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Where to find details on Bachelor degrees majoring in IT?
I have been asked to design a major in IT (Information Technology).
I am not based in US, and I didn't graduate in US. So, I am not familiar with US graduation system. However, I have been asked to use US bachelors as examples.
So, it would help me to have links to pages where I can see detailed descriptions of the IT majors, such as lists of mandatory courses, and syllabi.
So far, I was only able to find general descriptions of the IT majors offered in some US Universities and Colleges.
I am particularly interested in Liberal Arts Colleges.

Just a guess here, but I think that small liberal arts colleges in the US are far more likely to offer more traditional CS than IT. There are a few business oriented (i.e. not "liberal arts") colleges that might do IT. And being small, they aren't comprehensive like larger places can afford to be.

Both Babson (babson.edu) and Bentley (bentley.edu) offer CIS oriented degrees, but that may not be what you are after.

Well, it's Germany and not the US, but in Germany you will find a so called "modulhandbuch" (module description) on every website of every computer science / informatics department containing all courses and module descriptions. In many cases you will find some in english language, too.

I don't think you'll find this in one centralized place.  You'll need to:

Identify some specific colleges whose programs interest you.  As a way to get started, there are various publications that create rankings of programs in different subjects.  One prominent source is US News and World Report.  But keep in mind that rankings are inherently subjective and that other people may disagree about which schools should be emulated.
Go to each institution's website and look for their catalog.  This is a large document that lists all the degrees and majors offered by the school, and the specific courses that one has to take for each one.  It will also explain general graduation requirements that may not be specific to a particular major.  (US schools typically have general education requirements, that every student must take a substantial number of courses in a variety of different subjects, which may be unrelated to their major.)
Be warned that the requirements can be rather complex, with many different options, elective courses, etc, and may take you some work to sort through.  There is a standard joke that the most difficult requirement for graduation is to figure out the requirements for graduation.
The catalog will also contain a short course description of the topics studied in each course.
Find syllabi manually; they are not usually available in one centralized place for a given institution.  Usually the instructor of a given course in a given term has the authority to write the syllabus, explaining what assignments and exams will be given, what books or readings will be required, how grades will be determined, etc.  They can also vary the topics from the official course description, within reason.  The syllabus is usually posted on a website for the course, to which students are given the URL, but you may have trouble finding this for a number of reasons:

Course websites may not be organized or centrally indexed in any particular way.
You may not know when the course was last taught, or the name of the instructor who taught it.  In some cases, it can happen that a course appears in the catalog, but is not actually taught anymore, or taught very infrequently.
Course websites may not be accessible by the public.  This is becoming more common as institutions migrate course websites into learning management systems, which are often set by default to require a student login to access.

You could also email the department chair or secretary and ask if they have a collection of recent syllabi that they could send you.  Keep in mind that responding to such a request would be a very low priority task for them.

Thanks a lot Nate, your answer has helped me a lot!


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Loss of novelty while under review
Asking this question for a friend (also motivated by this PhD thesis: novelty at the time of proposal but not submission). Field: Neuroscience.
Initially, when the paper was written up, there was no other paper that showed that XYZ could happen. It got rejected by the first journal (edited suggested submitting to more specialized journal). Now, at the second journal, the paper has been under review for a while (~7 months). All in all about a year or so has passed between when the work was done and the current peer review process.
Now that the reviews have come, I see that the reviewers say that there is no novelty in the paper because a recent paper (published two months ago) has shown the exact same thing. The editor has marked it as major revision and said that we should address the novelty issue.
My question is: is there anyway to argue that the novelty is supposedly missing because the journal took forever and that its not the authors fault? In general, is there anything to be done in case of getting scooped except for swallow your pride, do more work, submit to pre-print server next time, and hope for the best?

The timeline could be a bit sketchy as I have approximated from a discussion; also, I do not know the exact remark that the editor has made

You could/should have a discussion about priority with the editor. Don't complain that they were inefficient, though, even if just for strategic reasons. I can't predict the outcome.

In Engineering, I've seen papers where the authors say that another paper on the same widget appeared at time of writing/review.  They do point out what they have 'extra' as compared to the other paper.  Maybe you could use the other paper to support your finding?

You could add to your paper's introduction a sentence like "While this paper was under review, X published the paper Y, which contains the same results" (or "similar results" or "some of the same results" or whatever is actually the case). Of course it would be better if you could add material to your paper that isn't in Y.

I think that this is very field-specific. I just was involved in a project where two different groups worked on the same problem as ours, and we all gunned for conference acceptance at the same time. It's okay to have all contributions accepted, as long as the conference has not published its proceedings yet.

Very closely related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/151446/paper-in-revision-stage-but-a-similar-paper-was-just-published/

I would respond to the editor that:

Our paper was submitted on DATE.  Paper A was published on DATE.  Both works show that XYZ.  The publication of A in the well-known Journal of W is evidence that our work is important.

Most editors are decent people and will realize that the prior publication of A is not within your control, nor is it something you overlooked.
Do revise your manuscript to clearly compare your work with A.  In the manuscript, you can state that the paper A was published after your initial submission, if you wish.
Publishing multiple papers that independently get the same result is good for science and should be rewarded with publication.

+1, and see if you can emphasize how you arrived at similar results differently, supporting the main findings in a novel way.

My question is: is there anyway to argue that the novelty is supposedly missing because the journal took forever and that its not the authors fault? In general, is there anything to be done in case of getting scooped except for swallow your pride, do more work, submit to pre-print server next time, and hope for the best?

The reason why a paper may not get published because a similar story was published elsewhere is not necessarily related to not being recognized as having the work done first. So arguing about whose fault it was or whether you were first to submit to a preprint server will not change anything. (For-profit) journals are not there to report unpublished scientific advances. They are a commercial enterprise trying to make money by selling ads and subscriptions.
If the editor believes that a) the paper in question still will bring readership and b) there is no chance that it was the result of plagiarism they will still publish it. In general, no two papers, even when ostensibly showing the same findings are truly identical. And often journals publish back-to-back papers from different authors on the same topic in the same issue or competing journals do so.
However, if the editor does no longer believe the paper will attract readers then they will pass. The only recourse is to either extend the findings to generate renewed interest or go to a different journal where a different editor might reach a different conclusion. In my view this is likely something that could be ascertained with an inquiry to an editor before reformatting the manuscript for submission to a specific journal. In the meantime, since novelty is lost, I would also publish it on a pre-print server--but that's a personal decision to make.

"They are a commercial enterprise trying to make money by selling ads and subscriptions."  Your argument is flawed because the editor who makes the decision is usually an unpaid academic.  They don't care one bit how much money the journal makes.

Doesn't that depend on the journal? Many of the editors I worked with across various journals are full-time editors employed by the journal and not academics.

For example the Cell or Nature family both have professional editors and an academic advisory board.

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My mentor got laid off from a private research lab. Is there anything I can do to help him find a new job?
I am a grad student and I wanted to know if there was anything I could realistically do.  I think he's the best supervisor I've ever had, and working with him was very fun, and made me grow a lot as a researcher.  He's done a lot for my career and I think the world would be grossly unfair if he didn't get another research job.
I would love to serve as a reference but I don't think universities or industrial research labs listen to random grad students.

Opinions on a potential faculty member's supervisory abilities would be very valuable input. I don't know if anyone will listen to you, but perhaps they should.

I've edited the question (I don't think we should be naming names if it's not necessary). I presume you have a co-supervisor who is a faculty member at a university? (or else how are you a grad student). Perhaps this colleague could paraphrase your comments in a reference letter.

Your mentor most likely has his own list of references and if it comes to the point where he needs to have references from his grad students, then he is doing a very poor job of taking care of himself.
Offer to assist him in any way you can. If he needs a pair of extra hands to complete a side project that will get him hired where he wants to be hired, volunteer to be that extra pair of hands. Who knows, you might learn more from that experience.
Offer to be his eyes and ears for positions on your campus and have him say in the cover letter that he is applying on your recommendation.
If you want to offer help someone, talk to them and discuss what their need for help is and in what ways you can help meet that need. While you are assisting, leave them the lead in taking care of themselves. It is more economical of your time and energy and leads to a better outcome to help in the ways that you can help than to obsess about helping in ways that you can't - you are not in a position to give recommendations, so don't bang your head against the wall about giving one. Go for something doable instead.

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How to quote a quote?
I'm writing my master thesis. I need to quote a cited quote from another paper. So the scenario is that I'm reading a paper and this paper has a quote which is cited from another paper. Now I want to quote this quote, how should I cite this?
Is it correct to just write the text of the quote and then cite the paper I'm reading? Or should I cite the original paper? The thing is that if I cite the original paper then I will be considered that I read that paper, however i don't want to read that paper. So what is the correct thing to do here?

I'm interested on why you "don't want to read that paper". Is it due to some personal conflicts with the author of original paper?

