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How do we end the culture of “endless hours at work”?
In many of the research groups I’ve worked at or visited, there is a culture that endless hours in the lab equal successful researcher. (I am in a theoretical field, so requirement of long-running experiments are outside of the picture. Let's ignore them in this discussion.) In chemistry, a widely-known example of this culture is the following letter:

I would like to provide for you in written form what is expected from you as a member of the research group. In addition to the usual work-day schedule, I expect all of the members of the group to work evenings and weekends. You will find that this is the norm here at Caltech. On occasion, I understand that personal matters will make demands on your time which will require you to be away from your responsibilities to the laboratory. However, it is not acceptable to me when it becomes a habit.
I have noticed that you have failed to come in to lab on several weekends, and more recently have failed to show up in the evenings. Moreover, in addition to such time off, you recently requested some vacation. I have no problem with vacation time that is well earned, but I do have a problem with continuous vacation and time off that interferes with the project. I find this very annoying and disruptive to your science.
I expect you to correct your work-ethic immediately.
I receive at least one post-doctoral application each day from the US and around the world. If you are unable to meet the expected work-schedule, I am sure that I can find someone else as an appropriate replacement for this important project.

I have fallen prey to this during my PhD, doing very long hours. Now that I manage a research team, what is good advice to help fight this culture in my team? (Obviously, I don't want students and post-docs to get the message that little work is required either.)
Things I already do to that end:

When a new group member comes in and they get the out-of-hours building pass (for Sundays and late nights), mention that they are not expected to use it on a regular basis.
Avoid planning meetings at unusual hours (bank holidays, week-ends, etc.)

Is that a real letter?

Repeated unpaid overtime is a sign of insecurity and lack of boundaries, from both the employer and the employee.

I thought USA overcame slavery?

@emory Yes, the letter is real. For more background, click the letter itself (it is a link to a more detailed discussion). It is famous at least in the chemistry community. The letter’s addressee actually enjoyed a successful career. Interviewed in 2010 for the Boston Globe, the letter’s author “said that he had been advised by a lawyer not to comment on the validity or the context of the letter” (duh!).

Also, I should say that the main quote is often used tongue-in-cheek by people who know the letter, e.g. “I notice that you didn't bring cake to share as usually on Friday. I expect you to correct your work-ethic immediately.”

There are post-docs who try to get away with working 4-6 hours per day. My guess is that Guido was one of them. Show up at 9:30, take a few 15-30 minute breaks during the day, take a 90-minute lunch, go home at 4:30. That's not going to cut it in a competitive environment.

@user2643: Then why didn't the letter say that? The letter specifically stated, "In addition to the usual work-day schedule, I expect all of the members of the group to work evenings and weekends", and complained only that "I have noticed that you have failed to come in to lab on several weekends, and more recently have failed to show up in the evenings." It did not include any complaints about a failure to fulfill "the usual work-day schedule" (aside from an explicit vacation request).

@ruakh I think user2643 was implying Guido was one of those lazy post-docs trying to get away with working 9:30-4:30 on Saturday, Sunday, Christmas, or the day of birth of one of his children.

Chemistry is a field of repetitive experiments and work. Not a surprise at all...

I had only seen this in PhDComics (and I believed it), but never thought it could happen so explicitly.

clicking the letter now takes you to an error page…

In the different groups I worked in, their respective cultures were always the result of the behaviour of the leader. So lead by example. In particular, some useful hints from my experience would be:
E-Mails: don't send e-mails in non-office hours, especially not requests for help with something. No e-mails on weekends and late night are a signal which everybody "gets" after a short while.
Social activities: support group's social life. A group hike to nearby mountains (in office hours on a working day!), or a joint trip to a museum sends a signal that taking time off is an important part of one's life. We used to do it on occasion of having a guest researcher (for a study stay, or just a seminar talk). It's good for group's cohesion and again tells people that rest time is also very useful.
Personal relationship: care for private lives of your group members. Build relationship with their families. Speak to them about their personal activities, about their vacations, kids, etc. and do not forget to give back and speak about yours. These kinds of discussions send a powerful signal that you perceive time off in a positive way and even encourage it, since you take it as well.
Plan well ahead: clear plans and roadmaps in projects allow people to plan their time off as well. Nothing more annoying than a spurt interfering with one's private life to deliver some report, because the boss didn't care to tell the group ahead.
Time in the office: being in computer science, where I do not need to spend time in a lab and can easily work anywhere, I was always lucky to have bosses who cared for deliverables, rather than for my time in the office. After all, most of my good ideas are born in weird places, such as under shower, while on a bike, walking in woods, and by reading stuff outdoors. Making it clear with the group members that you care first and foremost for deliverables and are flexible regarding the actual time in the office (within reasonable bounds and respecting the local laws and regulations) works well. My experience is also that people tend to deliver better if they are given the power to plan their time and process, rather being forced to mantinels set by their supervisor.
Generally, I found it always very comfortable in groups where having kids was something nice and for what the group leader and members cared. Nothing is worse than a group where work interacts negatively with one's family life and where going home before 6pm to care for kids at home is perceived as something bad.

Should I feel wrong for reading this on a Saturday morning? ;)

Good idea regarding emails; I often use boomerang to send emails at a future date (eg 8:30 am on the next working day)

Well, can your postdocs/grad students/whoever compete with their peers if they only spend 40-60 hours working instead of 60-80?  If the answer is "no", you're actually doing them a disservice by trying to fix the system on your own.  Some fields don't require much thought or brainpower.  You can plan a thousand hours of experiments in an afternoon, and then you're left to just do it.  In that case, your postdocs/etc. will just be outworked by others, which will negatively impact any future careers they might want in science.  It's not very nice, but that's the way things are.
On the other hand, if you're in a field where quality of work and depth of insight are really important, you should not merely stress working less, but stress working intelligently and efficiently.  This will help your postdocs/etc. to maintain a less absurd and exploitative lifestyle while still producing results that are as good as or better than those who work under incredible pressure.

Doesn't your first argument assume that success is more important that happiness?

Regarding success vs. happiness, there's a genuine trade-off here.  If a student decides they care more about their personal life than career success, then that's reasonable.  If a student hopes for a tenure-track job at a research university and doesn't realize that their advisor isn't pushing them hard enough to achieve that, then that's not a positive outcome, even if the student enjoys grad school more in the meantime.

This doesn't really answer the question, it just reenforces the culture the OP is hoping to change.  Yes the current system/culture rewards obsessive work but the question is how can we change this.

@DQdlM - You can change the culture by producing equally good science without the obsessiveness.  You cannot change the culture by willfully underperforming on principle; this leaves nothing by which to distinguish you from someone who just isn't very good.  (Or you can change the system by reclassifying scientific research as work, and requiring overtime pay and such, but this is a legislative not individual action.)

I think you highlight the principle challenge.  You are defining the quality of the science by the quantity.  We are perfectly capable of performing science of equal quality w/o working weekends, thus this should not be considered underperforming.

@DQdlM - Depends if you have to think, or merely move things around.  A lot of biology, for example, is you moving things around.  If you spend fewer hours, you move less stuff, and don't get as far.  This means that people who are willing to drive themselves absurdly hard will make you look like an ineffective scientist.  You can't just not play that game except by losing; you have to do something game-changingly different (like becoming an engineer and automating the routine stuff so that it is thinking clearly and cleverly which is the limiting step).

I'm not convinced it's a just matter of quality vs. quantity.  Instead, you get increasing (rather than diminishing) returns.  I believe that if you systematically spend more time thinking and learning, you won't just produce more work at the same or lower quality level.  Instead, your insights and perspective will increase like compound interest.  In the end, you'll do work that's deeper and qualitatively better than what you could have done with less time.  If you can manage to work 60 hours per week efficiently, you'll do better research than someone with equal talent who only works 40.

@AnonymousMathematician - I don't argue with that; the question I'd ask is whether you're going to spend, say, 75 hours a week at a lab bench, or 40 hours at a lab bench and 10 hours a week learning how to program in Matlab and 5 hours reading popular accounts of science you don't know and so on, then the person can possibly both have a more balanced life and be more productive.  If you are actually a mathematician, I'd point out that you are supposed to spend your research time thinking and learning.  This is not true for the majority of researchers even in the sciences.

I have the impression that in these fields, many people race against each other for doing the same thing first (say, on stem cells). If you come second, your work is wasted. That would explain the culture. But is my assumption correct?

@Blaisorblade - Yes, that's approximately correct--you need to be first or very close to be thought of highly.

"Some fields don't require much thought or brainpower" Then these tasks shouldn't be left to scientists. Let them handle the thinking, and the mindless execution should be done by technicians who are properly compensated for it.


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How to evaluate a book, rather than a paper, on a scientific subject?
In academia we collectively evaluate the validity, quality and significance of shorter publications - papers - with a complex system of conferences and journals. With all its flaws, you can get a typically-not-so-bad idea about those aspects of a published paper by looking at things like venue and citations.
But that's not the case with books. I don't have any experience publishing books, but obviously it's not the same process as for papers.
Now, suppose I've entered a field which I've studied through papers; and I now want to either teach from a book, offer it to someone for some concentrated self-study, or cite from it. Also suppose I have some specific books I'm considering. How would I obtain some sort of evaluation or review of them, overall or by specific criteria such as correctness of proofs, rigor, clarity, narrative flow, being up-to-date etc.?
Note: Of course you can evaluate a book pretty well by reading it, but the idea is to choose what to get and read.

