text:
How can I clear myself of emotional attachment when reading reviewer feedback?
I have received feedback from reviewers on my latest conference paper (this is in Computer Science).
It was an acceptance, which is nice.
I feel I really need to consider in depth the reviewer feedback.
I have consciously noticed I have a emotional reaction.
Which is not rational, practical, or useful.
How can I clear myself from it, and handle the review on a factual basis?
Is it better to sleep on it? Perhaps it would help to strip the acceptance from it. Or maybe to rewrite it in my words as if I were reviewing the paper?
Overall I guess I should feel happy, but of course the written reviewer feedback only points at the weaknesses in the work. Which is reasonable, since they can indicate it was generally good with their accept statement. (At the end of the day, an accept is an accept, right?)

Use SciGen to write your papers. Then you will have less emotional investment in the text, so will be better able to deal with criticism of it. Hope this helps. Have a nice day!

Great cathartic question on a problem often suffered, often untold

It's not rational, true. It's emotional. But it is also human, part of actual life experience. Don't reject being human. Accept it and recognize it. Sleep, or at least an explicit delay, is probably a good idea to let it integrate with your rational aspect. But don't discard it because it can be a powerful motivation to push ahead.

Take up a hobby that releases aggressions. Then read Einstein's response to his very first peer-reviewed paper (it wasn't graceful). Then, take an ice-bucket challenge and have a second look whether the reviewer has had an actually good comment to make (sometimes it's indeed the case). Learn. Improve yourself. Improve the paper. And, take particular note of where reasonable criticism was delivered to you with unnecessary polemics so you won't do the same when you are on the other side of the reviewing game (which is, in my experience, the main reason for getting upset at reviews).

Isn't that a question for http://buddhism.stackexchange.com/?

@CaptainEmacs there is no such thing as "releasing aggression", see http://psychologydegreeguide.org/anger-psychology/ (or chace down the papers it references)

@Oxinabox No offense, but playing an aggressive strategy in a strategy game or going for playing some forceful music does work for me. That the authors of the paper do not want to call this "releasing aggression" seems to me a play of words. To say the truth, to wind me up that far a much higher trigger threshold would be needed than merely a negative review, but I was responding to the OP to whom it did.

Personally, I find that the following process works well for me:

Complain together with my co-authors about the blindness and foolishness of reviewers, the sorry state of publishing, and the general existence of injustice in a world not ready for the pure angelic beauty of our work.  Remember not to take this too seriously.
Ignore everything for at least 24 hours, letting my initial emotional response settle and giving space for rationality to return.
Copy the review responses into a template for a response letter, separating each statement for its own response.  This effectively forms a checklist of work to be done (or at least to be clearly explained why it should not be done).  I do this even with conference papers where there is no response letter, because of the organizing benefit.
When revising, focus on only one statement at a time, taking it in isolation and working until the comment has been fully addressed and I can write a clear and non-emotional response explaining what has and hasn't been done and why.  Depending on the overall tone of the situation, sometimes I will start with the little things and work up to the bigger ones, and sometimes I will do in the opposite direction.

Finally, as I work, I always remind myself that every statement by every reviewer can teach me something that will improve my paper, even when I disagree with it.  Sometimes, the reviewer has valuable insight.  Other times, their apparently "crazy" or "ignorant" reactions are instead actually showing me how I have not spoken well to the community of readers, have opened myself up to misinterpretation, or have allowed my work to be viewed as part of an intellectual battle that I do not wish to participate in.
We are emotional beings, and we have emotions.  Over time, you will hopefully learn to read the curve of your emotional response so that you can ride with it and manage it rather than fighting it or amplifying it when that would be counterproductive.  The process that works best for you may vary, but one way or another I think that it is best to acknowledge emotions and then find a way to let them settle before trying to work with the criticism.

Indeed, you raised a fair point: If the reviewer failed to understand a core concept or why your work is outstanding, it might be because you failed to properly express all that in the paper :) ... Remember, pats in the back do not teach you much ...

And never, ever look at reviews on a Friday or just before you go home.  Look at them on Monday mornings, when you're already prepared to be grumpy.

Point 1 is a crucial part of any academic activity.

Points 3 and 4 are vital. Mostly it'll just take practice to get over the emotion part, and even then you might not ever. After all you presumably put serious emotion into creating the paper and it'll cause emotion when people judge it.

+1 especially for "are instead actually showing me how I have not spoken well to the community of readers"

Great answer: this is exactly how I handle reviews. I disagree with @iayork's comment. If you read them on a Friday afternoon, you can go home, get some exercise, hug your spouse and distract yourself while you recover from the initial emotional response. If you read them on a Monday morning, it can poison your work week and reduce your productivity for days. But everyone is different. You know how your mind works.

"I always remind myself that every statement by every reviewer can teach me something that will improve my paper, even when I disagree with it" Or if not that paper, the next one. Fantastic advice.

One-line answer: Don't try to "clear the emotions away"; but do things which might make it easier for you to process them better.
The assumption that there is a marked distinction between "rational" and "emotional" thought, that people can "clear" themselves of emotions etc. is not - AFAIK - grounded in scientific fact. Our motivations are emotional, even our intuitions are emotional, our sense of what's "nicer" and what's "right" about abstract concepts is partially emotional.
Why do you think you need to detach from your emotions in order to process criticism? If that's a problem you feel you have a lot, you might need to work on that regardless of research. At any rate, I would recommend:

Doing some physical activity which has an element of monotonicty, or a meditative effect, like jogging, or yoga.
Reducing your effective workload for a while and, yes, getting more sleep than you usually do.
Go do something that has a humbling effect with respect to your capabilities, but does not poorly reflect on your sense of self esteem. Something entirely unrelated to the (partially artificial) competitiveness or your field of academic pursuit. For example, ask a friend or a family member to let you try out something that he/she likes to do and you're not particularly good at, or some kind of craft.

While doing all of that, don't try to force yourself to think on the reviewers' notes/criticism; and don't try to force yourself not to think about them.
I realize this is not particularly "clever" advice. But: 1. It's based on my experience; 2. I think it should help and 3. At worst you'll have spent a couple of days doing harmless stuff.

Before even discussing with co-authors I do the following:

Print out the review. Yes, I print the report on good old paper. In this way the review becomes something you can touch, put away, crumple, burn, frame, do whatever you want… It looses some of its emotional content by becoming a real world object; it's not just some statement anymore that can stick in your mind for hours. If you want to stop thinking about the review, put the paper away.
Work with the printed review. I go over the review and highlight:

Praise.
Comments that I totally agree with and where I just do what reviewer suggest.
Comments that seems reasonable but it is not totally clear what should be done.
Comments that need more thought, seem unfair or unclear.

After that I try to get in contact with co-authors and start working on a revision.

Start out with the recognition that:

Somewhere around 50% of the people generally disagree with the actions of the president.
Christ himself (who is generally considered a pretty decent guy despite your personal religious convictions), was crucified on the cross.
There are countless stories of very successful entrepreneurs who were told there ideas were fairly worthless.
I get honked at regularly for not tailgating in rush hour traffic - as if that were going to move us along any faster

The point is that opinions are just that, opinions - and some people frankly are just idiots. Even if they are not, no human has a hold on the "truth" - and many very, very smart people disagree with one another on critical matters. Just because someone provides a critique doesn't mean it has merit --- sometimes even the professor.
Your job is to decide whether the critique is valid. Did you do your due diligence? Did you write a document that you can be proud of? Are your positions defensible? If so, then take critique with a grain of salt - recognizing that the reviewer may indeed be the one that is unreasonable. Look at the specifics of the critique - are the arguments reasonable?
Even if the critique is valid, understand that is what critiques are for. We are all learning, all of the time. If someone points out something that you didn't know - don't take it as an affront - simply be grateful that you came away from the experience with more knowledge.
If the critique is just mean, recognize that there are simply mean people in the world and that has nothing to do with you.

I would say, try to understand why they did review that way. Except if the reviewer knows you, it makes no sense to blindly throw arguments just to destroy your research.
It is possible that the reviewer did not understand the experiment, then explain it better.
If the weakness is recognised, you have to be able to explain the limitations of your work in the paper. If the reviewer can pinpoint weaknesses you did not elaborate on, they will put them in their report.

to be clear, I don't think there is anything wrong with the reviews, I don't doubt them at all, I haven't read closely yet, but I am sure they point out things I knew (either outright, or in my "heart of hearts"). But never the less I do feel a bad taste in my mouth, as it were. I can readily rationalise that is not the problem.

