work. If they agree that a long paper is fine, then write the long paper. If they don't want to do that then consider breaking the work into two papers with one referencing the other. You could even submit them simultaneously to the same journal.
But it would probably be worth checking that with the editors also. I'll guess they would consider that to be the better solution, but it is their call.

First, many journals these days allow for "supplementary information", which does not go in the main paper, but is available for download at the journal's website for interested readers. You could add a brief summary of the new content to the main paper (say a page) and then refer the reader to the supplementary information section if they want all the details.
Another option is that you just submit a second paper with the new content (and then cite the second paper in the first one as "in preparation").
Either way, e-mail the editor with your recommendation first and ask if he agrees or has another suggestion for you.

In the second option, it's important to give the reviewers access to the other paper, either via upload to arXiv, or by submitting it as an additional resource together with their paper.


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PhD supervisor will not read draft
I just wanted to get some input from the community about an issue I have run into with my main PhD supervisor.
I started my PhD about two years ago (hard science field), and about six months ago I finished a preliminary draft for most my first article. The draft is about 70 % complete, but I can't write the last part yet because I am still waiting on some final results.
I sent the draft to my main supervisor as I wanted to get some feedback on the parts I had written so far. Just before summer I had a meeting with my supervisor, and it turned out that my supervisor had not read anything in the draft even though I had sent it several weeks before. As such, I felt that the meeting was rather unproductive as I basically had to spend the short time I had allocated explaining what I had actually done research-wise instead of getting feedback on my draft. This also disappointed me a little bit as my supervisor had specifically informed me before that it was preferable that I summarized my findings in article-form instead of just sending random updates whenever I had some progress.
Fast forward until now. This semester I have spent working at another institution, and my supervisor recently came to visit me. Several weeks before this I had informed my supervisor that I would like to discuss my paper draft, and was told that this should not be a problem. However, it turned out yet again that my supervisor had not read antyhing. Instead I was told that as some of my co-supervisors had taken a look at the draft and said it needed a better focus and a thorough rewrite (which I fully expected anyways), there was no need for my main supervisor to read it. However, although my co-advisors have given me good tips on some of the issues in the draft, I still feel like I have not received proper guidance in how I can restructure the entire focus of the article based on my current findings.
As I have spent a lot of time writing this draft, and would like to receive feedback from my main supervisor on how to improve the paper, I find it disappointing that my supervisor has shown so little interest in reading my draft. It is my understanding that reading drafts is one of the main duties of a supervisor. I am now at the stage of my PhD where I can do most of the research independently, but I still feel I need input on my writing.
Is this something I should be more firm about with my supervisor? We have had a very good working relationship so far, but this issue is really starting to bother me. If anyone has any tips on how I can deal with this, then i would greatly appreciate it!

From my own experience, I often have to print off a copy of whatever I've written and sit with my supervisor while he reads it then and there. Use this tactic as a last resort if nothing else works!

70% might be part of the problem. Professors are busy and anything less than a 100% complete draft might get low priority.

Thanks both of you for input! I would actually like to read through the manuscript together with my supervisor - maybe I will suggest that. Regarding the 70% issue, I have also thought about this. However, the way I approach my analysis of the final modeling run will depend on how strong my arguments are leading up to this. Which is exactly why I want input on the work I have done so far. And when my supervisor also encourages me to send summaries of my work in written form, only to neglect to look at it when I do so, then I feel a bit bummed out about the whole thing.

Supervisors? Plural? OK. That could be a source of frictional losses.

This sounds like a case of your supervisor being too busy and pushing work they consider less essential to the background. I'd suggest that, since you have alternate sources of feedback here, that you explore those and just push on toward the end.
I think it would be harder to avoid something you represent as a "complete" draft or a "final" draft. At that point I hope the supervisor moves your work up to the first level of importance.
Even feedback from a third party might be valuable if you can find a way to get it.
But there is no reason for you to stall your own progress. But trying to force someone to do something they don't see as essential in the moment doesn't sound like a plan for success. Especially when they have the power.

Thank you so much.  I know my supervisor is very busy. However, as I am now quite independent in my research, I do not really need too much of my supervisor's time anymore. Except that I really wish to get some feedback on my written work. The theoretical foundations I have derived so far will directly influence how I analyze my modeling work, and now I feel I have to rush through everything orally on those few occasions where I meet my supervisor. I do appreciate the third party feedback, and take it into account. And while waiting for my main supervisor, I keep busy on my other proejcts.

Feedback from a third party is good, but it doesn't solve the problem.  The supervisor must contribute or the relationship is seriously harmed.

@AnonymousPhysicist, I don't disagree with that, but the OP can't control it. And they still need feedback from somewhere. Hoping the advisor does a better job may not be effective. Complaining about it may make it worse. Sometimes you just need to solve your own problems.

This is a common problem which is very hard to solve.
I suggest telling your supervisor that they need to set a timeline for completion of the project.  If the supervisor sets the deadlines for themselves, they might be more likely to stick to the deadlines.  If you do this, be sure you meet the deadlines set for you.

Unfortunately, your description sounds familiar and is not umcommon. PhD advisors often have more tasks they can manage in their limited time, so they have to set priorities which means that some things are done and others more or less forgotten (new things keep pouring in...). So if you desperately want or need the feedback you have to make sure to rise in the list of priorities.
From an advisor's perspective, it is rather common that your students tend to leave you alone for too long with things they imagine you do not have time for. That can be a big mistake because you effectively take away the decision if it is worth looking at your text away from the advisor (who has probably forgotten about it). It only makes sure to drop in priority until forgotten.
It depends a bit on the character of your advisor and your relationship, but one possible strategy could be to ask in shorter intervals. The idea is to literally get on the advisor's nerves and make it impossible to be forgotten. Some people are grateful for the reminders (I would be), and they still can ignore them (especially when they come as emails). But this way you shift the decision making to your advisor. And a reasonable person would understand that after the 5th (or so) reminder in a short time you really need the feedback - and the advisor will eventually find the time. But keep in mind: For that, the advisor has to postpone something else which is equally pressing. And there always are enough really pressing issues, so yours has to be one, too.
Finally, I would like to highlight one aspect: The feedback you got is valuable already. If your text lacks focus and needs to be rewritten it sounds as if you do not really have a 70% version of the text. In such circumstances it might be unreasonable to push the advisor for some feedback on basic things other people can help you with. Given the limited time of your advisor, I would recommend to use her/his abilities in the last 10% to 20%. If done properly, your text will then make a really big step forward and you get from your advisor what most others could not teach you. I promise that the last 20% will take at least as much time and work as the first 80% (Pareto principle), so you will still have the chance to test the right strategy to activate your advisor.

Write to your supervisor asking for clarifications on the writing process and how is the supervisor input supposed to be. Suggest to your supervisor that the authorship is under risk if you are the only contributor, that you are not going to waste your time with the paper (which can have an effect in the future) or that you might get interested in your own research topics if this one does not go forward. It's important that you have everything in writing.

Too threatening.

