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Not proud of work, should I allow submission?
One of the students in a research group I worked with years ago has picked up my old work and is trying to get it published, but I am not proud of the quality of work. The paper is based on a manuscript I wrote many years ago, and despite updates made by the student, it is clunky writing. Even with feedback on the writing style, I do not see the work as a useful contribution in hindsight. The paper has already been rejected from other venues on multiple occasions.
The student is in the process of resubmitting the paper to yet another venue. Should I let them resubmit the paper? I am worried about future collaborators judging my research abilities based on this not-amazing publication since I would be listed as an author. However, I do not want to be seen as a hurdle to collaboration by turning down publication or forfeiting authorship. How does one approach this kind of situation?
Edits in response to comments:

I worked on the core content of the paper and wrote the original manuscript years ago. The student then reorganized sections and added some new text. My original manuscript was written as a young undergrad without much experience, so the writing, even back then, wasn't great. I have given feedback on the writing style of the revised paper. It isn't awful, just not stellar.
I am currently outside academia but interested in applying to graduate programs soon.
It is not wrong work, just meh.

What is your contribution to the paper? Just feedback on the writing style? 2. What is your current work situation? Are you a postdoc somewhere else? Tenured or tenure track? Outside academia? This information may affect the answers.

Is it wrong or just meh work?

@FedericoPoloni I have updated my post to answer these questions

@JonCuster just meh work, not wrong.

Put yourself in their shoes - they are trying to learn still. Help them. Good karma and all that. Nobody will think worse of you.

I do not want to be seen as a hurdle to collaboration by turning down publication or forfeiting authorship.

Given the situation you described, I recommend you rethink the option of forfeiting authorship.  Obviously the student is keen on the paper even though you are not, and if left to your own devices, it would remain unpublished anyway (with no authorship credit).  You don't owe the student your collaboration on the paper, and gifting the student your previous draft as a starting point is already giving them a leg-up.  An advantage of forfeiting authorship and leaving the student to work on their own is that it takes the entire matter out of your hands and gives the student the opportunity to learn about the difficulties of publication of work on their own.

+1 Mature experience in this answer.

Haha, perhaps somewhat of a back-handed compliment to attribute mature experience in producing work I'm not proud of.  ;)

Respect only.


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Speaking to experience in a statement of purpose for a PhD program.
I am beginning the process of applying to PhD programs in Neuroscience for a fall 2015 start. I will be graduating this December with a Bachelor's in biology and math. I have been working as a research assistant for the last year, and our lab focuses on the role of extracellular matrix proteins in the col11a1-related chondrodysplasias. Although pursuit of a career in neuroscience research has been my goal, the biology program at my institution lacks faculty in this area; thus, my research experience is of questionable relevance to the programs I am applying for.
I have three questions related to writing the statement of purpose:

I've heard that I am supposed to discuss my background in research. If my research isn't entirely relevant to neuroscience, should I restrict my discussion to the lab techniques I've learned, or can I speak in technical detail about my projects?
As mentioned, my current university lacks faculty who do research in neuroscience. Should I mention this as justification for my choice to work in my current lab, or should I omit it, as it may reflect poorly on my readiness for neuroscience?
I have a 3.85 GPA and my GRE scores were in the 93rd and 95th percentile (verbal and quantitative, respectively). To what degree will the statement of purpose affect my application, given the weaknesses addressed above?

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Just graduated with a PhD in engineering and discovered that my published dissertation lacks novelty. What could happen next?
I recently graduated from a top engineering school in the US. My dissertation, composed of three related chapters, was approved by my advisor and three committee members during both my preliminary and final examinations. It represents three years of hard work. Each semester, I presented updates to the lab members (6 to 12 people). Prior to graduation, I submitted each chapter for publication. The first two were published in reputable journals before I graduated.
Three months after graduation, I received feedback on the third paper. The feedback was shocking and has caused me significant distress. It appears that the main idea of my second paper, which I considered the crown jewel of my dissertation, was first hinted at in a 2014 publication that I missed during my literature review. Additionally, works published in 2019, 2020, and 2023, which I also overlooked due to their use of nonintuitive keywords to a nonexpert, greatly undermine the novelty of the main idea of my second paper. While my second paper still includes novel aspects like a unique case study, results, unique application, and other considerations, the main idea is not as original as I claimed (" I am the first to creat a model that would do this and that").
What might happen now? Will the journal retract my publication? Will I lose my PhD?
Please advise me on the best course of action to take.

This happens far more often than you may believe. Literature search can be tough. You are in good company. Publications and PhDs are not normally retracted for such reasons.

It is unlikely that anything will happen. Journals are unlikely to retract papers for other than misconduct or fraud. Universities are also unlikely to retract degrees except in extreme cases. If there were failures, then they are shared with many people including your advisor and committee and reviewers and editors of already published papers.
The only consequence that is likely is that things that haven't been published already are unlikely to be.
Don't beat yourself up. Things happen. Things get overlooked. Move on.
You still have opportunities to extend what you did, based on what you learned as you progressed.
Edited to add: I'm assuming of course that no one has accused you of plagiarism. That would be a different matter altogether. But, such a claim would have properly occurred much earlier.

+1. To the OP, these things really do happen. When I was a grad student my coauthor and I discovered - days before submission - that every single result in our joint paper had already been proved by someone else, and there was nothing to salvage. It was pure luck that we discovered this before submitting. Obviously there may be concrete lessons to draw from this (how specifically could you have tweaked your literature search to find these papers?), and I definitely sympathize, but it's really not the end of the world.

You got your PhD because you demonstrated that you can work independently and creatively, on topics that you and everyone around you believed to be new. The journals that published your work also believed that. As a consequence, there is nothing you ought to be concerned about -- congratulations on your PhD and on getting your work published!

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How to address past academic misconduct as a new faculty member?
14 years ago, as an undergraduate student in a country with limited academic resources, I was eager to apply for a master's degree abroad. I visited a lab at my university where, despite my lack of research experience, a professor kindly added me as the third author on his paper to support my graduate school application. Then, starting from the foreign graduate school, I met my PhD supervisor and pursued a research field different from this work, completing my PhD and two postdoc positions. I am now residing abroad and an incoming assistant professor at a prestigious worldwide university.
Recently, while reflecting on my past work, I discovered that this paper was essentially an extension of the professor's previous work with minimal changes but lacking proper citations. He submitted the same paper with minimal changes to different journals, using different author names each time. This is a clear case of self-plagiarism. The paper was published in the journal held by my university in my native language, likely read only by university staff, and the institution ranks beyond 5000+ globally. At the time, I did not notice these issues as I had limited academic knowledge, including the inability to conduct proper literature searches and fully understand the paper.
As a supervisor now advising students and advocating for the highest standards of academic integrity, I feel guilty about this past misconduct. In my home country, such issues were often overlooked, and at the time, I naively viewed academic activity as merely a game of adding names to papers.
While it is unlikely that anyone will notice this paper due to its limited impact, I am struggling with how to reconcile my past actions with my current role and teachings. I want to continue educating my students to be honest researchers, as I have strived to be over the past fourteen years. However, how should I address this situation, both personally and professionally, as I begin my faculty position? Contacting the journal editor or the professor may prove futile, as they are unlikely to view this as a significant issue given the academic culture in my home country.

I suggest that you let the past be the past and just let it go. You seem to have moved beyond where you were years ago, and as an undergraduate, no less. Any fault in that episode is primarily that of your old professor.
We were all young and naive once. We've all made mistakes of one kind or another. Hopefully we learn from those mistakes and move on.
If you do ever get called, admit to the error and point out that you've learned from that. You can even use it as an object lesson for things not to do. But there is no reason for you to bring it up initially. Again, let it go.

I would add to this that the OP should probably take this paper off documents like their CV or other lists of publications, if they wouldn't stand by it now. (Although I suspect they already have done so.)

I never included this paper in my CV before, as it's completely unrelated to my main research field. Recently, however, I've been aiming to make my CV more comprehensive to showcase my research trajectory. As a result, I've dug up this paper and plan to add it to my CV. And then I found this problem.

@whoami I would strongly advise against adding that paper. Your CV is meant to show your work,and from your description it sounds like this paper contains very little if any original work of yours. It can probably do more harm than good.

@Buffy Did you mean abject lesson?

@MiniRagnarok, no. "Object lesson". An American idiom. An important lesson that can be generalized.

@Buffy Fair enough. Googling was giving me both and I was having a hard time figuring out how their definitions applied. It seems like object lessons were popular around the Victorian era.

There are things about your life you can't change in retrospect -- I assume that, like all of us, there are other parts of your past you are not proud of.
What matters is what you make of it. It seems like you've learned from it -- you understand the ethical dimensions of it, and that allows you to incorporate the mistake of back then into how you teach and mentor others: You can use it as an example for others to learn from. I don't think anyone is going to think less of you for something that was clearly outside your realm of experience that long ago.
I would like to also point out one other aspect: Your adviser at the time showed great kindness to you in adding you to the paper. Perhaps that was questionable as far as publication ethics are concerned, but they understood that you had potential and could use a leg up in making your dream possible. In my own life, I carry a rather small (metaphorical) bag of negative experiences around with me, but a rather large one in which I keep and treasure the kindness I have experienced from mentors and colleagues who did more than they needed to to help me in my career. Now that I'm in mid-career, it is my time to show the same kind of kindness to those around me. Do the same, your adviser was actively being helpful to someone who he did not need to be helpful to, and acted within the realm of his abilities (however limited and questionable at the time). Be grateful for it, and pay it forward.