Its because your also enormously happy when you get things done.
You got high ups and low downs, and feeling very personal about it.
Some people try to push themselves all the time as heroes.
Centrally to this is the brain rewarding system.
And maybe a lack of a normal comfort state, you should try to focus on other less exciting things as well. Try to take the moment, enjoy it. Because if value your normal life as well as your super presentations. Then those will standout less and you get more balance in your life.
You might as well reduce coffee, cola, sugar, as those non natural foods also cause peeks in your energy, and drain your brain from the steady balance it needs.


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How do I handle a Program Officer who simply will not execute an awarded contract?
I have been awarded a US DoD contract, which is stuck on the desk of the Program Officer. I have spoken to this individual, and indeed had positive conversations. However, for the last 15 (!) months this contract has remained unfunded. This individual's support personnel have joined me in rallying them to get it done. They have also advised me that the funds are available, sitting in an account, ready to be dispersed to my laboratory. This has not happened.
Individuals in my laboratory who were to be involved in this research have moved on, and indeed my lab is moving in new directions. It is a large enough award, however, on a topic that I value enough to continue attempting to find movement forward. Further, the award was reported in my tenure argument, which is due in the near future. I would prefer not to have a caveat in that regard.
How can I better handle the situation?

Can you escalate the matter to someone with authority over the Program Officer?

Was this Program Officer the one who approved the project in the first place? This is quite weird...

There have been a succession of 4 program managers since I was awarded. Not sure who to escalate to. There's no 'company directory' in this kind of situation.

Program Officer has to report to someone. Otherwise, go to funding agency. Don't they want a report at some point?

The 'start date' only occurs after funds have been disbursed.

I would suggest you contact the contract office or legal office at your institution and ask them to help you sort it out. They should be involved, it's funding lost for the institution too. At the very least you are owned an explanation.

In your question, I am struck by the lack of information about why funds are not moving, for which there may be many reasons.
In many cases, program officers are not actually able to execute a contract themselves, but need to depend on another set of contracting personnel, sometimes in an entirely different agency.  For example, Agency 1 may award and obligate the funds, but Agency 2 actually manages and disburses the funds (this may sound crazy, but there are actually good reasons it is handled in this way).
In other cases, there may be an internal block of some sort, often having to do with the interaction of external politics with laws.  For example, acting leadership whose appointment has not been officially approved by Congress often has less authority than approved leadership, and our current presidency has resulted in many agencies being without approved leadership.  Funds may also be approved, but then the money might be diverted elsewhere by forces above the ability of a program officer to control.
You may also be running into a problem where they wish to award the funds but there is a regulatory issue or contracting slowdown regarding your own institution that is blocking it, and they assume that you are aware of it when you are not. For example, I know of a case where an award was held up for a long time because it was going to an institution which did not support ROTC in the way the specific awarding agency was required to by a "side clause" in regulation.
You need to get on the phone with the program officer to have a frank conversation about the state of your finances and find out exactly why and where the blockage is. Then you can find out exactly who you need to be interacting with (or asking contracting personnel to interact with) in order to unstick your project.
Finally, while 15 months seems long, it is not at all unusual in the case of certain agencies, so unless you know more, you don't even know whether it's an issue for concern or not.

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Can I copyright materials I developed if it was asked to be written by the school I'm working at?
I'm a teacher in a private school and was asked by the school to develop lesson plans for an existing text book.
Eventually that's going to be a manual for the teachers to use for that specific text book.
I am paid for my time doing this, however there are more things I was asked to help with during that the time frame I was given, mainly develop more materials for school.
The lessons plans can be used in any school that uses the same text book hence I would like to protect my rights and make sure it's not going to be used  in other different school without my permission.
Can I copyright my materials?

I’m voting to close this question as off-topic because it does not seem to pertain to academia. It is probably on-topic on [law.se]. Also, it may be necessary to know the pertaining legislature.

@Wrzlprmft It is a question that can be very pertinent to academics, and one that many of them have probably not considered sufficiently.

So, what you could do is to put a watermark on them that is obvious - does not stop others taking it but does show up...

Your use of the words "lesson" and "school" suggest strongly to me that you're talking about primary or secondary education, which is off-topic, here. (People in the US refer to universities as "schools" but I've never heard "lesson" used in the context of academia.)

Others have commented that this is a legal question, not an academic one.  Where you are is important.  In the United States, what you're writing is a "work made for hire" and the school that pays you likely owns the copyright.

As I understand it, in the UK the answer is that your employer owns the copyright, unless they have told you otherwise:

Where a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work, or a film, is made by an employee in the course of his employment, his employer is the first owner of any copyright in the work (subject to any agreement to the contrary).

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/ownership-of-copyright-works#works-created-for-an-employer
(Note: the question 'can I copyright the materials?' doesn't actually make sense. Copyright automatically exists on the creation of a work. Your question is really about who owns the copyright in this case.)

Afaik that's the same in all teaching establishments - it's definitely in my contract and I'm in Switzerland.

@SolarMike Not necessarily. A university might well allow academics to retain the copyright of their work. Indeed, I believe that to be considered the norm, although that may be through absence of consideration rather than active thought.

Having worked in the UK and in CH in a University, both had a clause in the contract that stated "any materials created for teaching a course" the copyright belonged to them and you are not allowed to withhold the files or passwords etc. Whether they do the same for published papers for research may be different.

In the U.S., in at-least-moderately research-oriented universities, I have the impression that faculty creators of course notes/texts have the copyright (until they make some possible deals with publishers), rather than the institution. This is explicit in my university's policy statements. The corresponding question about adjuncts or contractors hired specifically to create course material seems not (currently) relevant, because I've not seen that happen (in mathematics).
(IANAL, but, ...) In the U.S., there is a notion of "work for hire" (writing/creating something specifically requested by an employer as the central part of one's job), in which case copyright or corresponding rights are by default owned by the employer.
In the case of research-oriented faculty who have no obligation (and won't be rewarded at all for it) to create course materials, I think the current interpretation is that any course material creation is voluntary (and probably not terribly profitable), so they keep the copyright.
I know many people who've created course notes (for mathematics), perhaps most enthusiastically upper-division or grad-level or further, though I've put calculus notes on-line, myself. Doing this, obviously one does not expect profit or control. Many people who've published conventional physical books also have negotiated with publishers retention of copyright + rights to keep things on-line (sometimes with an "embargo" period).
20-30 years ago, when the internet was still embryonic, it was not clear how it would work, and people did worry about "getting credit", and/or profit, and/or people "stealing" their work. (Yes, there do exist TeX decompilers, so not putting the TeX source on-line does not prevent people from recovering the source code, and so on.) Sure, one can try "watermarking" or other steganographic tricks, but, ... Since my university does not consider anything on-line to have any status-enhancing features, anyway, I decided to stop worrying about people "stealing my ideas". Better to spread (hopefully!) good ideas and "not get full credit" than be secretive and be of no help to anyone.

As pointed out by JessicaB, the materials are implicitly copyrighted.
Whether the copyright is owned by you or by the school depends on the specifics of your employment agreement, but I suspect if will be the school: teaching institutions generally want it to be easy for course material to be shared amongst the different faculty who teach a course over time.
I would also, however, recommend that you reconsider your apparent desire to prevent others from using the materials that you have prepared. Neither you nor the school are particularly likely to make any money from selling lesson plans, and how does it hurt you if more students than yours benefit from your effort? You may wish instead (if the school allows) to release them under a Creative Commons license, with your authorship clearly marked: that will both benefit more students and might even turn out to benefit you in return.

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What is one-session short presentation or lecture in CV?
In during the M.Sc., when complex networks course lectured by prof. in university, he said me that I will talk about complex networks and my B.Sc. thesis in one session for students.
How to can I write it in my CV? What is it? a lecture? presentation? or workshop?

It was a lecture of Introduction to Complex Networks in the Complex Networks course for master of science (M.SC.) students. Also, I lectured about the Graph, R, and iGraph package in R programming language.

Lecture. Such an item might help the "Teaching Activities" part of a CV. You may choose to leave it out, depending on who will be reading the CV.

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Conference proceeding after journal article
Is it possible to write a conference proceeding about topics already published (by the same author, of course) in a journal article? It is understood that all the sentences will be rephrased and all the figures changed not to fall into self-plagiarism. In a conference, in fact, one often wants to summarize and gather together the results he has obtained in the last months of research.

This will probably depend heavily on the field. In mathematics, you don't really decide to "write" a conference proceeding; you just present at a conference, and then the proceeding comes out of it as a side effect (if it does -- most conferences don't have proceedings at all). In that case, it can easily happen that the proceeding comes out later than the "final" journal publication. There are various ways to deal with it, starting with not caring about it at all, and ending at adding extra material to the proceedings to make it stand apart. No one usually worries about self-plagiarism.