Those points that I mention are too threatening if written in a direct or improper way in one and only one email, I agree. I think the points can be subtly communicated with diplomatic language or implied intentions. Then a PhD candidate can decide what to do either if the response is clear or ambiguous. Otherwise, if the supervisor's role is ambiguous at some point, this creates uncertainty-stress and can have dire consequences in year 2 and 3 when it's too late. I think asking about clarifications on methodology should not be considered as confrontational.


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Dissertation topic in one field and degree in another field?
Feeing kind of stuck here. I started out as a math PhD student then switched to engineering. I thought by doing so I would be able to learn new skills and expertise in that particular field. But I quickly realized my advisor had a side interest in a math-ish field that is tangentially related to his main area (maybe that’s THE reason I was hired in the first place) but obviously his knowledge is limited in this new field.
Somehow I managed to publish 3 papers in engineering/applied math journals (by fluke? I thinkso) but since everything I know about this field is self-taught I don’t feel confident in my knowledge. I don’t know enough math to become a mathematician nor can I claim expertise in this engineering field I am supposedly in and time is running out.
My biggest fear is actually that the committee members are going to think I have been doodling around doing some unrelated math stuff and reject my dissertation (does this happen? My advisor doesn’t seem worried about this possibility at all). What are my options here really? I suppose if I manage to graduate I will just get a regular job outside of academia, but I do want my degree as I have been here for too long.

What country are you in? The answer might depend on this.

I think you can probably trust your advisor. Related, but not a duplicate: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/140163/my-phd-defense-is-next-week-and-i-am-having-negative-thoughts-about-my-work-and/140164#140164

Three journal publications is pretty good. Seems unlikely that three would all be flukes.

Feeling nervous when you are approaching your thesis defense is the normal situation. If you were not nervous I would be surprised.
The chances of getting rejected outright are very small. By the time you get to your defense, it looks bad on everybody if you fail. Your school, your prof, your dean of admissions, all look bad for letting you go this far and not finish.
The very worst that happens is that you get told you must do some more work. That might delay your graduating by six months or something. And that is not usual, especially when you have three publications related to your thesis.
How many previous PhDs has your prof graduated? Your chance of getting rejected should be a lot less if your prof has several already graduated. It means that the "halls of academe" have been successfully navigated before. If you are not comfortable talking to your prof about such issues, you should be able to find out from your university. Many departments have collections of previous PhD theses available for you to look at. See if you can find some of the previous ones your prof supervised.
That might also tell you if you are in a line of research your prof has gone down before.  Basically, that has two sides. If it's a familiar territory, you are less likely to get lost, but you are expected to put up something prettier. In brand new territory, you get a lot of credit for innovation even if it's ugly.
My prof gave me a "pep talk" just before my defense. Literally in the hallway outside the room, just before the oral. He said to remember that I had three publications. That I had done a lot of good work on the thesis and on the prep for the defense. That the committee had already seen the thesis and they had not reacted badly. Then he gave a strategy for answering questions. He said, listen to the entire question. Then give the simplest possible answer and look at the person expectantly. If they want more they will tell you.
Take heart.

Thank you for the advice. I am one of the last people graduating from his lab before my advisor retires. The current insecurity comes from the fact that later in his career he started to branch out and I am at the end of one of those “other” branches. For this reason my thesis is going to look vastly different from my predecessors.


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How important is it to use publically available data in publication?
I have access a lot of data from hospitals and we as a team have been publishing works on application of AI models using the data.
recently, in one of the reviewers comments, the reviewer was addressing to use publically availabel data to showcase the improvements of our methods.
usually in health care setup, not many samples are avaialable publically. To address this comment, We will have to work on preprocessing of publically available data which might take months to do that.
How can i politely deny working with publically available data?
Thanks...

Welcome to the site and please consider taking the tour. Your title does not answer your question, "How can i politely deny working with publically available data?" Please clarify. Also, medical statistics deal with this problem on a regular basis, see https://www.harvardonline.harvard.edu/blog/anonymity-de-identification-accuracy-data and https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4707567/ as examples. I suggest consulting with a local medical statistician to know the policies and norms of your institution and country.

An interesting question worth proofreading.

It seems to me that it is a nice-to-have. And making it available publicly may not be possible depending on your IRB approval. Now, if you could use your method on other publicly available data that might be interesting.

The question's interesting, but I think it's a question about a specific research topic (which is out of scope) rather than a question about academic procedures/"the business"/etc.

You write your work is:

application of AI models using the data

and the reviewer talked about showcasing improvements of methods.
If your research is on AI models, then the specific data you have should not matter. If anything, your work is probably only valid if it applies broadly to data collected from different places. It's probably worth the effort to clean/preprocess another data set if for no other reason than to validate what you've found.
Some people in your field are especially picky about this because it's very common in your field for people to publish about "improvements" they've made that are not improvements at all but depend strongly on the specific data they are tested on and do not generalize. So, there's a lot of effectively junk work published that cannot be replicated and is not useful to anyone except that it makes it harder to find work that is actually useful. It also may be expected that peer reviewers are able to execute your code to verify your results, and they won't be able to do that without data to process.
If you were applying your models to healthcare data to get answers about healthcare from that specific data, I think you'd have a better argument about using those data alone, but it's still becoming more standard to expect anonymized data to be made public in those cases and you should pursue whether that is a possibility, including obtaining additional approval if necessary.
If you do decide it's not possible, your justification of why you can't release the data should be about why you cannot, not why you don't want to.

"If your research is on AI models, then the specific data you have should not matter." Garbage in, garbage out always applies, of course.

@Anyon Yes of course, by "specific data should not matter" I do not mean "data quality does not matter"; quality is a general characteristic, not a specific one. I mean that if you are trying to say something about "AI models of healthcare data" but your improvement on some characteristic only works with data from Sloan Kettering, you've only shown something about data from Sloan Kettering, not anything about AI models, and it's unlikely that anyone can tell anything about why your changes work with those data without having access to the data.


