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Abstract appeared in the abstract book of a conference but the paper is not published, can I publish it elsewhere?
I intended to participate in a conference, I sent my abstract and it was accepted. For some reasons, I didn't go to that conference and I didn't send my final conference paper.
However, my abstract (title, authors, abstract, keywords) is shown in the published abstract book of the conference and can be easily found online.
My question, since I didn't publish that work, I want to publish that same work in a different conference now, can I use the same abstract? Or I have to change it.

Yes. In my field you don't publish the same but you can present more than twice. Because conferences aren't journals but are seen as moments of discussion and dissemination of ideas and results.
I would avoid the same wording anyway. This gives idea of laziness at least if one is not sure to have found the perfect wording.
It might be different in fields where conferences are seen as the major source for results, but still, up to date, your results are not in the wild and they just left a trace as simple abstract.

The practices of your field are not universal. In others, conferences publish proceedings and they may be considered more important and essential than journal articles.

@Buffy there is not proceeding out, yet. Nor there was a presentation. Basically the only existing thing is something more than a title submitted to a conference and never discussed. I've mentioned my field to say that in many if not most one can apply for conf. presentation as long as one and the organizers/audience like. The resulting proceeding(s), if is unavoidable that each presentation has an accompanying one, are just paraphrases or contain small variations. The full paper, if any, Is usually prepared and submitted separately to a standard journal for a standard issue.

To the OP and just related. Being accepted and not showing up requires at least a general explanation to the organizers. Considers that some others contributions were rejected not solely for their insufficient quality but mostly because a conference has limitations in terms of time and, for posters, space.

Check what you agreed to originally. It is possible, though unlikely, that you gave up copyright to your work when you submitted it or later in the process. If you did give up copyright then you have to deal with that fact. One way is to ask to have it returned to you since the paper wasn't published. Giving an exclusive license would be similar to giving up copyright.
But if you hold all rights then the paper is yours. But you might want to modify it slightly. At least enough to cite the abstract.

let's say I will paraphrase all my abstract. How about the results in the abstract? they will stay the same (same meanings), the numbers also will stay the same (the abstract contains some % numbers). Can I mention the same results from the original abstract?

Your questions can really only be answered by an editor for the journal. I would guess that you are fine. Make sure the editor knows about the abstract, of course.

Copyright is irrelevant here. I don't see why we should escalate the situation with hypothetical formal outcomes. There is no paper out. The author should avoid exactly the same wording and that is.


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Is it possible to do a PhD in ML or AI while in industry, sponsored by a company, or for a company?
I'm due to finish my MSc in CS within a few months and have a key focus on ML and AI research. The problem I'm currently facing is I have no idea where to go from here.
I've seen that the vast majority of more interesting ML and AI jobs, from the perspective of working on novel algorithms, all require a PhD, whereas implementation of said algorithms is MSc. I'd love to do a PhD but it feels like I would be missing out a lot in the next 3-4 years. I'd also need money to start one.
With that, I was wondering if there is such a thing as a PhD in industry? For example, company "A" gives me a position as an ML researcher, and for the next 3-4 years I do work on that. At the end of that time, I obtain a PhD.
Is this something that exists? I'm not trying to look for shortcuts, just listing my options.

What country, or countries, would you be considering? In Germany I'm told most PhDs of this type are explicitly done with a company, and in the US this is relatively rare full-time, but instead is very normal to have decent funding provided (no cost to you) and then you also have the option to do internships over the summer regularly, in the same company or different companies.

In germany, the answer is: yes

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When authors from multiple universities contribute to an article, who pays for open-access fees?
I am part of a postdoc research with a grant that requires publishing in open-access. An article of mine was just accepted for publication within a journal after some major revision. Given that the required revision is outside my expertise, I asked a colleague from an other university to join the article as a second author. However, I don't know whether there is a standard practice about paying open-access fees when authors from multiple universities are involved.

In some instances, institutions have agreements with publishers wherein if the lead/corresponding author belongs to such an institution, then the institution pays the fees.

Frequently, when a funding agency requires open-access (OA) publications, project participants allot a certain amount of funds to pay the OA fees. And in case of joint paper, it is common, in my experience, for the main author to pay the OA fees with the allotted funds.
In case of joint papers where there aren’t already allotted funds for the OA fees, who usually pays, again in my experience, is either the main author or the author who has more funds available.
So, overall, there’s probably no standard, but just gentlemen agreements. In your case, since you’re the one who has the grant requiring OA publications, I’d pay the fees.

"In your case, since you’re the one who has the grant requiring OA publications, I’d pay the fees." That's so generous of you :-)

There's no hard-and-fast rule on this. If the authors all have roughly the same degree of involvement in the paper (and all of them have similar levels of grant funding available), then splitting the cost seems the fairest way. I've done this before, splitting the bill three ways and the publishers seemed perfectly happy to send out several invoices.
However, in the situation you describe – where the paper was originally yours alone, and you asked a colleague to join as a co-author to help with revisions – the situation is less symmetric. It sounds as if your colleague joined the project partly or wholly as a personal favour to you, and in that case, it doesn't seem entirely fair to expect them to contribute to the cost. So (from what you've written) I'd say that in this particular case you should be the one paying the fees. (If your research grant explicitly requires OA publishing, then there should presumably be some funding set aside in the grant budget to pay this.)

Agreed, a colleague who didn't get to have any input on the choice of publication venue shouldn't be expected to pay.

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Getting research jobs in Canada for immigrants
I have a PhD in engineering from an African university which is obviously not well known and now I work at the same university as an assistant professor.
I think about immigrating to Canada (EE system), is there any actual chance that I can get a research position in Canada? Not necessarily at universities. How can I improve my chances? what are the criteria? should I forget about getting such jobs? Hit me with reality!

I do not think the question in this form can be answered without knowing your particular situation, academic profile, and what kind of jobs you consider. Non-academic employment is also not exactly a topic of Academia.SE.

Can you teach computer science?  It seems there is less of a surplus of computer science faculty compared to other areas.

I would say that it is unlikely that you will. The reason is that even for graduates/PhD's of well known institutes like the University of Toronto, it is very hard to get an academic position in Canada. Therefore, if you come from a not well known institute, and you have not published in the top places in your field, and you have no strong connections to the relevant international academic community, then it is hard to get an academic position.
Possibly, there are some academic teaching positions available. I do not know, but they are not research, and I would assume that even for them it will be very hard.
The criteria for improving your chances are listed in the first paragraph.

"there are some academic teaching positions available."  Those also require a PhD from a well known university, a publication record, and a teaching record.

Actually, I doubt that the general visibility of the doctoral institution has much relevance and certainly being from Africa does not. But the publication record, etc. is important. For any position, for any candidate, you need to show that you are a good (great) prospect with a high likelihood of success. Diamonds are found in coal mines, by the way. For the OP, who is already an assistant professor the publications and letters of recommendation would be paramount. Other things for a teaching position.

Affirmative Action policies might improve his odds of finding something. The ethics of these policies can be ... controversial, however, depending on your politics.


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Is it appropriate to change authors' affliation at the final stage of proof reading?
Suppose that you are the first-author of a paper that was accepted in a journal. During proof-reading, the corresponding author (the supervisor in this case) wants to change the affiliation of the authors. I know that it is possible to leave a comment to the journal in this regard as one can't directly make the changes when revising the proof, but I am asking, is that a common thing to happen?

@User. That's true.. matter of fact, he changed the order of authors during submission and we signed an agreement on that and now during the proof reading, he is asking me to change our affliation. It is bothering me but I can't do anything about it..

@User Why are you talking about the order of names? I'm not seeing any mention of order. If the department actually has closed (these things do happen) why would it be weird to change the affiliation? Why would that be unprofessional?

@BryanKrause, I am not sure whether the thing about the department is true or not, but even if it was true, according to the second answer it is true that some journals have a clear policy that affliation should be where the majority of the work is done, so I do think that changing the affliation at proof reading is not professional cause at that stage no further work would be done.

@JaafarMehrez Just changing the department isn't much of a change. If a department is absorbed into others or split into two, the work is done at both the old name and the new name because they are just different names for the same place. Normally these changes are things that make "news" locally, can you not see any announcements or website changes that match the change?

@BryanKrause. I still don't know what is the new affliation, I was just informed that it will be changed with no further details of the new one.

Have you asked?

@BryanKrause. Of course I did, and I didn't get a reply yet. The proof was ready for review for over a week though.

I don't understand what the problem is. An affiliation is a way to find an author. If the author's department has been absorbed into another, or has changed its name, it is clearly appropriate to change that on the publication. What would be the problem in that?

@WolfgangBangerth. My question was simply 'is it common to change the affliation at the last stage of the publication process'. Whether or not affliation is a way to find an author could be a seperate question that I might ask. Eventually, I would like to mention that after discussion, the corresponding author decided not to change the affliation.