Thanks a lot for your comment. Do you know how the situation is in the Physics field?

No. I can only offer experience from mathematics and rumors from computer science :(

Most computer science conferences explicitly forbid submission of manuscripts that have been accepted to a journal (or another conference).  Even if you rewrite the text, a conference submission describing only previously published work is almost certain to be rejected for lack of novelty.  (As @jakebeal points out, there are exceptions, but in my experience this usually means presenting a recent paper in a journal explicitly tied to the conference.)

You have a misconception about self-plagiarism. It isn't the using of different words and figures that is the issue, but the need for citation of the older work. If you don't cite it, then it is self plagiarism. The words used are a different matter, perhaps copyright or not depending on who holds copyright. You can quote yourself extensively, but you need to cite it.

Depending on the particulars of your situation, there are three paths I am aware of for presentation at a conference:

Some conferences have begun to offer "journal first" submission options that explicitly welcome the presentation of an article that has already been presented in a journal.  For these, one prepares a short precis of the article for review and it is explicitly understood that this has already been published.
If you have some new results, you can certainly write a conference paper on these new results as an incremental advance over the prior work. Here, you simply focus on the new results just as you would for any publication building on prior work.  The only question is whether the new results will be considered significant enough for separate publication by your reviewers.
Finally, some conferences don't involve peer-reviewed articles at all, but just have one-paragraph abstracts submitted as "applications to speak", in which case figures and self-plagiarism don't enter into the question at all, since the abstract is not a publication in any meaningful sense.

From what you have written, it sounds like the first or second path would apply for your needs.

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Can I patent work after I have published a paper about it?
I've published my scientific results one year ago, but I didn't apply for patent at that time. Can I still patent it?

No.
You can only patent material that has not been publicly disseminated, and publication certainly counts as public dissemination.  In many jurisdictions, you lose the ability to patent immediately after doing so.  In other jurisdictions, like the United States, there is a one-year grace period, but it sounds like that has elapsed for you as well.

The allowance for getting a retroactive patent on published work in the US is of considerable interest to the IP offices at big US research universities who generally want you to tell them about papers so that they can consider filing the paperwork (because the university is going to claim the patent as work-for-hire and then feed the researcher a profit sharing cut to keep them happy).

A minor addition: in many jurisdictions (e.g. Germany) you can still apply for a patent while the review process is ongoing, as this is regarded as a confidential process and not yet a publication.


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How do I check the indexing of journals in databases?
Various journals claim to be indexed by worldwide databases like INSPEC, Google Scholar etc. How can I verify these claims?

You probably can't. That is why you send papers to the journals you know or the ones where the people you cite, publish their papers.

Is there a reason that you (or a colleague who has access) can't just check the database?

Google Scholar is not a normal indexing service, in the sense that it does attempt to index only "trusted sources." You should be somewhat wary of any publication venue that advertises itself as being indexed by Google Scholar, since this is practically meaningless.
For INSPEC and many other indexing services, the service itself may have a list of indexed journals which you can find on their website. (See here for INSPEC's, for example.)
If your institution subscribes to the indexing service, you can check yourself if the journal is indexed there.

And if your institution subscribes to the database, you could try looking up papers from it (often you can specify a particular journal).

@Jon thanks, I was in middle of writing that as you commented :)

no problem! Of course, each database I've ever used does things at least a little bit differently (just for confusion sake it seems).

+1 for "You should be somewhat wary of any publication venue that advertises itself as being indexed by Google Scholar"


text:
Is it fine to make a poster on a topic in which I have an article under review?
Next week I am going on a summer school meeting where the organizers encourage us to bring a poster. I would like to make a poster on a topic that I have covered in an article that is currently under review. Is that fine?
The rules of the conference to which the article is submitted state that I cannot submit any paper that covers the same material to any journal, conference or workshop. Does a poster count as a paper in this context?

Typically this would be okay, because the poster is not published.
If in doubt, contact the PC chair of the conference to make sure.

I see, putting it on my website later would not be acceptable though, would it?

The poster? Putting it on your website is not publishing it.

Is putting the paper without being published in any journal counted as publising it?

@Ooker: What are you saying? And to whom?

@DaveClarke to you. I mean, if I write a paper, but never send it to any journal, just upload in my website, would it be considered as publishing?

@Ooker: No. (Presumably, you are not an academic publisher.)

Ok. Just for curious, if I am a publisher myself, will it count?

If you were a publisher and you posted it the web pages for an electronic journal that you happen to have, then it would be considered as published.

I am also writing a paper in CS domain BT I can use the same name somewhere else. So you can use a poster related to your paper. Just check the rules ones. Mine doesn't say anything like that.

I meant I am writing  a paper in computer science domain. My journal didn't have any kind of rules as such yours. I even used the same name of my paper as an article for my research. I hope it seems clear now.


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Graduate school applications with papers in the peer review process
I am currently applying for graduate school and I have research papers that are currently in the peer-review process. What is the best way to send the schools these papers, since in the application forms, there does not seem to be a section to highlight the journals where I submitted my papers? They do not allow submissions like arXiv.

They do not allow submissions like arXiv. — Who doesn't?  The journals?

There must be space to highlight why are you interested in this school? or briefly describe your research interests.
In any of the above space. you can highlight your submitted papers something like:
I have submitted this work to this journal which is now in under review.
You can also append the abstracts along with co-authors and Journal of each submitted papers to your CV at the end.


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Do you have to be invited to write a review?
I am interested in writing a review on a topic that I am very interested in and am very well informed about. I would like to ask how does one go about doing this?
I was told that you have to be invited by a journal to write a review or else you give a talk at a conference and they ask you to write a review. You can't just decide to write one and submit to a journal. If this is true, I am confused as to how one would do that, as at all of the conferences I have attended, presenters usually give an entire story with results and not just update the audience on the literature.
Any ideas or suggestion on this would be greatly appreciated.

Related: At what stage of research career one can write a 'review article'?

Short answer: It depends on the journal.

It might also depend on the field. In my field (one of the [quantitative] social sciences), it is in fact common for first-year PhD students to write literature reviews and try to publish them in journals, because at this stage of their project, they might not have collected their data yet.

As with any submission it depends.  Your advisor should be able to answer this question for you field.
I would highly recommend NOT writing it unless you have either been invited to write one by a conference editor, or your advisor says its common in your field.  Many journals/publications are very hesitant to accept these kinds of papers as any number of experts could write them fairly quickly, and your field likely doesn't need several "survey" papers.
Whats more, any sub-field really only needs one good survey paper published every few years to make sure all its readers know the state of the research.  You're also not the only researcher who has knowledge and interest in writing this paper, so the market is likely pretty crowded.

@sevenssevens Thank you for your response. What should you do to increase your chances of getting yourself invited?

Publish several articles in your sub-field.  All the better if you've got a seminal article are two.  Remember, these articles are extremely easy to write as they do not require original research, or even conforming results of an experiment.  Basically, you've got to be known in your field to be asked to write these articles.


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How do I add in an already existing GPA into my cumulative GPA?
I have a GPA from a single school and I want to add it into my cumulative GPA.

Cumulative GPA from what? It doesn't work that way. A cumulative GPA is the final GPA from a single university or school, not all of them.

... and maybe note that, generally, students' computation or renormalization of their own GPAs is viewed as at-best-irrelevant by most interested parties, or, worse, as deception or manipulation. Let your transcripts speak for themselves.

Isn't there a duplicate somewhere? b-)

When I apply at universities, they want transfer information, I should not have called it cumulative GPA, but they want me to give them; "All transferable undergraduate college work: GPA".

A cumulative GPA is the final GPA from a single university, college, or school, not from all of them.
While it may be tempting to "raise" the GPA from a particular university by incorporating better results from another school, you will also be lowering the GPA from the school where you did better.
Admissions officers or committees are interested in how you did at each separate school, particularly if you can show increasing cumulative GPAs over time.

Generally, students' computation or renormalization of their own GPAs
  is viewed as at-best-irrelevant by most interested parties, or, worse,
  as deception or manipulation. Let your transcripts speak for
  themselves. - paul garrett

When attempting to transfer into Cal State they ask for the GPAs from your past schools, they verify it by looking at transcripts.

And they figure them together, so you get an overall GPA.

When I apply at universities, they want me to give them "All transferable undergraduate college work: GPA".

So, you want to know how they expect you to calculate an overall GPA, taking into account courses taken at more than one institution, right?
Ask them!
That being said, I can tell you how to do a homemade calculation, for your own purposes.  (If you already know how to do this, please ignore the following.)  For each course you've taken, multiple the credit hours by the numeric grade (4 for A, 3 for B, and so on).  Add up these "weighted" numeric grades for all the schools you've attended to get the grand total.  Now to calculate the average, you'll divide that grand total by the total number of credit hours.