I didn't downvote, but my guess is some people disagreed with this: Your adviser at the time showed great kindness to you in adding you to the paper.

Maybe some people are interpreting "pay it forward" as a suggestion to add students to papers they didn't write? (I also didn't downvote)

I think it was more that when reading between the lines, OP implied that the supervisor might have been adding random people to the different versions of the same paper to disguise any misconduct

@deee This is, very obviously, not what I have in mind. I think that the act of adding people to papers they didn't work on is clearly unethical. I do not recommend doing this. It's wrong. But it was still an act of kindness.

@WolfgangBangerth In case it wasn't clear, I wasn't trying to say I thought that's what you meant! I think I was responding to a comment about why there were downvotes, and that was my guess at why people may have been downvoting.

@Buffy has written the right answer - you can honorably just let it go.
In response to your concern about how to act

As a supervisor now advising students and advocating for the highest
standards of academic integrity ...

you might consider telling your students a short version of your story. Then they would know their advisor was once young and naive.

'you might consider telling your students a short version of your story' thanks. I think I will do that.

@whoami You should only do that in case you genuinely believe it will be helpful to them, not to alleviate your (needlessly) guilty conscience. As a general principle, sure, it's good to let students know that supervisors / instructors also make mistakes. On the other hand, it does not sound like your own mistake is something that your students need to worry about, given that they don't study "in a country with limited academic resources" and are presumably not trying to publish in an obscure language. It seems debatable whether there is any useful lesson for them in this story.

Might use American anecdotal form that can not be brought to court: "A person I know had this and that negative experience", not "My uncle got drunk in a bar and..."
Often understood as an euphemism just like "doctor, I'm asking for a friend..." but generally acceptable :)

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Do you have to find out/ prove something to get a PhD?
I went on a trip to Oxford with my school, and I asked a lady whether or not you have to go and discover something in a PhD? She said no, and it's more research. But I read up somewhere that you do have to discover something to get a PhD.
I just want to know precisely how a PhD works.
Will some subjects- like Maths or Computer Science- require you to go out and prove something, and are others- like English- just require the student to do extensive research?
Note: by getting a PhD, I don'y just mean anyone getting it, I do mean someone who's actually studying for one.

To clarify, in academia "research" means scholarship that extends the frontiers of knowledge, whereas in everyday life it could be used much more broadly: you could say "this morning I researched cows on the internet" to mean you read the Wikipedia article on cattle, but this would not be considered academic research.  (Academic research on cattle would fall under agricultural science.)  So getting a Ph.D. just requires research, and it also requires generating new knowledge, but there's no contradiction between these statements.

This little gem has always been a nice graphical introduction http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/

Reading lots of what others know isn't sufficient to be research in the academia sense - the product of original research is something nobody knew before you, and that is required also for things like English PhD.

A Ph.D. in a humanities field like English also requires an original contribution to scholarship - you have to 1. make an observation no one else has made before that seems substantial enough to require book-length treatment; 2. argue that your observation is correct through references to both the original sources and what your dissertation advisers consider to be the relevant current scholarship, and 3. make an argument that your dissertation advisers consider to be supportable.

I fully agree with @shane's point: you need to have shown some original contribution. But I think something else is also important, and sometimes plays a major role: you have to show that you have mastered the trade - which means, in practice, that you are able to perform whichever experimental/theoretical things a scientist in your field is supposed to be able to do, and write about the results in an understandable manner. In this way you show that you are worthy of being taken up in the community of scientists, which despite our feeling that science is about facts, is still rather important.

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Problem of mentioning the department affiliated with PhD degrees
A newbie here :)
I am currently a PhD student in a computer science program. My research interest is about quantum information science. Back then, I also got accepted into a Physics PhD program, but I decided to join my current department because the project is much more interesting.
Here is my problem: when people ask me, "Hey, so what are you doing in grad school?" , I feel quite uncomfortable to mention that I am doing a degree in "Computer Science". Don't get me wrong. I love computer science. But I prefer to be regarded as a Physics person rather than a CS person (actually, I am doing a lot of theoretical quantum physics for my thesis). My feeling is that, the name of the department/degree ALONE doesn't do me justice in telling other about my research interests and experiences.
Funny enough, my boyfriend is also suffering from the same problem. He is in the same CS department with me, but focusing on computational biology. His plan is to attend medical school after his PhD, so he usually shows a tremendous amount of angst when being asked the same question. People often joke about his decision, like "So why an IT guy like you suddenly wants to go to med school?". The poor guy has spent quite a lot of time to do wet labs, and is drafting a thesis with 50% bio and 50% CS components, so I can tell that he really hates when people calling him an "IT guy". While I understand that doing a bio-related doctoral research is a very logical transition for him to med schools, the name of the department alone is causing the confusion that he has abruptly changed his interests into medicine, rather than planned for it ahead.
My question is, what is the best way in our cases to "market" our research focus and experiences to other people? Should it be:

Ms.Catwoman, PhD in Computer Science
Ms.Catwoman, PhD in Quantum Information, or
Ms.Catwoman, PhD in Computer Science with special focus on Quantum Information?

Thanks for the answers!

I don't agree that this question should be closed as a duplicate. The question linked to is about a masters degree (where the specialisation is explicit). This question is about a PhD (where no specialisation is explicit). The other question is about how to list the masters degree in a CV. This question is about how to describe the nature of your PhD to other people. Most fundamentally however, none of the answers to the other question feel like a good fit for this one.

Are you marketing to other academics in CS and Physics / Biology, or people outside those fields? If the former, "Ph.D. in CS, dissertation on Quantum Information." If the latter, "Ph.D. in quantum information."

@badroit: Thank you, I agree with you. How to unmarked this question :(

My question is, what is the best way in our cases to "market" our research focus and experiences to other people?

Marketing is all about knowing your audience. And thus you may market your PhD to different audiences in different ways.
If you're talking to a person on the street, you could say "PhD in Computer Science".
If you're talking to a Computer Scientist, you could say "PhD in Quantum Information".
If you're talking to a specialist in Quantum Information, you could say "PhD in X, Y & Z" where X, Y and Z are detailed topics.
The truth of the matter is that a PhD is a PhD. Officially speaking, there's no such thing as a "PhD in ...". So for the given person in front of you, try to communicate the area of your PhD as best as you can.
And as for the "IT guy" stuff, if that's how they chose to stereotype what you are doing, then that's their problem, not yours/your boyfriends.

I am sort of in the same spot as you, even if maybe to a lesser degree. I hold a master and PhD degree in Information Systems, even though all my research is really in distributed systems and software engineering. Some people kept asking me during my PhD time whether I am not worried that my IS degree will keep me out of CS postdocs or faculty positions.
Now, after going through a few rounds of job search, I can report that the topic has come up a grand total of 0 times during job hunting. Realistically, people simply do not care about the name of your degree / department. If you publish in X, you are a research in X, no matter what your degree says. If at all, the entire thing is an interesting tidbit for small talk, not something that anybody should be stressing out over.
About the case of your boyfriend - maybe the reason that people keep calling him "the IT guy" is because he is so annoyed by it? For some people, if somebody reacts so strongly to something that seems rather trivial to others, it would be prone to make him the butt of some inappropriate jokes ...

Thanks xLeitix for sharing your experiences. He is paranoid about what if med schools will also view him as "the IT guy" who suddenly wants to switch the field. But what you say may be true, that people just want to make fun of him ;))


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References for Ph.D. admission application
I completed my B.A. in 2005 and my M.Ed. in 2010.  I'm now looking at going back to school to do a Ph.D., but I'm not sure what to do about the references required for my applications.  I'm still able to get in contact with my advisors from both programs, but even so it's been a couple of years since I've talked to either of them.  Should I focus on tracking down old professors, or would it be better to find colleagues from my professional career to attest to relevant work I've done since graduating?

You will certainly want to track down old professors. It might be helpful to get letters from professional colleagues, depending on your field. (I am in mathematics, and in pure math this would not be helpful. But maybe, e.g. CS would be different.)
It would be very helpful if you could get a newer recommendation from a professor in the field in which you would like to study. There are a couple of ways to do this:

If you live near a research university, find a graduate course that looks interesting and ask the professor's permission to sit in on the course. Do all the work assigned for the course, and do it damn well. Ask the professor if he/she would be willing to give occasional feedback, and/or grade your homework. If all goes well, you can ask for a letter of recommendation.
If this is not feasible (perhaps you live further away, or your working hours are not flexible), plan to do a lot of self-study and find some research university which is semi-close. Ask a couple of professors if you could make appointments with them, and solicit their advice on self-study and preparing for grad school.
If one is especially friendly or helpful, ask if he/she could later evaluate the results of your self-study. Go work your butt off, then return and talk to the professor, demonstrate that you've learned a lot, and let the professor teach you some more. Repeat if there's time. Eventually, ask for a letter.