I don’t understand this question at all. You’re the first author and your supervisor is co-author; and now your supervisor is telling you that your affiliation will be changed because your department has closed? How could your own department close without you knowing it if you work there?

@JanusBahsJacquet. Thanks for your comment, If you read my question carefully, I mentioned 'claiming that the department has been closed' actually it was not closed. The point of the question is whether changing the affliation at proof-reading stage is a common thing or not regardless of the reason.

@JaafarMehrez Still makes no sense to me. If they’re your supervisor, they are presumably at the same department as you… so they’re claiming that their own (and your) department has closed, even though it hasn’t? That just seems like such a bizarre thing to happen that whether it’s common to change the affiliation in proofreading is the least of your worries. At worst, it may be fraud and actually illegal, if the place they’re now claiming affiliation with is somewhere they’ve never been affiliated with.

@JanusBahsJacquet, you look like you are going in one-way with your thinking here. Nobody is claiming to be affiliated somewhere it doesn't exist. As I mentioned in previous comments I was not fully aware and wasn't informed of much details. Just today we were informed of the details and the case turned to be similar to what was described in Bryan Krause comment, it is still the same department but split into two now. I think I will update my question so nobody would get confused again.

This is not common, but it's surely because the production stage of a journal article lasts for a short time (days) compared to the time when authors are at an institution (years), so statistically it's unlikely to happen.
There's nothing wrong with making this change and you can certainly ask.

Another reason why this is not common is because people may prefer to give the affiliation valid when the work was actually done. So the affiliation would not change in the paper even if it does not reflect the current state. See for example https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/161866/change-of-affiliation-after-acceptance-of-a-paper and other related questions on Academia SE.

And I would think that changes in affiliation during the proof stage rather  reflect changes during the entire submission process which is much longer.

@Snijderfrey. I agree on that, thanks for the further clarification.

The claim about the production stage of a journal article is very field-dependent. In pure math, for example, the production stage routinely lasts many months.

@GregMartin Why does it take so long?

@AzorAhai-him- It shouldn't.. Production is a quick thing (unless you count the point where you send proofs to the authors and they take a long time to return them). Really no excuses for taking that long. If it really does take this long (i.e. Greg Martin and I are thinking of the same thing), then mathematicians should demand more from their publishers.

@Allure Well yeah, that's why I asked Greg why it takes so long. Do you know?

@AzorAhai-him- no idea. It does not make sense. All the publishers I've been at use the same production process for all journals after a paper is accepted, regardless of field. Maybe if the journal is working on a shoestring budget and/or without publisher support.

@Allure Well, thanks for the comments then

Personally, I would add a footnote for "current affiliation" rather than change the existing affiliation.
Otherwise, I agree with Tom's answer and the good points he raises.
He notes that

Moreover, some (or even most) journals have the policy that in the final proofreading stage, only issues that were introduced during the publishing process (e.g., due to typesetting by the journal) will be fixed. The proofreading stage is to ensure that everything appears as the authors originally intended it, not to enable the authors to change their minds.

Ostensibly, listing your "current affiliation" as a footnote at this point would help readers find you, the author (although, in practice, ORCIDs and the internet, lessen the importance of up-to-date affiliations in journal articles compared to pre-internet days).

Depending on the journal, it may not be appropriate.
Some journals have a policy that the affiliation should be where the majority of the work was done. The request may go against such a policy.
Moreover, some (or even most) journals have the policy that in the final proofreading stage, only issues that were introduced during the publishing process (e.g., due to typesetting by the journal) will be fixed. The proofreading stage is to ensure that everything appears as the authors originally intended it, not to enable the authors to change their minds.

+1 Thanks for the answer, I have checked the journal and they are clear in their policy that "the affliation should be where the majority of the work was done"

@JaafarMehrez but this doesn't change, right? You are saying that the departments have simply changed name or been merged, so using "newName" is correct, since "oldName" just doesn't exist any more.


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Where to add acknowledgement in Article
I have written an article (2-column type), and would like to put an acknowledgement to acknowledge the non-substantial contribution of a colleague in the analysis of some data.
The structure of the article is
Introduction
Main body
-> chapter with the data
Conclusion
References

Where and how should I put the acknowledgements?

The acknowledgement is usually placed between the conclusion and the references.
You should write a sentence mentioning how the other person or persons contributed to the paper or your work.

While this answer is correct, it is also possible in some cases, to work in the thanks in the introduction, especially if the contribution is what actually led to this work.

You should not worry about this. Add it wherever you believe it fits. The editors of the journal will move it to the place where they like it (or tell you to do so). It is widely considered a matter of journal style, similar to the question of whether the Preface counts as Section 1 or as an unnumbered extra section. (I'm speaking for mathematics, but I have no reasons to think this is different in other subjects.)


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What's the purpose of a PhD defense?
It looks like everyone has it's own theories on what's the function of a defense. People say that it has to be a contribution to knowledge, other people say that it has to reflect 3 years of work, other say that it has to be a work of publishable quality.
Given that "contribution to knowledge" is kinda a difficult ground to judge for some humanities, how are examiners approaching a PhD defense in the humanities?

The PhD defense is the « contribution to knowledge » or the PhD thesis?

None of these sound like what the defense is about, but instead what the thesis should be.

Are we talking about the oral exam defending the thesis, or the corpus of work done during the PhD?

Possible duplicate of What questions to prepare for PhD defense? In particular, see the first answer that explains the two major variants of PhD defenses.

@Luca Are you asking what type of work is worth a PHD, or what is the defence (the “oral examination”) for? Please clarify. If the latter, It seems a good philosophical question - to which I do not have a good answer!

Hi all. Sorry, after 2 months since my PhD failure ("resubmit") I had again a moment in which I was wondering what had gone wrong, given that I only received positive feedback during my viva and was generally given the motivations: "it has be a contribution to knowledge" and "objective of a PhD is to create a publishable work" - reviews very loose, in which these two critics moved to me were not substantially explained (on the opposite, it's written that the work is very clear and well written).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_what_it_does  If a system has been around for a long time, and nobody has hated it enough to change it, then the results of that system are sufficiently good, or insufficiently bad, to cause them to act. So the purpose of the system is what it does. PhD defenses give professors employment.

Because there are so many different disciplines and educational systems, there is no universal definition of what constitutes either sufficient work for a PhD or constitutes a successful defense.
That said, the “original work of scholarship” connotes that the PhD candidate has produced something that is new at the time of the defense. In the arts, for instance, is an exhibition of sculptures or paintings “publishable?” That depends greatly on your definition, but it would unquestionably represent something original.
The goal of the defense is also quite variable, depending on local policies and culture but is usually regarded as a vehicle for demonstrating mastery to an audience by allowing for questioning of the candidate.

The ‘defense’ is part and parcel of the work itself. Typically you must first produce some novel work, and at the very end, you must ‘defend’ this work in an act of oral discourse. The defense is mostly a rite of passage in most disciplines. Your advisor and committee usually won’t let you get that far if the work is sub par and you’re likely to ‘fail’. Officially, you must be able to speak intelligently about the work and address criticisms on the fly, proving your scholarship and deep knowledge.


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Can I pursue a PhD in the Netherlands with no Masters?
I'm a 37-year-old student with 12 years professional experience in the field of the PhD and a strong BA (Hons) in the academic field of the project. Linguistic fluency in the indigenous languages and 1 peer-reviewed academic paper. I'm wondering if I can apply for a PhD in the Netherlands with this profile?
I have direct field research experience in the project area and I'm currently working as a research assistant/fellow at a social science research institute.
Do you think I have a chance?

It is true that in the Netherlands they prefer it if you have a masters. However, some people have been admitted and completed PhD programs without one. I am one of those people, and I had less industry experience than yourself.
I think your chances are good, and your CV sounds better than many people with a masters. But it will depend on your potential supervisors. You should contact prospective supervisors beforehand (this is what I did). Sometimes there are administrative issues, so the supervisors will have to explain to the graduate school in the university why they are hiring someone without a masters.

"Prefer" is kind of an understatement. It is literally written into the law that you must have a Masters to get a PhD, but there is a clause that in exceptional circumstances an exception can be made. A good amount of industry experience could be sufficient for that, but it's highly unusual and will be a lot of administrative work. Artikel 7.18 Wet op het hoger onderwijs en wetenschappelijk onderzoek

"and will be a lot of administrative work." - this didn't seem to be the case when I started my PhD (2012).


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How can I prepare well for a MSc in the UK?
I am going to study this course in 3 months: MSc Advanced Manufacturing Technology and Systems Management. It is offered by The University of Manchester.
I am a bit nervous and I want to prepare for it to overcome my nervousness.
Are there any good resources or online courses which makes me ready for this MSc?
Thank you very much.

Why are you nervous? If you have been accepted to the course you clearly have the pre-requisite knowledge of the subject. Take a break, have a nice holiday, relax instead.