You should be able make that homemade calculation without going course by course. Just add up all the GPAs on all transcripts, and weight them by the total number of credits on each transcript.

@J.R. - Ah yes!


text:
If you've worked as a paid employee for an academic journal, what do you actually do?
Academics write papers, perform editorial tasks, and do peer review. Authors have to read and follow each journal's Byzantine formatting requirements themselves. Most other tasks seem to be automated, for example, in most journals I submit to I'm asked to suggest peer reviewers and provide emails. Most requests I get to do peer review seem to be from automated systems.
What exactly is left? Does Elsevier have any employees? Or, as I suspect, is the whole company just a donkey chewing a carrot somewhere in the Netherlands?

Assuming this is a genuine question, then I'm well-placed to answer it; problem is it looks like trolling. I'm tempted to vote to close. Have you read any job advertisements posted by Elsevier?

Does this answer your question? What does the typical workflow of a journal look like? How should I interpret a particular submission status?

It can't be just a donkey in the Netherlands. Somebody needs to count the money they are raking in.

Assuming this is a genuine question, you might be interested in the answer I wrote to another question here: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/46402/career-options-in-scientific-academic-publishing-for-phds-and-postdocs

What exactly is left? Does Elsevier have any employees?

Elsevier certainly has employees. According to their website, the company has 8.700 employees, most of them in Europe and the US (which is genuinely more than I anticipated before googling). Clearly not all of these 8.700 will be directly involved in handling papers.
I guess your deeper question is - what do journal editors (not the academic editors) actually do? My understanding from having lunch with such a person at a conference once is that it's a fairly heterogenous job - ensuring that decisions of the Editor-in-Chief(s) are in line with Elsevier policy (or finding a new editorial board in the rare cases that the existing one disappears), setting up and managing the submission system, networking with researchers like me at conferences, networking with library staff to ensure that these sweet, sweet subscriptions remain in place, collecting data to report to various indices, and naturally keeping one's eye open for potential new journals. And of course handling many emails (technical issues, complaints, etc.).
Generally, a single person will be handling a range of journals in the same broad technical area, since networking for Applied IT journal A will go hand in  with networking for Applied IT journal B and C. Often (but not always), editors seem to hold a PhD in a field related to the journals they are handling.

Any business has (at least) two sides: the product side and the business/finance/legal side. Publishing is no different. Some editors are employees, I'd guess; senior, executive, managing editors.

There are plenty of roles outside of the basic reviewer/editor positions at a publisher. Even ignoring the necessary but non-publication related jobs (like lawyers, accountants, IT) there are often a boatload of employees handling copy-editing, marketing, customer service, and author support. Plus there can sometimes be a large number of assistant editors or other low level administrative people working to process submissions. And, of course, some editors are paid employees.
Now that's not to say that any of those people are good that their jobs or that any of them make the publication process smoother. But they are there.

Looking through the detailed answer linked by Anonymous Physicist one can estimate the time and work by journal staff. I will make my estimates based on my experience with journals in mathematics.
First part for the journal staff is the initial check. For most journals this is fully automated, so zero hours per new paper submitted but somebody needs to have written and programmed this at some point.
Next part for the journal staff is copy editing and typesetting. As the author is required to submit a latex file using the style files of the journal the journal mostly needs to check whether the author did that and proof read whether they changed any formatting in any significant way. A few hours of work if done properly.
Final part for the journal staff is publication. If the journal is only published online this is just a push of a button. If it is still printed on paper there can be quite a bit of work here. In that case the previous step is also more complicated because multiple papers need to be arranged into a single paper volume.
All in all there is not much work per submitted paper. A bigger chunk of work comes from the marketing side convincing university libraries that they need all these expensive prescription. You also need some general IT staff to keep the website up and running and an HR department.


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I wrongly emailed a professor from a personal email, should I send the email again from my institutional email or wait?
I was writing to a professor from another university about the possibility of an internship in his lab, but I thought I sent it from my university email only to later realize I sent it from my personal Gmail. I sent it this morning and have not gotten a reply, should I send it again from my university email or wait? What should I do?

I don't see any problem sending email from personal email id. Please a week at least before sending a follow up email. This is my experience

There is no particular need to use your university email when contacting professors at other institutions, as it doesn't really convey any meaningful information to them. (The situation is different when emailing people at your own institution, where it helps to identify and authenticate you if you use your university email.)
Re-sending the email risks making you appear impatient and/or entitled.
Do note that cold-call emails about internships have very high chances of being ignored anyway. I wouldn't expect a response at all here.

Emailing from proudplagiarist@evilstudent.org might not be a good idea, though. Otherwise, good advice.


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Do German company sponsored Ph.D. students deserve the Ph.D. title?
Do German company-sponsored Ph.D. students deserve the Ph.D. title?
I recently came across a post on social media that there's a BMW employee who got accepted to the BMW Ph.D. Program Promotion.
So they keep their full-time job but get assigned to a German university with a dissertation advisor. They spend three years working full-time, then get a Ph.D. degree.
In normal Ph.D. programs in the US (5 years) and Canada (3 years):

Student does research

Writes thesis

The thesis is approved by the university according to the university's standards

Degree is awarded by the university

In the German Company Sponsored Ph.D. Program:

Student does research

Writes thesis

The thesis is approved by the university according to the university's standards

Wikipedia
Question:

Do you think this is an abuse or misuse of the Ph.D. title?

Does such a program deserve to be called a Ph.D. program for the type of research and graduation criteria designed?

Shouldn't this type of degree be named as D.Eng or EngD?

The five years for the US is post bachelors, not post masters.

assuming you have a master's degree from a school, that PhD program in the US is still a five-year program, but maybe you could accelerate a bit. For CS PhD, University of Illinois says that the PhD time limit is 5 years for those who already have a MS from UIllinois. Link: https://cs.illinois.edu/academics/graduate/phd-program/phd-time-limits-milestones

That is the max time. It isn't the average. The average would be more like 3 post masters. Some programs limit the time you can spend.

I have some news for you: almost none of the PhD dissertations from my department (which is in the US) would've been deemed adequate at a top 5 department in my discipline in the US, nor would almost any of our PhD graduates have passed qualifying exams in those departments.

@AlexanderWoo but that doesn't justify these German programs can call themselves Ph.D. programs at all.

It seems you have made your mind up on the answer already, and this is more of a rant...

You should not confuse quality and quantity. For the record, I defended my PhD thesis (120 pages) after 2.5 years in graduate school. My position was fully funded and I did not have to teach when I was working towards my degree.

@ChristianHennig it is not a rant, I was asking politely in a nice way. And even if like you said that I’ve made up my mind on the answer, I am open to hear different opinions. After all, all I care is academic integrity, rather than chasing for big Dr. titles with lower standards and less rigorous works. But of course I can see why you may feel offended by the question. But it is a fact that such “PhD” programs exist in Germany.

No, that screed is not asking politely in a nice way.

@JonCuster no I asked politely, tell me exactly which words I used may be subjected to insultation and discrimination? I'll have them modified.

And your view of a PhD program seems very USA-centric. Most of your objections apply to every European program I know of.

Everything after your list of German attributes is not neutral. It is highly loaded and judgmental. Get over yourself.

@JonCuster it's not USA-centric, it's academic rigorousness-centric. I've seen mathematics professors who only possess degrees from universities in Czech Republic, but they won my respect because they know what they were teaching and they know their materials well enough to explain to the students. You're the one who's presenting bias and prejudice to me. So you're ok with academics in Europe to lower the bar and quality.

@JonCuster and you're loaded with bias and prejudice because I am only talking about this company sponsored PhD program, and you implied that I am criticizing the entire German public university's PhD programs. Well done.

You made a mistake. The motivation for the US and Canada entry should be "A "Dr." attached to the name, a raise in salary, a promotion within the institution" and the motivation for the German entry should be "conduct scientific and applied research, career in industry, training."

@JonCuster now that comment by JRN is what you called as fully loaded and judgmental.

Irrelevant to whether your question was loaded or not. ‘They started it’ is not an excuse.

