text:
How much control does my advisor have if I'm on fellowship?
I'm a second year Ph.D. student in STEM and I have a lot of "clashes" with my advisor. Some are serious issues: (1) he wouldn't talk to me, the 1st author, about a project and instead met 1-1 with a different student, (2) he made me put students as authors on a paper they didn't work on to boost their paper count, etc. Other issues are due to personality, which I think is ok and just something that happens in life.
My advisor is always telling me what projects to work on. If I bring up ideas that I have, he squashes them because "they are not best paper award worthy". I've expressed many times that I want to do try different projects and first he said he would help me find another Professor to collaborate with (he did not do this) and now he is telling me that I can't do work with other Profs because "it doesn't align with the interests of other students in the lab" or other illogical excuses.
I am on NSF GRFP now, but he did fund me for my first year. My question is this: since he doesn't fund me now, how much can he control what I work on and who I work with? I'm trying to find a middle ground, but he seems to want to shut down my other interests entirely. I want to figure out how much I can push back/ ignore, given my funding situation.

For an advisor - advise relationship to work there has to be a minimum of trust. If you ask on the internet how much you can ignore your advisor, then I would say that there is a problem. Maybe you can fix it with a number of open discussions. Maybe these discussions work better with a mediator. Maybe you can add a co-advisor. Maybe you need to change advisors. Maybe you need to move on and go to a different university/country/career. We do not know your exact situation, but ignoring your advisor is at a minimum not productive and in all likelihood is going to have more negative consequences for you. That does not have to be retaliations. Consider the stress of many uncomfortable and useless conversations with an advisor you don't trust. That can add up real quick, without anyone consciously trying to harm you. Consider all the misunderstandings that are going to happen due to lack of trust and lack of communication.

"how much you can ignore your advisor" - golden formulation, +1

Agree, ignoring is not a good thing. My issue is that I’ve tried to have very frank conversations to talk through our issues but he doesn’t want to listen. I’m in the process of getting a mediator. I think your assessment is tough but apt and I def need to hear that

If you are still at the start of your PhD, find another advisor and change. You seem to have enough problems on different levels: ethical issues (e.g. you not agreeing with extra people on your papers), type mentoring of mentoring needs/preference, personality disagreements. These sound enough to make your life miserable in the following years if nothing changes. As someone who went through a PhD with both mentoring mismatch and personality clashes I can assure you that it was ugly towards the end with the risk of not finishing. Change now that is early enough!

It depends on if the advisor is the indifferent or controlling type, and it seems that your advisor is the controlling type, so the short answer to your question title is a lot.
One of the great benefits of a GRFP is that you become very attractive to other advisors and programs. You are someone with a proven ability to get grants, and you come for free since the grant pays your stipend. I had a GRFP and saw it first hand.
You have to understand that there are many styles of advising. I once worked with an advisor who told everybody what to do. He would not read any proposals or consider any experiments brought up by grad students. And just like your advisor, he practiced the idea that everybody in the lab got to be an author on every paper produced in the lab, regardless of contribution. To me it felt like I was being used as a technician and not given any training in the research process, which starts with how to choose projects. To my surprise, other grad students thought he was too hands-off! They just wanted to come in the morning, be told what to do, leave early in the afternoon, and graduate with papers. That didn't work for me. So I switched to another advisor at another university.
The new advisor was of the type that gave you a desk, lab space, and "see you in 4 years when you have a thesis draft for me to read." He never failed to give me advice when I requested it, but what I really appreciated was his confidence in me, that I would figure it out, and the intellectual freedom to pursue whatever idea I wanted. I controlled the authors' list on my papers (I'm on the generous side when it comes to adding authors, but would never add someone who has not contributed.) I produced 5 papers in 3 years with him, all with him as coauthor. I was happy, he was happy, and we are still friends.
So my advice is that you find an advisor who has the right amount of involvement/control/hands-off style that fits your temperament. The GRFP gives you that freedom. Your proposal to ignore your advisor seems, looking at the details you provide about your relationship, like a really bad idea.