Both of these depend on having the time to informally begin your studies early in a serious way -- but if you want to get a Ph.D. this is a good idea anyway. These ideas also depend on the generosity of professors -- this will likely be forthcoming if you demonstrate that you are serious, and also that you intend to be very respectful of their time.
Good luck to you!


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Expectation of students in Graduate vs. Undergraduate STEM classes
I'm not sure if this question is okay to post here (I am only an undergrad), so please feel free to close/migrate if necessary. I won't be offended.
I am an undergraduate taking an undergraduate CS class right now. I feel the class is being taught like a graduate-level course, but we are being tested like undergraduates. I say this because I have taken graduate-level STEM classes in the past, and I think my professor is teaching the material as if we were graduate students.
The homework in this class emphasizes theoretical understanding and proof writing. When the midterm was upon us, we were given no practice problems to prepare for the test. There were no practice midterms either. Going into the midterm, I figured, well, the professor will probably test us on our understanding of the material. However, the midterm tested for speed and accuracy. There were several short answer questions that had little to do with the kind of understanding of the material we developed from the homework. In fact, there were questions for which we haven't yet had homework. I think he tried to make the test "easy," which totally threw me off.
I did very poorly on my midterm, and now I am trying to figure out whether I can judge what to expect in a graduate-level class vs. an undergraduate-level class so I may avoid such poor exam performance in the future. I have come up with the following qualities to expect from a graduate-level STEM class vs. an undergraduate-level STEM class.
Graduate-level STEM Class

Emphasis on depth of understanding.
Abstract material can sometimes be presented ad hoc: Less emphasis on linear presentation of material.
Theoretical presentation of material. Typically, we look at axioms/rules whenever we are presented new notation. We then derive everything from these axioms/rules.
Often the material covered has so much depth that we are expected to have minimal breadth of understanding; We are expected to take what we've learned and focus on a particular are in great depth.
Exams, projects, and papers test understanding of the material, not the speed in which we can solve arbitrary problems.

Undergraduate-level STEM Class

Emphasis on breadth of knowledge.
Material is presented in a linear fashion, often starting with some concrete examples and building from there.
There is often so much ground to cover that we are taught through rote memorization. We solve problems excessively.
Exams test for speed and accuracy of exact solutions to several problems. One often succeeds in such a class by performing many practice problems.

My questions are as follows:

Is this accurate? If not, why, and what kinds of differences can I expect between graduate vs. undergraduate-level courses?
Are there other/better ways to find correlations between teaching and testing styles? How can I know I am prepared for an exam given a professor's teaching style (rote memorization vs. emphasis on derivations, etc.)?

I don't know that you'll get a good answer as to the characterization-- it's a broad field, and expectations and practices can vary from course to course.

I think you have two distinct questions, which you should probably split up into two posts: (1) are there general differences in expectations/teaching style in undergraduate vs graduate classes in STEM? (2) is there some general way to predict the style of an exam, and find out how to prepare, from a professor's teaching style?

At my university the expectations are closely linked to the "vision" and "mission statement" of the department. I find through years of working here that although we have graduate students, we don't expect much from them in terms of what you state despite being a PhD program. Our vision is more geared towards your "undergrad expectations". Maybe it would be useful for you to measure your expectations against the vision/mission statement since faculty who teach you may be hired based on said vision.

There is some truth in the differences you observe, but the distinctions are not very sharp. It's more of a continuum - as witnessed, for example, by the many textbooks that describe themselves as suitable for advanced undergraduate and early graduate levels.
From the point of view of the instructor, the differences in teaching style are explained by two things:

Graduate students are more experienced. It's not only a question of them knowing more about the subject, but also of their (presumed) greater ability to be responsible for their own learning. Related to that, people who've opted for graduate study are assumed to be motivated to work independently. So the instructor can be a bit more free to skip over material that's routine, or doesn't present much of a conceptual challenge. In computer science, say, beginning courses will teach you a programming language; advanced ones will assume that if you haven't used the language before, you can pick it up without much explicit guidance.
The topic is less well understood. At a more advanced level, we have less to rely on in how to teach the subject. For early undergraduate courses, there's probably a choice of textbooks and related resources, and a body of expertise about how to present the material. A course that's closer to current research may not have been taught many times before; the instructor won't have much of a pool of local experts to consult; and there may not be any existing textbooks at all. So the teaching might have some rough edges, in the choice and order of topics to present, how much time is spent on them, and so on.

I think this is what lies behind your observations, at least regarding the teaching. For assessment, I'd say there are other factors which dominate. Assessment is very sensitive to the precise nature of the course, the instructor, and the institution. I'm sure you can imagine being examined on your understanding of some algorithm by any of: answering multiple choice questions about it, proving something about it, writing an explanatory essay about it, implementing it on a computer, or doing any of these for some variant of the algorithm  that you hadn't seen before. And any of these could happen in a course at any level.
It sounds like you're somewhat aggrieved that the questions on your midterm were in a different style from your homework, and were less conceptual than the material presented in lectures. Now, it may be that your professor was (as you suggest) skewing the teaching towards the graduate end of the scale, and assuming that you would independently put the work in to make sure you could apply the theory correctly. In that case, the issue isn't that the exam was in "undergraduate" style, but that "graduate" teaching puts more of a burden on the students.
However, there are other factors in play that govern the style of examination. For example:

I want to know if you understand the theory, and I decide that asking you to apply it is a good way to find out.
I would be ashamed if somebody got an A in my course, but couldn't actually solve these applied problems.
I decide that routine problems will be quicker or easier to grade.
The homework already tested the students' broad understanding, and I decide the midterm should test something different.

I'm not saying that any of these are what happened, or that they are necessarily "good" ideas. But there are reasons why the midterm could focus on less conceptual material, that don't relate to an undergraduate-vs-graduate distinction.
Your final question is about how to know what to expect from a particular examination before you've taken it. Having thought about it at some length, I can't come up with any better suggestion than ask your professor. There are so many possibilities, even for the same course taught by the same person, for what the exam might be like.

Addressing this question:

Are there other/better ways to find correlations between teaching and
  testing styles? How can I know I am prepared for an exam given a
  professor's teaching style (rote memorization vs. emphasis on
  derivations, etc.)?

If you have additional exams to come in this course, then I would recommend you meet with the professor and ask specific questions, not "how should I study?" or "what will the test be like?"
Bring in your notes, homework sets and your first midterm, and demonstrate that you are thinking about how to organize your learning by asking questions like these:

"This question (point to specific question) surprised me because it asks me to quickly solve X, but my homework here (pointing to specific question) asked me about the theory of X. Should I track down some sample problems for the topic covered in this new homework (point to new example) so I can both discuss theory AND quickly answer simple questions on the next test?"
"This question (point to specific question) surprised me because I didn't recognize the material. Can you show me how to better apply what we've learned to new situations so I can answer these questions better?"

I've often thought students got a question wrong because they didn't understand a concept, but when someone comes and talks to me I realize that they did understand it well but my question confused them, or I didn't make it clear enough that this kind of question would be asked. Instructors can improve their exams if they get helpful feedback. Brave instructors ask for feedback. Wise students try to offer it in the guise of going over the old exam.


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Do German universities take mid-career international students for PhDs?
Do German universities (specifically, Technical Universities) take mid-career professionals from other countries (i.e., the USA) for PhD studies?
I am trying to grasp how that process would work - or if it would work - for someone with family & in their mid-30s.
N.b., I am aware that the system is different, i.e., Funded PhD position chances for international students in Austria.
My field is computer science, if that matters.

I can think of no reason why they wouldn't, if you fulfil their admissions criteria.

Yes, that is definitely possible (if you have a Masters degree as JayFromA mentioned).
Normally professors have their own funding and 100% control about who gets accepted into the PhD program. This means you directly apply to the chair and not to the university but if the professor is willing to pay you your other background does not matter.
The computer science community in Germany is very international (especially the TUs are very proud of this) and it should be no problem if your German is not that good.
If you do not have stipend your salary is fixed though and there is no room for negotiations (and its not really competitive to industry work). There will also be no relocation funds or anything. Teaching is normally included in your duties so you can not upgrade your pay with that.
The good thing for people with family is that most programs offer "Individualpromotion" which means you do not do course work but research independently (with the help of your supervisor). This is normally more time flexible and useful if you have small children.

Thank you. It seems that it may be so accepted that remarking on it in documents is not done. :)

Good luck with getting a position! @PaulNathan

Yes they do if you have a the necessary degree which is normally a Masters or something comparable.
When you talk about "PhD studies" also note that a PhD (in German doing a "Promotion") does not include course work. It´s thesis only while working on a funded project in parallel if you don´t have a stipend. (The only course work there is if you don´t fulfill the requirements of the university fully and they ask you to complete some exams before starting your PhD. Also there are more and more so called "Promotionskollegs" that require you to go to a handful of courses during the time of your "Promotion".)
If you want to do applied research also focus on so called universities of applied sciences (in German "Hochschule", "Fachhochschule"). I guess they also have a higher interest in people from industry. A notable disadvantage here is that they can not award PhDs so you need a partner university for a cooperation. (German "Kooperative Promotion") But usually they have such contacts and partner universities anyway so that is not a show stopper in virtually all cases.