It is true that books (unlike published papers) are not peer-reviewed.  So all the snake-oil purveyors do it by writing books—with an M.D. after their name, the gullible public will (sometimes) eat it up.

@GEdgar That's not true. Many academic publishers in fact peer review their books.

Obviously, this question asks about reliable predictors for the quality of a book. Otherwise the answer can only be: You evaluate a book by reading it. With this out of the way:

Ask around. In particular when you are interested in using a textbook for a course, ask people who have directed similar courses.
Publishers. There is an informal hierarchy of publishers that can be used to predict a book's quality, just like conference venues and journal ranks for papers. This differs between disciplines, but the edge-cases are vanity presses (low-end) and Famous University Presses™ (high-end).
Citations. Just like for journal articles you can count the citations of a book to estimate its impact (with all the known caveats).
Reviews in journals. Many journals publish a review section. You can search these for discussions of the book that you are interested in.
Peer review. Some publishers also send full book manuscripts or at least the book proposal with sample chapters out for peer-review.
Professionals. Ask your trusted librarian for advice.

+1 for reminding me that journals are more than the collection of refereed papers they publish. I should actually have a look at those things.

(This is a semi-joke answer, in that I would like to discard it as a joke answer but I've actually been applying it.)
Online bookstore reviews. Specifically, reviews on amazon.com. Example 1 (for some Computer Science book with few reviews), Example 2 (a more popular and well-known Computer Science book).
Different people review based on different criteria, and mostly the reviews are very short and terse, but it gives you some idea of what the book is like, and various things to watch out for.

@Magicsowon Isn't accessibility a good thing? Or do you mean seeming accessibility, i.e. the content is easy to understand but is actually wrong?

@Magicsowon Do not confuse accessibility with depth of coverage.  It is possible, although not easy, to write a very accessible book that also covers the subject thoroughly.  And vice-versa.

@Magicsowon: If they justify their choices, i.e. explain why they like/hate the book, that's more contentful than the abstract "score".

Where should I read reviews: journals or Amazon? Reviews from journals seem only an aggregate from reviewers, while on Amazon people can rate and comment on them

@Ooker: If you find a review in a journal, obviously read that - it would be much more thorough. Stiil, bookstore review do give you the opinions of many people, so if a point comes up repeatedly there's probably something to it.

@einpoklum but I don't see how a review in a journal better than in Amazon. Since the books are specialized, only reviewers who do understand it can write good reviews. I read elsewhere in this site that reviews in journals are not peer-reviewed

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Have US universities seen a significant increase in administrative workforces relative to academic activity?
I was recently made aware of a study (caveat: from 2014) indicating that, supposedly, US academic institutions have taken on non-academic staff at a much higher overall rate than the increase in the student population, counting from 1987 and unti 2011-2012.
Now, the think-tank which authored this study seems fishy to me, but I don't live and work in the US, so I wanted to ask for corroboration or refutation of its claims based on your experience and knowledge.
Note: Academic activity and number of students is not the same thing; information relative either to the former or the latter is relevant.

I'm wondering why you think a non-partisan, large thinktank is fishy?

Nearly every university makes public the number of its faculty and administrative staff members as part of the Common Data Set; you can certainly check any sample that you feel would be representative. Whether any particular ratio is "overly large" is opinion-based.

I’m totally sure that audit and reporting burdens have fallen dramatically over the last 33 years.

Not really sure being from 2014 is that much of a caveat

@PeterK.: 1. Think tanks typically serve the interests of their funders. I don't know who funds this one so I'm suspicious - especially if it's large 2. If its prominent clients include the US foreign-meddling agency USAID and large for-profit corporations, I'm suspicious 2. Both large US political parties actively favor the interests of large capitalists (individuals and corporations) over other social interests - in a "non-partisan" fashion.

@AzorAhai--hehim: Well, I'm asking this question in 2020.

Define "overly large". I'm pretty sure that such staff has increased, but so have services as well as governmental regulations. What to one person is overly large is, to another, just right. In many places, also, some services to professors have declined. There is less secretarial help available, and professors now type all their own work, rather than having it done. My doctoral dissertation was typed by a secretary skilled in math typing. I paid for it, of course.

@Buffy: See edit.

https://www.thirdway.org/report/how-higher-education-data-reporting-is-both-burdensome-and-inadequate Might be enlightening

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How much actual funding does a Marie Curie fellowship entail?
The EU has a research fellowship program named after Physicist Marie Skłodowska-Curie. The website lacks a bunch of information, but I'm specifically interested in understanding what kind of funding it actually provides in the Individual Fellowship (IF) track. The linked-to-page says:

The grant provides an allowance to cover living, travel and family costs. In addition, the EU contributes to the training, networking and research costs of the fellow, as well as to the management and indirect costs of the project.

If you've received such a grant, participated in fund allocation, or saw the "books" at a hosting institution, I'd like to know more about what amounts of money they're talking about.
Specific points you could elaborate on:

Is the funding a lump sum? Per-year? Per-month?
Is the host institute's part figured as a percentage of the overall funding? Independently of it?
Do the applicants (individual + institution) ask for certain amounts, or does the program set them?
If it's the latter, what are the fixed amounts? Or the criteria for setting them?
Can you give a specific/typical example (no personal identifying information please) of the amount of funds some researcher, and their hosting institute, have gotten?

Obviously - no need to address all of the points.

MSCA is a set of funding fellowships, like the Individual Fellowship (IF), the Innovative Training Networks (ITN), or the Research and Innovation Staff Exchanges (RISE), are you asking for any specific call or in general? Because the funding varies between fellowships.

@MatiasValdenegro: You're right. Edited to clarify the question is about IF.

The website has a bunch of information if you look in the right place, in the applicant guide. All your questions are essentially answered by this paragraph:

The living allowance is the EU contribution to the gross salary costs of the researcher and amounts to EUR 4,880 per month. It can only be used to this end.
This amount is adjusted through  the  application  of  a country  correction  coefficient (CCC) for the cost of living according to the country in which the beneficiary is located. For the outgoing phase of the Global Fellowship, the country correction coefficient of the TC partner organisation will be applied. However, the adjusted amount will not change in case  of  secondments  to  a  partner  organisation  in  another  MS  or  AC.  The  country correction coefficients that will be applied are indicated in Table 1 in Part 3 of the Work Programme (Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions).

I'll let you read the rest. There is also a mobility allowance of 600€/month and a family allowance of 500€/month. There are also a few annex costs. Bear in mind that this is a gross amount.
I didn't search for the Work Programme (it's somewhere online, I imagine), but in France, the resulting net salary is around 3000€/month, which is extremely good for a postdoc; to give an idea, the median net salary for employees is 1789€ nationwide. I have a few friends who got or supervised postdocs like this in several European countries, none of them had to complain about the salary, quite the contrary.

What is an MS or an AC? I've noticed they use those acronyms a lot.

I don't have concrete numbers but can confirm that the salary is quite generous. A colleague got this in the UK and when he tried to open a bank account the bank first assumed it is a quarterly salary because they didn't believe he would be paid that much every month.

@quarague: It's not quite generous, but rather, typical researcher salaries in many countries are ridiculously low. Comparing these salaries to the media wage is a really low bar. But thanks.

@einpoklum-reinstateMonica Let's say Marie Curie fellowships are closer to professor salaries than postdoc salaries. Including allowances this comes to about 6k Euros a month pretax , postdocs in Germany, NL, France, GB are more around 4.5k per month. I agree that comparing to median salaries is useless, there is a massive difference in qualification.

@quarague: Well, if you add the mobility allowance and the family allowance and get to 6k EUR, then yes, I agree.

@einpoklum-reinstateMonica The mobility and family allowance are directly paid out to you together with the salary. I think they only need these because they are not adjusted with the country correction coefficient, but in western europe that coefficient is (should be) equal to 1 anyway. Note that the family one you only get if you are married or have kids.

@quarague Actually the coefficient can swing quite a bit even between countries in Western Europe. Though most of these places it will be at least 1.

This question was asked years ago, but I still want to share my experience as it was very frustrating to find out after the fact.
Per country the implementation of the grant differs. I had my MCIF in the Netherlands. I receive the legally obliged salary (CAO scale 11), and no penny extra. No family allowance, no travel allowance. Not even my full travel costs are reimbursed.
Obviously this upset me, and I informed the ERC people. They contacted the university and sided with the university that this is fair. The idea is that the minimum legal salary in NL is much higher than the MCIF minimum salary, so this CAO salary is plenty to cover minimum MCIF + travel + family allowance.
So for NL it doesn't matter if you receive the family allowance or not you salary will always be minimum CAO salary. The university just uses the allowance to decrease the cost for themselves.
I wish I would've had the option to tell ERC that I won't be using the mobility and family allowance so they could fund someone else with it.