The leverage your advisor has is always the same - they can stop being your advisor.
Your leverage is also always the same - you can stop being their student.
Now, your funding source can change what effects the ending of this relationship has.  In particular, having your own funding might make it easier for you to find a new advisor or be accepted at a different university.  Local department politics might determine whether you can switch advisors, and your situation might determine how attractive going to a different university would be.
If you are unable or unwilling to change advisors, you have the same leverage no matter where your funding comes from.


text:
If I summarise someone elses work, how comprehensive do I need to be?
I am wondering into how much detail and comprehensiveness I need to go when summarising someone else's work in my own work. Given the need for brevity, I would think that one always needs to focus on the main points relevant to one's own work when summarising the work of others, but I am not sure.
Here is an example: let's say I wish to use a cultural history angle in my work and to support this approach i cite work X by another scholar. Said scholar shows the importance of the cultural history approach for the history of different regions, including region Y. In my case however, I only focus on region Y. Can I then simply say that work X has shown the usefulness of the cultural history approach for studying region Y, or do I also need to explain that he shows this for other regions as well so as to more comprehensively represent work X?
Thanks!

What you propose is what I teach my students. So, yes, only pick the parts of an article or book that are relevant to your research question, and happily ignore everything else.

Thank you! I suppose this is true across disciplines?

I certainly don't want to read anything from a discipline where this rule does not apply...

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Does a course abstract have to correspond directly to the required readings/bibliography of the course?
This might be a bit of a strange question, but here goes:
I am proposing my own course for the first time and am currently working on the course abstract (meaning the summary of the course that'll go up in the course catalogue, department website etc). Now in the abstract I obviously try to talk about the contents of the course and sell it to students. My course proposal (and later my syllabus) will have weekly required readings and a bibliography.
Now, again, this might sound strange, but I am wondering whether everything I say in my abstract needs to be backed up by readings from the required readings/bibliography? Basically, if I were to footnote the abstract (obviously course abstracts usually don't have footnotes), would I need to be able to footnote every statement in the abstract with works from the required readings/bibliography? Or (as I think) am I mixing up an academic abstract/article with a course summary here?
To give an example: Let's say I propose a course on the history of public health in Europe and mention in the course abstract that we will also cover the impact of major political events on public health administration and then one of the examples of such events I list is World War I. Would that be okay even if none of the readings listed in the syllabus deals with this as long as I mention it (based on other materials) in one of my lectures later on in the actual course?
My thinking is that as long as I cover everything mentioned in the abstract later in the course in my lectures and/or seminars that should be fine and it doesn't matter whether or not the required readings/bibliography in the proposal/syllabus cover it.
Is this correct?

Look at the matches between course abstracts and course syllabi and talk to professors at your school to get a sense of the extent to which they usually match. I doubt that there's a "have to" requirement.

@EthanBolker Mmh, a bit difficult. I would need to read all their required readings wouldn't I? Also, syllabi are not necessarily public (apart for a few for intro classes)

This answer is institution dependent and only based on my experience. You should make sure that your syllabus and description follow whatever guidelines your university has.
Most course descriptions I have come across are not very detailed. They are meant to be very broad overviews of what is covered and, as you say, to "sell" the class to students. Required readings in a course syllabus are (let's be realistic) generally more of suggestions for students anyway. Whatever specific topics your course covers should be addressed in the syllabus. The same goes for weekly reading assignments. You may chose to include extra relevant external sources as suggested readings but you don't have to "cite" everything you intend to cover in the description (meaning you don't have to point to a specific reading for every topic).

Thanks, this is useful. To be honest, my Department is pretty laissez-faire on these issues, meaning people just seem to do things like these as they see fit. One clarification: "The same goes for weekly reading assignments. You may chose to include extra relevant external sources as suggested readings but you don't have to "cite" everything you intend to cover in the description." When you say this, do you mean I don't have to list readings for everything I promise to cover in the abstract of the course or elsewhere in the syllabus?

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


text:
How do I get access to the RSS B Overleaf template?
I'm looking to publish in RSS B, but am having some issues finding the template. This is my first publication, so very new to this. The website directs me to the following template, but this clearly looks different to articles published in RSS B, such as this one. I'm not sure if this belongs on the Latex forum instead, but thought it perhaps is more of a general academia question because I don't need specific Latex help.

Many if not most journals do not use LaTeX to generate their final PDF. hence, the LaTeX template output will not look like the final journal layout.