Master's degrees in the UK are not very difficult; they are designed to take money from foreign students.  Very few people fail.  You will do fine.

@astronat I really dont know why, Bachelor was easy enough for me and I got very high scores. But I think Masters is very different.

@CaptainCodeman But The University of Manchester is not a normal university, Its rank is very high especially for engineering.

@Forenkazan I went to the University Of Oxford, and I can assure you, while the rank is high, the primary purpose of the MSc degrees is to make money from foreign students.  They are not in the business of failing people as it would hurt their income.  It doesn't mean that you will not learn anything, but keep in mind that it is not extremely difficult.  I'll write some suggestions for you anyway though, if you want to prepare.

@Forenkazan Its rank is high mostly because of its research excellence which has almost nothing to do with a master's degree, as little to none serious research goes on before Ph.D. there. I'd assure you that Captain Codeman's remark about UK universities holds for the University of Manchester too.

We can't answer the specifics about the course. However, you could email the course director (or similar person) and ask. For example, you could ask if they have a reading list that they could send you before you start. They'll probably be pleased that you're keen, and while they might not have anything useful to say, they are very unlikely to be upset by the request.

Here are a few tips if you want to be proactive:

Find out what topics will be covered in the course, and start reading some of the topics which interest you.  See if there are any websites on the university that list the topics offered, and if you can access any of the learning materials.
Reach out to some the professors and start talking to them.  (This will also be helpful later when you select a thesis)
Reach out to previous students; ask for previous years' books and materials.  (Tip: There will probably a facebook group for everybody that does the course for a given year, ask someone to add you to the previous year's group)

But remember, as I mentioned in the comments, in the UK the independent 1-year master's degrees are set up primarily for foreign students as an income stream.  I saw this first hand when I did a master's degree in Oxford.  It is not good for business for them to fail students, so there will be a lot of support available.  So while there is no need to become complacent, I wouldn't worry too much.

Surely the OP will know what topics are to be studied as that is why they chose the course? However, I agree further reading or preparatory reading is a good idea.


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Importance of research experience in engineering PhD
My friend would like to achieve a Doctorate in Engineering, however currently has only limited research experience (She has completed an undergraduate degree and helped a few professors with some of their side projects).  While I know that research experience is rather important for many science PhD programs, does the same apply to Engineering?
My thought is that since most engineering undergraduate programs are more industry based, research experience is less common and therefore less demanded.  Is this hunch true, or would it be best to get a Master's Degree with the associated research experience, and then apply for a doctoral program?

Why doesn't she apply to PhD programmes and see if she is accepted? Apply to some Master's degrees at the same time as a fallback: win win.

I think that not having undergraduate research experience wouldn't be disqualifying in any field. The best place to learn, however, is from the admissions system of a university you are considering attending. The expectations can vary.
The doctorate, in fact, is where you normally get qualified as a researcher. Masters programs will often, but not necessarily, have a research component, depending on field of study. But even at that level, the usual goal is to produce practitioners of an art/craft/profession rather than researchers. If practitioners don't normally need to do research, the Master's degree may not have much of a research component.
Another issue is "What constitutes research?". If you help out, for pay or credit on someone else's research you may learn relatively little about conducting research, even though you are listed as a co-author on some publications. At the minimum it is hoped that you learn a bit about common processes and the tools and techniques, but the research would then be driven by the ideas of others. Perhaps in Chemical Engineering, having this basic knowledge of the tools would be expected but unlikely to be gained in an undergraduate education.
On the other hand, at many universities, the competition for enrollment in any given program can be fierce and some research background may be taken as a plus, separating the "obviously qualified" from the "rest of the best." The timing of application can also have an effect. If the country has a large need and few applicants you will have a better chance than in the opposite situation.
Whether to take a separate Master's level degree or not, depends on the university and possibly the country. Taking a Master's that doesn't have a research component won't necessarily help. Also, many doctoral programs will accept students with only an undergraduate degree and, perhaps, award a Master's along the way. In that case, expect the overall program to be a bit longer than if you start with an appropriate Master's, of course.
Finally, if you take a Master's at one university, you still need to contend with admission requirements at a second university if you switch. In those places in which programs are well coordinated this may be simple. In others, not so simple, so study the issue in advance wherever you are.
The best advice is to look at the requirements of a few interesting universities. If you seem to have the qualifications, explore further, perhaps by corresponding with the department you wish to join or the university itself. If you are encouraged to apply then you probably have the basic qualifications, though you still face the competition.

This may depend on the location - in the UK, it is possible to be enrolled on a MPhil / PhD program and part-way through officially transfer to the PhD.


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I am planning to apply to Masters/PhD program in economics but my grades in first and second year are terrible?
I am planning to apply to some North American Masters and PhD econ programs this upcoming fall. While I meet all the minimum requirements to be eligible for admission into all the programs, I am pretty nervous about my first and second-year grades: they are horrific. Now, I know that a lot of people say that freshman performance doesn't really count, but my situation is a bit different from the rest.
When I was first enrolled in an undergraduate program at the university, I studied business. Like many other freshmen out of high school, I didn't care about grades. All I wanted to do was pass my courses and get the degree. In my first year, I did pass all my courses, but my average was below the honors program requirement and the academic office issued me a probation warning. Probation warning caused me to panic a little bit, but it still was not enough to make me a better student. In my second year, I failed a couple of core business courses and I was put on probation as a result. Over the course of two years, I did not meet the class average in any of my classes. The University allowed me to come back into the program after I would have taken the year off, but I decided to withdraw from the institution and reapply into a different program at another university.
Fortunately, I was offered admission into one of the English programs at the university in the town where my parents reside. Since I earned some credits from the previous institution, I was registered as a second-year student. This time I performed much better. My average improved drastically, it increased from mid/high 50% to 79%. I scored above class average in every single course with the exception of one. This was also the year, I was taking a calculus course which pushed me to switch from Honors English program to Double Major in Economics and English after an excellent performance. In the previous academic year (2017-2018), I obtained an 87% average (for that year alone) in English and Economics courses. Right now, I am taking math courses in the summer and some advanced ones in the upcoming graduate year.
Based on my recent performance at my current undergraduate university, I think I have decent chances to be accepted into at least one of the graduate problems. But as I mentioned earlier, my performance at my first university is terrible. How much of a problem do you think my two years in business would cause me if at all?
Thanks

Hi, Skynight. Welcome to Academia.SE. Your question is a frequently asked one, so we’ve written an answer that we hope addresses your concerns at the link above.


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Phd Student here: Where is the line between free labor abuse vs....whatever the "good" version of free labor is?
I have an advisor who is very supportive. She responds quickly, offers advice and helpful edits (often on a short turnaround from my own delays), and seems invested in my doing well in the program (Social Sciences program in America).
However, I have, over the years, come to observe that she is prone to seeing others for ways she can "use" them, and has displayed at times disrespect for others' time, etc. So that's made me put my own guard up to look for the same treatment of me.
She helped facilitate my funding for the year (but it's funding for me to do work for another agency), so I think strictly speaking, I owe that agency 20 hours/week, and my other time is meant for degree progress (part of which is receiving mentorship from advisor). But I know that sometimes, much of my week goes towards helping my advisor with her stuff. Her grants, projects, pilot data, administrative work, journal article reviews, etc. The most agitating are absolutely menial tasks like picking up her mail and moving it from one building to another.
So I am wondering...at what point am I just a great advisee, with whom she produces some good work, and for which she will be a long-term (career-long??) mentor and friend and recommender... and at what point am I just being used for free labor?
Edit: The mail pickup is not just junk magazine/letters..but packages and such, some of which may be for my specific studies. But there have been times when, even for packages that are NOT for my studies, I've been asked to do X,Y,Z with them.

If my supervisor asked me to pick up his post I would simply laugh. It's ridiculous that she's asked you to do that, but I'm afraid that you might be so far down the path of exploitation that it will be difficult to start refusing to do things now.

I would guess, at no point it would be appropriate for her to expect you to pick up her mail. Other things you mentioned might be understood under "teaching the routines of academia". What happens when you gently refuse to do those menial tasks? Is there disregard, disrespect or distancing?

I edited my post above to expand on the mail a bit. I've started to turn down requests for extraneous work and she just says "ok". Not sure if there is disregard, disrespect growing beneath but no outright indications.

well, then you should need to learn to say "no". You can't expect her to understand your feeling without communicating them. Issue starts if she expects you to do stuff that you are in no way obligated to and behaves in a retalitory fashion if you do not comply. One possible underlying mentality to consider is the following. She might be diverting you the time you save for her. From what I understand, you spend a decent amount of time with your advisor. I have heard meetings as low as an hour in every week.