@justhalf because it is only that quote in that paper that is of interest/value for me. It is beyond the scope of my thesis!

I see. However I fail to see how "beyond the scope of my thesis" can translate to "i don't want to read that paper" and describing it as "very difficult approach", unless you are really limited in time. But then again if the original paper is available to you, you can always skim through it (which is the first step in reading papers, by the way) and find the context of the quote quickly.

(to be pendantic, you're only wanting to quote a quote, not to quote a quoted quote, which would happen if someone wanted to quote the quote that you quoted. That is, the first occurrence of the phrase is not in itself a quote)

Unless it is the fact that paper A quotes paper B that you intend to highlight in your thesis and not the content of the quote from paper B itself, you need to read paper B. If you reproduce the quote by itself, you should cite the original. If you need to refer to paper A's reference to B, then you need to cite both.

:( this is a very difficult approach

I think the solution is to try to explain the idea of the quote then rather than copying its text

You need to come to grips with the literature you are using. There is no choice. There are countless stories about "facts" being improperly propagated due to reliance on a tertiary source to have gotten the gist of the primary source correct.

@JackTwain "this is a very difficult approach" Is it? Assuming you have access to the original paper you could verify the quote and relevant context in less time that it took you to post your question. Properly reviewing and citing the literature is a minimum requirement for any thesis.

@DougLipinski the original paper is beyond the scope of my thesis, so only that quote is of value/interest for me. Reading the entire paper is not in the scope of my research/thesis.

@DougLipinski & NO it won't take the same amount of time as of posting this question ... reading and understanding mathematical stuff that I have never heard of won't take couple minutes.

@Jack Twain: you don't need to read and understand an entire paper to quote from it. You do need to read enough to make sure that you are interpreting the quote in the right way. This is simply part of doing research: you will end up looking at many resources that are only slightly related to your work.

@OswaldVeblen I think you got to the critical point. The OP needs to personally verify the context around the original quote so that it's not misconstrued.

There is a potentially serious problem with taking quotes or interpretations of other's work from an intermediate source. You have no control over the correctness of what you are quoting or referencing. There are many examples where errors propagate through scientific literature just because someone actually did not check the original source. This does not mean that everything is wrong or that most people are careless but it is your responsibility to check the information you use. You therefore need to make a serious effort to locate the original before you resort to quoting a quote made by someone else or citing a citation in another publication.
In the event you have to resort to using an indirect source you should clearly state that the quote is not from the original. You can do this by adding, for example, "stated by Y (yyyy) as quoted by X (yyyy)" (or whatever format of citation you need to use). At least in this way the reader will clearly see that the quote is not taken directly from the original source.

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Is it possible to restart a PhD due to issues with supervisor (and should I do it)?
I am a PhD student in Europe and I am in the state of permanent crisis because of my PhD supervisor. He is a very nice person, who is very active with public engagement, very successful at grant applications and all that. But the problem is, it turns out he does not know the subject. Now I realize this is a very arrogant thing to say. However, for a very long time I refused to believe it and thought that there was some problem with me. Now all evidence (corroborated by others) shows that he really is incompetent. He somehow manages to pull it off, getting on other people's papers and so on.
The fact that this takes place in Europe is significant: I had to choose someone from the start of my PhD and the time is extremely limited. Also, I am not sure, but I have an impression that you will not be able to get funded, if you quit your PhD and start over. Is this so? Also, there is a very small number of people doing similar things around and none in the same institution. Additionally, it seems very likely, that no one would support a rebellion (i.e. switching a supervisor), because of politics.
I have a very good track record, I finished at a top American university with very high grades, and most importantly I do want to do research. So this situation makes me very unhappy. I can't see any way out, but maybe there is someone who can? I will consider changing the field somewhat (but not too radically) and starting over, but it seems like the funding will most definitely not be available. Or maybe it will?

So this situation makes me very unhappy. Don't walk, run! Change your research advisor.

Thank you very much for your advice, but as I tried to indicate in my post, the process of changing the advisor does not seem as straightforward to me.

What country are you in and what kind of funding do you have? My limited experience in these matters in Germany is that finding the right advisor is the difficult part. A Prof. who wants to work with you and doesn't have too many students already will give you a TA position and then help you apply for research funding.

If your advisor is attracting good students to work on good projects and keeping them all funded through securing grants, then he or she is not incompetent.

@EnthusiasticStudent - You know, when I saw this post, I felt like commenting "Don't walk. Run!" too, but then I felt I shouldn't. After all, it is JeffE's patent!

You do need to tell us what country you are in and, perhaps what type of funding you have. There are huge differences in this respect within Europe.

This looks like more of a rant than a question.  What specifically is your question?  A question like "what should I do?" is probably too narrow to benefit others.  A question about what it takes to change to a new supervisor is a better fit, but please edit out all of the personal background and criticism of your current supervisor, and just ask the question (and make sure to do research to figure out if it is has been asked before; I can't believe no one has asked about how to change advisors before).

I don't think this quite merits "Don't walk, run", but rather "So what do your other faculty mentors suggest? (You do have other faculty mentors besides your advisor, don't you?) Can one of them act as a de facto advisor while your de jure advisor pays you?"

@JeffE - Sir, I don't want to contradict you, but won't that lead to a bigger mess later on, when running away is not an option?

@New_new_newbie Depends on how you do it. If you try to do it secretly, then yes, it'll definitely make a big mess. If you're honest and open with everyone from the beginning, then at worst you'll expose the mess that you're already in.

@D.W. thanks for your comment. My question does have two parts - is it possible to change a PhD supervisor in described circumstances and is it advisable. I think there is a niche for this question. But even if there isn't and I am the only person who has this problem, does it make any harm that others will help me here? (I am not aware of any other resources for which this question would be more appropriate.)

It's true that switching advisers might be difficult, especially within the same department. There are a few other options:

Make do and finish your PhD nonetheless. Remember a PhD is supposed to be an open-ended research work on a challenging topic. It means that many things are not going to work, that the end result cannot be perfect and, importantly, that your adviser cannot hold your hand and lead you to a guaranteed solution like instructors in bachelor or master courses. It's difficult to judge how serious the situation is from the outside but some level of frustration is quite common and you do need to manage your expectations (if your adviser has time for you and is happy to sign off on your work, you are in a better position than many PhD candidates…).
Seek a secondary adviser. For better or for worse, it's actually quite common for professors to oversee theses on a broad range of subjects and exercise only minimal supervision, relying on junior colleagues to deal with the details. In some cases, the secondary adviser can also be a full-professor at another university. Ideally, he or she should complement the first one and help deal with some specific aspect of the topic the latter knows less well. This could help you get guidance on some important aspect of your work you feel your current adviser is not competent to deal with. But do clear that first with him before approaching others.
Switch adviser. Yes, it's difficult and politics often make it almost impossible within the same institution but it's not unheard of. If things look very dire, think about switching country. I know someone from Germany who rescued her thesis that way. The way she explained it, things went very bad with her previous adviser and she would not have been able to defend at her university or to switch advisers. But a professor at my university thought the work was good and took over the thesis almost at the end, asking for about 6 months of work to correct and add various things.
Start over. It might be somewhat more difficult to get hired (or not) but it's not the case that it would be impossible to get funded Europe-wide. Here again, if some country-specific regulation regarding grants complicates things, consider going to another country. As noted by Pete, going back to the US is also an option and would be easier to explain later on.

You can also seek advice from other people at your university. There might be a research coordinator, a PhD “coach” or councilor or some HR person whose role is to help in those situations. But whatever you do, be very careful how you present things: “my adviser is incompetent” might not go well.

+1 for seeking a secondary advisor. A friend of mine did this with a professor she had met at a conference who was able to help her with one particular aspect of her work. They published a paper together and he continued to advise her and became a member of her thesis committee.

Thanks a lot! I did try to find a secondary supervisor, that somehow didn't work. Also the people who were supposed to help in the university were very nice but didn't really do anything. So on your first point, do you think it is possible to do a good PhD even when in effect you don't have a supervisor? Are you aware of major European countries that are likely to give funding even if you had abandoned a PhD at another place? If you knew some specifics could you just briefly say that such and such a country is good for this? Thanks a lot, I am accepting your answer anyway.

Adding a student's perspective to Pete's answer:
My advisor told me at the being of my master thesis, that soon I would know more about my particular area of research than him. At the time I didn't believe a word he said, but at our third meeting I was already explaining stuff to him and by the fifth I started to feel irritated that I had to explain stuff to him which I didn't have to explain to his PhD student whom I collaborated with.
But then I realised that I worked on this topic all day every day, my collaborator worked on a related topic and discussed my research with me several times a week but my advisor only got to spend time on this topic every other week when we met with him, because he had plenty of other students to advise in the meantime and also had his own research, teaching and some administration to do.
So from the sixth meeting on it became a habit for me to open the meeting with a quick catch up on my topic and my progress before diving into the details. And from that meeting on I always got great advice from him.
I think you need to think about whether you have given your advisor a fair chance to help you when you were stuck and whether he has been able to help in that regard, because that's his job and knowing all the details about your current topic is your job.