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How do I make sure I can actually finish my thesis?
I am in my second year of my master's degree and am one month into the new term. Currently, I have drafted my entire thesis proposal at length, set up most of my experiment, obtained ethics approval and approval for testing. But I am at an impasse because the lab tech has left, and have relied on him for technical software programming. It has been months since I first contacted him about it, and he has always told me that he will get to it, but to no avail.
For reference, there is nobody else in my lab including my supervisor who is familiar with the exact technical programming needed to run the experiment. For me, I am not very experienced with coding but have gotten as far as I ever thought possible on my own. I have asked a few colleagues who are familiar with the software how to configure it. But they are unsure and the lab tech seemed to be the only person.
He is still available on a very limited basis for certain technical questions but seems unresponsive to me. My supervisor and others have thrown a lot at him and is more involved in their technical challenges. Personally, I find many of their questions easy to solve on their own. We have the knowledge to do this and it seems like a waste of limited resources.
I am very concerned about being able to actually complete my thesis on time due to a lack of support on this project and time constraints. The term will be over before you know it and at my institution testing can only be done in a limited time period. It has left me feeling lost and stuck grappling with the same challenge.
My supervisor says that I have taken a lot of initiative in my work and other projects I am on, and am quite advanced for my position. While that is encouraging, it is also makes me wonder if there is a hidden expectation to figure everything out on my own. If that were the case, it could take my entire semester just to figure out these technical configurations on my own and is a bad use of time. Also, I want to stress that this is not a small thing. I am usually very independent but there comes a point where assistance and support is needed from others in a lab, otherwise what is the point? And collaboration ceases to exist.
The last thing I will say is that in addition to the risk of not being able to complete my experiment, this is holding me back from other opportunities such as conferences, which I have had to turn down regretfully due to a lack of data. This is not the main issue but is a painful reminder of how behind I am.
I apologize for the long rant, but I am just not sure how to approach this. My worst fear is to have to take an extra year to complete, since I will not receive funding. I started this program well ahead of my cohort, but am left with a bitter taste in my mouth knowing those efforts seem to be going to waste. At this point,  what is the best course of action for dealing with this issue to complete my experiment and thesis in time?

It sounds like you primarily have a technical/content problem. It’s not clear how we can help with that. Ultimately, if you need code/expertise and it’s not available anymore, then your only option is to find another source for it - be it yourself or another lab tech -  but what exactly this means in your situation is impossible to tell.

You should ask your advisor/supervisor about this and come to a joint plan. Time constraint is one of the major difficulties with masters level research. There are a lot of possibilities for a solution that don't involve failure. They might include time extensions of course. Even producing a thesis with only partial results might work, though it is up to the advisor who needs to be able to accept it.
But, if your project is extensive and at or near the leading edge of research, there is no way to guarantee a schedule. Develop a contingency plan with your advisor.

This is the most encouraging advice I have heard yet. Thank you.


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(Potentially) Low GPA with No Reserach Experience, Am I Screwed for math PhD program?
I am a Japanese junior student who is thinking of applying to the PhD program(Applied Mathematics/Statistics) in the U.S. for the 2021 cycle, but I think I have an incredibly low chance to be accepted to any programs.
Firstly, my GPA is really bad compared to other applicants. I have seen GPA of applicants on https://mathematicsgre.com/ and most of the people in that forum have at least a GPA of 3.8 or even 4.0. However, my overall GPA until the first semester of junior year was 3.48/4.0(Math GPA 3.5), which is really low for grad school. This was because I took too many courses and could not handle some of them(did not fail any but low grades). Moreover, my GPA in the third quarter this year is not going to be good because my grade in a literature class(it was mandatory to take it) is going to be C in S(4)-A(3)-B(2)-C(1) grading and I messed up in quantum mechanics exam. Grades in math classes are not going to be all S too. I am trying to get nice grades in this fourth quarter, but it will not be as good as average applicants.
Secondly, I literally have no research experience. From what I have seen, college students in the U.S. have an opportunity to do REUs. However, it is not the case in Japan. Math majors are not even expected to write a senior thesis and research opportunities are very limited here. I have asked my advisor about this but could not get any good results.
I still have not taken GRE, but from what I have heard, the GRE score does not matter as long as it is not astronomically bad, which does not help in my case.
Should I just give up or is there anything I can do?

Take up an open problem and solve it. That's the best way to prove your talent without depending on external factors. I wouldn't have given you this advice if you were from a developing country. But you are from Japan which is highly developed, so this advice.

I can't speak for math specifically but here is a general answer
First, don't worry about no research experience. some US undergraduates have research experience but not all. I had literally zero and I was admitted to very prestigious universities
As to GPA, there's nothing you can do about the past grades so just do the best you can on remaining classes. You can mention something about it in your cover letter if you want (ie some explanation like in your question). 3.5 is not the worst GPA in the world.
GRE scores matter more or less at different places. Just study the best you can.
You can also make sure your research statement is well written. Find universities where there are professors whose interests match yours very well
In short I don't think you're in a hopeless situation.


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To what extent can I refer to closed-access reviewer comments in my public task management workflow?
I have written and submitted a manuscript to a journal owned by Oxford University Press. This manuscript describes the associated source code, which is stored in a public GitHub repository. The journal has sent this manuscript to reviewers, and they have responded with some suggestions on how to improve the code. I would like to implement these suggestions in my code.
To what extent can I refer to these suggestions in my public task management workflow (ie GitHub)? I'm not even sure who owns the IP to the peer reviews themselves, but I assume that, since it's a closed review system, I am not allowed to reproduce the comments. In that case, can I paraphrase these suggestions when I write my GitHub issues? Each GitHub issue is a public thread for tracking information about tasks, their scope and their progress. If yes, can I explicitly tag these issues as being derived from peer review? Or will this leak too much of associated IP? More broadly, how can I balance my desire for open and transparent software development, with a closed review process?

if the reviewers are willing to unblind themselves that might make things less complicated ... You could write an e-mail explaining the situation to the handling editor for the journal and ask if they'd be willing to forward it to the reviewers. It would then be up to the reviewers to decide what they wanted to do.

This might work, but I would like to develop a workflow that works within the restrictions of the system where possible, so that it remains friction-less. Emailing the editor and asking for a removal of the blind review for every submission doesn't seem ideal.

I think the other answer and comments focus too much on the legal aspects involved. There is also a community moral aspect to it. There is a good discussion in the Publons article Who owns the review.
The comments that the reviewer makes are meant to be only for the author(s) and editor. For the editor to help make a decision on acceptance of the paper and for the author(s) to either explain this decision or help improve the paper. Quoting this comments elsewhere isn't really part of the traditional process.
However, the issues raised by the reviewer need addressing in the code and you are following code practice by tracking issues using an appropriate (open) tool.
I think its important that you remember that the reviewers recommendations are just recommendations that you need to interpret in any case before you make any changes. I would recommend to make issues/tasks using your interpretations of what needs to be done. You should be able to state clearly both what needs to be done and why without quoting the reviewer at all.
This way you avoid any problems relating to copyright at all - publishing interpretations is fine. The recommendations are there to be acted on so there's no need to bother a probably already over-worked editor. More importantly this approach makes you think about what the changes are and why they are needed. This will help your understanding of the issues and how to fix them better.

I think this answer makes sense, but like I said elsewhere, I don't think it's always possible to apply common sense reasoning to IP issues: e.g. I wouldn't be allowed to paraphrase/publish an interpretation of a company's super secret algorithm without permission.

I'm going to speak loosely here, but the copyright in these reviews probably gets assigned to the journal. Check OUP's website for instructions for reviewers and see if they have a page on it. But, every reviewer generally signs some sort of agreement before they do their first review, or with their submission. It may depend on country to some extent or entirely. I couldn't find anything immediately, so you may have to contact an editor now to find out.
My guess is that OUP has the copyright on the suggested code or the reviewer retains it. Either way, you need someone else's permission to adopt it into your project, which, in the US, would probably require a written copyright transfer to you or whoever owns the copyright on your GitHub project (which might not be you even if you think it is). This written transfer agreement would break the anonymity/single-blindness of the review process, so you'd have to go through the editor anyway, so there's no harm in just starting there.
Edited to add: you should be asking the editor to clarify and to get you permission from the reviewer in question to use the code, gratis. For them to donate the code to the editor or you in a way that complies with most copyright laws and contributes it to your project in a way that you or the actual copyright holder can take ownership and check it in to the repo with no repercussions. All while maintaining the integrity of the review process.