I am very sympathetic to your supervisor, so my discussion here will be biased. Good supervisors are not given much recognition nor appreciated much by the system. The system seems to reward poor supervisors by giving them time to do more research.
Could this be a quid-pro-quo situation? It is clear that menial tasks are out of line, and there is a line between exploitation and also asking for assistance. Especially, so she can spend more time to do more for you and her students, providing responsive feedback etc. So the issue is whether you feel appreciated enough right now? And how much time you are spending for her and her agendas. How much of her agenda lines up with your future goals and aspirations? Try to align your agenda and activities so you are not feeling exploited but part of her team.
Despite all this, if your agenda is not aligning, then speak up and try to set boundaries. Realise that your time and access may deteriorate to the bare minimum that other supervisors seem to give? May not necessarily be as retaliation but rather as the result of her time being reduced as well for "menial tasks". Some people really struggle with "menial tasks" and changing focus can be a struggle for those people who prefer conceptual and more abstract work.


text:
Should I be asked to serve as a peer reviewer for other universities' Pre-Proposal Support efforts?
I received a request from the sponsored projects office person at a well known university, asking me to peer review a grant proposal that was in preparation at their university.  The idea was for me to help their researchers to write a more successful grant proposal.  I felt that it was something of an abuse for them to even ask me, and they were damaging their university's reputation by making such requests of people.  They wrote back to correct what they termed my inaccurate and/or disagreeable assumptions and conclusions.  They said in effect that I am a bad academic citizen for not being willing to help them with this.
My questions:  Is this a reasonable thing for universities to ask?  Or is it unreasonable or even damaging to their reputation to be soliciting this kind of help?
[Edited for length.  If you want to see the original email exchange, look at the edit history.]

By the way, I know that copyright law does not allow me to post these emails without the permission of the sender.  I am posting them with the explicit permission of [Second unnamed officer], who is also interested in knowing what other faculty think about this.

Would you be paid (didn't read it deeply enough - too long)? Is it likely you would be called on by the funding agency to do a formal review. That would set up a conflict of interest (or an attempt to keep you out of the formal process, which is worse). Contracting for reviews seems ok to me as long as the contractor isn't involved in the formal process.

This question really doesn't need the whole email exchange

@AzorAhai:  Yes, you might be right.  But I was concerned that if I tried to paraphrase, it would be difficult to paraphrase entirely neutrally.  I wanted to let this person speak for themself.  Sorry it's so long.

@Buffy:  Yes, it's long, sorry.  No, there was no talk of being paid.  In this particular case, it was unlikely that I would also be asked to review the proposal for the funding agency.  But one could imagine that happening in similar situations.  I hadn't thought about the conflict of interest angle.

I suggest Azor is right.  You should shorten your question to one paragraph.

This does indeed sound like a university asking employees of its competitors to help it win a greater proportion of available funding.... Interesting question, but I agree with the others that it might be better to summarize what you were asked rather than copy/pasting the whole emails.

There seems to be a consensus that the email exchange should go.  I have deleted it.  (Anyone who downvoted because of length, please upvote now.  :)  )

I'm not sure why they replied to your email, with such a condescending and passive agressive tone. You don't want to review for them. It is ok. Move on. I'm shocked that they replied in such a details.

Science, and academia more broadly, is and should be a community effort.  Of course, we should all work to support the common cause of advancing and disseminating knowledge.
Science funding is a different story.  Funding agencies establish a competitive process for different researchers or groups of researchers.  It is hard for me to imagine any good alternative to a competitive process for funding, but we can't deny that any specific funding competition is a zero-sum game.
Thus we as scientists unavoidably relate to each other in two fundamentally different ways:  As collaborators in a global scientific quest and as competitors.  (It's not just funding that forces this on us:  For example, we also unavoidably compete for job opportunities.)
Universities have a direct financial interest in having their researchers win competitions for grants.  So they put resources into improving their researchers' grant proposals.  One can't fault them for doing so.
But we should be candid about what the universities are specifically trying to do when they put resources into improving their own grant proposals:  They are trying to win more grants.  If they also contribute to the global effort of scientific research because grant proposals get better, great, but that beneficial effect is better understood as arising directly from the competitive process.
If [Unnamed university] wins more grants, then undeniably, some other institution wins fewer grants.  That is the university's goal, and specifically the goal of [A particular Office at Unnamed university].  But that is not my goal, and in fact opposed to my goal with respect to funding competitions.
I object to being asked to help [Unnamed university] win more grants, and I strongly object to the insinuation that, because I object, I am not a good citizen of the scientific community.  It appears to me (through very unscientific departmental-lounge polling) that others agree with me.  The reputation of [Unnamed university] has suffered greatly in my eyes because of this issue, and if, as I suspect, others feel the same way, [Unnamed university] is hurting its own reputation more broadly by acting in this way.

I do think the outsourcing of red-team review is unusual, but if they were offering to pay you as an outside consultant would you be so insulted? I think you're taking it too far when you see their reputation as suffering greatly.

Offering to pay would at least be recognizing that this kind of thing is not "service to the scientific community".  But the conflict of interest issues raised here suggest that doing it for pay is problematic.  Maybe reputation doesn't suffer greatly.  But are a lot of people left with a bad taste in their mouth as I was?  Several of the answers (seemingly the majority) here label the request as "improper" or "odd" or "problematic", so I'm not the only one who thinks they ought not to be doing this.  That can't be a good thing for their university.

I'd absolutely be onboard with disliking the behavior of the sponsored projects office that contacted you. The rest of the institution is way bigger than that, however, and the actual researchers may have little or no control over that office.

The odd aspect here, is that this request comes to you from grant support office of the other university, rather than the researchers themselves.
It is perfectly normal to ask colleagues at other universities for feedback on your grant proposals. I regularly supply such feedback for colleagues. Why do this when there is a finite pot of grant money.

First of all, this is just being nice to people. Being nice has benefits of its own, in that people will be more likely to be willing to help you when you would need it in the future.
Second, typically the researchers you will be helping are part of the same (sub)field of research as you. By helping, them you are essentially helping your (sub)field to take a larger slice of the funding pot. There are many ways this can be helpful to you in the future. (Job/hiring opportunities, increased funding opportunities, etc.)

Of course, this makes little sense if you yourself fishing in that particular funding pot. In which case, you have a good reason to deny such requests.
The really strange aspect in this case, is that the request came from the grant support office at the other university. This almost completely negates the first list reason to comply with requests for feedback, as it diminishes the networking aspect. The second reason may or may not exist, but the fact the request did not come from the researchers directly implies that you did not already have a professional relationship with them, which reduces the likelihood that they are in the same (sub)field.

Yes, this is an institutional effort from the grant support office.  The initial email said that "[Unnamed university] provides a grant proposal peer review service for its faculty, which recruits subject matter experts to objectively evaluate grant proposals prior to their submission."  That immediately bothered me, because they are not providing anything except the service of asking me to provide a large amount of time.  You're right: If a colleague had reached out to me about this, I would indeed have felt differently.

It does strike me that this is an improper request to make of active faculty at a different university, for reasons much as you say: funding is a competition, and you have your own people (and yourself) to look after.
If you were retired, and disengaged from the university at which you'd worked, sure, why not take a larger view? "A rising tide lifts all boats", and all that.
But, while you are "still in the game", it literally is that your competitors (or  your students' or colleagues' competitors) are asking you for "insider information", in effect. Considering that universities' administrations visibly do not care so much about altruistic "greater good", but about external funding dollars, to consult externally in such a manner is obviously construable as sabotaging your own students, colleagues, department, and university.
It is completely unsurprising that the reaction to your objection was on the order of "oh, come on, you're being a selfish jerk". Because they'd like to bully you into helping them, etc. No-brainer.
Sure, if they can swindle people into helping their own competition, they have greatly succeeded, and will be happy. They have zero motivation to not do it, because (as you saw) they can package it as some mythical "greater good" thing, even while screwing over their competitors, whenever possible.
Probably the larger point is that to engage with people embarked on such projects is futile and inevitably frustrating, because they've already made certain decisions, which often seem to include rationalizations about how exploiting/cheating other people is simply "good business" or is "clever" or ... something.
So your only serious error is to engage with them and spend time and mental energy! :) Don't let opportunistic jerks fool you!

The implication of this answer is that it would be more proper if the request came from the university that you were employed by. Note that colleagues at different departments at your university are as much competitors as colleagues at other universities. In some sense more so, since you typically are also competing for the University's resources, and helping them will strengthen their position to do so.