The links you share look like the direct to the publisher's template and you're using the correct package.
In my own experience, most journals (outside of some math journal) do not use LaTeX for typesetting their final product. Instead, their system turns the LaTeX document into another format which becomes a PDF (for paper) and htlm for the web.


text:
I want to use the same topic as my MA research for a PhD
I believe there's ample room for further exploration within the actual framework of my MA project. I'm very satisfied with how I've organized my work, and the fact that I couldn't fully execute it (the thesis ended up being far more introductory than I intended, due to limitations in time and resources) has revealed the potential for further development. With the right explanations and reasoning, would you recommend that I propose a research project with a very similar structure? As a matter of fact, I intend to pursue a PhD in English rather than my mother tongue. This means I could provide my insights to a different audience. My MA research findings might go to waste if left as they are, and I am still deeply committed to the topic as I have conceptualized it. Any insight?

It is both common and desirable for academic research to get extended and extended over many years, so this is perfectly okay in principle.  If you believe you have a viable research project, I recommend you write up a research proposal to that effect and discuss your idea with the supervisor who supervised your Masters research.  Your previous supervisor should be well-positioned to review your proposal and offer feedback due to their eisting familiarity with the topic and your work on it.

Thank you so much for the input! I will contact my supervisor and ask for their feedback.


text:
Is a PhD program the stage at which you define and carve out your own research niche?
Is a PhD the time when you define your academic path, or at least outline what it may become? While researchers have the freedom to change topics throughout their careers, would you recommend striving for coherence to establish a robust academic trajectory?

A PhD is learning how to do research. By the end you perhaps have an idea of directions you can go in. Then the reality of what your next position allows kicks in…

In my experience, I would say no. PhD students who continue to have successful careers in academia (unlike me) generally follow the research program assigned to them by a supervisor. This motivates the supervisor to actually assist them with research (i.e. teach them how to be a researcher), which journals to submit which kinds of papers to, introduce to other researchers (who will be on search committees deciding your future position and / or possible future paper co-authors), etc. Often you can choose to research whatever you want, and you'll get a degree, but you won't be able to stay.

Related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/203847/extending-the-phd-project-into-post-doc/203858#203858

This is very hard to answer. There are different disciplinary cultures and very different approaches to PhD programs. A major thing is that when starting a PhD (and in many cases even when finishing), a student doesn't normally have a very good overview and knowledge of their field, at least when it comes to research (not talking about basics here). This means that a PhD student isn't in a very good position to know what would actually work to "strive for coherence to establish a robust academic trajectory".
I think it's important in the first place to keep an open mind. The PhD may turn out to be very different from what the student expected, and they may be attracted to new ideas toward the end of the doctorate. Of course it can't be wrong in itself to do a research project on a topic that you think has the potential to keep you interested in the long run, and where there is enough scope for not only doing a PhD but also for later building a career on it. Chances are in the field of your PhD you will more easily get to know other reseachers, which may be helpful to find a related position or project afterwards. But I'd say that at the beginning of the doctorate, and in very many cases also throughout the whole time, it is so hard to predict where you'd want to go afterwards that I don't think this should be a major consideration dominating other things (like what you just like to do, or with whom you'd like to work).

I would say that you define and carve your own niche during your whole carrier as a scientist, starting even from the master degree.
I fully support your statement about the coherence. There are many practical advantages to be coherent: faster recognition on conferences, higher citations. It doesn't however mean that you shouldn't explore adjacent or even complementary fields. For instance, learn about experiment if you do theoretical science.
However, sometimes some fields come to their decline. Your enthusiasm and curiosity should be strong enough to drive you out of this potential well.

Sometimes yes. Imagining that you will like the PhD research, you could carve out with the help of your advisor(s).
But like others pointed out PhD is rather learning how to do research independently.
But if you're someone outstanding, and survives through the journey despite the hurdles that you would face, and still want to be, yes you can.
I know people who got their PhD and followed with establishing start ups based on it and others who established their research paths and became researchers in it.


text:
How to tell new grad advisor that I need to transfer after I just picked his university
So I recently chose between two schools. On the surface they looked really similar but one of them (school 1) was offering my degree in 4.5 years instead of 6 and also had some other specialized classes I was interested in. School 2 was also very far away from family and I wasn’t too sure I wanted to make such a big change. After accepting the offer at school 1, I was told by another academic advisor at school 1 that I wouldn’t be able to do my degree in 4.5 years (it would be more like 5-6) and that with field work I would be doing taking some of the specialized courses I wanted to take wouldn’t be possible. Additionally I found out that I wouldn’t be able to afford the tuition for the last year or 2 of my degree.
So now I’m thinking of transferring to school 2 next year. I have a relationship with an advisor at that school and she also knows my current advisor at school 1. I’m just unsure of how to tell my advisor at school 1 that I’m now wanting to transfer after just recently making the decision to go to his school just one month ago. I truthfully just didn’t weigh my pros and cons well enough and didn’t get all of the info I could have before making my decision and want to tell him without seeming like I didn’t think things through. He’s also a great resource for my research and I don’t want to lose a valuable connection.
Any advice on when to go about telling him and how I should say it?