Thanks for taking the time to share your experience, and I hope this will be useful to future post-docs. Did you try contacting your representative labor union, the AC-HOP?

Can I just clarify, are you saying your CAO salary was greater than the MCIF salary, but less than MCIF salary+travel+allowance, and the Marie Curie admin sided with the university to allow you to just be paid the CAO scale? That's surprising to me - I had a similar issue on my MCIOF where I was paid more than the salary part but less than the full allowance, and the university was directed to pay me the difference in full at the end of the fellowship. The idea of the university being allowed to simply pocket the balance was never on the table, so this is completely opposite to my experience.

I should note this was in a different host country, but in communication with the university the Marie Curie admin were very clear that this was their standard policy for all fellowships, so I don't think that should make a difference.

Same experience as Hanna in the NL. The salary is not nearly as high as advertised, in the end even the courses are charged from the personal allowance and not from the institutional allowance. It feels like a racket. Extremely misleading.

You guys (= Marie Curie fellows) should really do something about this. Too bad there isn't some EU-level federation of academic staff unions. Still, you might try to persuade single-nation level academic staff unions to intervene on your behalf to at least not have you charged for courses; or alternatively form an association of the fellows, and then lobby the EU about this matter, or even sue the fellowship program etc.

In Italy it is very convenient if you have assegno di ricerca. It is 4.400 euros net per month (including travel and family allowance). My total grant is about 190.000 euros.


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Should I give my affiliation as "independent" to protest my institution's funding policies?
In the following situation: I made research about some topic X in the field of Computer Engineering, submitted a paper and it got accepted. Actually it was an independent research that I have done while working as an information technology lecturer. Now the institution in which I am working does not want to give any financial support for the publishing of this research, what it would be the most ethical thing to do?

Put into my academic affiliation the place that I am working as a lecturer? that will count as a publication for their Faculty, but I believe that is not fair that they do not even try to pay for any expenses.
Put in my academic affiliation that I am an independent researcher, would that be advisable? maybe some academics would believe that I am not serious enough.

I believe that once I read some cases of people submitting papers as independent researchers, there were not so many, but those cases were real. For me I believe there is not so much difference, because what it matters is what is inside the article.
Any advice?
Thanks

How is this different from your previous question on this subject?

I have edited your title to more specifically state your question as I understand it.  If I haven't got it right, please feel free to edit.

I'm not sure that I see an ethical issue here.  Ethically, I think you are free to omit your affiliation if you so choose.
But I don't see any benefit to you by doing so.  It may be a symbolic jab at your institution for not funding you, but it's not going to directly hurt them in any way: nobody is going to notice except you and them. On the other hand, it certainly can directly hurt you and your relationship with your institution.  As just one example, they might decline to consider that publication as part of your research record when they evaluate you (e.g. for tenure).  Or, more seriously, they might decide that if you don't want to be associated with them, they don't want to be associated with you; and therefore stop employing you (if your contract permits it).
Clearly you have some issues with your employer, and I hope you are able to improve matters somehow.  But what you suggest seems at best ineffective and at worst self-destructive.

It can be a more than just symbolic jab, I'd say. If the place's funding is at least partly based on their publications, and it doesn't count as their publication without the affiliation, it'll be a jab (a small one) for real.

Assuming you are paid full time as a lecturer and your terms of employment cover research as well as lecturing (traditional balanced role), then that is support for your research and must be acknowledged unless your employer agrees otherwise.

Ethically you should put ALL the affiliations that contributed to the work. This included contributing to ANY of your expenses, living costs, research costs, travel costs, laboratory infrastructure, computer equipment, etc. used for the research.
If you are not paid by ANYONE to do (teaching and) research in the area of your paper, did not make use of ANY facilities or equipment not owned by you, did not do ANY work or thinking on an employer's time (think intellectual property) then you can say it is independent research, otherwise the affiliation of the supporter must be acknowledged.  The primary source of support should be the primary affiliation.  Depending on the publication venue you can provide additional affiliations or acknowledge other support in footnotes or acknowledgements.  Funding for publication (from you or an organisation) can be mentioned in the acknowledgements like any other funding, and all funding really should be acknowledge unless the funder wishes otherwise.  If you are affiliated with the funder (e.g. for self-funding through your consultancy) then this can go as an additional affiliation.  This sharing of affiliation also makes clear that your university did not pay for everything needed.
I have never put "independent researcher" but have always put a relevant business/company name in some cases where support was officially declined for the project and/or I was between jobs or consulting.  Putting "independent researcher" conveys the impression that this work is so unimportant that nobody would pay for it. As a consultant or employee, anything not actually covered by your contract and payment can be regarded as your intellectual property and independent research.
If you are an "independent researcher" then you have obtain your funding yourself, you support yourself, and are not receiving a salary to undertake research in the area of the paper, and you should thus regard yourself as a business and set things up as a business.  You can register a business name or a partnership (e.g. with your wife) or incorporate a company, and use this name.  Depending on where you are (legal residence/place of business) partnerships relating to your actual names may not need to be formally registered.
I am frequently in a position where I am a visiting professor somewhere and put both my substantive position and my visiting affiliation in an order that relates to where the bulk of the research and/or writing was done.  But you really need to be able to justify this.
To make a closely related point based on the same ethical principals (often enshrined in a code of ethics by university, funding bodies, professional associations and/or journals): If you did any work on the paper or the underlying research at a university, you need to list the affiliation. If anyone else contributed in any way to the intellectual content or written form, this needs to be acknowledged, and if they contributed to both then they need to be an author, unless they specifically request otherwise.
Incidentally just providing funding (cash) or services (reviewing, technical assistance) doesn't require an affiliation or authorship byline, but should be included in the acknowledgements.  On the other hand, provision of technical services or reviewing assistance that went beyond the call of duty and actually changed the direction of the project or lead to new conclusions (i.e. provided intellectual input and created intellectual property) does require the authorship and affiliation byline rather than just acknowledgement.

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Why don't all disciplines follow a double-blind review system?
I'm new to the journal publishing world, and I can't but help wonder why the review process isn't completely blind?  By blind, I mean the reviewers don't know who performed the research or (more importantly) what university the research came from.  It seems that knowing the identity of the authors could influence the review such that the quality of the research no longer stands by itself. You should be able to read an article and, assuming that the experiment was conducted accurately and ethically, decide if it is a significant scientific advancement. Why are reviews not routinely double-blind?

In fields with a vibrant pre-print culture (e.g. Physics or Math), most papers are already publicly posted on the internet with the authors name attached before the paper is submitted and reviewed.  In that context, double-blind reviewing isn't even a sensible option.
Even without pre-prints the same is true of talks in some fields.  For many papers, many potential referees will have already seen a talk at a conference on the results in the paper.  This may be especially true of math where the process of writing up a paper in full detail is especially onerous, so it's common for people to be giving talks on topics while the paper is in preparation.

A recent example I came across is that the Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics doesn't blind the author of the paper because it is impractical to disseminate supplementary material (which is frequently hosted on the authors personal website). Authors can ask for double-blind though if they prefer.

I don't think the argument that "review often can't be double-blind" is an argument against the benefits of using double-blind review. Just because some articles in some disciplines sometimes would already be published with a name, does not mean that the journals cannot try to do double-blind review.

@Behacad When there is no way the review will effectively be double-blind anyway (which is the case for mathematics), it would make journal editorial boards look extremely silly if they were to go through all the extra work (and put the authors through the extra work) involved in doing reviews double-blind.

Are more than 50% of manuscripts really published before formal peer-review? That is interesting indeed. But still, I see this only applying to some disciplines.

@Behacad I keep a feed of two subjects on arXiv, and I would be surprised to find even a few papers per year which were relevant to my work and which I had not already seen on that feed.

Further, in fields like experimental particle physics where there are relatively few large scale projects, the simple details of the measurement (even for a "small author-list" paper on some side measurement for reducing systematics) generally reduce the candidate pool to a just a few possible groups.

Years ago, the Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society experimented with blind refereeing, and I was a blind referee for one paper. The main part of my report was essentially: "If the author is X, accept the paper. If not, put the author in touch with X, who presented the same results at conference Y."

@AndreasBlass: That summarizes the issue so perfectly!

@Nate Eldredge, It also summarizes the issue of author bias perfectly. The paper should have mentioned the results at the conference, and cited it regardless if it was the same author or not. Further, the paper should have been accepted or rejected based on its contents regardless of the Author.

@Hjan: It would be a nightmare if people could plagiarize other people’s work and still get it accepted because the referee assumed the submission came from the real author.  And if every paper says “these results were presented by X at conferences A, B, and C” then doubleblindness is doing nothing.

@NoahSnyder The "real" authors should also cite their own work, and if in the new work indeed nothing substantial is added, the new work should not be accepted. There should be no difference in extending your own work or that of others. Although, in some communities, minor extensions and variations of the same work published by the same authors are tollerated. Double blind review, combined with minimal incremental value criteria could be a good tool to mitigate such 'salami slicing' publications.

A talk in math is not "work."  You have to eventually write up the details.