If this changes anything, the suggestions are just a description of changes, and aren't physical code.

Emailing the editor to ask for permission isn't a normal part of the review process, so I wonder how this is done normally?

Sorry, I missed that. Acknowledging an anonymous reviewer for changes that happened in code or in the paper text is not all that uncommon. When you use the suggestion in a subsequent work you can say in a footnote or Acknowledgements section, "The authors gratefully thank a prior reviewer for suggestions of changes to the code which comprise ... [v. short summary] and have been incorporated in the code in the GitHub repository."

Sure, I have no problem doing that in the manuscript, but my question is about referring to the reviewer comments in my public GitHub, before publication.

Paraphrase them. "This section was modified based on comments from Reviewer 2 during review of our paper [cite, to appear [or 'under review' or 'rejected']] for a 20% performance improvement." in the commit message and comment. There's no harm in paraphrasing.

This seems like a logical step, but paraphrasing private intellectual property doesn't seem like something that would always be safe (e.g. I wouldn't be allowed to paraphrase a company's super secret algorithm without permission)

Reviewer comments are kept secret to protect the anonymity of the academic review process and let their comments flow unabated (hopefully). So we're back to "Ask the editor if they'd allow an anonymous acknowledgement." Send what you want to say along with your request.

I appreciate that you're trying to be careful, but I think you might be overthinking it. Suppose the reviewers made wonderful suggestions that you wanted to incorporate in the underlying algorithm, not just in the code. The algorithm would in principle be just as subject to IP restrictions as the code ... but you would never say "I had good suggestions from the reviewers but I can't incorporate them in the algorithm (which is the focus of the published paper) because that was a private communication". The point about paraphrasing still applies though.


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Is "lab" too informal a word for a formal cover letter?
When applying for a postdoc position, it makes sense to write something like this in the cover letter:

Dear Professor NAME. I am writing to apply for POSITION in your lab

What I'm stuck on, is that a cover letter is a formal letter, so should be written in a formal register. However, the word "lab" is an abbreviation and so inherently informal, which makes it seem wrong. On the other hand "laboratory" sounds even more wrong because no-one says "at my laboratory" in speech.
Is the word "lab" appropriate in this context?

Abbreviations aren't inherently informal.

I agree with you that both lab and laboratory don't sound good. Maybe you could use "group" instead?

You could (should?) use the word the lab uses in their official name, if there is one: eg Centre / Laboratory / Group / Unit. When I was an undergrad, the department where I studied had a Hydrological Research Unit, for example. In that case your letter could say:

I am writing to apply for POSITION in your unit

or

I am writing to apply for POSITION in the Hydrological Research Unit


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Contacting multiple potential advisors, while already a PhD student. What is the etiquette?
I am currently a PhD student in the US, and have an advisor, but I am in the process of changing my advisor and consequently my project and area of research. I was advised by the department to contact potential advisors, and because there are also critical, funding-related, administrative steps involved, I have to first find an advisor who gives me a funded PhD position. I know in a normal situation, e.g. if I was applying for the PhD program from another institution, it would make sense to contact multiple potential advisors and move forward with them in parallel up to some point, as it has been advised in response to this and this questions. But in my case:

I am already a PhD student, with an advisor and a project, and my position depends on funding both from the department and future advisors. I am changing my advisor.
This process should be done relatively quietly. My current advisor should not figure this out, although the DGS is aware and helpful. This is because of history of retaliation from my current advisor, which should be taken seriously since changing advisors might take some time or may not be possible at all.
Since my area of research will inevitably change, any work I do before changing advisors is mostly going to be a waste of time. I also have a hard deadline to complete the process by April so all advisors can figure out how many new students they want for the next year. So, I have to try to get this done as fast as possible.
I am changing research areas, and considering professors within the same department with somewhat different research areas. I do have the background to go in either direction, and interest-wise, I am equally interested in both.
I was admitted to the program mostly because my current advisor wanted to hire me. For other professors, I am like a new applicant, who is going to take a spot in their group. So, understandably, they are going to vet me and move with caution, probably starting with a collaboration. (This was my experience with my first attempt, which did not work out)

That is to say, I have a time constraint, that I cannot attempt a potential advisor and once they clarify they will not take me, I go for the next. On the other hand, I am not sure how I can justify for one potential advisor that I have been going through the same process with another and eventually this would be a complete waste of time for at least one of them.
Meanwhile, not being able to change my advisor at all is the second worst outcome, second to getting kicked out of the university.
What is the way to go about this? I have been considering

Taking the risk and corresponding with multiple potential advisors in parallel, and somehow (not sure how?!) make it clear to them that there is a chance it will all fall through.
Going full transparency and tell them I am going through this process with multiple faculty and why.
Take the risk of wasting a lot of time and effort and just go one by one.

Any comments on these options? Is there a conventional etiquette for this situation? Any other suggestions?
Thank you in advance for your comments and suggestions!

What country and field? Standards may affect answers

Even though you feel your time constraint prohibits it, I think you'll get better responses from potential advisors by interacting with them one-at-a-time, rather than any sort of shot-gun approach. When I've been approaching in any sort of spammish approach, I usually delete the email, and don't think about it at all.

@AzorAhai-him- Country is the US, field is engineering, but my research area is theoretical (i.e. small research groups, but still students are funded by the professor)

@paulgarrett Is that true even for current PhD students? I thought since I'm already student in the department, I'll at least get to meet with the professor once

Yes, when you're already in the department, you can meet with faculty directly. But do not send bulk emails, and so on. Do not behave as though you will be "doing a favor" to whichever faculty person might take you on as advisee. Also, on the day you go to see Prof X, you should really have your mind oriented specifically toward them, their work, their projects... NOT as generic-potential-advisor. Engage with the specifics...

Your DGS will have better advice for you than strangers on the Internet.  The way these things works is frequently specific to the field and even to your specific department.


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Using AI Assistance for Drafting Recommendation Letters: Risks and Considerations
I am applying for a PhD program and have reached out to three professors to write recommendation letters for me. Since they are quite busy, they have asked me to draft the letters myself. Can I use ChatGPT to help me write them? Would this result in the admission committee identifying AI involvement or noticing a high similarity rate among the three letters, potentially leading to rejection?

The high similarity rate is presumably also an issue if you personally draft all three letters yourself too

For a starter, your question title reads suspiciously like what ChatGPT would generate.

I don't believe that a single professor, let alone all three, would have you draft your own letter of recommendation.