+1 for this answer.  Especially: "I think you need to think about whether you have given your advisor a fair chance to help you when you were stuck and whether he has been able to help in that regard, because that's his job and knowing all the details about your current topic is your job." is very well put.

+1 Think about what type of help you need to complete your PhD. My supervisors have helped me learn how to write academic papers, how to present my research in the best possible light, how to write grant proposals, etc. When it seemed like my research was doomed to fail, they helped me understand that it was just a setback. They help me keep track of the "big picture" (e.g., what do I hope to achieve with that experiment). I can teach myself the technical things that I need. On the other hand, the things they have taught me would have been difficult (impossible?) for me to learn on my own.

Thanks a lot for this answer! If I heard a student say their supervisor is incompetent I would also be very skeptical. And I do understand what you are saying here, but unfortunately it is not like this with my supervisor (or so it seems to me). I know you are not likely to believe (I couldn't believe this myself, I thought things like this don't happen in academia), but I am sorry, I am not convinced that my situation is as you describe.

Switching from one thesis supervisor to another is hardly a "rebellion".  In fact it's a fairly common thing: in my own PhD program it seems to happen roughly 5-10% of the time.  (In institutions with a higher rate of faculty turnover, it is probably more common.)  And switching advisors is much easier than any form of "starting over a PhD".  You should definitely look into this: starting by identifying some other faculty member in your program that you think would be a more suitable supervisor, and see if they are amenable to research-related discussions.
Your claim that your advisor "really is incompetent" is disturbing.  I am a bit skeptical of it: not necessarily through arrogance, graduate students often have unrealistic ideas about faculty knowledge.  If you walk into my office and ask me a question about something, maybe I can answer it right away and maybe I can't.  But if I can't it might still be in one of my papers!  Being an expert is much more about knowing how to find out important information / solve problems eventually than about what can be summoned at a moment's notice.  In general I feel like I am fairly helpful in providing information to others in a professional context, but I have had the experience of people who for whatever reason simply don't wait a reasonable amount of time for me to answer their question.  I remember one person in particular who would ask me a question cold, and after less than a minute of my thinking about it, he would say "Never mind" and move on to something else.  That was rather frustrating: what kind of question is important enough to deliberately ask someone else yet not important enough to wait a few minutes for a good response?
Another point is that there are levels of expertise.  Most faculty members are regional, national or global experts on something; but that thing or things may not be what they are teaching in all their courses or even what they want their students to work on.  One of the hard parts of the advisor/student relationship is to find a topic of mutual interest in which the advisor's expertise is strong and can be appropriately conveyed to the student.  Oftentimes this requires some patience and several tries: most of my students have not written their thesis on the first thing I suggested to them.
Anyway, though I may not want to, I have to admit the possibility that there are truly incompetent faculty members supervising PhD students.  That sucks.  If you feel this way about your advisor that's more than enough reason to look for a new advisor.  But I think that in practice you should keep this to yourself as a reason for switching, at least until your thesis is approved and you are ready to move on to your new job.  To have an incompetent tenured professor is only possible through some alarming combination of enabling / incompetence / total lack of contact or oversight on the part of the other faculty in the department.  Fixing that kind of problem is above your pay grade.
Added: Though switching to a different faculty member in your department is easiest, it need not be the best choice: there may or may not be another suitable advisor in your current department.  It's quite possible to transfer from one PhD program to another: doing so need not be (and probably will not be, unless you promote it this way yourself) a failure or rebellion.  If you have only been in your current program for a year or two, you could plausibly start fresh elsewhere.  If it's been more than that, you may want to look into the possibility of arriving at another program with advanced standing, up to "ABD status".  Also, (especially) if you are American and studying in Europe, maybe consider coming back to the US, especially if that's part of your post-PhD plans.  I mention that because coming back to your native country provides a sort of implicit explanation for your change of programs: many fewer questions will be asked of you.

Dear Pete, thank you very much for a considered reply. For obvious reasons I would like to be careful with confidentiality, but I am not American and the immigration issues (moving together with someone), as well as others, make it much more desirable to stay in Europe. Do you know any European specifics? I am worried that changing a program is not possible due to funding reasons, though I may be wrong. Unfortunately my advisor is very political and I know that trying to leave him will be considered treason (even if I will say that I realized I am passionate about another field etc).

@user21538: Unfortunately I know very little about European academic matters.  I've spent about eight weeks altogether in academic Europe.  My advice about switching advisors is US-specific.  I do find it hard to believe that anywhere in the academic world it could be such a dramatic affair for a student to switch advisors or leave the program: do PhD programs in Europe have 100% completion rates??  Ultimately, you must do what is in your own best interest: most reasonable people would give you their blessing, but if someone wants to make it more difficult, that's on them, not you.

@PeteL.Clark Leaving a PhD program is always possible and in fact quite common in some countries. It's entering another one after that or switching advisers (especially within the same institution, sometimes within the same country) that might be difficult. Many people who start a PhD are simply left out in the cold somewhere along the way… (+1 for all your advice)

+1 for second paragraph. Especially for, "Being an expert is much more about knowing how to find out important information / solve problems eventually than about what can be summoned at a moment's notice." and "coming back to your native country provides a sort of implicit explanation for your change of programs".

Actually you are asking two different questions:

The supervisor is not good, for whatever reason. So how to change the supervisor, in a political oriented office environment.
The research area is and its potential contributions are all on you (few people are doing it around), and with addition to the 'bad' supervisor what can you do, such as large number of publications for better future in research (find a postdoc, academic, etc.)

So here are my answer to that:

Let me give you the benefit of the doubt. Some academics are in fact horrible mentors. Lets face it, being an academic means the person has large number of publications and good networking here and there. Also their job doesn't require to be 'nice'. They can close their doors and don't really supervise, act like crazy person, but as long as they have large number of publications, with the name of the university on the top of it; they will be praised. So here what I do:

Talk to your supervisor, and express your unhappiness. Tell him/her this is not what you are expecting. He does not supervise in the area of his/her expertise, and therefore not suitable for you.
Talk to the head of research group, or the person in charge, and express your unhappiness about your supervisor.
All the universities have human resources. You go there and tell them, you need to change your supervisor; and you talked to him/her and the head of the group; but nothings seems to change.

This is the tricky one! Some supervisors get a PhD student, and want them to be a postdoc (independent researchers). Now that you already started your PhD, with some effort, you can change a little, the direction of the research; but stick to the same area. For example, if I'm doing a research about security in software systems, and all the other PhD students around me are doing research in the area of database; I can change the focus of my PhD to the security in the database systems, and write my thesis about it. Remember, you are the one that will defend your thesis, in whatever area you want it to be.

Good luck.

I have not even completed MS so I can't predict the detailed experience of a PhD student but before changing your supervisor, please give it a second thought.

I had to choose someone from the start of my PhD and the time is extremely limited.

You admit that you have limited time span for PhD completion and most it has already finished. Selecting some other supervisor, creating a mutual understanding and good working relationship, and completing your work atleast at the same pace at which you are working will most probably consume the time left and you may not be able to complete your thesis in the given duration.
Now lets assume, the time limit has exceeded, you'll have to face financial pressures as well in addition to the actual workload. You may get financial assistance (if you are lucky enough)  but what if you don't get it? You'll have to work for managing your finances. Obviously, you'll need some time for it, which means your concentration will be divided between your job for managing expenses and your research work. Feeling bored, tired and depressed is very common among graduate students so even if you think you are really happy and contended (which you don't seem to be), with the passage of time you'll get more and more frustrated with the time your PhD is taking to be completed. So in short things will most probably get worse. (At this point i can be called a pessimist :) but still all this is possible to happen)

He is a very nice person, who is very active with public engagement, very successful at grant applications and all that.

So you are actually satisfied with the non-technical/social side of your supervisor and the major (if not only) reason for dissatisfaction is his lack of technical expertise. Lets assume, you manage to somehow change your supervisor (even without facing any political issue). What if the new supervisor is technically very sound but is non-technically too rude, proud and arrogant; not very social, takes too much time to respond to your queries, is not very good at public engagements, not really good at grant applications and so on.
 You'll most probably start comparing the two supervisors in each and every single thing that happens to you. There is a big chance that you'll start missing the old one and will find some other problems in the new one. You'll regret your decision and will want to go back but most probably you won't be able to due all those financial, time, ego and politics related issues. If you continue going on in the same nostalgic mood, you'll start comparing the students/researchers working under the two supervisors and you'll probably find the better ones working with your old supervisor. In short, chances are there that you'll feel more depressed and frustrated that you are right now.