Let me give a scenario in which it would be proper. I would be skeptical of other scenarios that aren't essentially similar.
Suppose that I'm an experienced grant writer but am now retired. Suppose also that I'm not an active reviewer for funding agencies, though have done so in the past. I have a lot of knowledge that it would be good to pass on.
Suppose a university, either the one I've retired from or any other, approaches me with a proposal to train their young researchers and to help them actively by reviewing a current proposal and giving feedback and advice on it. Suppose they also offer to pay me a non-token amount for my efforts.
I would think that, then, it would be fine to agree. This is really no different from a commercial company asking me to train their employees in some state of the art technology for which they need advice. As with the company you have to remove the possibility of a conflict of interest.
If I were not yet retired, then it gets a bit sticky. If it were my own university and I was "paid" by having other duties reduced for a while, then fine.
If it is another university and I'm not retired then it is even stickier. To do a decent job of it takes time and effort, which should be compensated. But it is also very difficult to avoid conflict of interest scenarios.
And, for an active faculty member, especially one who is still developing grant proposals or who is reviewing for agencies it becomes ethically "interesting", to say the least.
Among other issues, the requesting university would probably want a "non disclosure agreement" for the work. What effect might that have on your own research program?
If I review a grant informally and offer improvements and then am asked to review it formally on behalf of an agency, I have a conflict. I would ethically have to decline the formal review. The worst case is one in which the one asking for this service initially is actually trying to create such a conflict, guaranteeing that I could not be a formal reviewer - an attempt to take me out of the picture. I don't suggest that this is what is going on in this specific case, but it would put a cloud over the whole practice.
So, I think that most scenarios are problematic. It is very different from the normal practice of reviewing papers, because reviewing is done on behalf of a third party: the journal or conference.
And it is also different from informal cross-reviewing of papers within a circle of collaborators as it becomes a cooperative venture in that case.

These are good points.  In my specific situation, I am an active researcher, still applying for grants.  The grant I was asked to help with was for a math REU (research experience for undergraduates).  So it wasn't in competition with my own research grant application, but our math department does have an REU program, so it is in competition.  (I'm not sure whether our math REU grant was up for renewal this year.)

Actually, in this particular case, I suspect it might be very slightly in Nathan's self-interest to help.  The REU grant competition is, as I understand it, conducted across mathematics as a whole.  Hence, hyperbolic geometric topology projects are competing against numerical elliptic PDE projects.  If you're a hyperbolic geometric topologist, it helps you if there are more grants in hyperbolic geometric topology, since your students and postdocs are more likely to get jobs, your papers get more citations, et c.  Mathematical subfields are small and function as a circle of collaborators.

@AlexanderWoo:  That's a good point, which I hadn't thought of.  It was indeed a combinatorics REU, and (as you know) I do combinatorics.  But I wonder if panels really reward the best proposals without regard to subfields?  Possibly they do,  but only up to some limit (i.e. at some point, someone says "that's too many combinatorics REUs").  So by helping this REU, I may or may not be working against other combinatorics REUs.  But in any case, I might be working against my own institution's REU program.

You‘ve reached the correct conclusion, that you have no obligation to help researchers at another university improve their grant proposals and that you have better things to do with your time, but based on incorrect reasoning that it is unreasonable and abusive for the other university to ask for your help.
It is reasonable (though probably pointless, as I suspect they will soon discover) for them to ask, and it is more than reasonable for you to say no. That’s all there is to the story really.
As for the suggestion that they are “abusing the system”, to the very minor extent that there is an abuse here, it is a self-limiting type of abuse — a bit similarly to a beggar standing on a street corner asking for money. Some people may give them money, and that is their prerogative; you certainly don’t have to if you don’t want to.

Yes, maybe "abuse" was the wrong word.  In a purely social situation, when someone makes inappropriate requests, we might say that they are "imposing on" someone.  And some people, because of specific social situations may find themselves unable to say no to someone who is imposing on them.  Similarly, while I certainly am in a position to say no easily, one can imagine scenarios where someone feels real pressure to say yes to this kind of request.


text:
Any chance of math grad school?
In my freshman year of undergrad I was a chemistry major. However, I hated it and because I hated it I did not do well in my chemistry classes. Because of this, I cheated on a midterm as well as a problem set by over collaborating with another person. I got caught and was called in - but long story short, I ended up confessing and was put on leave for a term. During this term I spent a lot of time thinking about what I did, volunteered at a summer camp, and spent my time productively. I truly regret what I did but I cannot change the past. When I came back, I switched my major to math because I hated chemistry and I wanted to pursue my true passion. However, I now soon will apply to graduate school for math. I am planning on disclosing the academic dishonesty I committed during my freshman year. Nonetheless, I am worried that my application will be dismissed entirely because of my cheating incident. Obviously cheating is a big red flag in any student's application. But will I even have a chance at being accepted at say a mid tier math graduate school? Will it help if I manage to get the undergraduate dean whom I confessed to, to write a letter on my behalf?

Was the cheating a one-off, or recurrent?

I cheated on two assignments (pset and midterm) but was called in for academic misconduct only once. My school does not immediately call in students when something is reported because they handle cases one at a time. So although my pset was reported, they didn't call me in by the time my midterm was also reported. But that was the one and only time I was called in.

I think (I cannot speak for others, of course) that every person should be entitled to sins of youth - you clearly understand and regret what you did (which is the most important bit). I should say, go for it.

The cheating incident is likely to lower the admissions committee's opinion of your application, but I don't think it will lower it so much that you have no chance of admission if your record is otherwise strong.  So I agree with Captain Emacs: Go for it.

I agree with the other comments and I think a letter from the undergraduate dean might be helpful, yes.

If you want the option of going to grad school for math, you should apply regardless. By not applying, you are voting no on your admission. Rather than self-selecting out, let them tell you no.


text:
If I don't ask for a recommendation letter from a postdoc I did research with, will it look bad?
I am applying for math graduate school. I have two people that I did research with: A professor and a postdoc. I have a strong connection with the professor, but the postdoc I do not. He was very passive aggressive with me and our relationship does not seem to be a good one. I do not want to ask him for a letter. However, I am wondering if this will look suspicious or hurt me in any sort of way. If I say in my application that I did do research with a postdoc but I did not receive a letter from that postdoc, will that affect me or the admission committee's decision? Will the admissions committee likely email this postdoc to hear about me from him?
Thank you very much.

Please clarify:  do the postdoc and professor work together?

No they do not work together

How will anyone know unless you tell them?

Admissions committees expect letters to be signed by professors.  It is perfectly normal to get a letter from the professor who supervised the postdoc.  The only case where I would expect the postdoc to even be mentioned in your application would be if you published a paper with the postdoc which did not include a contribution from a professor.
Keep in mind that professors often ask postdocs to help them write letters of recommendation.

I should have clarified earlier. My apologies. The professor and postdoc do not work together at all. I mentioned the professor to state that I have a letter from a faculty member that I did do research with.

Are you writing about mathematics specifically?  I am the chair of the graduate admissions committee in my mathematics department, and I have never seen a letter written by a professor who supervised the postdoc about research in which the professor was not directly involved.  I wonder why you assume that the postdoctoral supervisor even knows about the work the postdoc did with the undergraduate: for instance, as a postdoc I led a summer research project with two undergraduates.  It was in a completely different subfield of mathematics from my supervisor's specialty.

"I have never seen a letter written by a professor who supervised the postdoc about research in which the professor was not directly involved."  I was assuming the professor was involved.  The asker has since explained that is not the case.  "I wonder why you assume that the postdoctoral supervisor even knows about the work the postdoc did" Usually postdocs tell their supervisors about their work so they can get credit for it.

@AnonymousPhysicist At least in math, postdocs usually get credit for their work by publishing it.

In my case (as a postdoc), I got a very small amount of credit by putting the fact that I led a summer research project with two undergraduates on my CV.  This research did not lead to any published paper, nor was I really "collaborating" with the students: rather, I gave them some things to explore.  I think this describes the most typical research experience in mathematics for undergraduates, although (unfortunately, I mostly think) in the NSF sponsored REUs there is increasing pressure to publish.  By the way, I did write a grad school letter for one of these students.

For every US graduate program in mathematics I know of, the application process includes three letters.  So evidently you won't be getting letters from most of the faculty you've worked with.
If I were advising a student who had done two successful research projects with two different faculty members, I would advise against getting letters from both of these faculty members unless each one can also discuss your coursework and progress through the major.  In my experience, when it comes to letters for math grad school describing undergraduate research, the writers almost universally paint a happy picture of the work, which most often leads to an "all happy families are alike" situation.  Namely, they (most often) say nice things about the student, their work and that potential, but not sufficiently incisive nice things to really help out the admissions committee.  Which makes a lot of sense: if you gave a student a project to, say, determine whether each continuous map of surfaces such that the induced homomorphism of fundamental groups has a nontrivial kernel must then have a nontrivial element of the kernel represented by a simple loop and the student eventually got some partial negative results*...how do you compare that to other students -- no other student has worked on that problem.
Moreover, getting letters from more senior academics is (other things being equal) better than getting letters from more junior academics, because the more senior academics have more experience watching and guiding students through the various stages of their academic careers.  I would think that a typical postdoc in mathematics is still more heavily informed by their own undergradaute and graduate experience than those of students they have been involved with.
Anyway, long story short: even if the postdoc had great things to say about you, you wouldn't necessarily want their letter unless they had the best things of anyone who could plausibly write for you.  As this is not the case: don't get the letter from that postdoc, and don't worry about it at all.
*: This is in fact a description of my own undergraduate research.  I did not get a letter from the faculty member about it, though I'm sure he would have had nice things to say.