Have you talked to your advisor about all of these things already?

Not yet, he's been doing field work out of the country so I haven't been able to get in contact while I've been learning all of these things

First, you should tell him about these issues. He may have a better solution than transferring. There's no guarantee that you won't have issues at your new institution.

Do you believe everything school 2 told you still? Is that a belief or based on more information you have gotten? Perhaps their program takes 7 years, etc…

It's a belief with school 2. I've gotten more things in writing from them about it and have talked to multiple students and advisors since finding everything out about school 1. The biggest thing about transferring is that I'm on a limited fellowship and don't want to be wasting more time and money at school 1 than I have to while in a program that isn't covering all of the things I want/was told I would get out of my degree.

Does school 2 even still commit to accept you into their program?

Yep! Confirmed from them I can come next fall


text:
How to prepare to talk with my advisor about concluding our relationship before the defense?
I'm in the last semester of my PhD program and trying to pull together my dissertation, which has not been going well for the past 2 years.
I shoulder most of the responsibility for this situation, but have realized that my advisor has contributed to some of my challenges by: (1) missing an entire summer's worth of meetings last year; (2) offering writing process advice as "just write and you'll figure it out"; (3) practicing a very hands-off approach in general with no requirements to submit writing and no inquiries as to why writing isn't coming in; (4) and signing off on a summer defense three weeks ago but now suggesting that will not be possible at all. To add to the working style challenges, my advisor left my home institution last spring and is now employed elsewhere.
Again, I take responsibility for every mistake I have made during this process and I feel terrible. I also don't want to focus on my advisor's shortcomings (whether they're real or if I'm just making these things up as problems). I'm particularly stressed because I do have a teaching track offer in hand and, while the position does not require the PhD, they do prefer it. I said I'd finish when interviewing with them, I want to finish for myself, and I have this sinking feeling that my advisor does not. In our last exchange, they suggested I think deeply about trying to finish at all, given that my job doesn't technically require the degree.
I do plan to talk with one of my committee members in a couple of weeks. They have expressed serious frustration with my advisor and have offered to step in and help me finish as they not only believe that I can  but that I deserve the support to do so. I am hopeful that our conversation will be one in which we acknowledge my mistakes and the serious limitations on the project, but that we can also find a way to work together as positively and productively as possible.
If that is the case, I imagine I will need to initiate the conversation about concluding my relationship with my current advisor at this very late hour. I am OK with the conversation not going well; I am OK with my advisor blaming me.
I would love any advice, however, on how to approach this conversation logistically. Scripts, things to say, things to not say ... advice to make this as smooth as possible, given what it is.

Well, talk to your committee (minus your "advisor") and talk to the grad chair or department chair to figure out how to move on. You would not be the first student to have this issue, and that is what chairs get to deal with.

I don't see that it 'breaking up' with your advisor is a necessary step on the road to getting advice and support from someone else. Plenty of people have more than one advisor. If it is necessary, then that is probably a personality/internal poltiics issue rather than a purely academic one -- and so you need advice from people who understand the personalities/politics, not random strangers on the internet. Unfortunately I don't think this is a question that we are well-placed to answer here.

Did you ask that committee member of your how to proceed? "Breaking up" with your advisor without having another lined up (not just as an off hand suggestion but actually negotiated) would be a bad idea, and they should know how to approach this - at the end of the day, they have to deal with any fallout too.

From your question, you're pinning a lot of expectations on this (presumably quite difficult) meeting. My advice to you is to divide and conquer: make it more manageable by breaking down the individual components of what you need an reassigning a few to more apt channels.

Get an overview of graduation logistics

From a formal, technical point of view, what is still standing between you and the PhD? Do you still need to write parts of the thesis and/or get scientific feedback? Assuming you magically had a complete manuscript tomorrow, what other logistics would need to happen and in what timeframe could they take place? Try to make a rough map of what needs to happen, and when you would like it to happen.