But the problem is, it turns out he does not know the subject

It may be just a wrong assumption. I totally agree with the well explained response of @Sumyrda and @Pete L. Clark

Now all evidence (corroborated by others) shows that he really is incompetent.

Don't be misguided and confused. Every one has his own opinion about the same thing and can have different experience based on his/her mindset, psychology, behavior etc. Being a student, i can easily say that there are very few students in the whole world who'll proudly say that their supervisor is actually a good one. Most students are dissatisfied by their supervisor due to one reason or the other.
 At this point, you must use your own  experience only to decided about your supervisor. Don't try to judge your supervisor in terms of the experience of "OTHERS". He/she may not be considered a good supervisor by everyone else in the world but still there is a chance that he/she prove to be the best supervisor for you or vice versa.
 I may be wrong but i think that when you started working with this supervisor you were happy. You started expecting a lot from your supervisor and he/she was unable to meet your expectations. In the meanwhile, you tried to convince yourself that everything is fine. If in case any thing is wrong, its with you. Then at a later stage, you started discussing it with your fellows. They shared their experiences with you and you started making opinions based on their stories. Please don't be judgmental about your supervisor. He/she may actually not be that bad.
Even if he/she is, no one in this world is perfect. Every one has some strengths as well as weaknesses and we need to accept this fact. Your new supervisor will not be perfect as well. Strengths and weaknesses may vary but they'll be there.

He somehow manages to pull it off, getting on other people's papers and so on.

It seems that he tries his best to satisfy (but may be unfortunately he is not successful in his efforts). What if he or your supposedly new supervisor is least bothered and does not even try? You'll have to live and work even in that situation. At the end of the day, its your work and your job. No one else can live your life.  "Accept responsibility for your life. Know that it is you who will get you where you want to go, no one else"- Les Brown
 You are going to be a PhD soon and you should not expect spoon feeding from your supervisor like a FYP student. Its your field of specialization not you supervisor's so you should know more about it than him (and you'll definitely know more). Getting on other's papers is fine because no one is expert of everything.

Additionally, it seems very likely, that no one would support a rebellion (i.e. switching a supervisor), because of politics.

This part is actually serious (although most fellows here will probably won't take it seriously and ideally it shouldn't be). But lets assume you are right that your supervisor and department suffer from organizational politics etc. Changing your supervisor would really harm you. If you manage to change your supervisor (taking care of time limitations, financial, administrative and departmental issues) but your supervisor(both new and old one) are in the same department or even in same university. In such a case, you can't surely assume that you'll never see him again. If you'll have to interact with him, what level of interaction would it be? Based on this interaction, you can decide the consequences.
 Last but not the least, have you actually considered alternate PhD supervisors available for switching? Does their research interest match exactly with what your work requires? What kind of guarantee can you provide yourself that your new supervisor would be technically more strong and overall better than the current one. Even if you have enough time, finance and every other relevant thing, you can't spend the whole life experiencing supervisors for PhD. Currently you are experiencing Mr. A, left him, went to Mr. B, worked with him and realized he is no better than Mr. A or is even worst than A, then what would you do? Coming back to A or finding some Mr. C would definitely be not possible

Oh wow! I've seen other MSc students in that situation - they arrived at college and felt the course wasn't what the were expecting. I've been in that exact same political situation in my PhD (one minute I was publishing papers and cruising across the edge of space like a SR-71, next minute I find myself shot down because someone else felt I had invaded their airspace).
Your university should have a PhD course councilor. That's the first person to talk to, in order to explore your options. Many universities now require that each PhD student has two supervisors to make the thesis stronger, and to avoid any problems due to "sudden departure" by a single member of staff. Perhaps you can suggest this. You could also try to see if you can adjust the direction of your thesis to suit your needs. My supervisor had a preference for tried and tested technology - crufty bits of code out of 1970's coding cookbooks. I let him direct my work in this direction even though I could see the rest of the industry was moving onto cloud computing, parallel processing and GPU's. My external examiner then asked why I hadn't used any of those technologies.
The purpose of completing a PhD is to demonstrate that you have creativity, can keep up with the rest of industry, see where things are going wrong, think up ways that they could be improved or fixed, evaluate them systematically, and convince others logically and tactfully that this is the correct direction to take. So if you have a feeling if something isn't going right, you have to tell someone.


text:
Does my supervisor want me to do my Ph.D. with him or elsewhere?
I am currently doing my master's under the supervision of an assistant professor. He's brilliant, professional and an amazing mentor. He is supportive but at the same time knows when and how to be tough on me enough to challenge me intellectually and push me to get out of my comfort zone. For all these reasons, he would be the perfect supervisor for my Ph.D. The only problem is that he doesn't work on the same topic as me (and doesn't really have much experience with it either) and seeing that it's a new and tricky topic, I need someone experienced in this particular area.
I spoke to him several times about my plans for my Ph.D. and mentioned that I planned on applying to several major universities and that I was looking for supervisors working on my field of interest. He would keep bringing up the Ph.D. programme at his departement and would tell me that I could work with him and also someone else from another university (co-supervision). I said it could be a good idea, but of course, I was still considering the Ph.D. programmes at other universities (which, I think is normal, I'm only keeping my options open). Of course, he knew that I could enroll in better programmes elsewhere, but he still asked me to stay, more than once (which is flattering since I respect and admire him). The Phd programme he's suggesting is the best option for me ONLY in terms of funding, because it has a special offer for foreign students paying extra fees (which he also knows...).
Now, I recently had a meeting with him and I mentioned that I wanted to do an internship in one of the universities I'm interested in. He said "It's a good idea and if you like the experience, you can decide to stay there for a Ph.D.". That was one hell of a slap in my face... He basically told me "Hey, I changed my mind, you're not a worthwhile student, finish your master's, then you're out". So at the end of our meeting, I decided to be honest and asked "okay, so if I understand correctly, you no longer want me to stay here for my Ph.D.?", to which he answered "No, I do. But I want you to explore your options. I don't want you to stay just because you think it's your only option but because you believe it's the RIGHT option for you."
So now I'm confused. Does he want me to stay or does he want to get rid of me?

Why not ask? It is a big decision for you but not for him so I think you read way too much into the story.

Thank you for your reply. I actually asked, as I said. But of course, I don't expect him to express his real thoughts. For the first time in my life, I don't know what would be best for me...

One of the biggest temptations for many advisors is to hold on to a productive student or postdoc a little bit longer than is necessary just to reap the benefits of a productive worker. Against the personal gains of the advisor need to be set the goals of doing what is in the best interests of the student.
That means that a good advisor will try to make sure that the student can explore all of her options. I'm sure that he would be more than willing to keep you around, if he's mentioned co-supervision. But if you really want to go elsewhere, then he really doesn't want to be seen as trying to strong-arm you into staying. That could build feelings of resentfulness that could poison your future working relationship.
Now, on the other hand, if you complete this internship, and then decide that the project with this advisor is still the route you want, then you have done your due diligence—which is what a good advisor would want you to do in any case!

Thank you very much for you reply. I think you're right in your interpretation as well, it fits his profile. He really is a good advisor...

Your supervisor just wants to make sure you make the right decision. Therefore, it might seem wiser to stay where you are now with him (plus another co-supervisor) if you know you get on well than go to another (even more prestigious) university where you might not find people you really want to work with (although they are in the field you are interested in). On the other hand, internship gives you the opportunity to meet faculty of different university and see how you can get on which is just as important as academic qualities of your new supervisor. Your current supervisor sees that as a great option for you to see where you want to do your Ph.D.
I think this is not such an uncommon thing in academia. Although it would help your current supervisor if you stayed (you can teach some classes, more research gets done in his group etc.), he can also see you as a possible future collaborator. From this point of view, it is important for him that you get the best from your Ph.D. even if it means leaving your current university.
I myself was in a similar situation a while back. Although my supervisor would like me to stay for Ph.D. he knew that there are universities and research groups where I can learn more and he did all he could to help me choose the one that would suit me best.

Thank you very much for your answer. You put your finger on the heart of the dilemma here: stay with an excellent supervisor (but in a university that isn't so known) or go to a top-ranked university (even if I know I will never find anyone like him elsewhere)? At any rate, I believe that the internship will give me a clearer view of things, as you said.

"It's a good idea and if you like the experience, you can decide to stay there for a Ph.D."

Just adding my two cents because this sounds like a quote of mine! If you are a great student it is more important for me that you have a chance to find a great environment to develop into a fully fledged researcher, than that you keep working with me. Of course I would be super happy if the two things coincide, but if you find and test a place which looks great, then I would not insist any further. This should not be interpreted as a rejection, but as an approval! And I feel that, communication skills aside, this is a pretty common point of view, unless you are dealing with a very jugglery person.

This in an ancient question, and there are many answers that give good advice. But for posterity, I don't see any that answer the actual question, so I'll try to do that.
The question was:

So now I'm confused. Does he want me to stay or does he want to get rid of me?