Thank you. I regret that I can only choose 1 answer as a correct one.


text:
Can you describe a required online science course that used discussion well?
I am re-designing an introductory biology course for an online summer session - five weeks of hard work for the students. They are mostly lower-division students who are re-taking the class or are adding bio as a minor.
I can transmit content no problem with videos and outlines. What I'm hoping to do is also present students with problems to solve and encourage them to work together through these difficult, new presentations of the material and help each other. I'm using Moodle, so this will likely happen in the discussion fora -- though I'm open to using a third-party tool.
Generally, students are not motivated by the joy of discovery, particularly in a double-time online environment. But they are willing to do work if it is clearly related to how well they will do on exams. I'm looking for data - has anyone taken (or taught) an online SCIENCE class that had group and application work they felt really improved their understanding of the material? If so, please describe.

The best experiences I have had in working in group, in terms of exogenous motivation, were encouraging competition: define a problem, divide your students into groups, set a time limit and give a reward to the first/best/any-criteria-you-consider group.
Live discussions/meetings can be more helpful that a forum in this sense: the probabilities of engaging in a fruitful dialog increase.
You may also want to take a look to gamification techniques:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamification
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamification_of_learning

If students are not motivated by themselves, the internal pulse of "trying to win" at something may do it, gaining knowledge along the way, without having the feeling of "doing homework".


text:
How long should one wait before declaring that an author "did not comment"?
Around a week ago, I sent an email to the author of an article published in an independent blog, requesting comment on a claim for which I cound find no evidence (and, in fact, not insignificant proof to the contrary). This was my first time contacting an author to request comment.
I'm wondering, how long after an attempt to establish communication would it be appropriate to say that a person did not comment / was unreachable for comment? Is there an accepted standard or any specific factors that should be considered?

To say in which context? That will make a big difference. E.g. to say it to your colleague in a conversation, to post it publicly on your website, to state it in a publication ....

Also, a week is very, very short. People are travelling, on vacation, busy with work, teaching, etc. Also, answering random requests might not be high on their to-do list or your email might have even landed in their spam folder. How long ago hat the blog been published? If some time has passed, chances are the contact is no longer working.

You can't "demand" a quick response from someone with whom you have no relationship. Perhaps they consider you a crank and will never respond.

Not seeing what this has to do with "academia". Seems like you're looking for standards in journalism. A blog post isn't an academic article. The question is tagged "peer review" but has nothing to do with academic peer review, and a blog post certainly isn't peer reviewed.

Simple:

I reached out to Jane Doe by email on October 21, 2024, requesting a clarification, and have not yet received a response.

Leave it to your readers or interlocutors to interpret whether you are being impatient or not, in the context of the blog author, the date of publication of the original post, and so forth.

I think what OP wants to know is how long they need to wait to ensure a good chance that behaving in the way that you suggest will not be interpreted by readers as impatient behavior. The "leave it to your readers" suggestion does not answer that question.

The author has no obligation to reply comments. If this is a peer-reviewed publication which you think might be wrong, you can write and submit a comment (which will be peer-reviewed too), then the editors would normally contact the authors to ask for their opinion. Otherwise you can just hope that they reply or try to approach them at a conference, but I would not claim anywhere that the authors "did not comment", as there is nothing they should comment on until you publish something yourself.


text:
How can I identify the citation/reference style used when I have the citation/reference itself?
How can I identify the citation/reference style used when I have the citation/reference itself?
Is there a tool that can help with identifying/matching the style to my plain-text input?
For example, which style is used for the following?

JAMES, I. F., CHAVKIN, C. & GOLDSTEIN, A. 1982. Preparation of brain
membranes containing a single type of opioid receptor highly selective
for dynorphin. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 79, 7570-4.

This citation looks like the NLM (National Library of Medicine). It could be a variation of Vancouver or maybe Chicago Author-Date format. They are all pretty similar. But I don't think this matches any exactly. That wouldn't be unusual though, depending on where you got the citation from.
I think this begs the question - why do you need to know this? If you downloaded the reference in a common format (like RIS, NBIB, CSV, etc.) you can output it from a reference manager in whatever format you'd like. Good tools for that would be Endnote (paid) or Mendeley (free). If you are stuck with a plain text citation, enter the info manually into one of those citation managers and play around with the output style till you get something that looks similar - that (or some variation) will be the style.
Alternatively, you could start by looking at where you got the citation. Usually (in addition to the downloadable raw data) many databases will give you a choice of preformatted text citations - just pick the one that matches.
If you got the citation off of a publisher website, you can check their preferred format. This will be in the author instructions. I would bet they are outputting the text citation in whatever format they require for authors (or, again, they give you format choices).
If all else fails, you could search for examples of common styles and manually compare. That would be tiresome but might be the best if you don't have any other info.
Depending on what you are trying to do and how much information you have, any of these options would work. Just know that many journals and databases use variations of the common formats, so your citation might not match anything exactly (unless you can find out where it came from). Usually reference managers will come loaded with most common styles and have the option to download variations used by journals, so you can a general template for pretty much any style once you identify it.

Thanks for your detailed response. I have no other information other than that the person who gave it to me said that it is "Harvard" style. Upon manual inspection, I thought that it is similar to Elsevier-Harvard, but without the comma after the period of the last first-name initial. The reason why I ask is because I want to be able to confirm is a given reference conforms to a requested style or if I have to re-export through the reference manager.
You mentioned Mendeley. What do you think about Zotero?

I would send everything through a reference manager. Why take the chance that one or two references out of the bunch are mis-formated? Enter the info, or better yet download the citation data, and just choose your style. Zotero is a good choice too! Any reference manager will do.

Just for future reference, it seems like Zotero can't accept plain-text inputs (correct me if I am wrong). https://anystyle.io/ seems to be a good parser.

As far as I know, neither EndNote nor Mendeley will parse plain text citations either. I was suggesting manually adding the info. That tool is interesting although I can't say I've ever felt the need to parse a large number of citations.

Lastly, regarding your first paragraph, you say that it isn't too unusual for it to not match exactly; could you please elaborate on that?

Journals or organizations often use variations of the standard style. So if you were to compare the journal specific version with the "standard" there might be subtle changes.

To improve your answer for the ages representing academia, you might correct your use of begs the question.


text:
How to search specifically for scientific/scholarly images?
How to search specifically for scientific/scholarly images, besides using Google? For articles, there is Google Scholar, but, as far as I am aware of, Google Scholar can't search for images. I would like to input the text/subject and get a relevant image.

Do you have an image and are looking for the source, or are you looking for images that show a particular thing, and you don't have the image?

If the latter, you probably just search google scholar for the topic, and keep reading hits till you find what you're looking for.

@ScottSeidman The latter. Currently, I am using the method you mentioned (reading articles) and regular Google searches.

To my knowledge, Google does not have a function to search academic images. Right now, many of those images are embedded in PDFs or in whatever format the journal published their online material. And many of them are locked behind paywalls and thus not really available to the search engine anyway. I suspect these two issues actually make an academic image search engine almost impossible - at least one that resembles the standard google image search. That being said, JSTOR has an image search. This and other repositories of images could be considered "academic" although I think they are mostly humanities focused.
So the only way to find scientific images is to do as you are doing - manually read articles and extract the images you need.

+1 for JSTOR image search. Interesting one there though limited


text:
Publishing undergraduate research
I am an undergrad physics major and I have been involved in something that I (and my supervisor) want to get published (I am the first author and my supervisor is the only other coauthor). This is a theoretical work - so no data/lab work. This is also outside my curriculum and contributes in no way to my being awarded my degree - its purely something I have pursued of my own accord.
While our work/results are far from path breaking, it is original and kind of interesting (but nothing riveting); however, this work is based on a topic that has been around for a long time. When it comes to the content I would describe it as too much for a typical undergrad journal, even something like Am J Phys (so my supervisor said), but not enough for a proper high quality journal, like say the Phys Revs (in my opinion).
Despite this, we made an initial submission to such a top journal - we got desk rejected within a week (reason being the our work was not suited to the said journal, probably in terms of quality; editor advised us to look for a more specialised place). Now, my supervisor wants to try another similar journal - I am nearly certain we are going to be desk rejected this time as well. I recognise that my supervisor has a huge amount of experience and wouldn't have suggested publishing if he didn't feel it was worth it. Therefore, despite reservations, I am okay with submitting wherever he wants me to.
Now, we already published a pre-print on the arXiv and my question is as follows: In case our manuscript remains unpublished by the time I graduate (another 2 years), would my arXiv preprint have any positive impact on my CV?

The reason I am asking this is because even though I have been lead author in an  international conference submission (same supervisor, different topic) which was accepted for presentation (we also submitted the manuscript to the proceedings and it went through to the second review stage, rest of the decisions pending), it did not seem to have any effect on my selection to summer programmes/summer research projects this year (even with a high GPA) - I wasn't selected. My SOP for these programmes wasn't bad either; got it checked by my professors for suggestions and tips.