I would advise against getting letters from both of these faculty members unless each one can also discuss your coursework and progress through the major — I find this suggestion odd.  In my experience, PhD recommendation letters rarely say anything about coursework that can't be gleaned from reading the transcript; whereas, research collaborators have more direct personal insight into the applicant's interests, work habits, and skills.

@JeffE: One of they key parts of a math grad school recommendation letter is where the recommender explains where the student falls with respect to the spectrum of other undergrads from that institution.  With regard to research: the research that most undergraduates in pure mathematics do need not have much to do with their future interests and skills.  As I mentioned in my answer, my undergraduate research was on surface topology.  Twenty one years later, if you squint at my work very carefully you can see some residue of this interest, but the connection is pretty faint.

Right, but your research supervisor could still talk about your approach to research, your mathematical maturity, your creativity, your stubbornness, your attention to detail, your communication skills, your independence, your comfort with frustration, and other habits of successful mathematics researchers, regardless of subfield—much more directly and personally than your real analysis instructor.  On the other hand, it's not hard to tell where a student falls with respect to other undergrads at that institution by comparing their transcript to others from the same or similar institutions.


text:
Should I disclose cheating incident if I am not asked?
I have been convicted for academic misconduct in my college some years back.
Now suppose I am applying for a program that does NOT ask about any academic misconduct. Would it be in my best interest to just tell them anyways? I know that telling the program would hurt me, but on the other hand, I feel that leaving this out would feel sort of like a "sin of omission"-type situation.
Any thoughts are appreciated.

Keep in mind that your previous institution may list the incident on your transcript...

Why complicate your life? Hopefully you have learned from your errors and moved on. I see no reason to bring it up, but would be careful to reply honestly to any questions that actually do arise.
Many students have some transgressions in their past. Many are never called to account. Most, we hope, overcome the need and tendency to cheat and develop better life skills.
I think that if you were intending to repeat bad behavior in the future then you wouldn't be asking a question like this. The application materials for graduate study never, to my knowledge, ask you why you should not be admitted.

Thank you for your reply. I have definitely learned from my past mistakes - part of me still feels bad and guilty about what I did so it just seems like i'm..."getting off easy" if I'm not asked about my "record".

+1 - emphasis on honestly answer if asked about it.


text:
Moving abroad with books marked "for sale in Indian subcontinent only"
I am soon going to move from India to Norway. I own multiple reference books that will be relevant to my work in the future as well and I plan to move with my books. Several of the editions that I own are marked "for sale in the Indian subcontinent only". One of them bears a sticker "ILLEGAL for sale in USA" and inside the book, in two places, contains a sticker "It is ILLEGAL under Indian Law to export this book from India."
Question: will I get into trouble at any point because I own books with these labels/stickers? Have other academics faced any problem possessing these books outside of the Indian subcontinent?
For background information on International Edition

Not a lawyer, but those labels only refer to sale, not personal use. I don't see why it should be a problem unless you sell or share the books in the country you go to.

This seems unlikely for anything that you legally acquired in India. Resale might be technically illegal, but unlikely to be charged for private sales. The goal of the law is commercial sales.

Can you peel the stickers off? :P

@astronat even though I called them stickers, they are actually printed...so no :P

Possible duplicate of https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/52035/legal-issues-regarding-a-recent-amazon-purchase/52050#52050

The goal of such "rules" isn't to prevent scholars from moving with their libraries, but to restrict the potential practice of commercial brokers from taking advantage of regional discounts and immediately reimporting them into place without those discounts.
It might even be questionable whether "ILLEGAL for sale..." could be enforced in any case, though copyright restrictions need to be observed.
I think the worst that would happen is if some customs officer "raised an eyebrow" if you carried a few books across a border. But the eyebrow raising would likely be followed by a smile.
It might be technically illegal for you to resell books in some places, but there would really be no one to enforce such a "law" for a private sale. It would be a different matter if you had a hundred copies of the same text, of course because now the publisher might take notice.
And such laws are much more likely to be civil in nature, requiring a lawsuit and not a criminal matter.
There is a general principle in the law, though it is informal: The law does not concern itself with trivialities.
But, I'm not a lawyer. I try to judge such things with common sense.
Note also that the standard boilerplate printed in the front matter of most books (in the US, say) imply that you have fewer rights than you do. They don't, generally, mention fair use exceptions. "No part of this book may be reproduced in any form..." That is really wishful thinking on their part, not actual law or regulation.

For that matter, it's not clear to me that there is any such law (e.g., in the U.S.). How could it be formulated so that U.S. citizens could not buy lots of cheap books abroad, bring them back to the U.S. (declaring them, ...), and reselling? Printing "it's illegal to do X" doesn't magically make it illegal, after all. :)

@paulgarrett, bulk offenders (1000 copies of a Calc text) might get sued, but I agree, there are unlikely to be laws that prevent it unless fraud is involved. For an individual, the trivialities principle is a good safeguard.

Still, on what grounds would a "bulk offender" be sued? That the publisher didn't want them to do that? In the sense that anyone can sue anyone for anything, sure, but ... grounds? I've seen these imprints in books for ages, but never thought about it...  Is there a U.S. law saying that if a publisher stamps that in a book it must be obeyed? Under penalty of ... unhappiness of the publisher???

The vast majority of academics will not mind that you possess books marked in this way.  This is particularly true if you bought them in India.
This site is not for legal advice.  You might look at https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/52035/legal-issues-regarding-a-recent-amazon-purchase/52050#52050
https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/2059/why-were-books-never-published-with-a-eula

Note that Indian law won't apply in Norway unless there is an international convention. Nor is it academics that might object or not, but publishers.

@Buffy This is neither a law nor a publishing site.


text:
Tips for dealing with fickle advisor
Field: Neuroimaging
Location: India
Current position: post doctoral fellow
Background: I am continuing to work in the same group where I did my PhD. My advisor/supervisor/mentor is a nice person who gives me good suggestions and/or throws in the right question at me which has helped shaped my thinking in the past few years.
I have been working on a couple of (almost) independent projects in the recent times. The plan that I follow is to come up with an idea, "design" the experiment (i.e., how the computation should be done), do a few pilot experiments, and get some proof of concept results. At this stage, I take them to my supervisor for feedback and/or help (say when I need additional resources to get the computation done, etc.).
While my supervisor appreciates the work that I do and is usually supportive of my independent projects, his usual tendency is to "jump" between projects. Concretely, say if I am presenting results of project A, he would start asking me about updates on project B, instead of finishing discussion on A. If I actually have an update on B, he would move on to C. Alternatively, he would just stall the discussion on various projects and inadvertently get me to work on one or the other project. However, after a point he goes back to jumping between projects.
As a consequence of this "fickle" behaviour, projects take a lifetime to complete. Even if a project reaches a stage where we start writing the first draft, the time it takes to submit the paper is usually many more months than is strictly necessary. Therefore, I have many ongoing projects but hardly any publication. I am planning to leave this lab next year and apply for postdoctoral fellowship abroad but I worry that I will not have enough to show for my time here (in terms of publications).
Question: Are there concrete tips on dealing with this kind of situation so that projects actually reach somewhere in a valid time frame (rather than be a never ending story)?
Other info:

Even though some of these projects are primarily my ideas, it will not be possible to publish things without my advisor being on board
As and when (if rarely!) a project reaches the paper stage, the paper does benefit from my advisor's comments (and he does contribute significantly)
The reason I go to my advisor for feedback after an initial set of results is because if I wait till the final results and then present them, he might ask me to change something and redo the analyses which may not always be a good idea (for example, consider a machine learning case where I have tested my model on the final holdout set and the results are ready for publication; if the advisor asks me to change anything at this stage, it would introduce bias into my results)

Extra information (Edits):

The meetings where I present these results are pre-arranged and the agenda is (almost always) to discuss the specific results of a specific project (for example, I will email my advisor to let him know that I have reached somewhere in project A and that I would like to discuss the results and the next steps at a time that works for him)
With any request for such a meeting, I attach a PowerPoint presentation where all pertinent information (background material, methods, results, references, possible next steps, outstanding questions) are present
The meetings always happen in person

Can you give additional details about the meetings? How are you presenting the agenda and the results etc? What written or visual aids? Where is meeting occurring ( office,Zoom,etc?)

Is it possible that he is just able to get the essence of what you say almost immediately, has no issue with it, and, so, moves on to the next thing?