Q.1 is opinion based. Q.2 is more or less Q.1 but trying not to be opinion based. Q.3 is fine. The question should probably modified to be more focused and less opinion based

For an outside viewer of the German PhD system some points have to be mentioned:

Germany produces over the average PhD graduates. This is partly caused by most of the research/lab work at public universities/institutes done by cheaper PhD students with 50-100% TV-L contracts.
Normally one is only allowed to start a PhD with a master title, so 3 years can be enough to reach the PhD
Beneath the universities there exist also many "Fachhochschule" (Universities for applied science, strongly collaborating and cooperating with Industry partners, not doing fundamental research). Master graduates from Fachhochschulen are normally not allowed to start a PhD at a university. The Fachhochschulen themselves don't have the right to give the PhD title, also many of them want to change this, while the Universities want to keep the sole right.
there exist branches like medicine in which a "Dr. med" title, the German equivalent of the PhD, is often given within 6-12 months for much less experimental/evaluation/statistical work than a natural scientist or engineer has to do. So there exist already very unfair and different measures to achieve such a title, being the qualification step before starting habilitation or junior professorship or tenure programme to become professor.

Now, concerning the case of BMW, I find it personally rather amusing than shocking which road the German PhD title and the academic system is apparently going here. One can be unsettled by this, when in former days the requirements were higher to earn a PhD and its reputation might decline therefore. On the other hand, times and academic standards change over time and countries.
The remaining question is, what will a PhD title based on research & development in such a programme be worth in 3, 10, 30 years? I don't think much apart from the formal value at a company like BMW or its competitors. But it might be rather counterproductive for a academic career and the journals in which you can possibly publish. If you do your research work at BMW or at an institute being paid fully by BMW for this research work, it should practically not make a big difference for the output. But, very likely, a professor supervising such a work, has to give away choice and responsibility what the content of the research work will be.
So to sum up, there is nothing illegal or in principle to criticize in this case, but the limitations/drawback to pursue such a PhD programme have to be taken into account by the PhD student. And in Germany, the Dr. titles of different study branches already have a very defragmented and intrinsic value due to very different requirements, contracts, practices, average period and level of (fundamental) "research" work in different branches.

I don't see why you'd think it's not deserved. "Deserved" is an intrinsically opinion-based thing, but even so, the department presumably has a set of written requirements that all its graduates must have met, and if those are met, then the PhD is "deserved".
Compare the things you list as needed in a US / Canadian PhD:

RA or TA

Last I saw being a TA is generally for funding only. If you don't need the money there is no formal requirement for being a TA. RA is different, but it's just a job title since PhD students do research, hence they are already RAs.

Teaching tutorial/intro courses

I doubt these are necessary for graduation, and are again just for funding purposes. If you don't need the money then there's no need to teach.

Qualification Exams

Lots of universities don't have qualification exams.

Thesis/Dissertation/Research/Experiment with rigorous level that may be published on academic journals

Are you suggesting company-sponsored PhDs don't have to do this? Your question itself says "Solve some practical problems for the company by writing a paper" (emphasis mine).

Thesis defense

Same as above, if the university requires a thesis defense then all PhD students have to pass or they don't get their degree. If these company-sponsored students you're referring to don't have to do this, it's because the university does not require it, in which case you should dispute whether the university is qualified to award PhDs.

Motivation: conduct scientific and theoretical research, career in academics, teaching

Motivation is irrelevant in academia.

High drop-out rate, especially on qualification test

This is a bad thing, not a good thing.

Am I right that you're saying PhD is a university/organization's self-defined degree. There's no standard across the globe for how a person should obtain the PhD degree. As long as the students do what the school says as the standard for the PhD, they'll get PhD. But I don't see why motivation is irrelevant. When you're applying for PhD programs, don't they ask you why you want to do PhD? Also why is high drop-out rate bad? Qualification exam is an objective way to filter out false positive PhD students. Lots of programs may not have qualif-exam, but at least stem subjects should have right?

Yes. 2) Motivation matters to the student, but not the teacher (although some teachers use it to assess how likely the student is to drop out). 3) High drop out rates = wasted resources. You spend resources that could've been used elsewhere to teach students who leave. That's a bad thing, not a good thing.

@SayMyNameHeisenberg in order for a global standard to exist, their needs to be some institution that can either create a global consus, or a body than can enforce a global majoritiy opinion. Global consensus in academia is something you can forget, and a world government does not exist. So each country does his own thing.


text:
The reviewer does not reply (unresponsive) on a major revision
I received a major revision from a high-impact factor journal. I implemented all the suggestions by the 2 reviewers, but one of them is unresponsive. The second one is responsive and will submit their report soon. What happens now?

Likely has an answer here: https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/55665/75368. I suspect the editor waits for the report. Don't expect fast turnaround, especially for a major revision.

How long have they been ‘unresponsive’? Remember many folks are just getting back to work and digging through their emails.

What does "responsive" mean? You get a second feedback round from the reviewers?

"The second one is responsive and will submit their report soon. " How do you know what they will do soon? can you read in their mind?

The editor in charge (or in fact the editorial computer system) waits until the other reviewer answers.
If it takes long, reminders are sent to the reviewer. First automatic, then by the editor.
If there is still no reply, the editor will likely review your changes and rebuttal letter himself, and then make a decision. Or make it without taking into account the second reviewer.
Or maybe look for another reviewer even.
Nothing you can do but wait.

I'd ask the editor for advice on what to do.  If the responses have been supplied and implemented in your work and one of the reviewers has answered, ask for what the reviewers' deadline is and how to proceed.  The worst thing that can happen is that the editor assigns the paper to another reviewer (not the best scenario) or, the best, is that the editor will consider the lack of response of the reviewer as if everyhing is alright and accept the paper as is.

I disagree.  Do not contact the editor until after a long delay.  It is up to the editor (not the author) to deal with a slow reviewer.

I agree with @GEdgar, there is nothing to do but wait. What happens is that the editor does their job.

Indeed, I must have said to contact the editor after a long time (three weeks?)

"I'd ask the editor for advice on what to do." What do you expect them to answer? At best they may answer "Wait until further updates".
Reg the "long time": a review as well as a review revision is an highly professional and skilled job that require 100% attention from a qualified reviewer. This job is unpaid. How can you expect anything decent before a couple of months? A long time is 6 months.

Thanks for the discussion. I am familiar with the peer review process as a contributor and as a reviewer. Please read the question posted originally: In the context of a contributor that has already addressed the concerns of the reviewers and one of them has already given the okay and the other is unresponsive, following up is not a bad course of action.

Reading the original answer does not help: how can OP state "The second one is responsive and will submit their report soon."? this is a guess, and hopefully an unfounded one, unless OP has a direct contact with the reviewer or the editor gave them this information (both things would hint at the journal being of extremely poor ethical standards, whatever its high impact)

@EarlGrey Nowhere in my answer do I say "The second one is responsive and will submit their report soon." and perhaps that would be a question that only the original poster can answer... Still, I'd been in a very similar situation and when we asked the editor after about a month-ish he helped us to see our work published... Nothing wrong with asking a question within reasonable timeframes.

I am happy for you. As a reviewer, if the editor would push me because the authors contacted the editor, I would feel uncomfortable. If the editor decides to skip my review because the authors contacted the editor, I would think the editor is extremely unprofesisonal and that the journal is promoting fast turnaround instead of high quality high impact.
Nothing wrong with that, there are paper that belongs to the "out quick" category and other to the "slow, thorough paper", but being fast are not the premises for a high impact journal (unless the impact is social media impact...)

From my experience, every mail from editorial systems to the reviewers comes with a reply deadline, after which you're getting another email, etc. They're not leaving it to the editors to keep track of who's supposed to deliver what and when. ;)


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Is it possible to do a masters in CS and a PhD in physics at the same time?
I’m a freshman in college and I’m a non-traditional student. I’m 45 years old with no previous degree other than high school here in the US.
After college, I want to pursue a Ph.D. in physics, however, I want to get a master's in computer science as well. I’m double majoring in both as an undergrad.

why? are money a concern for you or not?

The fact that you are capable of pursuing both at the undergrad level does not really translate into being capable of pursuing both at a graduate level. You will be better positioned to judge this for yourself once you have taken some graduate level courses (which you should be able to do during your undergraduate studies). Right now this seems like a bit of a premature concern. PhD studies are not "undergraduate studies, but more advanced", they are a whole another beast entirely.

Why don't you go after an interdisciplinary PhD that will combine Computer Science and Physics? There are so many topics to be explored such as complexity/network theory in physics, and machine learning applications in physics. You can also work on smart algorithms that filter data from large experiments in particle physics, neutron physics, condensed matter physics, etc. You can work on computational physics problems in nuclear physics, atomic theory, fluid dynamics, etc.
It would be useful to know your specific interests in Physics and Computer Science. However, in my opinion, most physics research nowadays is conducted on computers.

There are 24 hours in a day. The MS in computer science will require ~8 hours of that, and the PhD in physics will also require ~8 hours of that. Since there's no way to add more hours to a day, this will only work if:

You work more hours a day than most people would be comfortable with. You could conceivably do this, but there's a high chance of burnout.
You take longer than normal to complete both programs (e.g. by doing both of them part-time).