@kjhughes This is apparently a common practice in some places, although I personally find it baffling--why have letters at all?

While you might get away with it, I would recommend against it, partly for the reasons you give. But who knows your qualifications for graduate study better than you do? Do you think some AI (which, in spite of its name, isn't intelligent) knows more about you and your goals and background?
If you use it for a first draft, it might be safe enough to give an outline,  but so would reading a few successful letters of others from the past.
At this point in time, AI is, IMO, mostly hype put out by those who want to sell it. It makes egregious errors that if not caught by an actually intelligent being can do great harm.
True AI is always ten years in the future, and it has been for at least the last 50 years. Interesting, but not to be trusted.
I suggest, instead, that you make a list of your qualifications and goals and then draft something around those. And note that the letters from the three or so writers had better not seem alike. Maybe a list of things for each writer would be enough, perhaps with some guidance about what you think should be emphasized.
I've never asked people to write their own letters, but, for those who have been away for a while, I might ask them to remind me of some of our interactions. This helps me personalize the letter. Being busy, we don't always remember as much as we like.

+1 for the answer. Not sure AI is still 10 years away. The current crop of "AI" apps is (reportedly) very good as a coding assistant and (some say_ at summarizing documents that people wrote too wordily. Of course you can choose not to call that artificial intelligence.

As a senior dev who’s played around with AI as a dev assistant, it could be helpful for writing very simple boilerplate code, though personally getting inline code recommendations would break my train of thought. But AI writing code with any complexity at all has in my experience been a trainwreck. It can appear to do a good job at times while writing code that if actually put into production would lead to possibly career-limiting outcomes. All in all, using AI for real work except the most trivial of tasks has proved frustrating and not worth the effort.

I wholeheartedly agree. I like to play around with ChatGPT as a toy, but the one time I thought I might try it for real work, it produced output that was wrong in ways that are sanctionable and could have been disastrous if I hadn't caught the problems. In the end, writing it myself was faster and safer than using AI. Other lawyers have failed to catch the problem and have in fact been sanctioned for mistakes made by AI that they failed to correct.

It's problematic that you are being asked to draft your own letters of recommendation, but I suppose that part of the situation is outside your control, so... it is what it is. You could gently push back and suggest some alternatives, like giving them bullet points of objective achievements they have witnessed working with you, or meeting them and discussing the letters in person. But you need to assess yourself how much pushback of this sort is politically feasible with these professors.
Regarding the use of AI to do (some of) the draft writing, my main worry would not be whether the committee is going to recognise AI writing, but whether the letter of recommendation ends up saying things about you that are both true and that the person sending the letter (who I will henceforth simply call the "letter sender") could plausibly have written about you. Just like anybody else other than the letter sender, any AI can only speculate about what the letter sender has seen of your work and what the letter sender thinks of your work, unless you or the letter sender tell it. If you let it speculate, you are bound to end up with stuff that is either wrong, or bland, or generic, or all of these.
The main problem of your situation is that you are asked to draft your own letters and that you are likely to be poorly equipped to do that, because as a letter writer for yourself, you have an obvious conflict of interest, it is difficult to assess one's own work objectively, you do not exactly know what your teachers privately think about you or what they know of your work, and finally, you likely have no experience in writing these letters. Additionally, the letter senders have put you in the somewhat uncomfortable situation that you are asked to draft three letters, which of course might cause the problem of an unnatural degree of correlation between them that you already mentioned, but which is totally independent of AI.
Given this analysis, I think AIs like ChatGPT could be helpful in your situation, but I would think not by producing those drafts in one go. I could imagine something like the following might yield results that are at least somewhat useful:

Before you prompt the AI to do any drafting, describe the situation fully to it. Any context will be useful. That includes the context that you are asked to draft these letters for yourself.
Ask it to ask you a list of questions that have objective short answers and that are necessary as context for drafting the letters. Remind the model that this is not limited to stuff in your CV and the position that you are applying for, but also about your relationship with the letter writer. Try to answer those questions as precisely as possible.
When all that information has been gathered, ask it to first write an outline of the letter. Use common sense to judge if those outlines make sense in your discipline.
Write a draft letter yourself that tries to cover all the items in the outline as objectively as possible. Then let the LLM write a draft and compare.
Write final drafts yourself and send them off. Mark them clearly as drafts and mention (very politely) in your message to the potential letter writer that as discussed, you are attaching a draft which might need adjustment according to their judgement. I would probably also mention explicitly that you do not and cannot know what their judgement of your work is and that therefore any part of the drafts that evaluates your work (as opposed to just listing objective facts) will need adjustment.

I think that kind of workflow would to some limited extent mitigate the problems with lack of objectivity in self-assessment and not knowing what to do in a letter of recommendation. It may also mitigate some LLM-specific problems (like willingness to speculate plausibly when data is lacking) and may produce writing that looks more polished than what you would draft all on your own.
Note that the latter has probably some positive sides (well... more polished text), but could also have some plausible negative sides (the worst one is probably the possibility that a well-written but factually weak letter might convince a potential letter sender to endorse the draft unchanged without deeply engaging with the content).

I recommend against using GenAI for such a task: You are supposed to provide a draft, not a final letter, for which the strengths and weaknesses of GenAI are exactly counter to what you need.
A draft for a recommendation letter should cover your unique interactions with the letter signatory. A draft should not have polished wording that is at odds with the signatory's style.
GenAI has no idea about the former* but will go out of its way with the latter.
So don’t sweat it, do an honest attempt of writing down the relevant facts and let the signatory handle what they – hopefully – do best, namely using not just polished but proper wording.**

*Which won’t stop it from making up generic "facts" with confidence, mind.
**Incidentally, they might just use GenAI for this since they know what to look out for.


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How to write a letter for reach out prospective phd advisor
I am a master student majored in mathmaticas and I'm going to reach out professor to be my prospective phd advisor. How to write this email? What need I write in it? How many words is proper?
Need I say any request like "I want be interviewed" in the litter?

Please search our archives, there are many, many versions of this question already out there. Then come back if you have a more specific question. At the risk of self-promotion, my answer here may be useful to you.


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How much does your R1 STEM department value teaching?
So I'm a tenure track prof in mathematics at an R1 university in the US. At the end of every year, every faculty gets an EOY review, where we are graded according to a number of criteria. Basically, there are various categories with various weightings. The heaviest weighting is for research, the lightest is for service. Our ultimate score has a variety of consequences, a big one being that it determines how big of a raise we get.
I'm curious how much your STEM department (math, physics, engineering, CS, chemistry...etc) at an R1 university in the US values teaching, measured in the above sense?
For me, the weighting works out to be around 21% for teaching (this includes teaching both undergrad and grad courses, but excludes mentoring of graduate students).
I'm curious how heavily your department weighs teaching in this sense? I understand that not every department works in the same way, so please provide some context with your answer.

Welcome to Academia.SE. I recommend rewriting this so it doesn't sound like a poll -- poll questions tend to be closed, but there is probably some aspect of this that is an interesting question.