OP also tells us:

I...asked "So if I understand correctly, you no longer want me to stay here for my Ph.D.?", to which he answered "No, I do. But I want you to...stay...because you believe it's the RIGHT option..."

Given that, it is perfectly clear that the professor wants OP to stay. I don't understand the suggestions that OP should ask him -- they already asked him and got an unequivocal response. As others have pointed out, the professor is clearly (and admirably) trying to walk the difficult line between attempting to retain a good student and helping the student to make the best choice for their career.

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


text:
Reviewer asked me clarify a point – should I add it to manuscript or to the response to reviewer?
A reviewer asked me to clarify one point:

why was a triple marker offered to a 39 year old women? Is it a
routine practice in your setting? Did we offer quadruple? Or was it
not available? Please clarify this in the document.

I responded only by a comment, telling them that these are routine settings in our practice. So should I have added this info to the manuscript as well? Does that make any sense?

Add it to both if you aren't sure.

Generally speaking - yes, the reviewer probably also expected it clarified in the paper, not just in the response letter. If it was unclear to this reviewer, it might also be unclear to readers (at least that's the line of thought behind such comments). If the reviewer believed this to be sufficiently unimportant that it does not have to be described in the paper, then why would they even bring up this point during review?

Can the reviewer accept my comment  without  other clarifications as I mentioned above   or it’s clearly he  will sent the paper back again ?

@YanniAmeer Why wouldn't you just add it to the manuscript? Your published paper is for other people to read, not just your reviewers.

@YanniAmeer - remember, your paper is the clearest to you since you wrote it. Just how clear it is to somebody else can vary a lot depending on how well it is written. If a reviewer has doubts about the clarity, then you should clarify in the text because likely somebody else (even less skilled in the field) will have difficulties following the text.

Actullay it wasn’t clear enough , he would ask me to add / merge it to the main manuscript,because my mansucript have limited word count . however ,I’m waiting for the decision

@YanniAmeer Of course they "can" - whether they care enough to recommend another revision because of this or not is impossible to know.

@YanniAmeer The reviewer explicitly asked you to clarify it in your manuscript. That's what "Please clarify this in the document" means. Note: such comments from reviewers implicitly mean clarify it in the reviewed document. The reviewer shouldn't need to be explicit about it being about a requested/suggested change to the reviewed paper. If they didn't mean that it should be clarified in the manuscript, then the reviewer either shouldn't have said anything or should have been explicit that the comment wasn't about making a change to the reviewed document.


text:
Who reviews undergrad applications?
I am just curious - who reviews undergrad admissions at a university (say in the US, to make the question more concrete)? Are people in departments involved at all? Or is it university wide? How are these people hired and what are their qualifications?
I am not applying for undergrad, I'm a postdoc. I know that there's committees for graduate hiring, for postdoc hiring and TT hiring that are in the department.
This is a question about university structure. I am asking this question as someone who hopes to be TT soon - what will my relationship be to undergraduate admissions?

This task is nearly always handled by a specific "department" of the college/university. The name of that "department" varies, but one of the most common names is Office of Undergraduate Admissions.

Admission Committee

In most places, the scale of the problem results in this being a largely clerical problem. Most colleges and universities have an office responsible for advertising programs, processing, and accepting or rejecting undergraduates.
The "admissions office" likely hires counselors, and sometimes students, to interact with secondary school academic counselors and with individual students.
One reason for this is that it is seldom necessary to declare a "major subject" during application in the US. The education itself is quite generalized with everyone studying broadly. Thus, a math department, say, doesn't really get involved, though it might be occasionally asked concerning some specific student.
As a postdoc you would be very unlikely to ever be in the loop and certainly not as a job requirement.
Note, however that someone at the university needs to set policy for the "admissions office". Faculty might be involved in that, but it is more likely to be tenured faculty who have some experience with the institution. Not guaranteed, but likely. Good universities also tend to want to "clear the decks" for untenured faculty to give them a chance to learn to excel at the institution.

Thanks for the response, this was helpful. As a postdoc I'm pretty out of the loop of most university stuff, lol. It is nice though - I just get to focus on research and teaching which is the fun part. As a TT or tenured prof, it sounds like I will not be involved in undergrad admissions much if at all which is fine by me.

I'm in my 54th year on the faculty, and I've never been involved in undergrad admissions.

Some institutions, like mine, have a faculty committee that develops admissions policy and might handle appeals from students who are denied admission.


text:
Does the term “science” encompass humanities and the social sciences?
I’m not a native English speaker and want to get a better grip on the nuances of the term science.
In my native tongue, the word I’d use for science also refers to humanities and the social sciences. However, I’ve lately been getting the feeling that some people use the term only to refer to the natural sciences (case in point: the S in STEM). With scientist referring to academics working in the natural sciences, and scholar more to academics in the humanities and social sciences.
Is my intuition correct? If so, is there an umbrella term describe everything from social science over STEM to law and what not?

My best understanding is that the words science/Wissenschaft/наука are just direct translations of each other, but concepts behind them have diverged over time. English "science" does not include the humanities, but the corresponding terms in many other languages do. Furthermore, an unqualified "science" often refers just to the natural sciences (sometimes including psychology), as in "Faculty of Science".

Thanks @JouniSirén. Is there a term in English that does include the humanities, like Wissenschaft does?

There is no such term, as far as I know. In fact, I am not aware of any language that has good translations for both "science" and "Wissenschaft".

Unfortunately, the term "science" in English means depending on context either (a) all Wissenschaft or (b) Naturwissenschaft or (c) Sozail und Naturwissenschaft... No way around this. But in the acronym STEM it means Naturwissenschaft. For native speakers, we decipher / ascertain intended use based on context.

@JouniSirén: Depending on what exactly is meant by "science", I am not too discontent with "Naturwissenschaft".

Thanks everyone. I guess people outside the hard sciences infer it from context, whereas some/many people from the hard sciences only use it for those.

Relevant XKCD

The term "science" in English definitely does not include the humanities.  There are ambiguous cases, where it is unclear how to draw the line between humanities and social sciences, but for example literature is never considered a science.  If you wish to include the humanities, then you must use a broader term.
Social sciences are a little trickier.  At one level, they are obviously sciences: it's even part of their name!  On the other hand, people sometimes use the term "science" as shorthand for the hard sciences, without meaning to include the social sciences.  This means you are welcome to use the term inclusively, but you shouldn't expect that it always includes the social sciences when you hear other people using it.  If this distinction matters, then you'll need to discuss it explicitly.
It's worth noting that there are a lot of other things that don't fall under "science" in English, besides the humanities.  For example, engineering has some overlap with science, but engineering fields are usually not classified by universities under the sciences, and references to science will not be understood to include engineering.  (This is one reason the term STEM is popular: it's the shortest way to refer to both science and engineering in English.)

If so, is there an umbrella term describe everything from social science over STEM to law and what not?

Unfortunately, I don't think there is.  (Maybe there are obscure terms out there, but there certainly isn't one that is widely used and understood.)  You could use broad phrases like "all academic disciplines" if you really want to include everyone, but there is not a specific term like "science" for this.

Thank you. Apparently what is considered the correct use also differs per field - as might not have been unexpected, in hindsight. One further question though: would you then consider "scientific publishing" to only refer to the publishing or articles in the hard sciences? And if so, how would the publishing of research in literature or engineering be referred to?

"At one level, they are obviously sciences: it's even part of their name!" That isn't necessarily obvious. There's an old joke that if it has "Science" as part of its name, it isn't. Creation Science is an obvious counter example. Computer Science is disputable.

I think in most contexts I would understand "academic disciplines" as excluding "professional disciplines" like law.  "Arts and Sciences" is another good phrase that similarly includes sciences and humanities, but not law.

Merriam–Webster definition of science reads (reflecting my experience with the usage of the term):

1 :  the state of knowing :  knowledge as distinguished from ignorance or misunderstanding
2a :  a department of systematized knowledge as an object of study the ‹science of theology›
      b :  something (as a sport or technique) that may be studied or learned like systematized knowledge ‹have it down to a science›
3a :  knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method
      b :  such knowledge or such a system of knowledge concerned with the physical world and its phenomena : natural science
[…]

So, science can refer just to the natural sciences (3b); include every discipline invested in the discovery of knowledge, i.e., natural sciences, social sciences, formal sciences , and so on; (3a) or have an even broader scope and include such things as theology (2a).
The only way to know how narrow the term science is meant to be understood is usually from context. To exacerbate matters, some people (usually natural scientists) insist that science always is meant to be understood in the sense of definition 3b, even if it is not clear from context. In my opinion, this renders the word science almost useless for purposes of categorising academic fields, as you can never rely on it being understood as intended.

is there an umbrella term describe everything from social science over STEM to law and what not?