@Dawn added some extra information

@Buffy while it is possible that he doesn't have any issues with the results, I almost always present discussion points which include specific points where his inputs are needed; additionally, there are almost always more things to do and decisions to be made about where to take the project, etc.

How do the meetings end? It seems like the jumping around isn't the real problem, the real problem is that you're leaving the meeting without getting what you need. So I wonder if it's just a matter of not leaving the office until your concerns are addressed.

@cag51 The meetings usually end with no concrete decisions made but only vague remarks on meeting again when some next steps are taken (which are usually from my "possible next steps" slides)

You're already doing the things I would suggest as 'softer' tips: setting a specific agenda and preparing a presentation on a specific project is a pretty good cue to everyone in the room that it's the focus of discussion. You could be more direct and say "today I've prepared these slides to discuss project A, so I'd rather finish that before moving on to B and C", but I don't know if that'll really work in your case.
I think you should instead have a direct conversation with your advisor. Avoid being accusatory ("you're preventing me from being productive!") and stick to describing the problems you have ("I feel stretched between multiple projects so that I am making only modest progress on each of them rather than getting them completed; I need completed projects to advance in my career"). Seek their advice on how to manage this, and if that advice includes focusing on one of your projects, you can refer back to that advice when you are quizzed on something else. You have the benefit of working in a field where the standards for authorship and productivity mean that your productivity is your advisor's productivity, too: your coauthored papers with them count just as much for them as they do for you, so your goals of getting papers published should be in alignment.
I'd also consider, or perhaps ask, whether there are other outside factors behind your advisor's shifting goals. I'm in a bit of a similar situation, working as a scientist in a lab that is juggling a lot of different things. Some of those are collaborations where we've promised progress to various other people. Given those commitments, it's more acceptable to make progress on each of them rather than to tell certain collaborators that we won't get back to them until we finish XYZ. The reality is that XYZ project will probably never actually be finished, because even if papers are published from that project these will spawn new avenues to research. Until everything is known, nothing in science is really ever complete. There can also be grant deadlines or progress reports due for particular projects. I think if you know better what your advisor's motivations are, that may help you anticipate where their focus will be as well as understanding whether they are being fickle or just trying to manage various aspects of a heavy workload.


text:
PhD thesis: novelty at the time of proposal but not submission
Location: India
Field: Neuroscience
Background: A few years ago, at the time of joining my PhD, I submitted a proposal which was eventually approved by the institute and the ethics committee. At the time when I proposed this work, there were barely a couple of papers on the topic and it seemed quite novel. Now, I have submitted my thesis and have just received my reviews from two external reviewers. During this time, as expected, many other people have got into the field. Unfortunately for me, I have not been able to publish my thesis results yet, so I have missed out on cashing in on the head start.
Now, one of my reviewer is questioning the novelty of my work. There are still a few novel aspects to my thesis in the sense of how I have approached the problem, although some of the novelty has been lost simply because there are some recent papers that have shown similar, if not the same, results. The important point is that most of these recent papers are in the past 1-1.5 years.
Typically in the kind of PhD program I am enrolled in, one submits a proposal and then works on them till they submit. Modifications are usually not the norm. Part of the reason why I couldn't finish my thesis before these papers started kicking in is wanting to be much more sure about the results (given that I come from a completely different field with zero background), lack of (enough) data at the right time, learning the ropes of the game, and intermediate lack of funding situation (committed funds not arriving at the right time), etc.
Question: In programs like the one I am enrolled in, can one justify novelty based on the fact that when the study was initiated, it was quite novel and that it is only in the past 1-1.5 years that people have started publishing? Another way to look at the question would be: are there any good ways to "post-hoc" justify novelty?
A similar situation (without the PhD context) would be that a reviewer recommends rejection of a novel paper after a similar paper got published (while your paper was under review).
Additional note: my advisor agrees that there are still novel aspects to my thesis and they feel that the reviewer is "asking for too much from a PhD thesis"
Edit: The reviewer has recommended the thesis; this means that I will be writing a response to the comments I have received (including making some corrections/changes as needed) and then there will be a viva/defence

Forgive me as I am unfamiliar with the system in India. Does this comment from the reviewer mean that you cannot be awarded the PhD? Are they asking you to do more work/substantially rewrite the thesis? Or is it more of a "minor corrections" situation, where you can address the comments and then the thesis will be accepted? Finally, how much power does your advisor have? Can their opinion change the final outcome?

Thanks for raising this point. The reviewer has "recommended" the thesis i.e., it is good enough for to hold the final viva (public defence). I will add this information to the question. The question on the novelty is part of the comments I have received, for which I am drafting a response (a "minor corrections" situation). I would like to get insight from the good folks here on how to address this. My advisor does not have any decision making power.

I'll add this as a comment rather than an answer so as not to step on the answer of Ethan Bolker, but the doctorate is expected to be done in finite time, whereas research in general has no such limits. Therefore getting scooped needn't mean that you need to start over. The point is to prove that you can do significant work and you do that even when scooped. As long as the advisor agrees and will support you with any committee member you should be fine. In popular fields it would be hard to get a degree otherwise.

If your advisor thinks your thesis is acceptable at your school (which seems to be the case) then it's their job to do what's necessary to make that happen. Perhaps that means telling your committee why it is OK even though some of what you discovered has been published while you were working.
Standards for a thesis are not the same as those for publication.


text:
Existence of regional bias in peer review and how to deal with it
Background information:
Field: Neuroscience;
Country: India
Premise:
I am a graduate student. I have not published many articles. Over the past 5 or so years, I have been hearing from colleagues, my advisor, and other professors from my University that it is really difficult to publish in respectable journals in the field as there is a lot of resistance in seeing a good paper from a developing country. Until recently, I was skeptical of such opinions.
Current situation:
The past couple of papers that we have submitted have come back with really sparse reviews. In fact for two of our papers, we only got one peer-review which had nothing much to say except for a brief summary of the paper and a small point here and there (in fact addressing those two points wouldn't even have required a major revision; really small points). However, the editors were prompt to reject the paper saying the review(s) were not enthusiastic. [Note: I am okay with the idea that our work may have had flaws and that it could be made better; the question is not really about the review that we have received]
Question: Looking at these couple of experiences along with hearing similar experiences from several other colleagues/faculties, I am wondering if there is any truth to some sort of racial/regional bias in the peer review process. Specifically:

Is there concrete evidence out there to suggest that such discrimination at peer-review happens?
How can we deal with this kind of problems (for example, potentially submitting to journals that follow double blind reviews, etc.)

Related questions/answers:

https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/105219/115072
https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/629/115072
What prevents reviewers from providing biased and very negative reviews?

If you are trying for the very top journals with the very highest standards then you might also be seeing the same outcomes with no bias at all. I doubt that there is any systematic effect here, but also have no doubt that there are biased individuals. And, the bias that exists isn't completely unidirectional.

My experience with this is that it depends a lot on the journal in question how a particular review is interpreted. Are you willing to say what journal it is?

I think it's very hard to publish papers that are interesting when you are working in a developing country, because you don't have a very good idea of what people are interested in and don't have any reasonable ways to learn.  (Maybe I should strike out "in a developing country" and substitute "not in Boston/Cambridge")

Maybe edit the title to say "regional bias" (or maybe "cultural bias") since that's what the issue here actually is.

@Buffy "And, the bias that exists isn't completely unidirectional"
I agree! I used to think that every time one of the faculties had their paper rejected, they would cry wolf and say its prejudiced/biased in some way. Thought SE is the best place to get a reality check!

@WolfgangBangerth sure. I had this experience from NeuroImage and NeuroImage Clinical

@AlexanderWoo do you have any concrete suggestions on how to get out of that mindset? I just posted this question which I think is related to your comment: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/143806/breaking-the-perhaps-perceived-academic-poverty-cycle

@ElizabethHenning that's a good suggestion; I will edit it to regional bias

@AlexanderWoo Seriously? You need to be in "Boston/Cambridge" to know what people are interested in?

Anecdotally, "The past couple of papers that we have submitted have come back with really sparse reviews" and "the editors were prompt to reject the paper saying the review(s) were not enthusiastic" are not experiences unique to a particular region. I would not go so far as to say that this is evidence that there is not bias, but it is an indication that this level of evidence may not be enough to make that conclusion.

@BryanKrause, in the top journal in a field (if that is the case) the editors need enthusiasm to go forward, I suspect. They don't want to publish "merely good" papers. The bar is pretty high.

@Buffy Neuroimage isn't exactly a "top journal" in the field, but they are decent for a subfield; their bar is still relatively high.

Is there concrete evidence out there to suggest that such discrimination at peer-review happens?