Further, I have an additional concern. Both the conference submission and this are in fields that are very different than the field I'll do my Master's thesis in and subsequently apply for grad school in.

I'd continue following your advisor's guidelines on where to publish next.
A published, peer-reviewed paper is optimal, but a paper on arXiv is good too on an undergrad's CV. It won't count the "same", but it's not worse than pushing the paper into some predatory or predatory-adjacent journal that basically just publishes everything submitted anyways.
Everyone in academia understands that there's a time component to the publishing process, and an undergraduate applying for anything has had at most a short research career by that time. Years ago, it was normal for work in that stage to be noted as merely "submitted" on a CV, or for fields where conferences are a venue for preliminary rather than final work, maybe it's presented at a conference but not yet in a journal. Now, the standard is preprints.
Congratulations on your work, I hope you'll find a home for it soon, don't get too discouraged if it gets rejected a few more times. Editors of journals at all levels are having trouble finding peer reviewers, so they might be especially aggressive with desk rejections these days.
Also a note that desk rejection from top journals with broad topic coverage is not typically about quality but about impact. You can do great quality work that does not reach the impact of "everyone in physics should read this paper".

Thanks for the response! I will continue to follow my supervisor's suggestions on submissions and see what happens.

Undergraduate publications are rare and not usually an expectation, at least in my field, for graduate applications. While a peer reviewed paper is best, a pre-print that is public and searchable is still quite the accomplishment for an undergraduate student.
It sounds like you have a long time before graduation. And it sounds like your advisor is confident about publishing this somewhere. So in general, I would not worry too much about this right now. But, in the case that it does not ever get published, yes your pre-print will still have a positive impact on your CV, at least in for graduate school applications. Just not as positive as a peer reviewed paper.


text:
Norms around who contributes to the diversity section in grant proposals?
So we're writing a big grant proposal with about 10 PIs. My supervisor is the lead PI. In our small group meeting going through the proposal, once we got to the diversity section my PI suggested that I should do it (I'm female). He's also emailed the only two female PIs on the project for their suggestions / previous iterations of this section.
Is it the norm to ask women to contribute the sections related to diversity? I sort of thought the opposite would be, if anything (we aren't necessarily equally empowered to fix it, nor should that be our exclusive responsibility, and it already wastes random chunks of time/energy). But I can also see how we could be more qualified or it could be empowering ("setting expectations" and/or deciding how to allocate a big chunk of money). I am sure that my PI is doing this with this kind of intention in mind, as he has been nothing but benevolent and supportive.
I feel like I'm going to have to do a lit review on effective spending for promoting equity, so in that sense I'm not sure that I am more qualified for this than anyone else would have been. I've certainly run into problems of this type in my career but the things that stick out most from my personal experience were out-and-out sexual harassment which seems like just a very low bar, beyond the scope here. And unfortunate to have to reflect on... I realize another option here may be to do the minimum as this is likely not critical to the success of our grant proposal, so that's another reasonable piece of advice or possible norm to consider.

Out of curiosity, what field are you in? I generally find the approach to diversity statements varies quite a bit with discipline. Some treat it as practically inconsequential boilerplate and typically put roughly the same thing in every proposal, tweaking slightly to match the demographic makeup of the research team, while others take it a lot more seriously.

No, it's not appropriate to turn to whoever you see as "most diverse" around you, be that based on their gender or race or anything else, and saddle them with the responsibility of writing the diversity section.
In my experience, for all of the "administrative" grant sections, co-PIs pool their historical knowledge of what previous successful submissions have used, and generally the people with the most history of successful grants have the most input (possibly weighted more towards recent history, as expectations are constantly shifting). Also helpful if they have had experience on review committees for that funding organization and know how/if the sections will contribute to the score. Specific tasks may be delegated among the group or one person may mostly take the lead. There are many possible ways to do it that are just fine; the mechanism you've encountered is not.
Hopefully the other female PIs who were contacted will stand up for you, but if not I would do your best to politely inform your advisor that it's more appropriate for someone to write this section who has written them before. You might also want to convey somehow that honoring commitments to diversity is everyone's responsibility, but explaining that isn't really your job, either. I'm sorry about the position this has put you in.

Helpful answer (+1).  I find it amusing to hear individuals being described as "more diverse" than others, since there is no such thing with respect to an individual --- whatever one's demographics and characteristics, each person is 100% those things and 0% other contradictory things.


text:
What should I do if I haven't received acknowlegement of submission
I submitted a manuscript to a moderately ranked journal three days ago, which has both an online submission system (OJS) and an email address for submission (this caused my initial confusion). I made the submission through the online system, assuming it would be the most reliable method. However, I did not receive any acknowledgment of receipt after one day, neither from the automatic system nor the editor, and the manuscript status has remained as "submission" since then.
From my previous experience, this seems unusual. Therefore, I sent an email to the previously mentioned address, inquiring about their preferred submission method and whether I had submitted the manuscript correctly, but I have not received any response. Upon checking the journal's contact list, it appears that the person behind that email address is not the editor-in-chief but rather the secretary, so yesterday I sent another email to the editor with the same inquiry, but I have not received a response either.
I am aware that three days is not considered a long time, and I certainly understand that the review process could take months. However, I would not be as concerned if the journal had simply acknowledged the receipt of my manuscript, which should not have taken too long.
So, what should I do now? This manuscript is extremely important to me, and as this is my last year of PhD, I cannot afford to wait several months to ascertain whether the editorial team is simply unresponsive or if my manuscript has been misplaced. I am considering waiting until the end of next week, and if I do not receive any response from the journal by then, withdrawing the submission. However, I have a few concerns:

Would it be too hasty to withdraw a submission after a week, simply because no acknowledgment of submission has been received?
If I do need to send a withdrawal request, should I wait for the journal's confirmation? And what should I do if they remain unresponsive?
Continuing the last question, if I resubmit the manuscript to another journal, should I mention the previous situation in the cover letter? Would this be an obstacle when the editor of the new journal considers the manuscript?

Edit: By the way, to clarify why I am confused about the submission method, when I click the "Make a Submission" button on the journal's webpage, the option to register/log in to the online submission system (OJS) is provided. However, the journal's guidelines for authors state that submissions should be sent as email attachments to a specific address, without mentioning the online system. It's worth noting that the guidelines appear somewhat outdated, as some of the formatting requirements mentioned are no longer applicable based on the latest articles published by the journal.

Do you know anyone else who has had published with this journal? Can you ask them if they had a similar delay?

@Dawn That would be great, but unfortunately I do not know anyone who has published in this journal. I chose the journal simply by looking up in the citation index database.

Given that the time to acceptance is (at least) months, it is far too early to panic. There are too many reasons for a delay and missing the submission through the online system is probably the least likely. If some person is involved in an acknowledgement then even more things can cause a short (week at least) delay.
But, yes, you can withdraw at any time prior to signing an agreement. Far from optimal, but the paper is yours. No, you don't need to wait for an ack to do this. No, you don't need to mention it to the publisher of a later submission.
Don't be hasty, however. Academic time is very weird. Relax. Have a culturally appropriate beverage.

Thank you for your helpful advice! However, I am also wondering if it is possible that the journal may not begin processing submissions until nearing the publication date of a new issue. I noticed that the journal is published annually at the end of every year, although it is separated into four issues.

That is very (very) unlikely. It takes quite a lot of time to review and prepare articles for publication, including rewrites by authors.

In my opinion, despite the absence of notifications is concerning, the delay in several days during submission is not yet a reason for panic. Did you check the public calendar of the country, may be there were some holidays? For example, Ramadan started several days ago.

Thank you for the reminder, but I did check the public calender of the country (as well as the academic calender of the editor's institution), and it seems that there were no special events or holidays.

How about submitting via the email system, and including a message in the email saying that you submitted via the online system (include that date) but haven't received any confirmation of submission?

Thank you for the advice! It sounds feasible, but the only problem is that I have actually already sent an email to that address for enquiry, but have not received any response... So if the journal remains non-responsive, maybe I won't get any confirmation even if I resubmit the manuscript via email.


text:
Choice between article-based and monograph thesis
I am in the fourth year of my PhD studies in General Linguistics at a university in Spain, and I was working on my thesis in the form of monograph, until the beginning of this year when I managed to publish an article in a well-positioned journal. Because of this, my director has suggested I consider an article-based thesis (thesis by compendium of publications). I have consulted the Academic Committee of my programme and the general requirements are as follows:

a minimum of three articles
already published or accepted
at least two of them published in journals indexed in an international index such as JCR (WoS) and/or SJR (Scopus) in the case of Social Sciences
the doctoral candidate must be the first signatory of all the publications

Although I think there are many advantages to choosing the article-based approach (for example, I would have at least three articles published by the time of defending my thesis), I have two major concerns:

Is a thesis in the traditional form of monograph more appreciated than an article-based one to some extent?
In my case, I have to submit my doctoral thesis by January of 2025, and I just finished writing my second article and haven't submitted it to any journal, so I'm really worried if I can get two more articles published before that date.