I’m voting to close this question because it is not possible for it to have a single correct answer as written.

The 21% is a bit skewed if it doesn't include graduate student mentoring, but the number seems a bit low. I'd expect something closer to 30%, as in 60/30/10 for the emphasis. It's been a long while since I was at an R1 though and the one I was at had a special emphasis on teaching because of its (long) history. Some R1s have a very strong undergraduate program.
But if you add in the grad advising and such, you may get closer to 30%.


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How do you cite a Youtube video in APA format when the original author of the video is not the channel owner?
I see a Youtube video where the original author is John Doe.  However, the video I found it at was on a channel with a name (let's say ChannelName).  Whether John Doe is the owner of that channel or not I don't know, and Doe doesn't seem to have his own youtube channel.  So...who is the author? Do I cite Doe, or ChannelName?

Related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/172883/68109

The original author of the video is John Doe, but it wasn't a YT video at that time, right? I.e. ChannelName uploaded a video belonging to John Doe? Otherwise I'm confused how a YT video can have original author JD but be uploaded by someone else?

Yes that's correct.  John Doe made the video, but someone else put it on Youtube.  For instance, in this particular case it was a professor who did the lecture over video but then gave permission for one of his students to upload it on their channel

Which style guide do you want to adhere to, depending on where you intend to publish certain guides are preferred over others. Examples: https://liu.cwp.libguides.com/c.php?g=45846&p=291623 https://blogging.com/cite-online-sources/

https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples/youtube-references
my previous response apparently was deleted. Here is the link to how to cite the video. Cite original author and there is a space to cite the channel name.


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Asking an exam question that requires a specific technique
This question Inadmissible theorems in research mentioned a scenario in which a student was not allowed to use a theorem that he knew because it wasn't in the course.  I've administered exams in which the instructor said "using X technique, solve for Y", and grades of 0 were assigned when a different, admittedly simpler, technique was used.  Students seemed to consider the question to be giving a hint, rather than a requirement.
Students often get angry about this, since they feel they got the right answer.  The instructor's goal, though, was to get the students to prove that they could use the particular technique, and therefore the answer itself was not relevant.
To complicate matters, there are often times in which not using technique X results in a simpler method for the particular question.  This is usually because X is a more general method and is only really powerful when the problem exceeds what is reasonable on an exam.  A student could reasonably walk away from the exam thinking that X is just "more complicated" and not worth the trouble.
How can you ask a question like that that tests their ability to use a particular technique in a way that gets them to understand the purpose of the question?  Especially, how can such a question be asked to avoid having students erroneously discount the importance of technique X because a simpler method exists for the particular problem?

We had very similar requirments not to use the L'Hospital rule in the first uni semester. And we did learn it before, but it was not allowed. I believe it is perfectly reasonable because one knows that many limits are not 0 / 0 and one will need other techniques there in real life or in later studies.

It seems like the context of the lesson should make it clear that you're trying to teach a particular technique, and the exam is obviously about that. IMO, any student who doesn't see the link is being deliberately obtuse.

I usually add in bolded text "no points will be given is the technique XXX is used"...

This is very common, perhaps even universal, in teaching a first course in calculus. Students will be asked to use the definition of the derivative as a limit to evaluate the derivative of some function. Later in the course, and sometimes earlier in the course, students will learn all sorts of short-cut rules for derivatives (power rule, product rule, quotient rule, derivatives of trig. functions, etc.), but these rules are not to be used when evaluating a derivative using its definition as a limit. There are probably at least 5 questions of this very type everyday in Math StackExchange.

I'd encourage you to give at least a little credit for using other techniques instead. If you want me to solve a web equation using Spider-Man's theorem and I do it some other way, at least I've shown I can web equations, which is surely worth, say, a quarter of the marks.

"I expect you to be able to read and follow directions. If the direction says to do X, then do X."

I do not know the specifics of this more general and powerful technique, obviously, but would it be possible to have them solve a problem that exceeds what can be done in an exam by doing part of it for them as a given in the exam? Depending on the technique it could still require intimate knowledge of this technique to put all the (time-savingly provided) pieces together.

Not to say this is off topic here, but it seems like the kind of question that would be right at home at [matheducators.se] as well. There might be similar questions there.

Use the word "must".

This feels extremely counter productive to me. If a student answers the question using a quicker (better) technique, then either you have failed to ask the right question, or the syllabus needs updating to teach the more efficient method. Forcing students to use inferior methods to achieve a certain goal serves to benefit nobody, so either move the goal posts, or count the point.

Using technique X must at least be a reasonable approach to solving the problem. Questions like "Using Pythagoras' theorem, prove that x+1 > x" are just ruddy frustrating.

You say, "Solve for Y.  You must use X technique to demonstrate that you know how to use it, even though there may be simpler other ways to solve this particular problem."
Edit: One should cover in class why the students need to know X.  The point in the exam question is to make it clear that using X is a requirement of the question, not a hint.
Example: "Use a Karnaugh map to simplify the following Boolean expression."  Here, the question asks, "use a Karnaugh map," not "simplify the expression."  The latter is the mechanism to demonstrate the former.

Perhaps, but I think that would potentially reinforce the idea that X is "just more complex" and that a simpler technique is "always" better. I'd like to avoid that

@MichaelStachowsky  OK... at the expense of making the question longer, which I try to avoid, you could add "... because there is a class of problems that can only be solved using technique X."  I'd rather do that in class prior to the exam:  "You will be asked to use technique X on the upcoming exam.  I'm going to give you a problem that can be solved in reasonable time on the exam, but the point is to demonstrate X because there is a class of problems that can only be solved with X, so no other approach will do."

@BobBrown and based on your example, providing a table partially completed may reinforce that.

I would add something like "Answers using other methods (here you could name them) will receive 0"

@BobBrown If there is indeed a class of problems that can only be solved using technique X, why not just ask one of those problems on the exam?

I feel this was a better answer with the "Demonstrate the use of" verbiage in the example. It made the requirement on which technique to use much more pronounced and not just a suggestion. The simplified version is essentially the same as what was used in the OP that was interpreted that the solution was what was important.

@JeffE Often problems that can only be solved with a particular, possibly complex, technique are themselves too complex for an exam of reasonable length.  So, one offers a "toy" problem but requires the demonstration of the technique,  In the Karnaugh map example, an expression suitable for a 75 minute exam with many questions could probably (also) be simplified by inspection.

@Mr.Mindor I shortened it because I've found that the fewer words in such a question, the small the chance a student will misinterpret the question.  For those who may wonder, and don't want to bother with the revision history, it used to say, "Demonstrate that you can use a Karnaugh map to simplify the following Boolean expression."

I second @AzorAhai: Mentioning 0 points for using any other technique than the specified one does miracles.

I like "use X to do Y". It makes it clear that the instruction is to use X, and it also doesn't sound mean.