Yes, there is. This is the most famous example, having been cited (as of time of writing) 1167 times. The author took 12 already-published papers written by authors from prestigious and productive American institutions, changed the names, added fictitious institutions, and resubmitted them to the same journal. Three of the resubmitted papers were detected. Of the remaining nine, eight were rejected for serious methodological flaws.
There're a lot of possible explanations for this, of course. One could simply be that peer review is random. Another is that methods have improved since the original publication, so the claim of serious methodological flaws is justified. Or perhaps it's just bias. It's for you to interpret.
Here's another article that deals with bias in peer review explicitly. Three of the biases investigated are prestige bias, affiliation bias, and nationality bias. There is some sign of bias, but as is typical in the social sciences, nothing is clear-cut.

How can we deal with this kind of problems (for example, potentially submitting to journals that follow double blind reviews, etc.)

I don't think there's any good option unfortunately. Double-blind peer review simply isn't very common right now, and it's not easy to submit to one anyway (you will have to modify your paper, anonymizing any self-references). Triple-blind peer review would be even better, but there are even fewer journals that practice that. Unless and until these become more common, you'll probably have to put up with it.

I think you answer is good, but maybe it would be helpful to mention that double-blind review is slowly becoming more of a standard. There even are publishers who use double-blind reviews in all of their journals (e.g. AJ or IOP, and searching for "'double blind' open access journals" yields many results as well

There's now an even better paper proving that bias exists, though it focuses on author prominence rather than regional discrimination: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4190976


text:
Get DOI for publication
in order to apply for a research grant, they ask me to provide a permanent identifier for my publications.
I have looked at such publications, but only the ISSN of such publications are provided.
Question 1: is an ISSN a permanent identifier?
Question 2: How can I get a DOI for those publications?

Setting the question aside, if you are allowed to post it, if you post a paper at ResearchGate and tell them you don't have a DOI, you'd get one from them.

As others have noted, the difference between ISSN (International Standard Serial Number) and DOI (Digital Object Identifier) is that ISSN identifies a periodical publication (i.e. journal, conference proceedings) as a whole (i.e. it does not change between volumes or issues), while DOI identifies a single published work (i.e. article) from that periodical (more specifically, it also identifies a version of that work).
Most journals provide a DOI for their publications, even if it is not immeadeately obvious. Typically it's somewhere close to the top of the page while browser-viewing the article.
To obtain a DOI from a reference, take a look here. It seems to be an official service from Crossref that will search for a DOI based on a bibliography entry.
So, you just enter text in there (I tested the service by copy-pasting the first 7 bibliography items from the reference list of my latest publication), one reference per line, click "submit" and it will try and find a DOI for each entry. Out of the 7 references I submitted, it succeeded for 6, while the last one was a book and did not have a DOI.
Note that not finding a DOI through the suggested link still does not guarantee that a publication does not have a DOI (but some do not); in that case the next-best options are to check the journal website as well as how other papers cite the work in question.
Finally, it was suggested that posting a preprint of a paper on ResearchGate will allow you to generate a DOI for it. This is true, but with one caveat - as mentioned, the DOI identifies a single instance of an article, and therefore the DOI generated through ResearchGate will be linked specifically to a preprint (or "author's version"), and not the version of the work published by a journal or in conference proceedings.

Regarding Question 1:
ISSN is an identifier of the serial publication, not an article in it.
Regarding Question 2:
Most scientific journals nowadays assign DOI identifiers to articles. If no DOI is assigned, then perhaps you could omit the DOI or explain that the journal did not issue a DOI.
If you absolutely have to provide a DOI, you can upload the article to ResearchGate, where you can generate DOIs for your uploads. However, that is probably not what the grant provider wants in a proposal, and it is probably better not to provide a DOI at all.
From your question, it appears that the permanent identifier does not have to be a DOI. If there is something like a report number assigned to your publication, that might qualify as a permanent identifier.

Thanks Jake for your help. This is what is required by the grant provider: "for each publication, either a DOI address or another persistent identifier should be indicated.". This is instead the article I would like to present: https://www.oldcitypublishing.com/journals/ijuc-home/ijuc-issue-contents/ijuc-volume-10-number-3-2014/ (pp. 165-180). Do you see anything I could use as a persistent identifier?

@LucaDanieli I don't see anything on the journal's webpage, but don't have access to the paper itself. Does it say on the PDF file (in particular around the publisher's imprint that should be on the first page)?

It looks like this journal does not issue DOIs. I would suggest contacting the journal directly to see what they suggest as a persistent identifier.

@LucaDanieli Searching in Scopus, which indexes that journal, Scopus shows no DOI, only the ISBN of the whole proceedings. You may want to check with the grant provider or your local grant office on what they would prefer in a case where there is no direct link to the specific paper. They might actually be fine with the ISBN/ISSN + page number, but it is ultimately up to them what they accept - they make the rules in this case.

Try looking at doi.org ... [I believe ISSN identifies only  the journal, not the individual paper?]


text:
Thesis supervisor is too much focussed on formatting and typos, rather than content. Is it normal?
I'm a master's student and my thesis supervisor is quite a perfectionist. She's too much focused on pointing out errors relating to formatting and typos, and less on the content. She gets absolutely furious at even the slightest use of passive voice in thesis, and whenever she comments on the content, she just writes "why?" at the end of the sentence. How can I handle this problem?

How do you know she is “absolutely furious”?

You need to give us more to convince us that this is a problem. Pointing out formatting and typos is legitimate. Pointing out a substantive problem with "why?" is legitimate to; you need to provide the content, not the advisor. Maybe you can elaborate on "absolutely furious" as @Dawn suggested?

Well, maybe the content is just okay. My former supervisor would correct the colours used in my presentation if he could not find anything to criticise - and I never thought about that as a problem.

When I read a student's work, I sometimes find it hard to get around the silly mistakes to the meat of the paper, especially if there are many mistakes. One of the most important things an academic or research needs to learn is clear, concise communication.

I tend to get increasingly emphatic on my comments if I have to repeat them multiple times. Not ideal, I'm aware, but might come across as "furious" for the uninitiated. Are you sure it isn't the case?

I am not convinced that my PhD supervisor ever read my thesis, and my experience seems similar to what you describe. However, I found this useful. In particular, at the time I was a terrible writer (and perhaps "was" is optimistic here...) and as an academic I spend a lot of time writing. Her pedantry helped me improve. I didn't feel that this was detrimental to my thesis as she would answer questions about the content ("I am unsure about the argument on page 9, can we go over it?"), but she trusted me with the content. It is my thesis after all, not my supervisors.

@TheDoctor in my old lab we had a saying: "if we reached colour remarks, the presentation is ready" :)

What subject is this?

@FabioDias it seems fair. :)


text:
Acknowledgement Page
As an artist and retired visual art professor, I'm updating my master thesis written in 1997 as a hand-crafted art book. Today I'm self-publishing a rewritten thesis as a paperback book to include more of my artwork since graduating in 1997 with my master's degree. Is it legally okay for me to use the same Acknowledgement Page in my current self-publishing book with the same title as my master's thesis, or drop it completely?

"Legally" is a tricky subject that we usually avoid here at Academia.SE - maybe you could change to "ethically" (even though we also complain people refer to 'ethics' when they aren't really asking a question of ethics - we really do seem picky don't we?), and it depends on your jurisdiction, who owns the copyright of your masters thesis, etc. Basically you are describing self-plagiarism, which is a tricky subject. The situation you are describing here, referring to an acknowledgment, seems like the absolute least offensive variety of self-plagiarism possible, though.

Can you give us a sense of how much content is in the acknowledgement? "For Grandma" might be thought of differently than a page-length essay.

Are there copyright issues? Did you give up copyright to the first book to some publisher?

I know that people write new Introductions / Acknowledgements to newer editions. So, my suggestion is, basically, to keep "Acknowledgement to the version from 1997" as it is and to write an extra "Acknowledgements to this edition".

If you wrote the original Acknowledgement page, and you still feel the same way about the help you acknowledged, then I believe that it is perfectly appropriate to use the same text. You are re-expressing sentiments that you had in 1997, using your own words. It is perfectly ethical to use them.
Beyond that, though, this would be a great opportunity to update the acknowledgements. "When I first developed the work in this volume, I was indebted to the following people ... ¶ Since then I have further benefited from ..."
Your decision to publish now, was it informed by your professional experience? Has your initial vision evolved since then, thanks to a stimulating work environment? Did anyone encourage you particularly to publish the manuscript?

If there are no copyright issues then the only other reason not to do it would be to avoid a charge of self plagiarism from somewhere. For research publications it is an important issue, since scholars want to see the complete context of a work to place it both historically and scientifically. But for an art publication, I doubt that consideration is as important. Except, perhaps, to art historians.
But as long as you say somewhere in the new publication that you are updating or "have taken material from" the earlier thesis, citing it, then you have fulfilled their needs.
But it would be pretty simple, perhaps, to title the page "Acknowledgements (1997)" to make it crystal clear. I recognize that artistic considerations are very important here, of course.
Of course, if the copyright to the original was given up to another party, then you need to deal with that issue directly.