It might be helpful to clarify that mathematics works very differently from most other fields. Theoretical mathematics is a slow field, and papers have much more longevity than a typical conference paper (which do not exist in most of mathematics). Many mathematicians (not just established researchers) give the same talk many times at conferences and local seminars, and this can occur at any stage in the write-up process.

Theoretical computer science uses single-blind reviewing almost exclusively.  Reviewers know the authors of the papers they review, but authors do not who reviews their papers.  (As with many things, we copy this attitude from mathematics.)
I think the main reasons we don't use double-blind reviewing are that (1) we never have, (2) we have a habit of posting preprints (although not to the same extent as math and physics), and (3) there's a general consensus that it's just not necessary.
The standard argument that double-blind reviewing is unnecessary is that the decision to accept or reject a given paper is more objective than in other fields.  There isn't an experiment to judge.  Either the algorithm is faster or it isn't; either the theorem is true or it isn't; either the proof is actually a proof or it isn't.  (I don't  buy this argument, especially for page-limited conference submissions, but there it is.)

You should be able to read an article and, assuming that the experiment was conducted accurately and ethically, decide if it is a significant scientific advancement.

These are not the only criteria by which scientific research is judged.

Update: As @a3nm points out in his comment, theoretical computer science is slowly transitioning toward a "lightweight double-blind reviewing" protocol that is already common in other computer science research areas.  "Lightweight double-blind" requires the authors to submit their papers without identifying information, citing their own work in the third person, but it does not prevent either posting preprints to arXiv or presenting work at seminars and workshops.
ALENEX, DiSC, ESA, FAccT, FODS, and LICS already follow this protocol, as do several conferences at the intersection of theoretical computer science and machine learning.  Major conferences like SODA are at least seriously discussing the idea, but change is slow, and many (especially senior) researchers are strongly opposed to the idea.
For more information, see this report on double-blind reviewing at ALENEX 2018 and this FAQ from POPL 2018.

I suspect your reason (1) has a large impact. Things are slow to change.

There is a third argument I have heard wrt theoretical computer science and our conference culture: when a program committee must make a decision within a relatively short time window about a paper on a technical subject, the paper should be scrutinized to a different extent depending on whether the authors are well-known experts.

the paper should be scrutinized to a different extent depending on whether the authors are well-known experts — This view is not universal within theoretical computer science.  (My own view is that this approach might be reasonable if its aim were to give new authors the benefit of the doubt.  Unfortunately, this is usually the opposite of what actually happens.)

the paper should be scrutinized to a different extent depending on whether the authors are well-known experts: this is precisely the reason why we should in fact be doing double-blind reviewing in TCS. This is an obvious bias against newcomers, and precisely the kind of things that double-blind reviewing is supposed to prevent.

It might be different with conference papers, but in mathematics a paper (especially at a top journal) is not merely evaluated for correctness. In my limited experience, journals also ask for an evaluation of how original and how important the work is (usually offering 3–5 options for each criterion, or open ended). So the objectivity argument should be taken with a grain of salt.

@Remy Oh, that's definitely also true for the most prestigious theoretical computer science conferences; it's not enough to be correct. To be clear: I'm not offering the objectivity argument because I agree with it.

@JeffE: thanks for the update! The situation continues to evolve, with essentially all major generalistic TCS conferences having transitioned to double-blind reviewing (at least as an experiment): cf the answer https://cstheory.stackexchange.com/a/53324 and the website https://double-blind.org/

While this article by Kathryn McKinley is quite old now, it provides a much more nuanced view of the processes that would support a double blind review process. In brief, it's not as simple as "make everything double blind". There are stages where it's important, and there are stages in the review process where it's useful NOT to be double blind.
Roughly speaking, you want double blind review when doing the initial evaluation, because people are more likely to jump to conclusions on a first look. But later on, it's helpful to know who's doing the work because even in mathematical work, there's an element of trust that goes into evaluating a paper (especially in theoretical CS for example, where papers are way too short (and deadlines too close) to do a rigorous evaluation of proofs).

This aligns with a slogan I heard from the sociological study of decision making, that decision rules in the first 'screening' phase are often non-compensatory ("deal-breakers" or "deal-makers"), whereas in the second phase of closer inspection they are usually compensatory (i.e. different attributes are weighted against each other). I would cite relevant reading if I were familiar enough with the literature...

The "element of trust" part is in line with this comment https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8891/why-dont-all-disciplines-follow-a-double-blind-review-system#comment90407_8899 and gives me the same impression that this is exactly the kind of bias that double-blind reviewing should prevent.

The answer is at least partly that many research fields are small enough so that most people know what other researchers or research teams are doing. Anonymity is thus impossible because it does not take much to figure out who wrote the paper.
Reviewers are (in my field) often anonymous. I personally do not like this because it is easier as author to judge the comments when you know who delivered them. When you get anonymous reviews you cannot easily judge the tone if it is just the way someone expresses themselves or if it is rude (positive reviews are usually not difficult to deal with for some reason).
I have also seen in journals with open reviews how anonymous posts are full of abrasive (unprofessional) comments and hence not very constructive. I pesonally think anonymity brings out the worst in some people and openness forces one to focus on the constructive.
So, double-blind reviews can be done but I do not really see the benfit, at least not in my and related fields where communities count a few thousand.

Double-blind means that authors and reviewers are both anonymous to each other. Your complaints apply equally to single-blind reviewing, where only the reviewers are anonymous.

@JeffE The process involves two processes, an authored manuscript and a review, so even if the two are combined there are stil two parts with specific issues and I describe my opinion of how this would (not) work in my field.

I agree. I wish that all submissions and reviews were entirely public and non-anonymous. Even if a reviewer can't figure out who you are it may be easy enough to figure out who you are not, and that could be enough to give space for bad behavior. I think if reviewers had to sign their names to their reviews in a completely public way this would greatly enhance the quality of reviewing and would also protect against those things that blind reviewing is supposed to protect against, but doesn't.

It is little off topic, but indeed interesting how anonymity is often generate unnecessary rudeness and trolling on the side of the reviewer. Curiously, almost any other field of life, blogospheres, SE etc work pretty well in a non-anonymous way, where the reputation of a given person actually backs up its argument, and not against it.

"I pesonally think anonymity brings out the worst in some people and openness forces one to focus on the constructive." On the other hand, anonymity forces one to consider only what one says, and not who said it.

In the age of Internet is not very difficult to get the name of the author (at least with a high probability), especially in a field with few practitioners. For instance see this: http://www.newappsblog.com/2012/12/the-journal-reviewing-process-isnt-anonymous-did-you-really-think-it-was-think-again.html.
So in practice only the reviewer remains anonymous.

Just because you may be able to de-anonymize the submission doesn't mean that double-blind reviewing is worthless. As a reviewer, I prefer the submission itself to be double-blind, so I'm sure I won't be biased by the author's reputation or that of their institutions; and I will not try to identify them, at least not before I have reached a final decision on the submission.

In some fields that involve a high degree of "practical development" (recognizeable prototypes etc.) rather than "just" theoretical concepts, it is often impractical to attempt and conceal the identity of submission authors.
A conference or journal may require submissions to be anonymized, which adds a certain extra burden on the authors: Anonymizing does not end with removing the authors list, certain sections such as an Acknowledgments section need to be removed, and parts of the text may need to be rewritten (when referencing earlier work by the same authors and would, in the final paper, write "We have already ..."). And as it is sometimes still obvious that the current submission is the direct successor of an earlier work, that reference needs to be replaced with something like Removed for double-blind review, thus naturally reducing the usefulness of the references.
And yet, all of those factors may easily be in vain, as, for example, CS often involves prototypical applications that get repeatedly extended. The theoretical possibility exists that another researcher may have gotten their hands on someone else's prototype, but when the screenshots in the submission bear a striking resemblance to those in a previously published work (*), the most likely explanation is that the two works were written by the same author or at least team.
So, as trying to reliably blind the submission is not feasible in many cases and just leads to extra work for the authors (including the discussions if the double-blind review is optional), various conferences/journals do not offer a double-blind review in the first place.
(*) I am not saying that the same contribution is published twice. I am referring to "unimportant" aspects such as the general layout of a window, or its toolbar icons, here.

It's not clear to me that in a small field, double-blind necssarily helps promote more impartial reviews. You gain something in removing bias/prejudice based on knowledge of the author(s). However, it becomes much more difficult to control for conflicts of interest: plenty of non-obvious connections exist between researchers that an editor can't be expected to know about. With single-blind reviewing, there is at least the opportunity for the reviewer to decline if they know they've influenced the author's views in some way, or if they feel they have reviewed too high a fraction of that author's output. If everything is double-blind, it seems quite likely that small review circles could form, to the ultimate detriment of the field.


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Math graduate, not enough physics coursework to apply straight to physics MS
I have a BS in math (2.9) and a MA in teaching (Pass/fail online program)
I am teaching math at a high school but now miss my college days and the upper level material. My end goal would be a PhD in Physics at a US university.
I don't have enough course work in Physics to try and apply straight to a Masters in Physics, as well as a low GPA to apply with.
What are my options? (I have ideas but am unsure as to what is realistic or worth doing)
Community college classes until I have prerequisites for physics?
Non-matriculated schooling?