Writing that a PhD takes only 8 hours a day is well below what the typical student actually uses and makes this sound a lot more feasible that it really is.

@quarague: not necessarily. Most students only take that long since they have never learned how to structure work efficiently and make it goal oriented. If I had to do my Ph.D. again, I'd could do it in a 3rd of the time and still hold down a full time job on the side. That was one of my key eye openers when changing from academia to industry. So if the OP has relevant project managements experiences from the real world, this may indeed be possible.

I disagree with that assessment. Research is really damn hard, especially in more theoretical fields. There are a lot of fruitless hours spent reading paper after paper and textbook after textbook during a PhD. That wastage decreases over time as students learn how to do research better, but early on it is a real fight.

In fact, I know of someone who did a PhD in physics and also completed a master's in electrical engineering along the way. I didn't know her personally because she finished a few years before I joined, but it didn't sound like my advisor thought that was a very good gesture.
I don't know how she did it, but she didn't stay in academia. She opted to pursue a more financially lucrative route with the EE master's, I believe. However, she was pretty accomplished based on the papers she had authored.
I personally wouldn't recommend it because you have to be a uniquely capable individual and because you will probably somewhat lightly torch some political bridges by double dipping in that way.

Yes, it is possible depending on the rules of the university. The university where I did my PhD allowed graduate students to add masters degree's within the same college. One person in my Physics PhD program took one CS class per semester for the duration of the PhD and completed the MS and PhD in the same semester.

"Possible" here has at least two connotations.

Will any university let me do it?

Can it be done?

For the first, you'd have to ask individual universities. For the second ... well, not for most people.  John von Neumann got a BA in engineering and a PhD in mathematics at the same time at two different universities, but JVN was one of the great geniuses of the 20th century and was also famous for working faster than anyone on the planet. For the vast majority of people (usually very bright people) getting either of these degrees would be a more than full time task.
You might find places where you could do both part time.
Finally, you are a freshman returning to school. Good for you. But, first figure out college. Then see. You won't be applying to grad school for a while.

Regardless of possibility, I I think such an effort would be futile.
Do you want to be a physicist?
If yes, then you don't need to do a CS Masters. You will learn what ever CS knowledge you need during the course of your PhD. A PhD necessarily involves a lot of self study, and some of that could be learning CS material.
If no, then the PhD in physics is pointless. A PhD trains you to be a researcher in that field. It's not just classes and book-knowledge but is where you do your own research. So if you don't want to be a physicist, your financial and mental health will be better off if you get straight into whatever you do want to do.
Most of the reasons for doing a Masters, like boosting your admission prospects or preparing to start a PhD, don't apply if you do them simultaneously.
I understand the FOMO of knowledge and the feeling of wanting to be an expert in everything. But at some point you need to qddeot that you can't specialize in everything, and trust your ability to self study  (or at least informally study) the new things you want or need to learn.

It is very much possible.
A master's degree in CS is just choosing one specialization field from your undergrad and doing further study.
Since you are double majoring in CS and physics, you have the necessary backgrounds in both. So, I don't see why you cannot do that.
However, I want to point out that you should do some introspection regarding your decision. Think again if it is justified to take all that pain at this stage in your life.


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Can a faculty in a different college in the same university be influential on my tenure review?
I am a new tenure track faculty.  Last semester, I met a professor in a different college in the same university in a committee meeting.  She was very nice; she said that she wanted to be my older sister.  However, I felt like she was not reasonable and so I stopped talking with her about 1.5 months.  For example, she made me pay for her meal; she made me cook for her 6 times in row for two months; she asked me to search papers for her study about 3 times in a semester; so on.
I was wondering if it is ok to keep the distance from her as a new faculty?  Can she be influential on my tenure review in the future?  The reason I am asking this is that I'm kicked out of a dissertation committee today.  The dissertation committee chair is the person she always indicated as "her best friend".  So I begin to worry....
I'd truly appreciate it if you'd help!

What do you mean by "college"? A different organization within the same university (as at Oxbridge) or a different institution altogether. Did you have a romantic relationship?

Thanks for your reply.  A different college in the same univ..  Not a romantic relationship.

Officially, it's unlikely this professor will have a formal role in your tenure process.  However, they have some legitimate influence and could have much more illegitimate influence.  As an expert in your area, their opinion (backed up with evidence) should count for something (just like the opinion of any other expert in your area).  It's also possible that they are the only person with conclusive evidence that your department chair is having an extramarital affair with their graduate student.

@AlexanderWoo, and informal talk (innuendo) can influence people.

You should check your college's (and your university's) rules for tenure reviews. In my college, a person being considered for tenure can ask that specific people (inside or outside the college, and inside or outside the university) be excluded from the review process. (The tenure candidate has to give reasons for the exclusion.) I recall only one case where such a request was made, and in that case it was granted.

@AndreasBlass: Maybe in your culture everything is done purely by the formal rules, but in the US context, it would be extraordinarily naive to not pay significant attention to informal influences (both positive and negative) beyond the formal rules (since the rules leave room for judgement).

@AlexanderWoo Although I"m in the U.S. (Michigan), our tenure review process is quite formal. I"m aware of only one situation where a faculty member improperly intervened, and he was non-trivially disciplined by the college.

You need to consult your university's bullying and sexual harassment policies.

I'm kicked out of a dissertation committee today — This strikes me as a serious red flag, independent of all the other behavior.  I strongly suggest speaking with your department chair.

If your department chair (or chair of your tenure committee) is going to be asking external academics for input in your tenure review (this is not uncommon!) then you might want to tell them this:

"This person asked me to cook meals for her 6 times in a row for 2 months, along with other things that I found to be unreasonable, therefore I distanced myself from her, which apparently she did not like, based on at least one incident that seems to have been inflicted on me recently with her pulling the strings".

If your university has a "faculty association" or "union" representing its faculty members, you may want to seek their assistance in delivering this message to your department chair or chair of tenure committee, so that you do not have to do it directly.

It is really helpful!  Thanks A LOT!

This person isn't external.  The question was confusingly written.

It doesn't matter. The answer is the same, and if the faculty member is internal they would be able to have even more influence over someone's tenure.

It is difficult to advise you from afar. The direct answer to your question is yes, but that is because politics can run rampant in some universities with many factions. You aren't asking whether she can be part of your formal tenure committee, I realize, but that is possible in some institutions also. Even a member from another university is a possibility.
However, having a mentor as a new faculty member can be a valuable thing, especially if you are a woman, which you don't say. At some places that mentorship can make the difference between success and failure. But a mentor needs to be pretty selfless in most respects. It is hard to interpret her request that you do research for her. That could be a good or a bad thing, depending on what you get out of the task itself. Being selfless doesn't necessarily mean that the mentor doesn't push you a bit. But, again, it is impossible to judge from here.
So, think about whether her actions are selfish or just encouragement for you to look at new things.
As for cooking and such, it is possibly worrisome unless there are some special circumstances.
But, the one piece of advice I can give is not to let your distancing be interpreted as an indication of a negative attitude, even if you have one. If you can distance and keep it neutral, then it is less likely that, in case she is selfish (or worse) that it will come back to reflect on you. Don't poke the bear in its den. But that, too, might be an unnecessary worry.
So, think first about whether she is offering mentorship and what that might mean for you in a positive way if you accept it. You might also explore her relationship to others in your institution that are in similar circumstances in order to come to a judgement on whether this is a good or a bad thing.

It is very helpful!  Thank you so very much!

-1 This person isn't a plausible mentor.


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How to properly adapt academic papers obtained from a university to private companies?
My post is more related to private research than academic research, but as I think they could be strongly related, I thought this would be the most appropriate place to ask.
I have recently started working for a small startup in Brazil, where we conduct intensive research to develop a product. However, I have some doubts about how this is done in terms of ethics and licensing.
I am also student of a federal university and so I could freely access non-open-source papers via proxy or via Google CASA. However, I do not think this would be ethical since my work research is not related to the university, so I use to conduct the work research on anonymous browsing. However, my workmate researches using Mendeley and share with me pdfs of the papers, which are frequently non-open-access material. I have already questioned her about it, but she thinks it is everything ok and I'm not so sure of it, as brazilian people do not care much about these things. About this:

Am I right in thinking that university students should not use the free-access benefit to access papers for work?
If she is having access to non-open-access papers via Mendeley, does this mean that her university account is being used somehow or is it possible for a personal account to have this benefit via Mendeley?
Since the pdfs are being shared internally but we are not making any business on themselves but on the knowledge we absorb from them, would this be considered commercial-use or be infringing any license/copyright terms?