I am not aware of a term that precisely covers this but in many cases one of the following terms may suffice:

science (in the broader sense)
academic field or all academic fields

Humanities cover everything that is not a "hard science" such arts and social sciences, as well as other fields, like history. The S in "STEM" is used to refer to "hard science"
Social sciences include  fields that use empirical methods to consider society and human behavior, such as anthropology, archaeology, economics, education, geography, law, political science, psychology and sociology.
Some humanities are social sciences and some are not. The term "science" does encompass social sciences but does not include all humanities.

Sorry, perhaps my question was unclear (I had a hard time formulating it). I know what the humanities and social sciences are, but are they generally considered "part of" science, or does science just refer to the "hard" sciences? And if there not part of science, what are they part of?

You seem to be subsuming the social sciences under the humanities label. You may want to flag this usage as being at least somewhat idiosyncratic. To assign law to the social sciences is also, well, not uncontroversial.

Oh that's not what I meant at all! Humanities and social sciences are just examples of "not hard sciences".


text:
Host prof stole my Ph.D. topic during my visit
I have been a visiting researcher to fulfil my Ph.D. and to do the experimental step of my Ph.D. A month ago I understood that my host professor stole my Ph.D. topic and idea and he is writing a proposal about my project and wants to apply for a grant for it. I come here to do some cooperation with them but he stole it and wants to have the idea for himself.
What can I do to protect my project? Is there any place that I can complain? I am working a lot on my Ph.D. and don’t want to see that this person easily steals it.

What does your superviser know about this case? As a lowly PhD, your fighting chances are limited. Also, sometimes - I am not saying this is the case with you - PhD students overestimate the scope of their work and how general it is, so it may be what looks like a stolen idea is actually an obvious generalisation. More information is necessary.

Anglosaxon and German universities have typically an ombudsman. Do you have any proof of your priority (publications, email trails, etc.)?

I think we need to know more about how you found out your PhD was stolen. Was it from your old PI, host PI, etc.

How do you know "your idea" was "stolen"? How would you know he is writing a proposal about it? Perhaps some colleague in the host institute contacted you about it, but he/she may be misinformed by him/herself.

Or the host prof is just trying to obtain funding so he can offer you a postdoc position. Have you talked to the host prof yet? Preferably start with something less aggressive than "you stole my topic" maybe "I heard from soandso that you're writing a grant application based on my thesis topic, can you tell me more about that?"

The fact that he does not want to write with you can potentially indicate two things: 1. he does not want to work with you because he has somebody else aligned for the work (this would be unethical, but, I must say, I would expect it to be more common in the US, as publication pressure is not as high in Germany); or 2. he thinks you may not be suitable for what he would like to do. Still, if he takes your idea without involving you, that is unethical. It may be a misunderstanding, though. @Sumyrda's nice suggestion will not cost you anything, only be careful not to reveal more information.

Why was the question closed? Despite the OP being emotional, this is a concrete problem and deserves a response (or at least a statement that there is no remedy). Some "!" marks could be removed, though.

Yes, exactly. “ he thinks you may not be suitable for what he would like to do. “  Now I can see it.

What can I do to protect my project? Publish better stuff than him, and quicker. Research is about exchanging ideas. Nothing can prevent other people with whom you shared your interests to work on the same topic. I think it's even a good sign for you, it means the topic is probably interesting.

I cant publish it sooner than him. now I can understand that why he several times asked me that is it your Ph.D? when are you going to defense? Do you need any publication to defense?

I come here to do some cooperation, he wants the project but without me.

I disagree with the plagiarism tag. Nothing in the situation described relates to plagiarism.

As someone who has more than a bit of familiarity with the German system, I have to say that your story is a bit baffling to me. Being able to show prior results—particularly in the form of an existing peer-reviewed publication—would be of enormous benefit in getting a grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), the national funding agency of Germany. Consequently, working with you and being a co-author on your publication would help, not hinder, the professor's grant application.
On the other hand, it is entirely possible that the professor may have thought that he could use an alternate approach to generate your results. While that may look like "stealing" your PhD project, that is actually not the case when different techniques are being proposed.
My recommendation for you would be to publish a high-quality paper out as quickly as possible. Once it's established in the literature, it's a lot harder for someone to claim credit for basically doing the same thing.

I agree with all of this except the last part about publishing. A poor premature publication might unfortunately stop the OP from progressing in academia further, and will certainly prevent the German PI from getting grant funding as they will have to mention the poor publication in their grant application, which will raise question marks over the whole thing. It also doesn't help the people who have to read the poor paper and not the would-have-been good one. Thats why I think the OP should just state what he/she thinks they did, and let nature take its course.

@WetlabWalter: I should have made it clear that I was referring to a high-quality publication. Of course a low-quality paper helps no one.

Thank you, that was nice team work :) I could see the OP quoting you to justify pushing a poor quality publication for a pyrrhic victory, and I know that wasn't what you meant.

You are clearly (and rightly) very emotional right now, since I suspect you only recently found out about the situation, and you probably have a month or so to go before you're done working at the lab. Therefore, I think it's important to do two things right away:

Calm down & get some fresh air, do not confront anyone about this while you are emotional,
Create a timeline of the contributions you have made to the project both before and during your time at the host lab. This timeline needs to both be fair and complete, because you may not get a chance to add things in later. At the same time, don't go overboard (e.g. Tuesday 2:45pm, vortexed a tube.)

Once you have this list/timeline of contributions, e-mail it to your host supervisor in a week or two (via a non-interested 3rd party like Google Mail) with the subject/content of:

"Hi boss, i'll be leaving in a few weeks, so I thought now would be a
  good time to identify the contributions made by your lab and myself,
  so we can discuss publication authorship properly when the time
  comes."

No one can help you unless you provide all the information in your question, and the question really needs a lot more work before it's answerable. I gave you the benefit of the doubt at first since I thought you just found out, but if you've known for 1 month and you've been in this German lab for 7 months, then that changes everything. The first line of the question was "i am coming to Germany". Please fix these discrepancies, and give a clear and factual account of what happened.

Forget about it. I cant do anything.
It was my mistake to come here and trust him.
I hope others be more careful about their host prof and don’t give them their data.

@poorphd in your question you said "topic" now it's "data". What exactly was "stolen" from you?

my project has two step that the first one is the base for the second one. Now he has the idea and the data of the first step and wants to do the second step secretly, sooner and without me. and the second step is the important one.

I see - well, i'm afraid, that is just how it goes. If everyone waited around for other people to do the work, we wouldn't have the knowledge and technology we have today. Is it an abuse of power? Yes. It is unfair? Perhaps. Is it immoral? No not really. It would be more immoral for you to demand being an author on step 2 when you didn't contribute anything, just because you worked on step 1. Remember step 0? The science that was taught to you so you could do step 1? Where you going to give the people who developed step 0 authorship? I don't think so. They get citations, and so will you.

step 2 is half of my Ph.D. thesis that now I am working on!


text:
PhD program application - CV (3+ pages) versus resume (1-2 pages) in the US
I am applying to neurobiology Ph.D. programs in the US that focus on disease research.
I am seeking opinions on my personal situation regarding the decision to include either a resume (1-2 sides) OR a CV (multiple pages) in my graduate school application for the schools that don't provide me much space to write about research. I also want to know about whether or not I can include research experience blurbs in the CV.
Originally, after being told by most schools that allow up to 5 recommendation letters to only submit 3 and after being told not to upload anything in the "optional and additional uploads," I felt a resume would be better for my application. Less writing and easier to read for the admissions faculty. However, I know many Ph.D.students that have submitted CVs, and almost every school I'm applying to states that I can submit a CV.
I don't have that much to discuss, aside from 3 significant 2+ year teaching experiences as an undergraduate student and 3 research experiences (2 summer internships + home university research since I was a freshman). Unfortunately, I won't have a paper out for at least another year due to an ongoing study. I am also active in several clubs/honors societies. Thus, my current "resume" is 3.5 pages long. I could probably get it to 2 pages, but this is where you come in.
Would you suggest to expand even more, possibly elaborating more on my research experiences so that my CV is around 4-6 pages, or would you recommend to keep it as a brief resume? For the CV, can I include 4-5 sentence research descriptions after I list the knitty-gritty stuff (e.g. program, what I did in that research program in regard to career building, etc.)?
The main reason I ask this is that I'm slowly starting to figure out some schools give me absolutely no room to discuss research experience. For instance, Johns Hopkins allows me to write a single page personal statement while answering quite a few other large points; thus, elaborating on research is hard. Also, I just contacted Duke who had a similar case in their application, and the Ph.D. admissions advisor for neuroscience told me to include details about my research experiences in the CV or the optional supplemental uploader. Harvard told me not to utilize the optional supplemental uploader to further discuss my research, although they allow CV uploads.
Regardless, for some of these schools, I will need to at least include a few extra sentences about my research whether that be through the optional file uploader or a CV. Has anyone had this internal debate or has a strong opinion on the better option? Thank you!