See Graduate school admission with a degree in a different field

What country do you want to get your PhD in?  You should be warned that a PhD in physics is often a totally different experience from being an undergraduate student.

In the US (Though I'm not opposed to going abroad as I have looked into teaching high school abroad). And I hope to go for a masters first to gain understanding of whether a PhD track is right for me.

Few community colleges can offer the appropriate prerequisites.

@alex_h: I edited the note about the US into your question.  It makes a significant difference, and it will be easier for people to see there than in a comment.

For mathematics, some US colleges offer "post-baccalaureate" programs, which is a 1-year program for students who need some extra advanced coursework before applying to a PhD program.  I wonder if there are similar programs in physics.  It might be just the sort of thing you need.

If you are studying in the United States, you should take the core physics undergraduate courses from a reputable university.  Then you should apply directly to PhD programs.

A PhD is usually narrowed down to a very peculiar research topic and as such missing some education in other general areas might not be particularly dangerous for the sake of getting the PhD itself. Moreover, what matters the most when undergoing a research path is the attitude to learn and to question the scientific method more than the titles you have previously obtained, which, however, do matter when applying for admission to a PhD programme. Committees might prefer someone with already some background just because the selection processes usually see many applicants and Universities need a way to filter them out. A good recommendation letter goes however far beyond any selection criteria and if you can get one it should not be too difficult to enter a PhD programme. In particular, especially in Europe, GRE, GPA and all these quiz results are irrelevant for anything.
Concerning the topic itself, as you have formal background in mathematics,
do consider that many PhD in theoretical physics are essentially pure mathematics, therefore you might even find it along your lines and not too difficult to enjoy.
This said, if you want to have a good research profile and a thorough understanding of what you are doing (rather than just getting the PhD), a good knowledge of physics is fundamental. I would suggest to first achieve a master degree and only then go for a PhD (which should always be the rule, even if you manage to get admitted before).

A masters in physics from an American university is not the rule; usually they are awarded for partial completion of the PhD.

@AnonymousPhysicist: If they are awarded at all. I skipped the course-work Master's degree in aerospace engineering on the way from my BS ASE to my PhD in ASE.


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How bad do your teaching evaluation scores have to be before you should leave them off your resume?
I got a 4.0 out of 5.0 on my teaching evaluations.  The average grade in my department is a 4.5.  Should I put this on my CV/resume?
For reference, I am a PhD student and this is the first class I've taught.

It depends what kind of job you are applying for and in what field. It is important to realise that most of the high-rep users of this site are American scientists working in research universities. Maybe you are a literature student who is aiming for a job in a liberal arts college? In which case, the conventions might be different. In my experience, 4/5 would be very good in a mathematics dept but fairly mediocre in liberal arts. Whether you should mention it on your CV at all is doubtful, but you could include it in a teaching dossier.

In my experience, people don't generally put teaching evaluation scores on a CV at all, regardless of what they are.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.


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What to do about negative teaching evaluations during job interviews?
This past year I taught two undergraduate freshman-level required religion courses (one in the Fall and one in the Spring) and the teaching evaluations from students were rather average-to-poor. These are the only two courses I have taught so far in my career.
Many academic jobs now request you to send proof of teaching excellence along with your application. Have these two courses ruined my chances of getting a full-time job? I don't want to be dishonest and only present a few positive student comments while ignoring the number of negative ones. At the same time I am committed to improving my teaching skills and want to learn from my mistakes.
What is the best way to present this information in a job application? Or should I just not send my evaluations at all?
One more thing I should mention: the student response rate was very low. In both classes less than half of the students filled out the evaluation at all. I don't know if this is relevant (I've read that students with negative opinions tend to be more motivated to fill out evaluations than positive students).

What type of position: research-focused or teaching-focused? What type of school?

It was a temporary adjuncting position open because one of the full time profs was on sabbatical. Is that something I should mention in the application?

@Ben Crowell: if I was applying to a liberal arts school (in mathematics), I would be sure to include student evaluations (comments and numbers). Some schools ask for them explicitly.

If you're asked to present information relative to your teaching, you need to do that, especially if teaching will be a significant part of your future job.
Not everyone is a superstar right out of the gate, as far as teaching is concerned, and everyone understands that it may take a while for you to hit your stride. The best way for you to finesse the negative responses is to include your own commentary on the teaching evaluations, showing that you can be reflective about your work.  We all bomb out now and then; the question is whether you can look objectively at what the students have said and make some adjustments to your approach in the classroom that might address some of the issues.  I want to see someone making improvements based on feedback.  I don't want to see a faculty member getting the same kinds of comments, semester after semester, and just going on with the same old methods.  Did you seek any kind of mentorship for your teaching?
A low response rate is not a positive thing, unfortunately.
Did you have a supervisor for your teaching?  Was that person supportive and aware of your efforts in the classroom?  Could that person write a teaching recommendation for you that might be in addition to the other expected letters?

Unfortunately I did not have a supervisor for my teaching. I do have someone writing me a recommendation letter who has observed my teaching / presentation skills outside of a classroom setting.

It would be good if that person could highlight your potential.  Good luck --

How do you recommend including my own commentary on the evals? In the interview or as part of a cover letter / teaching statement?

I think a teaching statement would be good, clipped to the evaluations so that it's a packet.  You might want to mention teaching in your cover letter, but don't go into detail there.  You might also think about the courses you taught -- did anything make them particularly difficult to teach?  Were they for freshmen?  Required?  and so on.  Sometimes a particular class will be just plain difficult for anyone to teach --

Both classes were required Freshmen courses, and I did feel like many of the students did not want to be there to begin with. There were also two students mad about their grades at the end of the semester in one class (their attendance had been very poor). I'm afraid to say "the class was difficult to teach" though... wouldn't that just come off badly?

I think if I had been teaching a class of Juniors or Seniors my evals would have been more positive. The most common complaint was that I did not use Power Point. I don't personally think Power Point is a good teaching tool, but I may need to reconsider for Freshman students... a more visual-based experience may be better for them?
I based my lecture style on some of my own favorite teachers, which I think was naive and a mistake. While probably appropriate to upperclassmen who are more invested in the class, for freshmen it was not the right approach.

I agree that evaluations for major classes are generally better than those for non-major freshman classes (in which some students may not be aware that they're not in high school anymore).  And I do agree that freshmen might need a few more bells and whistles -- if your information was rather dense, using PowerPoint especially for the important main points might have helped them.

Thanks ewormuth, you've been very helpful. I've been a bit stressed about these evals (because I do love and care about teaching, and of course I want a job!) so its good to have a sense of direction about what to do next.

Can you get information about the history of teaching evaluations in that course when others have taught it? I don't mean the evaluations of specific other instructors (that information would be private) but a long-term average.  In my department, such information is available. There are courses where the evaluations are lousy no matter how great the teacher is. If your course is in that category, and especially if you did better than the average, then that would be good to indicate in your teaching statement.

Such evaluations are intended for internal use and even if they were full of praise, you wouldn't submit those.
The recommendation letter from the observer of the non-classroom setting is what you should submit.  Yes, that is a bit thin for "proving teaching excellence" -- but don't despair.  We don't know what sort of "proof" the other candidates will be submitting -- so it's worth a shot!
To improve your teaching, gain confidence, and collect more "proof," you could volunteer as a literacy teacher, English teacher for speakers of other languages, or grade school tutor. You could take a pedagogy ("Education") course.  My impression is that a lot of what happens in those courses is that you go and observe a variety of classes and write a journal about your observations, in conjunction with some reading about different approaches and techniques.  You could embark on a self-study project doing the observing, journaling and reading, without being enrolled in a class.

Particularly if the students evaluations are full of praise, you should highlight them in your teaching statement, if you are applying to jobs at schools where teaching is a significant criterion for hiring.

Sorry, I disagree.  They really aren't intended for external use.  However, a dean could review them and write a letter based on them, and could even include a few verbatim quotes.

It varies from place to place.  Some schools might want a summary sheet, and so on.  I'm not sure what the OP's application requirements were, but if there's no evidence of his teaching quality, that would speak for itself.  Having a chair or dean write a letter is fine, but if the majority of comments were negative, and the new teacher was not supervised or observed, what is the letter writer to say?  By the way, pedagogy courses can be a lot more involved than you suggest.  A self-study project would likely not be the same.

@ewormuth - May I take it that you would recommend the course as more useful than the self-study project?  (I've never done one of those courses.)

Hopefully the chair or dean could say something about the candidate's qualities (work ethic, student-centered, etc., etc.), and about the results -- they must have statistics on passing rates, etc., that they could compare the candidate's results to.

Right -- that's what they would usually do -- a table with the averages for the course and then the individual instructor's scores.  Re the courses -- it may be hard to get into them, if you're not in an M.A. or credential program.  You can certainly learn something by watching others who teach the same course.

Maybe audit the course?