If the answers to these questions point that the company's research conduct is beign wrong, I would appreciate to make things right. I wish we could be successful following the most ethical, legal and responsible ways, so I have one remaining question, maybe the most important one:

What does a research company need to have a research power close to a university, i.e., to have a free/viable access to research from the most important publishers? Does research companies invest on buying every single material, limit their work only for open-acess or is there any kind of program for research in private companies?

Fee's to access papers are absolutely mindblowing, and researchers get none of the benefits. Almost everything is available here: https://sci-hub.st . As a researcher myself, I am happy to have my work available for as many people as possible.

I tried to make the title match the question better.

"Is my business breaking copyright law?" would be off topic.

Why not ask the librarian? I suspect they will say "so long as you aren't downloading excessive numbers of papers, we're just happy to see our resources used".

Here is how it used to work:

The university bought journal articles from a publisher.

The publisher printed and mailed the article to the university.

Any random person could walk into the university library and read the article.

The random person could use what they learned to make money, so long as they did not violate any patents.  The patents issue is
unrelated to the copyright on the article.

In my opinion, using your student account to access electronic journal articles through a university subscription and then using what you have learned to make money is ethically equivalent to the steps listed above, which have always been ethically acceptable.  As a student, you should be encouraged to learn as much as possible, even if that learning is not related to your degree program.
However, legally you must follow your university's policies.  We do not know what those policies are.  They may impose some limits on the purposes for which you can use the university's resources.
Do not consume university resources for the profit of a private business.  Reading a journal article is not consumption.

Indeed, many universities and national libraries still have provisions allowing members of the public to access the library and its resources (including online journals) if they jump through the right set of hoops (e.g. present themselves in person at the library). If so, OP's student status may make life easier (read papers from the comfort of your sofa!) but is not fundamental to obtaining access. This is probably a pertinent fact in any ethical analysis.

I approach the ethics of this question in terms of society membership.
If a person is a serious member of a research community, they should be helping to support that community in a number of ways, including paying money to help support the publications maintained by its research societies. Universities generally both support societies and provide access by means of their libraries, which maintain institutional subscriptions to everything above a certain level of popularity, with the cutoff determined by their budget.
For well-established companies with a significant presence in research and development, it will typically work in exactly the same way. For example, where I work we have somebody in charge of library services who maintains institutional access to all the frequently needed collections of publications.
But what about when a company isn't well established or if the library doesn't cover a publication?
I do not believe that it is reasonable to pay for random individual articles. The problem is that you usually can't tell if the article will be of any use until you've got the PDF, and you often have to go through many such articles in many different publication venues to find which ones actually matter.  If you start using a society's publications frequently, however, then you should support the society: either you should ask the library to subscribe or you should get an individual membership that gives you access (as is often the case).
With startups, I do think there is a reasonable grey area. The company is likely operating on a shoestring budget and doesn't have the ability to establish anything like a library.  But people in the startup often legitimately "wear multiple hats" where they are also part of a university and part of their responsibility in the university includes helping to transition technology via the startup. Thus, I would expect that startups reasonable exist on an ethical continuum, where many small and early startups effectively shade into the universities they are affiliated with, but over time should transition to maintaining their own subscriptions as part of becoming an established citizen of the scientific community.

Businesses pay tax.  Tax supports university libraries.  University libraries support journals.  If the tax is high enough, the problem is solved.

@AnonymousPhysicist Are you being serious or sarcastic? Because there are so many issues with your statement.

Not sarcastic.  I don't see why you think a voluntary system is better, or why the size of a company's budget should determine their contribution.  This is exactly what taxes are for; funding collective goods.


text:
Physician assistant school rescinded my acceptance
I'm in a complicated situation. I was accepted to physician assistant school and was told I'm one of the most qualified candidates. I'm also a mother of 2 children (under age 3) and living with their father who doesn't want me to go to PA school (because I'll have more freedom).  But not only is he physically and emotionally abusive, but he stopped paying for my cell phone and started throwing away my mail (from my school and everyone else)  to limit my communication with anyone. (Note: I'm three months postpartum and have stayed home to care for my kids  waiting for school to start, and have no income of my own). I communicated this problem with my school via email as they could not reach me by phone. Even though it was embarrassing, I gave them specifics of my circumstances. Yet I Iived up to my promise to keep up with their other requirements.
Yesterday, I was shocked to learn that they rescinded my acceptance because I couldn't be reached by phone during the last month (but did respond to all correspondence via email). I explained the extenuating circumstances, and even presented evidence from police reports proving what was happening at home.
To make matters worse, my parents and I signed a lease on an apartment a block from school and agreed to help me pay for it so I could have a stable living environment with less distractions (constantly wondering if I would be forced onto the streets out of my abusive partner's apartment). We already signed a lease for the apartment.
I know that I honestly put forth my best effort to fulfill pre-matriculation requirements and to communicate with the only means I had (the computer). I couldn't go in person because I have no car. Graduating from this program was my ticket  to financial freedom out of this oppressive situation, and I feel like this school is going way too far to rescind my acceptance based ONLY on the short term termination of my phone.
How can I get the school to remake their offer?

My edit drops the why part of your question (from the title), since you've answered that youreself. I've also dropped the is it justified aspect, since that's subjective. I've added a new question, namely, How can I get the school to remake their offer?, which I think is what you want. Please revert/revise my edits, if you see fit.

Welcome to Academia SE. While I commiserate with you for your situation, I fail to see how we can help you in any way. This is something you have to take out with that school. Since this is a highly specific situation, we (and everybody else on the Internet) also cannot divine why exactly the school decided the way it did. And even if we could make an educated guess, it would just be that. Finally, the institution in question does not appear to be an academic one (correct me if I am wrong), so we cannot apply our general knowledge of academic rules and procedures.

You need to get a cheap phone [or just a SIM] that does not have a contract, such as pay-as-you-go, that you won't need to top up, just to receive calls on. I have a phone that I've not topped up in years, as I never call anyone, but I can still receive calls on it.

As other comments say, no one here can help with a precise recommendation. I think you should try to talk in person to someone at the school. Is there a local legal aid society where you might be able to get some pro bono legal advice, or at least someone to help you negotiate? In parallel, is there a reliable place (public or private) to get help dealing with the abusive relationship? That's important.

Deleted the "graduate admissions" tag because "physician assistant" does not require a graduate degree.  It's probably an associates degree.

@Greenonline A phone that has no contract, SIM, or Pay-as-you-go can still contact emergency services in some places.

@AnonymousPhysicist - What relevance does contacting emergency services have with the OP receiving acceptance offers by phone? A phone that has no SIM can not receive calls from other callers.

@Greenonline People in abusive relationships have a lot of emergencies.

Your highest priority should be getting safe from abuse.  We're not experts on that, so please contact a local authority.
Here is a list.  You may be able to get help without using a phone.
Becoming a physician assistant is not the only way out of your difficulties.  So don't panic about your acceptance.  Higher education does exist to help people like you, but there are many ways to get education.
Contact the Director of Admissions for the Physician Assistant Program and explain your situation to them.  They will want to help you.  If you cannot find this person, try the Dean of Students.  If you cannot find them either, look for an Omsbudsperson.  Your admissions problem sounds like it is caused by disorganization.  If you contact the right person they will fix the problem.  Since we do not know which school you are talking about, we cannot tell you exactly who to contact.
Ask local doctors what they think about this program before you start it.  Not all medical training programs are good.

Someone already mentioned this, but the best course of action is find a lawyer. They can discuss specifics with you and you may have a good case for a lawsuit. At the very least, a lawyer can tell you what your options are in this situation and maybe even just a letter from an attorney may be enough change their minds.

This problem is almost certainly caused by human error on the part of the school, and can very likely be resolved by asking the right person to help.  I wouldn't involve a lawyer until this was discussed with the correct administrator.


text:
Can I reach out to a supervisor directly even they might not have open phd position currently?
My field of study is not a popular one (animal behavior in ecology) and my specific interest is "unexplored" (specific female behaviors and sexual conflict). Moreover, I am an international student.
So finding an open position with a scholarship is hard. Instead of waiting for an opening, I want to reach out to potential supervisors directly. I plan to show them my previous study and provide a simple CV and personal statement summarizing my research interests and some thoughts.
I wonder if that's OK?

As long as you are polite and keep it short, the worst thing that can happen is that you are told "No."

Does this answer your question? How should I email quite a few professors for PhD positions while also not 'mass emailing'?