Lean on your sympathetic committee member

Reading between the lines, it would seem to me that your committee member wants to step up and support you where your supervisor failed to do so. Take them up on that! Meet with them, and ask them to help you with the plan from the previous step. They can also offer you feedback on your thesis, and (informally) take over the tasks your supervisor would usually do at this point.

Have meetings with your supervisor

Your post title discusses severing the relationship. I'm not sure that this is the path that will serve you best. Your endgame here is to graduate- to be blunt, since you're already writing up, you just need this person to a) not obstruct your graduation and b) sign a form, with bonus points for c) turn up at the defence. It would be nice if they also provide feedback on the thesis, but you seem to have a supportive and active committee. Keep your supervisor in the loop- meet with them, ask them to read the thesis, but also tell them that you've been working with [your committee members] and the plan is for you to graduate in [describe plan from previous steps].
I realize that the approach I recommended probably sounds like I'm missing the point. You brought up a lot of negative and difficult aspects: like blame, mistakes and serious limitations in the project, previous failures in supervision. Those are absolutely things you should work through- but not in these conversations. Talk to your friends, talk to a personal mentor, take some time not thinking about the PhD to clear your head. But trying to perform an autopsy on a PhD that's not even dead will derail conversations that should be about moving forward.

If it isn't dead when you start the autopsy, it sure will be by the time you finish...

I'm going to be a little bit blunt here.

I shoulder most of the responsibility for this situation... Again, I
take responsibility for every mistake I have made during this process
and I feel terrible... I am hopeful that our conversation will be one
in which we acknowledge my mistakes...

You're doing an awful lot of self-flagellation here, and frankly it sounds self-indulgent and kind of stupid. You've got numerous really obvious failings from the supervisor, including them leaving your institution and worse, reneging on a formal commitment for a defense date. You have another faculty advisor who's on record as, "They have expressed serious frustration with my advisor". And yet you're spending time thrashing yourself and wanting to spend more time in an upcoming meeting wallowing in your supposed missteps.
My first tip for preparing is: Stop it right now. All of this self-pity is a waste of time and energy. Get over yourself. Your advisor has kind of screwed you; follow the other advisor and say it out loud. Listen to the other advisor about what proactive steps can be taken and do them. Nothing else matters.
(Frankly I have a hard time understanding posters here who do this savage-themselves act to avoid saying someone screwed them. It's intellectually dishonest.)
Top-performing people dust themselves off and push forward to find ways to succeed. They don't keep rehashing failures.

I imagine I will need to initiate the conversation about concluding my
relationship with my current advisor...

Stop imagining problems. It's unproductive and self-defeating. Like other commentators, I don't see as how this melodramatic scene is necessary.
You have a replacement advisor who thinks you deserve a PhD and wants to help make that happen. You're in a great position despite a failing initial advisor. Take the new advisor's counsel, do what they say, and stop getting in your own way.
Also get some exercise, you might be depressed.


text:
A platform for collaborative research projects?
This question may sound unusual but I'm have been searching for a while now for  a platform for collaborative research projects? The concept here is simple. Experienced researchers sign up and verify their professional and research experience. The platform is used to connect experienced scientists willing to share their knowledge and skills with other members who are seeking certain R&D skills requirements (literature review, collaborative research, proof reading. Etc). The benefit here is the possibility to remotely collaborate with other on research projects and eventually publish together, or you can use such platform to provide paid consultation.
This business model is somewhat similar to on demand experts platforms where professionals sign up and receive paid consultations from third parties using the same platform. But I'm more interested in collaborative research not consultations
The reason why I'm reaching out to this community is because a few years ago I have spoken to an economist/entrepreneur who is building a similar platform to what I described above. However, this platform only for economics and related fields. I liked the idea and I thought of reaching out to the community for more information. This guy managed to integrate AI and implemented a grading system which researchers use to evaluate the importance and significance of posted ideas and research projects.

Our HPC guys run a fancy ticket  system for local domain scientists to offer collaborative advice to researchers (literally called "consultants", because keeping people in science isn’t difficult enough already…). Is that something like what you are asking about? Your description has a lot more goodies that seem to hint at a national or even international scope not tied to a specific domain, but it’s not clear to me whether those are requirements for what you are looking for or rather your own ideas for such a service.