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What are the important factors to consider when choosing a Master topic?
I am a computer science, master student. As I am nearing the end of my studies, I am starting to weight my options for the final "thing", the Master thesis. I already had 2-3 meetings with some Professors offering master topics. The more I think on this topic, the more I get confused.
One of the topics is not really within the area of my interests, or close to something that I would like to work in the future, but the Professor is really nice and quality, I have had good cooperation with him earlier before. And I think that I can further learn from him.
One of the other options, is much interesting, however I feel as if I am afraid of it. I don't have much experience in the exact field which the master thesis covers. The professor just arrived in out university and I have not taken any of his lectures.
The final option, is one that I feel more comfortable. It might be from a topic that I have worked on for the last 12 months, so I can get into it really fast.
Considering these information and the fact that in the future I want to have the possibility of continuing Phd studies, maybe not directly after the master studies, but sometimes eventually, which one of the thesis should I choose?
Should I go for the most worldly-renown professor, or for one of the others. Which parameters should I bear in mind when making the decision? I have thought about the quality of the professor, the effort that the topic requires, the potential of having a good adviser (on whom I can rely) etc.
I am sure, here are people much experienced than me who can tell what are the important things to consider when making such a choice.
It seems seems that deep inside, I am being influenced by the grading as well. Is the grade of a thesis more important than the topic itself?
I know the question might feel as offtopic, but I really need help.
Thanks
EDIT 1: Just wanted to add a couple of questions in here; To what extent the grades influence future job & Phd applications?

Is the grade of a thesis more important than the topic itself? — In the US, theses don't get "grades". Either you finish the thesis and you get the degree, or you don't and you don't.

One thing to keep uppermost in your mind - the topic of your Master's thesis is not necessarily the one that you have to pursue in later research, such as part of a PhD.
The point of a Master's thesis is to demonstrate your ability to do research. Opinions might vary on whether it is a reasonable expectation that the research that you do for a Master's thesis has to be world-class and leads to one or more publications. In my view, it would be nice, but it isn't a requirement.
What you need to get out of your Master's thesis is a strong demonstration that you are capable of academic research. You decision on which supervisor and topic to choose should be guided by this driver.
Pursuing a research topic merely because the professor is world-renown may be misguided. What happens if you don't strike up a good working relationship and your research falters because of it? Will your professor's reputation outweigh a mediocre research effort?
Your drive and interest in a research topic are strong factors of whether you will succeed. The motivation should come from you - most of the time - to address your research topic. Again, if you aren't particularly interested in the topic, you are going to find it hard to keep going at it when - and it is a matter of when - the going gets tough.
I reiterate that at the end of your Master's thesis, you want to demonstrate your research ability. You are still learning the skills and craft of research, and for that reason, you want to seek teachers who are skilled at teaching how to research. Is it necessarily true that the best practitioners of science research are the best teachers of how to do research? Sometimes true, sometimes not.


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Are there available corpora of academic works?
There are many different corpora[1] for the English language:

Google Books ngram database is freely accessible and covers publications indexed in Google Books from the 16th century; words are tagged by part-of-speech (more info here).
The Corpus of Contemporary American English is a large and balanced corpus of American English, including not only books but also magazines, newspapers and spoken English.
The British National Corpus is a similar enterprise for British English, both spoken and written.

However, one may want to do an analysis of the evolution of English as used in written academic works (theses, journal articles, etc.). This came apparent to me while I was trying to research usage of passive vs. active voice for this question.
So, are there any available corpora of academic works in English language?

corpus: collections of written or spoken material in machine-readable form, assembled for the purpose of studying linguistic structures, frequencies, etc. [New Oxford American Dictionary]

Yes, JSTOR provides a corpus for linguistic (and other) analyses of academic literature, at JSTOR Data for Research
See this Language Log discussion of one such analysis done on that corpus.

I'll self answer, because I realized just now that COCA (The Corpus of Contemporary American English) actually includes academic texts (a subpart of the corpus they refer to as COCA-Academic). It even allows one to search by section, for example restricting the search to academic works:

(and it was right under my nose the whole time!)


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Is pseudonymous publication ethical?
From this MathOverflow question:

William Sealy Gosset published a result under the pseudonym Student. (Because his employer, the Guinness brewing company, did not allow their employees to publish for fear of divulging trade secrets.)

Why isn't publishing under a pseudonym a breach of academic ethics? It seems that the common idea is that publishing under a pseudonym is ethical, unless they are deliberately used with intention to defraud or deceive. But, given that we don't know who a pseudonymous author is, how can his peers have any trust in that (or even check it)?

Authorship attribution after publication is different than review blindness. Example: if I use a pseudonym and no affiliation, I may be defrauding my employer because they will not be formally affiliated with the research. Also: I can create a pseudonym and publish research under both my real name and a pseudonym (or two pseudonyms), which is intentional deception at the very least. (And why would you assume that I'm not also publishing on this very Q&A site under my real name? winks back)

Ethics aside, there may be policy against pseudonyms regardless of intent. arXiv for example: http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.5874 http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.6365 http://arxiv.org/abs/0712.3934

@WillieWong  Really?  http://arxiv.org/abs/0910.3926 http://arxiv.org/abs/1002.0374 http://arxiv.org/abs/1009.3956

@JeffE polymath is not exactly pseudonymous. They even gave a link in the papers to exactly who contributed to the projects. Of course, I have in fact not been able to find the so-called arXiv policy written down anywhere (blame arXiv's poor navigation design), hence I linked to instances of withdrawal instead of the actual policy.

I think the arXiv's pseudonym policy is basically for defense against crackpots (and DHJ Polymath is a little different since it's publicly known who was involved, and it was posted to the arXiv by a known person, namely Ryan O'Donnell).

What?  Yes, "D. H. J. Polymath" is exactly pseudonymous!  The fact that the authors' real identities are known doesn't prevent them from publishing under a pseudonym.

@JeffE in the spirit at least, I agree with Anonymous that Polymath is more of a consortium than a pseudonym… just like physicists often do

The worth of scientific work is in the content, not in who wrote it. Therefore, I think publishing under a pseudonym is not necessarily unethical. In the example the OP presented the author was prevented from publishing if he used his own name. If the research was sound and reproducible, I would be fine with this. In practice I would like to know who wrote the paper.

But if he was prevented from publishing by his employer/contract, wasn't published pseudonymously unethical?

@F'x In this case this is certainly illegal in some sense, but it may be ethical more than unethical (the paper is an advancement to the human knowledge, so it may be of high value in term of social utility).

I'd say it is more unethical to give someone a contract that forbids publishing papers, than to actually publish something despite such a contract. There's a difference between unethical and illegal.

If the pseudonym is used consistently, it is not relevant what "real person" it relates to, it gives you a picture of what to expect under this name. There is a good reason artists often use pseudonyms. With scientists, I do not see a fundamental difference. In fact, Sophie Germain used pseudonyms to study at a time where it was illegal for women to study or when communicating with Gauss. Was that unethical? When she was found out (e.g. by Gauss), they were, against expectation, positively surprised - but, shouldn't it be irrelevant who is behind the pseudonym?

I don't think there's an absolute answer here. Ethical questions generally have lots of "grey areas" associated with them.
I think the biggest question to ask—and the one you indirectly are headed toward—is "why is someone using a pseudonym?" If the answer is "to get around a contractual agreement that both parties have agreed to and accepted," then it's likely that the use of a pseudonym is probably unethical. (Although one could argue that if this were intended to "correct" a more serious problem, then it might still be ethical—even if contractually messy.)
If, on the other hand, the answer is "to avoid potential review bias," or "because publishing under one's own name would make one's life less convenient" (for instance, there's a negative stigma associated with publishing outside one's "home" field), then it's less clear that there's an ethical violation in progress.

And don't forget "because it's fun" as a motivation.

While "it's fun" is a valid motivation, it's hard to assess the ethics of that. . . .

An additional case is a change of names, e.g. due to marriage. If you don't want your work misattributed, you may want to stick with the name you started publishing under.

@Raphael: That's not really a pseudonym.

@aeismail It is, in the sense that it's not your real name, i.e. the one on your ID. Of course, it was your real name once so your identity is not a secret. Pen names and other common forms of pseudonyms don't either; some will even be listed on your ID (at least in Germany). The question does not specify which purpose for publishing under a pseudonym we should discuss.

@Raphael is right. In law the idea is: if you can do more (if you can have a completely random/"fake" pseudonym), you can do less as well (you can stick with a previously known name).

And even in this case, it probably wasn't to avoid contract - "the scientific brewers, including Gosset, were allowed by the company to publish research so long as they did not mention (1) beer, (2) Guinness, or (3) their own surname" (from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00031305.2018.1514325) - it sounds like a mutually-agreeable way to publish general knowledge w/o giving away Guinness's specific application.

There are various views of the usage of pseudonym. I'd say a prevalent one in Europe is that its part of the special protection of authors in the sense of freedom of speech. I do not know how this is handled in the US or otherwhere, but in many European countries there is a constitutional right of protection of pseudonyms (which implies the right of publishing under a pseudonym if desired for any reason).