You certainly can and it's totally okay. If they have no open positions I can't imagine it would do much good though... I would focus your efforts on PI's or departments that are actively seeking students. You might have to check regularly but I doubt that cold emailing professors who are not seeking students will get you further than waiting. That being said, if it makes you feel proactive, it won't do any harm.
I don't know where in the world you located but I'm not sure that I would classify animal behavior research as "unpopular" exactly. If you haven't found many opens with those keywords, you might have luck expanding your search and seeing if individual PI research interests align with yours.

Of course, that's how I got my PhD position :)
It will depend a bit on the professor's way of working and the university policy. My prof is usually very open to talking to potential new members of the lab even when he "formally" does not advertise an open position - if those people catch his interest. If you show that you are passionate about pursuing a PhD and can clearly show that you will bring something interesting to the table you might get someone interested.
But also, as the others have already said, you might get a "no" or just no response at all... Don't let that bring you down and keep looking for other opportunities.
Best of luck!

thank you sooo much. I've always had low self-confidence and learned helplessness issue. Your answer really encourage me a lot.   (still don't know how to use this website haha :)

I want to reach out to potential supervisors directly.
I wonder if that's OK?

It is ok reaching out to potential supervisors directly even when there's no advertised research opening. In doing so, be polite and succinct.

I plan to show them my previous study and provide a simple CV and personal statement summarizing my research interests and some thoughts.

Your plan is not far off. Just be purposeful and innovative. Many won't have the time. Ensure you've read and understood their research area/interest.
I'll say, although not exhaustive

highlight your research area and thoughts (taking note of {possible/potential} interface with theirs)
gloss over research work you might be busy with that might interest. This is where your 'specific' area comes to the fore
outline previous study
one pager précis/CV

Don't be put off by 'no response'. You just have to continue. One will click!

Animal behavior in ecology isn't that obscured. Just to mention that there're publications with over 200 citations.
Being "unexplored" tends to pan out in different ways:

literature review isn't robust enough
there're known reason why the specific area has not been investigated or stopped exploring
the sub-field is truly novel and worth groundbreaking

For you, when 'contacting', you might've to give pointers to the possible outcome/intervention that female behaviors and sexual conflict would bring to animal behavior in ecology.


text:
Are online PhDs in mathematics valid?
Some universities in Malaysia have research-mode Ph.D. programs in Mathematics. Since Covid 19, they have allowed students to work online, especially if the student is performing well. I am a math instructor in my own country and also registered in a Ph.D. program in Malaysia. This is my first year, and I published 5 research papers in ISI Q1 journals, three of the journals are reputed in my field.
I can finish my Ph.D. within two years(minimum requirement period). But I am wondering, would my Ph.D. be acceptable for assistant professor jobs? Or Postdoc positions?
P.S: The issue is that I cannot leave my current job due to financial reasons.

"would my PhD be acceptable for the assistant professor jobs? Or Posdoc?" Acceptable in where? which country?

For example in Arab countries? But in general, I am asking at any place, like US? My masters was from USA but due to some situation, I had to return home country in south Asia.

Please read this answer

Does this answer your question? Can I get a PhD online?

It's not a case of validity. It's a case of soundness. (/s)

Others gave great answers, but let me still mention here that doing PhD online might be a disadvantage in the future. Part of being a mathematician is also networking with other mathematicians (that's not the main part, but it is important). These connection should including faculty members and other seniors. When time comes and you will apply for a postdoc position you will need those (e.g. for reference letters). Still, if you make effort attending conferences or talking with people from other universities you should be fine.

There is some risk, but you choose among the options you have, not the ones you wish you had.
In math, ideally, an online doctorate could be fully valid and if from a highly reputed institution, it probably, but not necessarily, is.
You will still, however, face skepticism about the degree at the current time when the concept is so new. Not everyone will think of it as equal to a traditional degree and you will need to be aware of that in applying for positions.
However, as is always true, if your dissertation makes a solid contribution to the field and you clearly show the necessary characteristics for the jobs you seek, you can overcome a lot of that skepticism.
Nothing guaranteed, but nothing impossible.

As others mentioned, location is important.  In the comments you asked specifically about the United States.  If you want an assistant professorship in the United States, you need a PhD that is familiar to hiring committees in the United States.  Most of the faculty on those committees cannot name a single university in Malaysia or a single university that offers online PhDs.  As a result, they will not know anything about your PhD.
Also, nearly all new assistant professors in math have several years of experience after their PhDs.

published 5 research papers in ISI Q1 journals, three of the journals are reputed in my field

Your high rated publications (depending on how highly rated they are) would count, post your doctorate study.

would my Ph.D. be acceptable for assistant professor jobs? Or Postdoc positions?

Given your publications and possibilities of further publications, you stand a good chance.
Some might be sceptical about online doctorate. Rightly so for good reasons. In your case, you can address this easily with cover letter.
Some consider the research environment on completed their doctorate in. Some factor in the university standing.
Consideration varies from country to country, institution to institution, discipline to discipline.

Online PhDs in mathematics are as valid as the institution that confers the degree.
The question is rather how competitive or 'valid' a university in Malaysia is from the point of view of your future employers. I know that European and North American institutions might have biases when it comes to degrees from outside of North America and Europe (+Japan, South Korea, and certain Chinese universities).
Frankly, whether your PhD is 'online' or classical won't really matter from the perspective of your future employer. What matters is their opinion about your university. In academia, they will care about your research and your personal connections too.

Yes. What really matters is the quality of your work and your own natural aptitude for math. If you're not good enough to stand out amongst the crowd, then it really doesn't matter where you went to school.


text:
How usual is it for master students to take part in work that has nothing to do with their thesis?
I'm doing my master's thesis in a research group in Germany (experimental physics). The group is pretty big, there are multiple experimental setups at the moment, that are maintained by different people. The topic of my thesis needs me, together with a Ph.D. and a postdoc, to work mainly on one of the setups, that I am now familiar with. The 3 of us work as a team, the hierarchy is pretty low, and I actively contribute to the research. Our research predominantly aimed for a publication - It is clear to the other two that I also will write my master's thesis about this experiment, but in the team's decision-making and dynamics and our daily lab work, despite sometimes mentioned, the fact that I will write a thesis doesn't take up much space.
My team is however also expected to work on other tasks, that somehow are related to the setup I am working on: One is the follow-up experiment that is supposed to succeed the current setup, the other is a software project related to the setup, and such tasks.
The key point is that none of these tasks will have an effect on the current experiment during the remaining time period of my thesis, some even are "support work" for other setups. Despite this, I am expected to take part in those tasks, which use up a good amount of time.
The problem for me is, that, different from my team, I am not receiving any funding/payment. I am contributing to our research topic, which is beneficial to the group, and I understand that my incentive to do so is to be able to write a thesis and have an academic degree. Of course, I am not as experienced as the rest of my team, and that's why I am fine not being paid. However, the fact that during this 1-year research, I essentially have to live from saved money leaves a sour taste in my mouth, when the work I do unpaid then benefits other experiments/setups.
Now I'd like to know if is this a usual thing, and simply regarded the "part of the deal" that I have to accept, or if this is something that I should try to stop.

I can't say whether this is usual in German physics. It sounds to me like there should at least be a contract and payment as a Wissenschaftliche Hilfskraft for this. You may want to talk to your Fachschaft, and afterwards to the professor and the postdoc. One thing to have in the back of your head: do you plan on staying in academia? If so, additional experience (and potentially another coauthorship) could be a valuable consideration. If not, much less so.

@StephanKolassa The additional experience is of course a valuable consideration, thank you. I explicitly talked about the possibility of a "Wissenschaftliche Hilfskraft"-contract, but it is stated by my group that since the tasks are either thematically similar, or are carried out by the same team, they are too close to my master thesis to be paid for (in germany, a university is not allowed to pay students for the master thesis).

I would have a chat with the team and state that you need to focus more on getting your thesis work done since you have a time limit. Hopefully they should understand. But bravo for being able to integrate tightly into a research group.

Perhaps your thesis also benefits from work others coming before you have done, and you are expected to "pay forward" some of this effort. But of course this is all a balance, and if the side work prevents you from completing your project that's a problem.

The problem with your question is that the answer really depends on the culture of your lab. In some labs, everybody is expected to "pay their dues" by for example, taking care of long-term experiments, performing maintenance tasks, and buying milk for the coffee machine. I've worked in a couple of labs with a strong culture of paying your dues and in both instances the rewards were totally worth it, in terms of the feeling of belonging, help received from others when I needed it, experience in project management, etc. In other labs, the whole thing of paying your dues is just an excuse for senior members of the lab to exploit those under them, in a sort of hazing ritual.
So the answer to

Now I'd like to know if is this a usual thing, and simply regarded the "part of the deal" that I have to accept, or if this is something that I should try to stop.

is "it depends".