The Karnaugh maps are a perfect example of what you should not be forcing students to use.  Almost every problem that you can solve with a k-map, you can solve more easily with straightforward Boolean simplification.  If there are simpler or other ways to solve a problem, it's up to the instructor to evaluate them for correctness.  I don't know what motivates instructors to prevent creative problem solving, but I think it's terrible pedagogy.

I second Bob Brown's suggestion of writing explicitly in the question that X technique must be used.
As to the concern that they will get a mistaken impression as to the usefulness of X: don't rely on the exam to convey this idea!  My philosophy is that an exam is just to assess the student's knowledge and understanding.  I don't find that it works well to assign an "interesting" exam problem from which the student is supposed to learn something new.  An exam setting is too stressful to be a good time to acquire new knowledge.
Presumably there are examples that illustrate the full power of technique X, where simpler techniques don't work well.  You can still have the students work those examples; just not on an exam.  Maybe as a homework assignment, or a term project, or whatever.  Hopefully by the end of the course, they've done enough of them that one "toy" example on the exam is not going to distort their impression of the technique's power.
(If your educational system uses exams as the sole graded element of the class, so that you can't realistically assign projects and such - my condolences.  I don't have any brilliant ideas in that case.)

Upvoted especially because of the parenthetical comment at the end.  Even in that case, you can still tell students why X is important, that they will see it on the exam, and that using X will be a requirement.

My biggest early stumbling block as a teacher was falling prey to my desire to put "interesting" questions on exams.  I wish I had learned (or been taught) to apply the KISS (keep it simple, stupid) philosophy to exam design sooner...

@zibadawatimmy As teachers, we tend to have been better students than many of our student peers.  When I became a teacher, I was somewhat aghast at the low level of understanding of some students. However, one learns (still!) to pitch some parts of the course directly to those students; the trouble is to keep the top cohort engaged too. Sometimes peer-mentoring can work in this situation.

Especially, how can such a question be asked to avoid having students erroneously discount the importance of technique X because a simpler method exists for the particular problem?

I think you're looking at it the wrong way. If you want students to use a particular technique to solve a problem, then I think it should be your responsibility to design a problem where this is the best solution. Asking your students to use a (self-admitted) suboptimal technique to solve a problem is convoluted and goes against any problem-solving skill they might have developed.
Also, if you want your students to understand the importance of technique X, then you must show them problems where it really is the best solution.

I fully agree, but sometimes it isn't up to me.  I'm supposed to make the exam according to the instructions I'm given.  I've brought up things like this with the instructor, and I get the reasoning behind it, even though I really dislike the idea of requiring a sub-optimal solution

I have to say I disagree - at least on this level of generality. Assigning "solve problem P using method X" and "solve problem P using method Y" (not necessarily at the same time in the semester) is a great way to highlight differences between methods.

I generally agree that the burden falls to the instructor, or whomever conceives of the test question, to craft a question for which the intended method IS the optimal method (or only feasible method).  Students who do not initially try to use the intended method will quickly realize that other techniques are cumbersome/infeasible and they must devise a new approach.  Admittedly it does take a bit of time to create such exam questions :)

As a follow-up, this allows for the possibility to award partial credit for attempts using other methods.  Also, I have more than once been pleasantly surprised when a student answered in a way that I didn't consider and was in fact even more clever than the solution I had in mind!

@Anyon I don't think your counterargument is in opposition with my answer : if there are significant differences between methods X and Y, then they should be highlighted by solving different problems where the differences between them provide a meaningful advantage for subsequent questions.

@PierreCathé In addition to solving the same problem? Absolutely. E.g. check a numerical implementation against limits where it's easy to obtain analytical answers, and also use the program to explore more arbitrary parameters

@ChocolateAndCheese "Students who do not initially try to use the intended method..." back in the day when I was doing exams (decades before the current obsession with "bite-sized spoonfeeding" rather than "education") a common style of multi-part question had one or two "easy" parts followed by "using the above results, or otherwise, " - and it was often not trivial to see how to use the earlier results, though using them usually led to a very short correct answer one you did "see the light".

@MichaelStachowsky: You're supposed to write the exam according to your principles of academic integrity and the students' significant legitimate interest. If the rules contradict this, you should disregard the rules and notify whoever relevant that you acted this way for reasons A B and C.

@alephzero +1 for recalling the "...hence, or otherwise,.." rubric: it showed candidates how they were intended to solve the problem and gave scope for the outstanding to show just how outstanding they were. I am still jealous of the fellow student who told me that he found a much slicker 'otherwise' when all I had done was the 'hence'.

A significant difference between techniques could be one is better for more complicated questions unsuitable for an exam.  The first that crops to mind would be CS techniques but you could have technique Y working for 5x5 or smaller matrices but not bigger but technique X works for all.  You don't want the question forever so you don't want the student to need to deal with a 6x6.   I would have thought, use technique X was clear but if it comes up just change the wording slightly to make it clearer.

While, as others have already pointed out, it is important to make the criteria of a question explicit (e.g. words like "must" or "required" are a good bet), I believe that there's a bigger underlying problem, namely a disconnect in expectations, that cannot be solved by wording alone.
The issue
The task "demonstrate knowledge of a specific technique", where the technique is not an optimal fit for the problem, is quite uncommon outside of exam-like situations. Many students will not have encountered this kind of question very often. It is also counterintuitive to anyone already used to working in the problem domain, as they are usually more aware of what method is appropriate under specific circumstances. *
In addition, outside of trivial problems, there's always more than one way to use a tool, and whether or not two approaches are considered equivalent may depend on the level of abstraction (and experience). Personally, as a student with extensive prior knowledge across different fields, I used to have a hard time judging whether an instructor was

aware of a simpler alternative solution, but intending to introduce it later
aware of an alternative solution, but ignoring it to highlight a specific technique
not aware, but open to unexpected approaches
not aware, and will dismiss anything but the expected solution
expecting a variant of an approach I wasn't even thinking of (e.g. same concept, different notation)
just copy-pasting a question from a textbook without thoroughly examining it

More often than not, I ended up answering the question exactly as stated only to find there were subtle differences in interpretation, resulting in anything from zero to full (sometimes +bonus) points.
Add time constraints, ambiguous wording and the potential for errors or "trick" questions into the mix, and it's not surprising that a student might ignore what they perceive as a hint and solve the problem in the most efficient way they know.
Conclusions
While there may be good reasons to design an exam around a "suboptimal" approach, you should not expect a student to be automatically familiar with your course's context, philosophy and didactic goals.
More specifically, don't expect students to know what piece of knowledge you're trying to assess. A question defined in, say, two or three sentences is bound to infer a lot of context, and accurately limiting the scope is a difficult task.
If you give a list of techniques that are not allowed, expect at least one student to come up with something you didn't even consider. If you teach a particular variant of a method, or a particular notation, expect at least one student to have learned the method from a different source and do it that way.
Recommendations

Do make your question as clear as possible, but don't expect phrasing alone to solve the issue entirely.

Consider publishing a short guideline on question intent and scope that addresses frequent misunderstandings. Include pointers on notation and allowed axioms. Make it general or exam specific, as needed. The point is to move useful "boilerplate" info and caveats out of the text of each question, so questions can remain concise, but will be less ambiguous.