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When is an academic a -sensei and when is he/she a -hakase?
I'm not Japanese, and I've been emailed by someone who is Japanese, in the context of potential academic collaboration. He's in industry, not academia. He used the "-sensei" honorific to refer to me, while I had called him using his company-position-related honorific.
This seemed strange to me, since he's older and more senior than me (in most respects anyway). I was assuming he'd call me "-san", or if he wanted to be nice, then "-hakase" or no honorific at all.
My question: In what circumstances is it customary to call non-medical academics, with a doctoral degree, "-sensei", and in what circumstances is "-hakase" the custom?

Sensei is a general term for a teacher, especially a master teacher. A Zen Buddhist learns from a sensei unless the teacher has a specific high title such as a Roshi. In Chinese, a sensei would be sifu. Skilled at teaching. Specifically, it indicates respect of the student for the teacher.

Nothing hard and fast- sensei is a general respectful term for a teacher. -hakase I think specifically refers to doctorates, but is a little awkward because a fresh PhD and a senior would both be -hakase, so it puts them in the same bracket. Sensei is safe and common. I'm not Japanese though, would love to hear more nuance if someone can share.

@Buffy: I know that. I should mention my conversation partner is not a student, and our interaction will not be about me teaching him things (other than how we all learn from knowledgeable people blah blah).

I think your partner is saying they have learned something useful/interesting from you and so you are, to them, sensei. Whether you thought you were teaching or not. Or, possibly, the person has misinterpreted your title/position. The Japanese can be quite polite.

@Buffy: But I haven't told him anything yet :-P

And you don't need to be an academic at all to be sensei to me. Or even formally educated, I suspect.

@Buffy not sure about the way it works in Japanese culture, but your analogy to the Chinese sifu (“师父”/“师傅”) is not really accurate. No one would ever call their teacher in real life as that, unless maybe you were a Shaolin monk and referring to your teacher of martial arts. The usual phrase is laoshi 老师 or just shi 师, although "professor" would translate to boshi 博士 (note that this shi is different).

@YiFan, thanks. I take it from Tai Chi, actually. And neither monk, nor master.

Probably "hakase" is for pure researcher or scientists in research institutions, not academic institutions. While "sensei" for academicians in universities, medical doctors, teachers, instructors, sifu, ... But not sure if "hakase" is usually used to address people or not.

@kate: Why is an academic not a "pure researcher"? Or rather, are you speaking from knowledge of custom, or your common-sense assumption?

I haven't told him anything yet: A non-Japanese person might address you as Professor before you tell them anything (regardless of whether you have that title), sensei is the equivalent

@einpoklum What I mean by "an academician is not a pure researcher" is because academicians do not only do research, but also teach; while research scientists at research institutes do not have the obligation to teach, their job is researching. From my limited observation though, so I might be wrong.

I've lived in Japan for two years and can speak the language to some extent.
Keigo is complicated, and any rule you learn about seems to have lots of exceptions. After two years, I felt that I had some idea, but I felt that I had far from mastered the intricacies. In particular, older people often addressed me using keigo for reasons I didn't quite understand.
"Sensei" is a general respectful term for a teacher. Since he is interested in an academic collaboration specifically, perhaps he regards you as "senior" because you have an academic position and he does not.
"Sensei" is a general and common form of address, used for academics and other teachers. I have not heard "hakase" used as a form of address.
In any case, he has certainly addressed you with respect. If you're unsure of what Japanese title to use, and your correspondence is in English, I'd encourage addressing him in English as "Mr. X" or (if he has a doctorate) "Dr. X".


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An equivalent of arXiv, but for tabular and other experimental data?
Suppose I'm doing some experimental work in an academic context. The essence of the results will likely be captured by documents such as conference/journal articles, technical reports, a M.Sc. or Ph.D. thesis, a monograph etc. For these kinds of artifacts, we have all sorts of avenues for long-term archiving and Internet availability: Journals have their own archives, universities make internal publications available (well, sometimes), and you can put copies on arXiv and/or sites like ResearchGate or Academia.edu (although the latter have their problems).
If you've produced software code - you can again use university-specific facilities, or platforms like BitbBucket, GitHub or SourceForge which recently revamped itself into relevance.
Where would you put raw data, though? Especially tabular data? You don't publish the (potentially large amounts) of it alongside your papers. You could put it as a file on your website, but this is limited-availability archiving/publications - it's like putting a link to a software source archive on your website. It's there, but people are much less likely to find it than if it were a repository on one of the platforms mentioned above.
So, my question is: Are there platforms for storing public data, in particular data obtained during academic/scientific work?
Notes:

It doesn't quite matter if the data is accessible directly as though on an SQL database; or if you can browse it in a tabular fashion through some web interface. Those are nice options, but even something "primitive" as a CSV file in a standard-format URL is already passable.
Same goes for versioning or revision-control support: Nice to have, not a deal-breaker for a potential answer here.
Publications don't need to have a perma-link to the data, nor will it necessarily be archived before such publications. But again - it's a nice feature such a platform could have.
This question is highly related - almost a dupe - if you look at the title, but the body asks different questions than I do. I don't want/need the data to count as a "paper" or a CV-worthy publication; I don't need/want peer-reviewing of the data as a condition for it being available to the public etc.

Does this answer your question? Creating a permanent URL to put in a publication

@GoodDeeds: No.

Related, maybe duplicate: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/987/data-publication-basics-where-why-how-and-when-should-i-publish-my-unpublis, https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9964/how-to-share-to-mention-publish-large-datasets?noredirect=1&lq=1

Do you know about zenodo which is a CERN initiative? It may be interesting for you https://about.zenodo.org/

I don't. Please describe that for us in your answer... StackExchange policy calls for answers to be more than just named links.

One solution that seems to fit your criteria is the Open Science Framework
Here is a description of the project (source):

OSF is a free, open source web application that connects and supports
  the research workflow, enabling scientists to increase the efficiency
  and effectiveness of their research. Researchers use OSF to
  collaborate, document, archive, share, and register research projects,
  materials, and data. OSF is the flagship product of the non-profit
  Center for Open Science.

Regarding the specific criteria that you mentioned:

"OSF has built-in version control for all files stored in your project, can render hundreds of different file types, and allows you to directly edit plain text files (including R and Python scripts) directly in the browser." (source)
"Each project and component can have its own set of files, allowing you to organize your files into categorial or hierarchical groups, like datasets or studies. Each file has a unique, persistent URL so that it can be cited or linked to individually." (source)
"OSF is maintained and developed by the Center for Open Science (COS), a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. COS is supported through grants from a variety of supporters, including federal agencies, private foundations, and commercial entities... COS established a $250,000 preservation fund for hosted data in the event that COS had to curtail or close its offices. If activated, the preservation fund will preserve and maintain read access to hosted data. This fund is sufficient for 50+ years of read access hosting at present costs. COS will incorporate growth of the preservation fund as part of its funding model as data storage scales..." (source)


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Copyrights on epigrams in a commercial publication of academic work
An acquaintance of mine - let's call him Robert - is having a book published based on his academic research. The book targets the general public, and the publication is commercial, albeit with a scholarly nature. In theory, my acquaintance could even see some money out of this affair.
Robert begins each chapter with an epigram - a short quote from somewhere. It could be an official document of some world state, it could be some adage by a famous literary figure, etc.
Now, the (US) publisher is requiring Robert to obtain explicit rights for the text of each of these epigraphs - just like other reproduced material such as photos, tables of data etc. I am pretty sure this is a bogus requirement, but I'm not sure how to advice Robert to argue against this and claim he should not need to do this.
In case it matters at all - these epigraphs appeared in Robert's relevant articles, monographs, reports and/or theses on which the book is based.
Can you help me offer such an argument?

Isn't this a legal question?

@GoodDeeds: Well, yes, but one which academics occasionally face, and may have relevant experience with. Also, I don't want a court brief about this...

Why do you think it's a bogus requirement? It seems quite reasonable to me.

I guess the easiest would be taking epigrams that are old enough to fall outside of copyright. Not sure how long an explicit quotation you are allowed to quote verbatim under "fair use", if you do not take expired quotations. I could imagine that if using commercial mottos, you might not infringe copyrights, but instead trademarks. Caveat emptor.

I agree: legal question.  In the US, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use  Elsewhere see their lawyers.

Likely the issue for the publisher is that the "epigram" can, perhaps, be considered to be a "complete work". As such, you can't copy/quote it if it is copyrighted even with a citation. This is similar to images and some graphics, which are complete in themselves, so "fair use" doesn't apply.
It isn't just the length of the quote that matters but how much of the "work" it contains. There are other factors as well, but they may not apply.
Just as a two line poem can't be copied without permission (if under copyright), even if properly quoted and cited, you can't copy other "complete works".
One additional solution is to use older epigrams that are no longer under copyright.
Some publishers will provide a fund for license payments for such things, either a grant or a charge against future royalties. They do the same, sometimes, for cover images and some other things.

Can't copyright on old works be renewed somehow? Or is anything older than -N years from now, safe? Also, how can one decide whether, say, a two-line poem is a work, or a piece of a book of poems?