MisterMiyagi. Thank you for your comment. I'm afraid you might have missed my point. What I'm talking about is something larger than a local HPC system. To put it in simple words. Let's say I want someone to help me on a project related to simulating laser diodes and I want someone who is knowledgeable on this topic. I post this as a project with specifications, deadline and an end goal (paper, paid consultations. etc). Experienced people apply and I see their credentials and choose the best fit then we collaborate. Such platform is not location specific.

Well, these HPC centres operate at national scale (each centre is exclusively responsible for a select few domains) - there is no need to be physically present to use such machines. What I’m wondering is not whether the specific use case (big computers) matches yours but the generic setup. I’m afraid your comment just confuses me more: on the one hand you say I missed the point, yet none of the added features are required by the scheme I describe (the restriction to actively advertise local scientists is implementation specific due to funding, but everyone can apply).

I'm talking about a website that operate as a matching platform between researchers needing help and experienced researchers willing to help. Now I hope the picture is much clearer? HPC system are something different, why would I use an HPC system to do a literature review if I can do it on my PC? See the example I mentioned in my original post. That is why I said you missed the entire point and I'm afraid you did not even understand what I'm talking about in the first place?

I didn’t (mean to) write  anything about using an HPC system. The HPC folks run the service (since they want to boost their attached domain scientists), but it is separate from the HPC cluster and there is no need for collaborators to actually use the HPC system. It is quite literally "a website that operate as a matching platform between researchers needing help and experienced researchers willing to help".

Ok. now back to the main topic! Have you come across anything similar to what I mentioned in my OP?

I'm still trying to figure out whether what I have come across does count as similar for you or not, so I can hardly answer...

Wikiversity's mission includes hosting collaborative research projects. It might be possible to use that platform for doing something like what you are proposing. Whatever the platform, the main challenge will be to convince a sufficient number of researchers to participate.
Your ideas sound very close to what Michael Nielsen was advocating in the 2011 book Reinventing Discovery. As far as I know, that vision still has to be realized.

There are platforms like Kolabtree, which allow collaboration with freelance scientists (who are paid for their help). The collaboration may range from simply editing a research paper for publication, to making statistical analysis, to being actually involved in a research project full-time.
IMHO, these platforms are less efficient than more mainstream business platforms, like Upwork, likely because they are too restrictive sin terms of who can offer their services and who comes to seek them (e.g., Kolabtree tries to bring together researchers and people with certified research experience - having done PhD or postdoc, while on Upwork both have greater choice of options, as private companies, individuals and less education but extremely qualified experts are also present.)

I know about Kolabtree and I'm actually a member. Kolabtree works as a consultation/freelancing platform. This kind of what I'm looking for except the ideal case is a platform where researchers collaborate on projects with an end goal of publishing together. Also I think you are wrong about Kolabtreee attracting only PhD /Postdoc level people. In addition, While Kolabtree has targeted a largley ignored niche market (Freelancing in STEM), it shares a lot of smiliraties with on-demand experts platforms where you can view a offered consultation oppertunities and apply according to your skills

@Mohammad in my experience, one simply gets more opportunities on Upwork, and often for better money... but it does require sifting through many unsuitable offers and building reputation. The same is probably true for the employers - I had heard more than once that the average level of Upwork freelancer is very low. Perhaps, the niche of Kolabtree is simply too narrow for me.

You could say Kolabtree is the closests to what I'm looking for but I'm still searching for more alternatives. One recent alternative is Collabwith but it looks dead and target only EU contries. https://collabwith.com/ check it out?

It seems you are talking a bit more educational and professional version of fiverr/upwork and other similar gig providing platforms. There are some platforms exclusively for connecting those who seek/offer coding services such hirecoder.com. Maybe it is impossible to pinpoint a platform that checks all the bulletpoints in your checklist, but you can do talent hunting yourself on LinkedIn.

Exactly Naveed, one goal is to make scientific collaboration more accessible.  Also scientists in countries where there aren't enough funding can contribute and find collaborative projects to increase their research reputation.


text:
Banning an author from publication by the institution's management team
I am wondering if the management team of my home institute could act such as to ban submissions authored by my team (where I am corresponding author) from journals where we have a long date publication history. More specifically, it is about two journals from Elsevier and one journal from the Royal Society of Chemistry. We published dozens of papers in these journals during the last decade with no rejection issue nor negatively biased review. Following a personal conflict with the Deputy Director of my home institute by the beginning of the year, it happened that all our submissions to these journals were rejected from the editorial screening. This never happened before the conflict. Also, the person from the management named before knew in advance which are our publishing intentions, since we must report on a regular basis on the advance of our activities, including the status of our manuscripts.
So, in brief (and sorry for the repetition) the question is if someone from the management of an institution could act such as to get some authors from the same institution blacklisted by the editorial teams. If this is the case, what would be the solution?
Thank you in advance.