You should still specify where you are, rather than just describing the documents, as it may affect the expection and hence the answer. Since you didn't even think of it, there's a strong chance that it's USA, but I wouldn't like to presume ;-)

Why do you assume that every application has to be identical to every other? Use what seems best for any given situation.

@Buffy I didn't mean to make my question sound as if I have to do everything the same at each school. Of course, each application is different. This question is more geared toward the many schools that I feel are not allowing me the space to discuss past research experiences (e.g. 1-page personal statements). I have no idea if admissions committees would be happy to read 5-6 page CVs when other students submit 1-2 page resumes.

Note that every applicant has the same restrictions. Do what you can within the bounds of each application.

What you are calling a "CV" sounds very bloated to me and not the ordinary use of the term "CV" in US academia.

The type of CV that I've been told can be used for graduate school, essentially a pre-mature "typical academia CV": https://wordvice.com/how-to-write-a-flawless-cv-curriculum-vitae-for-graduate-school/ and https://www.prepscholar.com/gre/blog/how-to-write-a-cv-for-graduate-school/

4-6 pages is way too long for a grad school CV. Your 3.5 page resume sounds more like a CV.

Ah okay, thanks for the input. I was seeing ranges around 4-5, but I agree with keeping it at 3.5 pages.

You shouldn't be aiming for a particular page length. Those resources tell you what things should be in a CV. Most of an academic CV is publications, which you don't have - that's okay, but don't replace a lack of publications with a bloated CV containing extra stuff that doesn't belong.

Johns Hopkins says: "The one-page statement should include your motivations for pursuing a graduate degree in neuroscience at Johns Hopkins and should describe your scientific preparation and your long-term career goals. It should include a description of any research experiences you have pursued." - that's not 50 questions, and clearly they expect you to describe research experiences in 1 page with everything else. If you can't do that now, work on condensing your writing.

"Describe your scientific preparation and your long-term career goals. It should include a description of any research experiences you have pursued. The statement should enable the admissions committee to determine that you are committed to pursuing a PhD in neuroscience and understand what is needed to succeed in graduate school, you are intellectually engaged in science and your research, and that the program in neuroscience at Johns Hopkins is a good fit for your research and career interests. Please indicate faculty in the Neuroscience program whose work you find interesting."

That is a lot of material to write on but they're good topics. And my point is not that I can't condense it all into a page, but given that I have a page to describe everything, my single paragraph explaining 3 significant research experiences will be challenging. It's hard for me specifically because I know that I'm not giving them enough material to work with.

In the United States, when applying to a PhD program, you should upload a CV, not a resume.
Your CV should not include any descriptive sentences.  The current custom is for CVs to be a list of facts, with no qualitative information.  Put the descriptions in your personal statements.

This is the same for the UK. What may be helpful would be to google something like "PhD student CV template" and look at the examples and, in particular, the subheadings that you should have in your CV.

Thank you both very much for the confirmation. I think this is a good approach. I never intended to put any descriptive sentences in my Ph.D. applicant CV, but after an admissions staff told me that he usually gets "everything he needs in regard to research experience" from a CV, I got a little worried and wondered if I was supposed to be including some sort of brief summary on myself/research experience. Turns out, that's definitely not what you want to do as I originally thought. Hopefully, he can pull enough from my title of presentation/skills listed in each experience, haha.


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Would preaching in a church be advantageous for becoming a lecturer?
In general, the job of a lecturer (under Australian terminology- I think the terminology is different in America) can be divided up into two main areas of focus: research and teaching, with the latter involving writing up lesson and assessment plans, managing your tutors, delivering lectures to hundreds of students and maybe some tutorials to a few dozen students, marking and moderating assessment, etc. My understanding is that the people hired for these roles are often PhD students or postdocs who have also worked as tutors during their time as PhD students/postdocs - their tutoring gives them teaching experience, while their work as a PhD student or postdoc gives them research experience.
However, because tutorials are generally much smaller than a full lecture, and they would often be following someone else’s lecture notes rather than writing their own, I was wondering if it might be advantageous for someone in those positions to get some experience preaching in a church? Much like a lecturer, a preacher would need to write their own lesson plans, and then deliver the content of those lessons to an audience of hundreds of individuals, in a format fairly similar to that of a university lecture.
As a result, I could see an argument about why delivering Sunday sermons would be advantageous for developing some of the skills a university lecturer would need. However, I’m not certain if it would actually work in your favour if you were to list that experience on your CV.
And so, my Question: would a typical young researcher who is seeking a lecturer role find it advantageous to list experience working as a church preacher? While religious discrimination would of course be illegal, might they find it working against them?

Just, for the love of God, make sure that's not your only reason to preach.

Would preaching at a church help you to become a better lecturer? Almost certainly, as would any similar experience. During the later stages of my PhD I worked in a very popular small museum giving tours and answering questions from the public. I always tell my students that it was the best way for me to hone my speaking abilities: I really learned how to catch attentions and to convey information in a stimulating way. Further, answering hundreds of questions every day (some of which were strange to say the least) prepared me to diplomatically deal with whatever questions are tossed at me after lectures, talks, and conference papers. If preaching does similar for you, you'll see benefits.
Would putting preaching at a church on your CV help you land an academic job? No, except in the rare case of that being directly relevant to your teaching post: e.g. I had a housemate who did a PhD in religion, taught at a missionary training school, and landed a job at a religious affiliated Uni in the religion department...they would benefit from preaching on their CV. Just as my museum experience was considered "not lecturing", preaching would be the same. You're simply not drawing on the same pedagogical focus, nor are you teaching towards markable learning outcomes.
Edit to answer your final question. No, I truly doubt you would face any discrimination for mentioning preaching on your CV. You would, however, face panel members who would fail to see why such information is relevant on an academic CV. I didn't put my museum job on my academic CV when I was an early career researcher because it wasn't related to my academic work and was, thus, tangential.

I agree that panel members [may] fail to see why [preaching] is relevant, but I disagree with your conclusion that such experience need be omitted. I advocate presenting the information differently, e.g., by explaining what experience was gained. Alternatively, present the information in a covering letter, e.g., I have X years experience of public speaking to audiences of approximately Y-Z people.

Note I did not say it need be omitted, I said it risks being seen as tangential. That doesn't matter in a cv as there's plenty of space. I wouldn't use prime cover letter space for it, though.

I’m going to try to phrase this carefully, and please forgive me if I don’t do so carefully enough.  As someone who was once very religious, I value freedom of religion and inclusivity of people of all religions.  That said, what people worry about with religious colleagues isn’t their religion, it’s whether they have appropriate boundaries between their private religious life and their professional life.  Having this on your CV might be a red flag because it’s blurs that distinction.  You might make people worry that you’ll preach in class.  I think it’d be safer to leave it off.

In part this is because CVs don’t let you add context.  In a conversation or even a teaching statement, you could give the context that your question gives and the chances of it being seen as a red flag would be much lower.

As noted by @Noah

@NoahSnyder that probably should be a separate answer.

As @NoahSnyder mentions, a teaching statement is the ideal place to mention this, or any similar experiences.  It’s relevant, but in an unconventional way that requires some explanation; so the place to mention it is somewhere that there’s space for the explanation.

I really like GrotesqueSI’s answers to the other parts of the question and only had something to add to the very last part, which is why I left it as a comment.

I wouldn't be quite so confident to guarantee someone will experience zero discrimination. This is a field populated by humans. I'm sure one can find people out there who will discriminate against you for just about anything you have on your CV, even when it is in flagrant violation of the law.

Well, any public speaking helps you develop your lecturing skills. Thankfully, as a PhD student, you will usually have more than enough chances to train this specific skill - though teaching, but also through giving research talks, speaking at seminars, and possibly at public events. Additional speaking experience outside of a university setting may of course help, but how much is a different question (and also depends on how much you still have to learn in this particular dimension).

would a typical young researcher who is seeking a lecturer role find it advantageous to list experience working as a church preacher?

Not really, no - but not because of religious discrimination. Firstly, despite the name, the practical skill of "lecturing" isn't key in the assessment of future lecturers in the first place - your research agenda and overall teaching evaluations carry significantly more weight than whether you are extremely good at this individual element of teaching. Secondly, you seem to be overestimating how different it really is to speak in front of a few hundred people in contrast to 20 or 40 (something that any PhD has typically routinely done during their studies). A larger crowd may initially be intimidating, but in my experience this feeling passes relatively quickly, and then it really does not matter if you are talking in front of a handful of people or a full classroom. In that sense I can't imagine that whether you have been preaching or not makes any real difference to a selection committee.

I would think there's a big difference between preaching, where it doesn't seem like the audience is invited to ask questions very often, vs lecturing in a teaching context.