I'm a little lost right now. Should I just opt for the safer monograph approach? Or should I work on the articles and the monograph simultaneously? Thanks to everyone for your advice in advance.

It's possible there is something here unique to Spain (I'm only familiar with the US), but from my perspective, a good thesis is a finished thesis, and the rest doesn't matter much. If it's accepted by the institution and your thesis advisor/committee, it's good.
For everything else: job applications, grants/fellowships, general value and perception as a researcher, the thesis doesn't matter at all. Only published journal papers (and conference papers if your field/subfield uses conferences as a primary publishing venue) matter. If there is content in the thesis worth reading by others, it should be published in a format that other people will read.
From those factors, the benefit of the article-based thesis is clear: the product involves working on the things that actually matter in every subsequent step, versus a product that only matters for your degree and after that will not matter. The drawback seems to be simply that if you do not have papers that fill the requirements, it is not possible. Personally I find requirements for a specific number of published/accepted articles to be extremely counterproductive; these requirements push students towards predatory publishers and may even encourage fraud. It shifts responsibility away from a thesis committee of professors at the institution onto typically for-profit publishers and anonymous reviewers who have no reason to respect a student's graduation timeline. However, you're likely not the person to change the rules.
Generally I'd suggest to follow whatever advice on thesis format your advisor gives. However, know that they may not know all the rules, either. Be explicit with your advisor about the advice you need: you have only one article, and you are concerned you will not have three accepted papers by the time you defend. Given that information, do they still think article-based is the way to go?
I'd also consider, though, that the overall format should be only a minor portion of the total work. The important work is the research work that makes the foundation of your PhD. Formatting in articles or a monograph is just the dressing around the edges.


text:
Giving recommandation contact for applying to a PhD: How does it work?
I want to apply for an open position in Luxembourg I found. They ask me to give email addresses of at least 2 references who can provide a reference letter if contacted.
Two of my professors agreed to write a reference letter, but they haven't written it yet.
My question is: Can I already send my application or should I wait for the professors finishing their letters to send it?
Or in other words: When the university will send my referees an e-mail asking for recommandation letters, do they expect that my professors have already written the letters, or will they let them time to write it?
Thank you in advance for your help!

What part of the world are we talking about?

@cag51 Europe, mostly netherlands, belgium, sweden

These kinds of professional requests from an institution to a faculty member can never demand response in less than a couple of weeks—professors just don’t work on that kind of time scale. So I wouldn’t recommend waiting for the letters to be finished before applying. It would be good to be sure your recommenders have at least a month’s notice, though this is tricky in this case with the lack of a clear deadline.


text:
How Far To Chase The Paper?
Because I have autism I am forced to go it alone for writing a computer science research paper outside of conventional US university auspices toward a doctorate by publication through an accredited UK or European university that will offer it.
As such, I know I must do an unassisted literature search.
Is there some agreed-upon standard between computer science departments as to how extensive the search must be to meet professional research standards?
My problem will be affording library access and download fees, which could be a problem as my resources are scant.
Do I therefore include?

USPTO
Freely published papers.
Books available in Gutenberg.
Hobbyist websites.
Anything else freely available.

Am I to include, regardless of the cost or my paper becomes unacceptable?

University reserve libraries for textbooks and proceeding, which may bar the general public.
Relevant topic journals such as ACM or IEEE which are only accessible online for a fee.
Elsvier and Wesley collections having a huge price to access online.
Textbooks through Amazon.

Anything else I haven't thought of?

Why downvote? This is a legitimate circumstance, and a legitimate question.

By doctorate by Publication, are you intending PhD/Doctorate by Publication (retrospective route)?

You might also want to indicate which country is your Doctorate by Publication taking place or intended. Your question might not resonate well with those in the States (especially the retrospective route: prior published work)

Keep in mind that unless the paper or book is only available online at the library, you will likely be able to make photocopies of relevant material. For example, books on reserve -- a few pages here and there in such books could probably be photocopied. Indeed, until relatively recently (e.g. even as late as the late 1990s), this was often the only method for securing copies of published papers, since journal volumes were typically non-circulating. I don't know about libraries near you, but all libraries I've been in the past few years still have photocopy machines scattered about.

I know plenty of researchers with autism. Why does this preclude you from doing a "regular" PhD?

Azor - Because of autism I am poor at taking tests and at oral exams. I can't pass conventional qualifying exams.

Semmyk-research, I am from US. I've done research as a junior author for an employer, I've done my own commercial paper, and I made an algorithm for another employer that I want to write a paper about, and then use in more research before approaching a UK university remotely.

made an algorithm for another employer * please check where the copyright lies (you, the employer, which license did you attach to the code/algorithm?).

@EarlGrey this is suppressed research, I'm treating it after 35 years as abandoned property, see https://github.com/IronAutie/FractalClosedMemory/wiki/CHAPTER-04

Interlibrary loan (ILL). You should be able to get any book or article your want through that, assuming you have library privilege through some institution, even if they don't have all the requisite subscriptions. I have limited literature access, but I have been able to get any book or paper requested through ILL.

@jdods I feel much reassured

It's difficult providing answer, however there are approaches you can take towards conducting lit review (within or outside formal university env)

When conducting lit review, you need to consider couple of things beforehand.

purpose of the review
objective of the review which indicates expected outcome
type of review: systematic, narrative, scoping, rapid review

Search strategy

venue: just as you've listed, where you'll source your articles. Try to leverage community library. Also, if there is a uni around, don't be scare of walking in to request assistance: you might get help.
search criteria informed by purpose and objective
exclusion criteria
results synthesis

That's a broad approach that's applicable across board.
For CS and IS, you can for instance look at Okoli, 2015. There are lots of options.
You can look at PRISMA-ScR (Tricco et al., 2018), if you want to combine the 'rigour' of systematic with the 'flexibility' of scoping.

Both very helpful. I am grateful for the fast and thorough response!

@eternalsquire If it's been helpful, you can do the honour of upvoting (or marking as answer).

I see some go around downvoting (pulling down) Answers with pride with no care or following the pack! This I complained about in my post supporting the June strike.

I upvoted, and tried to mark it as answer. Both papers are the starting points I was looking for. Thank you!

This isn't so much an answer to the concrete question you are asking, as an answer to what I feel is lurking behind it:
At the end of the day, you get a PhD because some committee of people at a university approves your thesis. In other words, the only place where you can get a definitive answer to this or any similar question you have is to ask the members of that committee for their opinion on it. Who those are we cannot know (because you only vaguely describe the university you hope will give you your degree, but in practice, every reputable institution will require you to do a literature review that is comparable to those that are commonly found in theses from that institution -- so start there with looking for examples.
I will add, though, that I would be surprised if you got a reprieve because you lack the funds to access specific literature: PhDs are awarded for original research work (which includes being familiar with the literature) and people will not generally lower their standards to account for a student's financial means. This is one of the (many) reasons why universities do not confer degrees for theses by people not affiliated with the university.

Autistic people like me don't need answers from people seeing "lurking" questions. We only want answers to the actual questions literally asked. I didn't look for pity from an institution regarding means, and I didn't look for the possibility of a doctorate from a university that I did not join even for a doctorate by publication program. Your answer reflects ableistic bias, it's condescending, and it's humiliating. Please retract.

@eternalsquire in this answer please do not take the "lurking" as about you, but about your issue. This answer is trying to make you think about the big picture. In other words: your issue is not the funding. Your issue is that first you find an university supporting you (i.e. accepting you into a PhD program, even without funds) and then you can use their library and other resources to access the literature you need.

@EarlGrey - Chicken and egg problem, but non-degree status for a limited number of hours is one possible solution. Thank you, though.

@eternalsquire You are free to take or leave my answer, but I do think it is worth pointing out that you stated "As such, I know I must do an unassisted literature search." and that that is likely not the right starting point. It's like wanting to write a talk without knowing who the audience is -- it's likely not going to be a hit with whoever ends up being in the audience. This has nothing to do with autism or any other (in)ability. All I tried to point out is that you're starting at the wrong end if you ignore who you're writing the literature review for.

On the matter of cost: nobody is expected to pay those fees to download papers off publisher websites!
You can
1 get access to a university connection and download them for free
2 ask the authors for a copy (they'll be happy to send it)
3 ask acquaintances in Academia to download them for you
You can also pray to saint Alexandra of the hub (I probably can't go into details here but you can imagine)

Because I have autism I am forced to go it alone for writing a
computer science research paper outside of conventional US university
auspices toward a doctorate by publication through an accredited UK or
European university that will offer it.

This is an assumption you've made, and one I'd strongly say is false, off the top of my head I can think of several people with autism in the scientific community that I know, at least a couple of them full professors (and there are probably other's that I know who I'm not thinking of).

As such, I know I must do an unassisted literature search.
Is there some agreed-upon standard between computer science
departments as to how extensive the search must be to meet
professional research standards?

These standards are exactly why people will say you should do a PhD if you want to get into academic research (industry research/R&D is different to academic research). The other reason is that more people who are part of that field means more people you can bounce ideas off or who know key parts of the literature that are relevant to whatever you are working on.