When possible for the question, give students some way to quickly assess whether they're "on the right track".
E.g. "A correct answer will have the following form/characteristics..."

*While restrictions like this can sometimes be encountered in research, as previously commented in the "Inadmissible theorems" question, these tend to be self-imposed and can be traced to a specific goal.

There are good answers already, but here is a another solution. It may not be the best solution and it may be not practical in some situations, but it may still be a solution. Ask to solve the same problem with two different methods, i.e. write the problem as

(x+y points) Solve the problem A
a) with method X (x points)
b) with method Y (y points).

(Still somebody may come up with method Z, but my guess would be that this formulation will make it more clear that you require the use of specific methods. Also it should be simpler to argue that the problem statement was clear if a student with method Z comes complaining.)

If the exam question states to solve a problem using a particular method, then a mark of 0 for not using that method is fair. The question is to assess knowledge. The marker cannot assess whether a student knows the stated method if they do not apply it. The student cannot (should not) arrive at the answer a different way and still expect full marks.
An exam asks to solve a problem using a particular method.
Use the stated method and get the right answer: full marks.
Use the stated method but make a mistake and get the wrong answer (by propagating the error through): partial marks.
Use a method other than the stated method: 0 marks.
Some students also think that if they solve a problem by:
Problem
--- a bit of working ---
--- some magic happens here ---
--- a bit of working ---
Right answer
that they should get full marks.

Students might not know what what piece of knowledge you're trying to assess exactly. The scope of a question is naturally much more well known to the asker than the student. The way I read the question, it isn't about whether the grading practice is fair, but about how to make that scope more obvious.

If a question asks, "Solve the following ODE using the method of undetermined coefficients:" it is explicit that they should use the method of undetermined coefficients. If they instead choose another method they really have no cause to complain about failing on the question.

So your answer boils down to "there is no problem"?

Here is one way to scaffold the problem:

a. Describe technique X.
b. Use technique X to solve problem Y.

So students can earn credit knowing the technique in general, and they get a hint that they are expected to use it in this problem.

If you want to keep it simple, use the word "only"
"using only the X technique, solve for Y"
As others have said, you just need to be clear as to what they use. If you chose to spell out why then that is at your discretion.
If you say use only the x technique, and they don't, then there can be no argument that the answer did not address the question, whether or not the answer is correct.
Personally, I would put a little more explanation in there too to set context though, something like,
"due to the parameters of Z which limit ABC, using only the X technique, solve for Y"

There are two options to address the issue here. One already mentioned is to instruct the students not to use other tools than required.
If the forbidden theorem applies only for a limited set of cases while the requested one applies for broader set you can build the test so the workaround gets tricky, hard or impossible to use.
You can also request them to prove the chosen technique can be used and why it is better than the requested one. Correct answer shows the student's knowledge of both techniques.

Sometimes, setting the stage can help.
If your concerned that students won't follow the directions correctly, you can always give the old classic quiz. The one that starts:

Read all directions before starting the quiz.

Then, in the directions, tell them:

Make no marks on the paper besides your name.

So, anyone who does anything beyond putting their name on the paper fails the quiz. Make the grade trivial (or, give a small amount of extra credit to those who pass and take no points from those who fail).
The point would be that the directions on your quizzes and tests are important.
It may be overkill, but it might actually get the point across.

authors: Vladimir F Героям слава


text:
Should my SOP mention self-funding?
I'm applying to PhD programs in departments with very little funding, especially for their grad students. I've also read that it would help my application if I could subtly mention that I wouldn't need funding.
Is this true and if so, how can I possibly do this in a "subtle" way? I've spent quite a long time in the private sector and am able to self-fund if necessary. None of the apps have a "proof of funding" form and it's not like I can attach evidence of an external scholarship. I'm not exactly keen on sharing tax returns or savings accounts.
Thank you for any advice!

I'm not sure why you think you need to be subtle.

"My savings and investments are sufficient to carry me through a long period of study if necessary."

That demonstrates some serious commitment on your part. I wouldn't put any financial details in it and doubt that it would be proper to ask for them.
Or add "with only minimal funding" if you want to not let them off the hook too easily.

Thanks for this! You don't think that's too crude? I guess I thought I should err on subtlety to be polite/inoffensive

If you already know that they have little funding I think this is probably better. In other situations I would let them bring up funding. But my edit about ...minimal... might get a conversation going. Your other materials need to be solid, of course. They won't take you just because you have funding as you will require other resources as a student (faculty, offices, ...). But yours seems to be a special case.

got it-- again thank you!


text:
Recommendation letter from supervisor in this case?
During most of my undergrad I have spent a lot of time working in a research center where my mother is director.
During this time I worked with her and many of the researchers there.
Of course, I cannot ask for a recommendation from my mother because we are related. Would it be OK to ask for a recommendation from one of the other researchers on the center I worked with?
To clarify, this is a public center and while my mother is higher in hierarchy than them, she is an employee too, as she don't own the center.

You can definitely ask a recommendation letter to other researchers. Try to get the most experienced of the ones your worked with to write it, if you did a good job, that should be no problem.


text:
Paper under review a second time without being sent back to author
I submitted a paper to a journal and had it returned with "revise and resubmit".  After the revision was submitted, the journal's status page told me that it was under review.  Once the reviews were completed the status changed to "awaiting editor recommendation".  However, I checked it today and it appears to be back out for review.  Is this common?  Any ideas what it might mean?

Can you be more specific about which submission platform the journal you submitted to is using??

This might indicate that the editor has decided that another review is necessary. For example, reviewers might have very different recommendations. It can also mean that some of the reviewers did not finish their review in time.
This happens sometimes and is not a cause for concern.

I saw this sequence of statuses in the Elsevier system.
I do not think it means anything bad for you. Maybe just a system mistake. Write another paper in the meantime...

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text:
what should i do my group memeber are not doing any work in fyp
I am doing my final year project and my group members are not doing there work and also they have no interest in it .. after many presentation i ask our professor about this situation and he said u made your own group so i can do nothing about this.. so far i am doing project work and i didn't mind it but problem is that in my final presentation they might fail us or because of there laziness teacher might give me poor grades because other member don't know how project is worked (making website in fyp) and they are not interested also... so i am very tensed what should i do...

Sometimes, the point is to demonstrate what you did/contributed to make the project & the group work. There's not much more you can do. If the prof really punishes you for being in the wrong group - yes, it's unfair, choose your next group carefully, and early.

First of all, I think you have to focus on the project and not to be discouraged by your colleagues. You have made the right decision by informing your professor. Try to let your colleagues realize how important this is to you and your future. The silver lining in this is that you're getting more experience than anyone of them. Don't throw in the towel yet.

as a last option i email them and i point the problem to both of them in peaceful manner  and one of them show some interest . so may b thing will b better in fews days thanks for u advice.

Omer, you are welcome. Thank God that things are now getting better. Do enjoy your project.

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