Yes and no. It could even be a terrible hindrance
Personally it will help you develop communication skills and give you experience reading the public and to modulate your voice. BUT it could hinder your career and damage your reputation.
As @GrotesqueSI mentioned, mentioning that sort of experience would, at best, not be relevant. But at worst it would be a direct affront to science, progress and academia. After all, humans can divide atoms and re-engineer genes, but here is a primitive 'scammer' that has been at selling 'the opium of societies' to people to keep them like controllable lambs ready for the slaughter. Yes, I know it sounds extreme and exaggerated, but it's not unrealistic and the opinion on religion would vary from countries, institutions and individuals. None the less, churches are independent lucrative organizations normally not associated with universities.
More so, in many countries, by law, its illegal to preach religion in (public) schools, and the school authorities would see you as a possible violator of laws.
Another reason for not consider preaching as experience or at least not mention it, its that the public is quite different. Religious people dont go to church to learn and be educated, nor do they ask questions or establish debates on the topics like it happens in classrooms, academic conferences/symposiums or seminars. So the experience would not be relevant.
Rather than churches perhaps you could consider imparting classes on the field of your studies during weekends, even if particular ones or as a consultor. That Do counts as experience.


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Posting previously published content on Arxiv
I have some previously published work in the computer vision domain, and would like to upload them to arXiv to provide greater accessibility.
How can I go about finding which licence statement to select for the particular conferences my work was published in (CVPR & ECCV)?

When you published the paper, you likely signed a copyright agreement with the conference.  It should explain what rights you do and don't have.  Then you will know what rights you can or cannot license to arXiv and its users.

See also here: http://arxiv.org/help/license If in doubt, ask the publisher if you are allowed to post to the arXiv.

As a meta-comment about license selection on the arXiv, you should never choose anything but the default license unless you are certain that you have the legal right to do so.  The issue is that all the other licenses offer readers the right to re-use your work in various ways.  If you're not actually in a position to offer them this right, then you are putting them in a terribly awkward position (either the readers, the publisher, or both are guaranteed to end up unhappy).  The default license is enormously more likely to be allowed, and most users never even need to consider the others.

Take a look at the copyright agreement you signed when you published the paper. It usually states under which conditions uploading the paper to other repositories is acceptable. Usually, you are only allowed to upload the "authors version" (or some variant thereof), which usually needs to contain a specific phrase like (in the case of the ACM):

© ACM, YYYY. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in PUBLICATION, {VOL#, ISS#, (DATE)} http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/nnnnnn.nnnnnn"

There is also a web service that makes this a bit easier to figure out: SHERPA/RoMEO. There you can put in the publisher / journal, and it will give you a human-readable summary of their policies (for example, here is the page for the ACM). But note that publisher policies change, and the binding version is the one you signed when you published the paper, so the data from SHERPA/RoMEO may be incorrect.
Note that, in my experience, almost all publishers allow uploading to an "institutional repository", so even if ArXiv may be disallowed, you can still make your work accessible via your institutional repository (if your institution has one) or your homepage. But, again, check the specific policies that apply to you on that.
Finally: I am not a lawyer, but as I understand it, since you no longer own the copyright on the paper, you cannot put it under a creative commons license (which is an option on ArXiv). So, you'll have to take the minimal license they allow, which only gives them permission to distribute your work (If someone else knows this better than I do, feel free to correct me in the comments or edit the answer).
Also, you can always just ask the publisher if you want to be extra sure, but in my experience, this may be a long process (I waited for over a week for a reply by the ACM, and am have now been waiting for over a month for a reply to a followup question).


text:
What does “resident” mean in title like “resident mathematician”?
What does resident mean in title like resident mathematician?
And what are the main subjects where resident is attached to a title? For example, does a resident statistician exist? Or a resident medieval historian?
What are the place where the mathematician resides? I think they are not universities but maybe hospitals or museums, am I correct?
For example, from Writing a successful thesis or dissertation: Tips and strategies for students in the social and behavioral sciences by Fred C. Lunenburg and Beverly J. Irby:

Ideally, commitee members should supplement your chair's expertise. If your study requires complex statistical procedures and your chair is not a statistician, you may want to add to your commitee a faculty member who teaches your department's statistics courses. We call this person a resident statistician.

To pick up your example, a resident statistician is somebody who holds a position:

at a research institute (or similar) that does not focus on statistics,
that entails to consult other researchers at the institute on statistical questions.

I have never seen this as an official title or job description; rather the resident statistician is hired as a regular researcher or professor. Some resident statisticians perform their own research, while for others consulting is a full-time job. It may also happen that somebody is hired for other reasons and then morphs into a resident statistician because they turn out to be good at it, nobody else would do it, etc.
I use to describe myself as the resident data analyst of my current life-science research group, because it is good way to characterise (part of) my role in a few words.
Do not confuse this with artists in residence.

And what are the main subjects where resident is attached to a title? For example, does a resident statistician exist? Or a resident medieval historian?

In my experience, resident statisticians, mathematicians, and similar are the most common, but I also know cases of resident biologists (in a biomathematics group) and physicists (in a quantum-philosophy group). I can imagine that a group investigating historical climate would have a resident medieval historian to investigate historical weather records.

I think there is no formal/official sense of this, at all.
"Consult your resident expert-on-X" is a traditional (in the U.S.?) way to say "talk to the person in your closest circle who knows about this". That person may already be known to you, as "the person we can go to, to clarify issues about X"... for example.
(The modifier "resident" just means "physically present in your department or building or ...")

Resident means:

Located here a long time

It is the same as the non-academic meaning, but different from the medical meaning.  Any employer could choose to give this title, but few do.


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I botched the author and date of a reference – is this misconduct?
In a homework assignment, I wrote the wrong author and date with the title of the article in reference. Would it be counted as academic misconduct?

Would it be counted as academic misconduct?

No, it won't be counted as academic misconduct. You might drop marks though (get some points deducted).
A mistake or error is not dishonest or misconduct. However, plagiarism, cheating (comes in various forms), deceit, falsification count as misconduct/dishonesty and would be penalised.
For pointer, see Northern Illinois university 'definition' of academic dishonesty:

Academic dishonesty refers to committing or contributing to dishonest acts by those engaged in teaching, learning, research, and related academic activities, and it applies not just to students, but to everyone in the academic environment (Cizek, 2003; Whitley, Jr. & Keith-Spiegel, 2002).

"A mistake or error is not dishonest or misconduct." True, but some mistakes, while not being misconduct, do very easily give the appearance of misconduct. An important point here is that the OP's mistake absolutely does not.

No, not even close
Academic misconduct covers dishonest acts including deliberate plagiarism, cheating on an examination or other piece of work, or forms of research misconduct that involve dishonesty.  In the context of a homework assignment for a course, the error you made would just be considered an ordinary student mistake, and it will be marked down accordingly (if your professor even notices it).  Since your homework assignment is not published work, there is no necessity to correct the error, but you may wish to draw it to the attention of your professor in order to demonstrate that you can spot your own errors ex post.

I would say "No, it is not an academic misconduct" if it was an accident, and you try your best to correct the mistake as soon as possible.
For example, you should notify your professor or TA about this mistake via emails (or call their OFFICE phone numbers if applicable) ASAP even before they start grading the assignment.

I don’t think the professor would even notice. I would just send a new version to the Submission folder and make a note saying “updated one bibliographic entry”

+1. Errors in references are extremely common, and they are just that: mistakes, not misconduct. Absolutely nothing to worry about.

Maybe not phone calls ...

This is so minor a mistake it’s not worth following up on in any way.

@BenBolker, I agree that emails is better as it stays in the mailbox as a reminder for awhile. A phone call may get lost as the professor/TA would not keep track of this as super critical events.

If it were a phone call to me I would either not get it or be annoyed at that form of communication (I do make it clear to students that they should contact me by e-mail or by coming to office hours, not by phone)

Sorry -1 from me, whilst I agree more or less with your first point, I can’t suggest phoning a professor or even drawing attention to it.

@BenBolker, When calling a professor, everyone knows that they should call the OFFICE number and leave a message for class room matters. No students would call the professor's cell number ever unless specifically instructed to do so for urgent matters. BTW, a professor should not even give his/her personal cell phone number to all students in the class room.

@BenBolker, Would you please clarify 1 point ?  Do you mean to say that you would never answer any phone calls from your students when they call you at your office number  ? OR, do you only ignore this particular phone call from this particular post in this particular instance above ?

I rarely get calls on my office phone. My voice message says "if you have trouble reaching me this way you should probably send me an e-mail". I strongly prefer all of the following modes of communication with my students to phone calls: (1) in-person right before or after class; (2) in-person, office hours; (3) e-mail; (4) messages via LMS of some sort (Piazza, Canvas, etc.); (5) Zoom/Teams meeting. I have trouble imagining a student's issue that can't be handled well by one of these modes.

@Job_September_2020 Undergrads calling professors (on any phone) is extremely out of the ordinary in the US. It should not be done, especially not over a minor error on a class assignment.