Because of autism I am poor at taking tests and at oral exams. I can't
pass conventional qualifying exams.

If this is the reason you believe you should go it alone and avoid more traditional PhD training, you should change the framing of your question from, "how do I do research alone?" to "which universities can accommodate for my disabilities and how?" Keep in mind a key word you used was conventional. If there is an unconventional way to prove achievement equivalent to what they are testing for that works for you then that solves this problem.
A strong support community, like the kind that develops in a PhD program, is important for producing good results and good papers. If part of the reason you are wanting to "go it alone" so to say is because of social phobias or a preference away from social interaction, keep in mind these people will be the kind who will want to talk to you and go into detail about research while chatting over lunch. Worst case in that scenario, someone might say half jokingly, no work over lunch and half the people will switch to something more conventional while the other half will continue talking about science and just make sure they aren't forcing the dissenting voice to join them.
As a last note, and to confirm your goals, is your goal to get into research and a PhD is a step on this path. Or is it to prove you are skilled/intelligent/smart enough to do research without anyone's help for one reason or another. Despite the fact that basically no one does this, including those who say they did or who everyone else says they did. A PhD is a challenge and involves displaying all of these things even if you get plenty of help and accommodations in order to achieve it.

First option, joining a program with accomodations just for the joy of doing research now and later. It has been, however, my experience that phd residency and qualifications exams are not geared toward people like me. Departments I have encountered over the years do not offer accomodations I am aware of. Does anyone else know?

If anyone knows about a decent ph.d program accommodating people with disabilities that allows open book open notes exams, slower attendance, and  part time residency, I would love to hear about it.

I learn best by doing. But ph.d programs are not formatted that way aside from ph.dd by publication  I really have nothing left to prove. I'm 60 years old and all I want to do is make a recognized original contribution to human knowledge.

@eternalsquire If your goal is just to make an original contribution to human knowledge then maybe a PhD is not what you need. I say to do serious research you need PhD style training, but not necessarily the PhD. The PhD is needed for grants/funding/academic positions/the title Dr, but if you aren't going for those then you can just focus on getting training rather than qualifications.

If you're retired and have money to live off/are only working part time then what you could try to do is to get to know a group in your area who's work you're interested in. Try to find out what they are doing and look up their papers on arXiv.org (a pre-print server that a lot of computer scientists post their papers to before being peer reviewed and published, and are still available after publication). Then get in contact with some of them and say you're interested in their work explain your position and ask if there any group meetings/seminars/colloquium that you could attend.

After meeting in person and getting to know people you could raise your interest in getting PhD like training/collaborating. If someone is interested, you can negotiate for something like an honorary research scholar position giving access to journals. Potentially you can also audit the PhD courses to fill in gaps in knowledge (but wouldn't do the exams). However you'll also have to convince them you'll put the same kind of effort in as PhD students (but no teaching/marking/ect), and deciding if want to put that level of effort in is something you'll have to work out for yourself.

After giving this some thought, I believe I both want a tangible goal to work for (the title) as well as be part of a university community. Thanks anyway.

Even if you decide you want to go for the PhD, beginning in this way will let you get to know the department and know who to speak to if there are issues arising. It will also let you form a community with whom to speak with and learn from (very important if you want to do research). You'll also get to see if research is something you want to pursue after having a taste of it, based on what you've said I'd say you've never experienced academic research yet.

As a last note, make sure you get into a research environment, don't try to do this alone. From what I've seen, crackpots seem to arise from technically skilled people who don't have access to a community who can verify their ideas or tell them how bad they are/where they are weak. Without that feedback they believe themselves and their research to be better than it is and get stuck in their false/simple beliefs. I hate to see people become crackpots and want to make sure you don't make those mistakes.

Having autism, people have condemned me as a crackpot already based on thier perception of my interaction. This is why I have documented accomplishments but no references.


text:
Taking a break from academia between PhD and Postdoc
I am a PhD student in pure mathematics (spefically somewhere along geometric analysis and mathematical physics) expecting to finish my PhD in around a year. Given the difficulty of landing tenure, I was considering looking for a job for a limited period (6 months - 1 year) in something related to data science or modelling, before looking for a Postdoc. I am especially interested in the climate modelling and computer vision and medical imaging routes, but I do not know if I would land such a job right off, since I lack the knowledge or experience on those fields.
I have limited experience programming (mostly learned for fun for coding competitions, where I did not get far) and never had an internship or job outside academia, and I am actually curious if that would even be a better fit for me than an academic career. I nevertheless enjoy research with collaborators with whom I can discuss periodically, and the teaching component. Apart from the fundamental math, I also have a bachelor in Physics.
I was considering doing a bit of work learning the basics of those fields, like trying to construct a toy climate model to learn the fundamentals, or doing some mini coding project in computer vision. Another option would be to try to land a Postdoc in something more applied for more flexibility Academia-Industry, like Topological Data Analysis, given my background in Algebraic Topology, but I do not know if such a thing is realistic without any previous work on the field.
Even if I got such a job, I would consider trying to keep in contact with the people in my field and going to some conference to keep up with the advances, even if I do not do more work by myself than skimming through the new papers published.
It would probably be hard for me to take many courses to fill up the holes in my knowledge because of my teaching duties. Also for the projects I mentioned, I would probably be able to spend only a few hours per week.
I mostly hear around me that, given the difficulty of getting tenure, if you do not follow a linear path and take such a break, it will make things only harder. I could however imagine myself researching in something related to data science, additionally to my current field, and somehow "bringing the knowledge I got in industry to my research profile".
My question is: is this break going to hurt my chances in the future? Which of the above ideas are good for securing good chances in and out of Academia? What are other ideas? Should I just go all in with the Postdoc and think afterwards what to do if it does not work out for me?
If relevant, I am currently based in Germany.

Too personal for a valid answer here. Ask someone you trust and who knows you well.

In the U.S., in math, except conceivably in ultra-super-applied math, opting out for a year would severely handicap you in the inevitable comparisons with people of your same "PhD age" who did not opt out for a year. "In real life", obviously doing such a thing is sensible! ... but, well, the academia game is not about that.

@paulgarrett I guess it's about how much one is willing to sacrifice to even have a chance at becoming an academic. Shouldn't academia be better and take hardship and context into account and not just publication record?

@paulgarrett I suppose most mathematicians would say that being reasonable people and taking context into account would mean "lowering standards" and not basing decisions on "merit."

@Buffy I am giving more context because of the variability between fields and countries. Any answer here I plan to consider just as a suggestion and in the end weight many more things on my decision, but I find it valuable to see what experiences people had and which opinion and information is there out of my social bubble. And perhaps somebody reads this in the future with a similar situation and can get some ideas :)

@cgb5436, yes, there is a "traditional", crazy-macho, standard... Unhealthy as "an industry standard", yes. I've pushed back against it, now and then, e.g., about people who are mathematically talented but did not have lucky circumstances, but it seems to be an unmoveable object.

@paulgarrett If the same is to be expected in Europe, then I guess it might be sensible to rather take the break in between the Master and the PhD (or before). In the US, in case your PhD comes after your undergrad and "contains the Master", I guess you should do that during or right after undergrad?

@User21203924 Definitely. Actually taking a break after undergrad in the US is great, in my opinion. Getting a job, saving up money, and then later pursuing an advanced degree is very sensible.

@User21203924, I confess that I do not know how taking any break would be interpreted by hard-core people on an admissions committee. The inertia of old-time macho stuff is hard to get over... sigh...

@paulgarrett in grad school one of my friends who was working under a well-known number theorist told me that he was considering non-academic jobs and I asked him if his advisor had any advice. He said, "I can't tell my advisor because if I did, he wouldn't take me seriously." It's really, really bad.

@paulgarrett For me the pandemic made it impossible to start my postdoc, and that was it for me. I was finished.

Related: Gap year before post-doc?, Are there benefits to taking a year off before entering academia after completion of the PhD?, Possible pitfalls of taking a year off to travel following a PhD instead of immediately starting with a post-doc position?


text:
Is Indian Journal of Medical Research Impact Factor right?
I was searching for Journal Impact Factor on internet, after that I came across a website named Journals Insights.
I'll like to know if the Impact Factor mentioned on the website is correct or not?
Specifically, the IF for the Indian journal of medical research

I have checked the 'official' Impact Factor at Clairviate Journal Citation Reports, and yes, the 2023 value is 4.2. This is down from a high of 5.3 last year, but significantly up from values in the range of 1.2-1.5 pre-2020.
Looking at the most cited papers from the past 2 years, 20 of the top 25 are COVID-19 related, and several of the others are more general reviews of relevance to COVID-19 (respiratory illnesses, obesity). So the journal has seen a huge upswing due to these COVID-related papers, but it remains to be seen if this will persist as we move back to more normal publishing patterns.

I cannot say whether that website is accurate. But I can say that impact factors are put out by Clarivate. So if you want to check a journals impact factor, or even verify that the journal has an impact factor at all, look at Clarivate's Master Journal List. I think some of the specific metrics (impact factor possibly included) are locked behind a subscription though. Alternatively, you can just look at the journal's home page directly. I suppose they could lie there, but that's out of your control.