@einpoklum I forget the exact date (about the time Mickey Mouse first appeared) but sometime around 1927 the copyright law seems to be updated frequently enough that copyright may now be perpetual in US. Prior to that they expired some years after the creator's death. So, stuff prior to that date is mostly free of copyright. And a "piece of a book" doesn't imply that it is not a complete work on its own. In fact for poems it is likely that the "collecting in a book" is just coincidental. The individual poems are "creative works" individually. The "collection" may also be "creative", or not.


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Getting PhD from average institution (gain experience) before applying for a PhD in top institution?
What do you think about an idea of getting a PhD in an "better then average institution" to get tons of experience to get a second PhD (in the same field) from top institution?
I'm now getting a MSc degree in applied math from one of the top Russia institutions, but I still feel like I don't have enough experience, and publications, and general "coolness" for applying to places like MIT or Stanford or other top universities - but I would really want to work with people there! Moreover the problem I've came up with for my thesis is somewhat "non-mainstream" (that's why I don't really have a thesis adviser and I'm guiding myself through it, so it turned out to be slower process than I expected).
I've been thinking of getting a first PhD in some good place in Europe, getting few publications, gaining more experience there and only after that applying into top institutions. From your own experience, does that seem to be a good idea? (I mean, having a completed PhD in some other institution seems like a great advantage from the lab's perspective - right?)

@NateEldredge , thank you! Most of questions tagged like this are about getting two PhDs in parallel or second degree in other field; but the one you've linked actually has a more or less exhaustive answer on my question, thank you!

Terrible idea, at least as far as a life goal is concerned. You will spend 5 years of your life doing something you consider only preparatory, without any guarantee that you will actually be admitted by the MITs and Stanfords of your aspiration. In fact, if we had someone applying to our graduate program who already has a PhD, we'd seriously be asking ourselves why this person wants to get another PhD? So it may not actually be any easier to get into the good institutions if you already have a PhD. Finally, even if you do, you will be 5 years older than everyone else when you graduate, and this will count against you (statistically speaking) when you look for jobs beyond that.
The thing you have come to realize is that everyone wants to go to MIT and Stanford, but only few actually manage to. Make your peace with this -- shoot for the best place you can to get a PhD and then make your career from there. You'll find that with a PhD from a good place in Europe, you will have sufficiently many options.

Well, I've finished high school 2-3 years earlier then others, so I have few years "in store" :) But thank you for your time, finite elements are awesome!

Apply for three institutions, chosen primarily by affinity of interests.  In your set of three, let one be ambitious, a just-for-the-heck-of-it application, one that you would be very happy to attend, and that you consider yourself very likely to be accepted in, and one "safety" school.  The safety school is the one you would attend if you had extraordinarily bad luck and did not get accepted in #2.
Make sure that all three are carefully chosen, and that you are confident you would have a satisfying experience with.
After your PhD, you can do post-docs and build up your publication list.

"you are confident you would have a satisfying experience with" - here's where it becomes complicated :)

@BenUsman, check if my answer here helps: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/47106/doing-ms-in-cs-from-low-ranked-university-versus-applying-again-next-year/47208#47208


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Query on UK visa options for South African postdoc at Birkbeck University funded by a South African organisation
I am from South Africa, and have been awarded a freestanding post-doctoral fellowship award that I am expected to take up at Birkbeck University in London. The fellowship award is from a South African based funding organisation (NRF). The funding is valued at $26000 per annum which amounts to 18 000 British pounds. I realise that this amount does not qualify me for a tier two visa. I was wondering if I could get any assistance on what other options I have to qualify for a UK visa.

You might want to consider asking the expats stack exchange. Hopefully I am wrong about this situation being intractable.

Unfortunately, short of marrying an EU national, you likely do not qualify for a UK visa and there is nothing that can be done about this. This document contains the information about salary thresholds. These apply strictly, there are no exceptions. Even if your position fulfils a shortage occupation the salary threshold still applies. You will need to find some more funding, or give up on taking up the fellowship in the UK. You may also consider contacting the university to see if there is anything that can be done to help your situation.


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What are the benefits of working as a teaching assistant?
I am a first-year international master student in a US statistics department. I am offered a 10-hour teaching assistant appointment next semester. I am considering taking it. I have no idea how to weight the benefit and cost of the appointment.
Background information:

I plan to apply PhD next fall.
I plan to take 14-credit course next semester.

Costs (that I can come up with):

Potential overload

Benefits:

Improve my English skills
Half-coverage of tuition and salary (important to life yet trivial to PhD application)

What are the other cost and benefit of taking a TA appointment? In particular, how would TA experience affect PhD application?

Personally, the knowledge I've gained from being a TA cannot be underestimated. Even from basic level courses, you actually improve your knowledge of the field more than you'd think. The important thing here is, I think, that when you're going to teach something, it is no longer sufficient just to read the material and think that "okay, this is how it is". You will, instead, constantly find yourself thinking: "okay, this is how it is. But why?". That consolidates, if you will, your knowledge, and by teaching something you think you know you will realize you didn't really know a lot before!

With a 10-hour only appointment, are you going to have any teaching duties or will you mainly be grading tests/labs/homework? If the latter, could you work with the professor to guest lecture once or twice? Without a teaching component, that may affect its usage on your CV.

Personally, I have found working with students during my TA office hours to be extremely satisfying. It's a way for me to give back in my academic community.

I suggest a change of the title to something like "What is the benefit of becoming a teaching assistant" or "... taking a teaching assistant position". "taking teaching assistant" is ambiguous in that it could also refer to employing someone as a teaching assistant ("taking someone into one's services as a teaching assistant").

@O.R.Mapper: Done.

Being a TA has helped throughout my Ph.D. I would highly recommend becoming a TA for the following reasons.

You get paid.
You learn teaching skills
You strengthen your knowledge.
It's good for the C.V.

First and foremost you need to fund your life and studies. Although being a TA might not offer the greatest of pay and may take a lot of time. It does seem to pay reasonably well for the amount of effort you have to put in.
Secondly but possibly one of the most underrated things about being a TA. You learn to communicate, and you learn to communicate and learn how to teach.
By communicate, I don't mean just how to improve your English, but how to engage with students. Teaching skills are great, and if you want to go into academia or wish to go in a role where you have to explain concepts to others this will come in handy.
OK, you're teaching at undergrad level. So you may think you know everything. You may actually be surprised that some undergrads may ask some really advanced level questions. Also you may find yourself recapping on some content which you just swept over in your own undergraduate degree. Recovering content, you could find you have a better understanding of it.
Since being a TA. I have had several offers to teach in academic and commercial organisations, and have become a visiting lecturer at another institution based on some of my TA activities.
In terms of cons:

Time

Teaching, marking etc takes time. You may only be teaching for an hour of time, but actually its 4 hours worth of work. From preparing slides, teaching, marking coursework, meetings about students progress with academic staff etc.
I would suggest you give it a go, its only 10 hours after all. If you find it's too much you can always say that it's too much and you will be unable to continue being a TA as you feel your studies are suffering.
Best of luck and I hope this has been of some help.

Can I drop the TA duty in the mid of the semester?

@J.A.F this totally depends on your institution. I believe if it is having a negative effect on your own progress, most institutions will be understanding of this. However, this it is best to check this with your institution.

@JohnHass: I think in most departments this would be frowned upon.  Teaching assignments are usually made for the entire semester, and it's difficult to replace someone who quits partway through; this is disruptive for the students in the class.  If you agree to do it, you should really be committed to complete the semester, barring some emergency.  Someone who quits mid-semester is not likely to be given additional opportunities in the future.

Regarding being good for the CV, this depends for what purpose. For research-focused positions this is often given much less importance then research achievements, so if you could have gotten an additional publication in the time you spent on teaching, it would not be good for the CV.

Usually people take TAs because they need the money.  If you want to get a teaching job in the future it may help to show that you have teaching experience (keep records of what you did and how well it worked.)
If you do not need the money, I think you should use the time to improve your research and grades instead.

In many departments, including mine, when you apply for a postdoctoral position, you'll have to provide a reference letter about your teaching.  And the people making the hiring decisions pay attention to those letters, not just to the letters about research.  So you'd better have done some teaching.  And if your first teaching assignment didn't go well, you should try again and do better.

Another point which can be added to your pros list is that by teaching you are effectively giving back to the community. Consider that somewhere sometime someone invested some of their time to teach you. You now have the chance to do the same for the future generations. This is an argument that somewhat holds for all teaching duties in general, be it for assistantships or full time professorships.
Personally I'm not at a teaching level yet. Nevertheless I always consider giving back in the pros list when I am asked to supervise interns.

I'm seeing some misleading comments about the time commitment and feel this warrants more than a comment, so here it is:
"just 10 hours per week" is misleading.  Often times professors are told to make sure they don't exceed the total number of hours for the term, so in order to save hours for midterm and final exam grading, they will reduce the actual number of hours in a non-exam week.  This means as TA you will be spending a lot of time grading precisely during the times when you yourself will be taking exams!

Ten hours a week is not bad, you know!  Most TAships are 20 hours a week.
It can give you some balance in your life, and having it offered to you is an honor.
Being a teaching assistant is a very common thing; I have never seen this be what makes or breaks a grad student.