On face value, the Journals Insights is an aggregator with fairly good metrics.

The Journals Insights appears to be an aggregator. As to its credibility, I can not say. However, going by the listing for this Indian Journal of Medical Research, it is not far off.
It listed the SJR as 0.716. On Scimago, the SJR is 0.72 with H-index of 96.
Regarding impact factor (IF), the Journals Insights says the "Impact Factor of Indian Journal of Medical Research is 4.2 (2023)".
However, the journal's website says "Impact Factor® as reported in the 2022 Journal Citation Reports® (Clarivate Analytics, 2022): 5.274".
This is similar to another aggregator: "Indian Journal of Medical Research is 5.274, which is just updated in 2023."
PS: can't vouch for this Academic accelerator as well.
Scopus Preview shows that the journal (with two previous names) and ISSN:0971-5916 has a cite score of 5.6 as of May 2023.
PS: The SJR of 0.716 matches that of Journals Insights.
Likewise, the ISSN matches that of Scimago and Journals Insights.

Print ISSN    0971-5916
Online ISSN   0975-9174


text:
Seeking Advice: No Citation from a PI I Applied to Work With, Who Built on My Preprint
Last year, I applied to multiple PhD programs with limited research experience but worked hard to publish a preprint on arXiv and submitted it to a workshop before the application cycle. One of the programs I applied to had a PI whose work closely aligned with the topic of my paper, I actually even cited this PI in my preprint, but I was ultimately rejected from that program. Fortunately, I ended up at a better school, so I wasn't too disappointed. My workshop submission was also rejected, and while my work wasn't groundbreaking, it did include a substantial number of experiments and an exploration of the mathematical setup for a specific problem. The primary outcome of my work was an empirically supported hypothesis: "You can get y, only if you get x." Which was the main contribution of my paper
Fast forward to this year, I came across a new preprint, and the same PI is listed as the third author. The paper builds directly on the hypothesis from my preprint, though it extends the work significantly—introducing a new metric and proving bounds on the problem, which I hadn’t done. However, the basic problem setup in their paper is the same as what I had established, and their experiments closely mirror mine. Essentially, they reached the same conclusions I did but added solution to measure this observed issue.
Their approach seems to start from the point where my work left off, but almost working backward from the hypothesis I presented. To give an example, my hypothesis was: "You can only have y if you have x." Their work suggests: "We present z, because without z, sometimes you can only have y if you have x." It feels like they couldn’t have arrived at their starting point without first having some of the insights from my work.
The issue is that I wasn't cited or acknowledged at all. Under other circumstances, I might have let it go, assuming they had similar ideas or were working on this independently. But given that I applied to work with this PI, it's almost certain they reviewed my profile and knew about my preprint.
I'm currently a first-year student with very little leverage, and this PI is at a very prestigious institution. I feel that at the very least, my work should have been cited. I'm seeking advice on how to handle this situation. What can I do when I feel like my contributions have been overlooked, but the power dynamics are clearly not in my favor?

Have you discussed this with your advisor? And, if so, please share concisely the outcome.

I have not discussed this with my advisor. As I said, I have just started the program and have known my advisor for 1 month only. So I dont even know if this should be brought up with them.

Since you’re discussing a preprint, do you think this might be the time to engage your advisor?

Frankly, given that this PI was working in the area already, I would not rule out that they were doing the work before you even contacted them.

@JonCuster That is very true and I have not ruled out that possibility at all. Frankly it is probably the case. But the point im making is that that PI definitely knew about my work, because they had to have reviewed my profile. So given they knew that similar work was out there why not cite it?

Well, how about this: PI is working in the area. Grad student of theirs is working several topics. You apply to the department. PI, who may or not be on the admissions committee, but if on the committee may or not read your application or look at your arXiv submission. Six months later their grad student brings them the paper to polish up and submit. What are the odds that the PI remembers anything about you or your arXiv submission?

There's also the possibility that you were motivated to study the question because you saw something in a paper of theirs and that, as a consequence, you've been doing things in parallel to things they've been doing for a long time. It wouldn't be strange in that case that you formulated the problem the way you did because you were inspired by the way they had been thinking about it.

It is of course possible that the PI violated your priority.
But from what you tell us, it is hard to come to this conclusion.
The PI is working in the field and has been thinking about it. Your contribution was judged to not warrant publication, maybe because it was not considered to be significant or because it was lacking originality. For example, what you investigated could have been common knowledge in the field that nobody had put into written form. This sometimes happens. Second, it is possible that all the worth of the PI's paper is in the added material. For example, some conjectures are easy to make, but finding evidence for them is very difficult. Third, assuming for a moment that the paper got its idea from you, the PI is not the primary author, which makes it more likely that the ideas from your contribution that you see copied did not come through the PI but that the PI acted in an advisory or auxiliary role. In this case, the primary author(s) might have seen your ArXiv paper and it triggered an investigation.
The only reasonable way for you to ascertain whether you were wronged is to have someone else familiar with the field look at it. This is the first and most important step.
Second, if indeed you were wronged, you need to decide what to do. You could complain to the PI's institution, who then might set up a committee to investigate and, if the evidence is good enough, force the PI to apologize to you. Electronic copies of their preprint would then be changed to have a citation of your work. This outcome seems to be unattractive given the amount of grief it will cause you, and it would be again imperative to seek some unbiased advice.


text:
Springer eProofing reminder messages
My paper was accepted to a journal owned by Springer publishing. It took 1.5 years to get to this final stage. After acceptance, Springer waited another 2(!) months to send the paper to proof-reading.
Once it reached proof-reading, I received a message to correct and approve the e-proof they created. I was already on vacation at this point and did not get back to them in time. I received a reminder 2(!) days later, and another 4 reminders since then every 2 days. After each email I replied explaining that I am on vacation and I will deal with it once I am back. Never received a response from them and the threatening "reminder" emails just keep coming from them.
I wonder if you find this bullying behaviour normal? I also wonder how far I can go? Will they at certain point retract the acceptance of the paper? Can they do that? This is just a hypothetical exercise, I am intending to finish the work when I get back, but I am very surprised by this attitude. Am I supposed to whip out my computer on a backpacking trip and finish the editing just because it is finally a priority for them?
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Edit with questions:

How long can I wait until my paper is finally rejected?
Are they allowed to reject my paper in such a case? (Please note that this is for an online publication of the paper. It is not for a special issue, which I would understand.)

Firstly, this is a rant, not a question. Secondly, what's happening is that a computerized system is sending you automatic reminders. There is no "attitude" or "bullying" here.

While it may be inaccurate to refer to this as "bullying", I would agree that such practices of journals to set tight deadlines on short notice, while not reacting to related inquiries in appropriate time, are common and have an aspect of institutionalized rudeness to them.

Am I supposed to whip out my computer on a backpacking trip and finish the editing just because it is finally a priority for them? -- As @Adam Přenosil has already said, this is a rant (and likely coming from an automated system), but as rants go this sentence is nicely worded!

Your replies to the reminders probably went to the copy-editing/printing/proof-reading folks. Or maybe just to the computer that generates the reminders. I think it would be good to write to the editor who handled your paper; inform him/her about the situation and ask for a time extension that you'd consider reasonable.

Thanks I will do that @AndreasBlass

@Stata_user If this is your first time publishing in a Springer journal, here is some advice: read the proofs carefully, so that you can catch all the typos that their copyeditors have introduced.

@academic: That is also true. In my last publication they changed all words in the title to lower case, including the word Netherlands.

It doesn't seem to me like "bullying", but an attempt to meet a deadline for a particular issue. If you don't comply they will have to postpone publication until they find an appropriate slot, assuming a print publication. If the current slot is in a special issue then missing the deadline will have worse consequences, of course. I doubt it would include retraction, but would probably imply delay.
If you can't comply, then you can't, but it isn't bullying. Unfortunate, of course.

I don't think its a print publication. This is only for online publication.


text:
Can graphics created with Wolfram Mathematica be freely used and distributed?
This is just a simple question. I would like to know if one can use graphics generated by Mathematica (for example, plots) in one's paper and then upload that paper anywhere on the internet.
I would also like to know if one can freely use and upload the graphics alone (for example, in PDF or JPG format) anywhere on the internet.

@BenCrowell But this doesn't affect Wolfram Mathematica, does it?

There is nothing wrong with making public an image created with Mathematica; that's the whole point of the software. The license restricts your rights regarding what you can do with the software package itself (no copying, reverse-engineering, selling, etc), but not the content you produce using the software. If that was the case, no one could use the software to do anything.
You may, however, be restricted by the journal to which you submitted your article. The publication holds all rights to your article, including the figures. You may retain some rights to using the images in your own work (e.g., presentations); you'd have to check with your specific journal.

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and this is not a legal advice, blabla.
Your software license type generally determine what kind of use of the software is allowed: e.g educational license allow only educational use, therefore you cannot make figure eg. for a research paper. Also, if you have some academic license, it often restrict any for-profit use, i.e. you cannot make a figure and sell it to someone or upload it to a stock photo database.