This is very strange and extraordinary.

Just to clarify: you are asking whether your institution's management team could, without your knowledge, prevent you from publishing at certain journals by somehow making these journals desk reject your articles (i.e. not accepting them for peer review).

Yes, exactly. I know that this is kind of paranoia. But I really find quite strange that recent manuscripts are rejected without review, while during our whole publication history we did not have such kind of issues. And I must add also that in my opinion the quality of the recently submitted manuscripts is clearly better than that of already published ones.

@CMT You think that your papers are better - have you changed tack or topic, or approach? Sometimes novel methods are harder to understand and people appreciate more the well-known/tested/and -understood. Or maybe the management team changed?

Actually, my team works mainly on two subjects. It is true that one is newly tackled by our team, but for the other one we dealt with this subject since more than one decade, and there are serious publication records on it. The "banning" I am invoking happened recently on papers related to both subjects.

Your management team has no legal basis to instruct a publisher that they must not publish your research. As a consequence, legally there is little you have to fear.
Second, your management team can of course tell a publisher that they should not publish your research. But the publisher is not beholden to your employer, and as a consequence if someone were to tell me as the editor that I should not consider your articles, I would very much want to know what reasons they have and why I should do as they are asking. In truth, short of the employer giving me proof that you have committed academic misconduct and are likely going to do that again, I see no reason to follow their request and would tell them to go away -- that whatever business they have with you they should keep with you and that I don't want to be involved. I imagine that most editors would deal with this in this situation.
Of course, if your management team can provide me with good evidence that your past papers have ethical or legal issues, I would probably listen to them. That said, I would not reject your papers without notice -- but would explain myself to you, and would hope to hear your side of the story.

There were no scientific or ethical issues following all of our publication record during the last 10 years (about 60 papers). If such issues might occur, there are well defined procedures set in our institution: everything passes through an evaluation by an independent committee, then advised by a Comission of Ethics and by the Scientific Council. Only following such procedures where, of course, the authors express also their point of view, is the management entitled to require the retraction of an article. I must stress once more that our team was not involved in any misconduct up to now.

Then I can't see an editor listening to someone claiming that your papers should be rejected out of hand. What interest would an editor have in listening to something like this?


text:
Why does Google Scholar omit the publishers and editors in chapter citations?
I've noticed, at least in my own research, it seems to regularly do this with few exceptions.
When trying to use Google Scholar's cite feature on a chapter of an edited volume, it gives a reduced version of the citation.
For example: searching "Garden Hunting and Food Sharing during the Mississippian Period in the American South" gives this range of citations across all of GS's available styles:

It seems to treat it as a journal article, almost. I'll focus on Chicago for this part: everywhere I can read about citing the chapters of edited volumes tells me the citation should look like this:

Peres, Tanya M. "Garden Hunting and Food Sharing during the
Mississippian Period in the American South." In Food Provisioning in
Complex Societies: Zooarchaeological Perspectives, edited by Levent
Atici and Benjamin S. Arbuckle, 171. Boulder: University Press of
Colorado, 2023.

Sometimes, there are exceptions. Searching and citing "Ocean cultures: Northwest Coast ecosystems and Indigenous management systems" gives this:

Mathews, Darcy L., and Nancy J. Turner. "Ocean cultures: Northwest
Coast ecosystems and indigenous management systems." In Conservation
for the Anthropocene ocean, pp. 169-206. Academic Press, 2017.

Is there some new, extra, highly specific rule out there that I'm unaware of?

It's an automated process that scrapes other sources.
Sometimes Google's tools guess correctly.
Other times they do not.
Pages such as https://docs.pkp.sfu.ca/google-scholar/en/ explain how Google Scholar works.
However, only Google truly knows how Google Scholar works because it is closed source.
I don't think we (the general public) can provide much more details to your question.


text:
Hearing about unethical research practices from the academic world hits me really hard. How can I learn to deal with this?
When I was a naive teenager (oh so long ago), I used to think that scientific research is that one human endeavor where there is no room for questionable practices because any such practices will be counter-productive to our very mission. As researchers, we search for truth, so anything that does not serve this search has no place in our academic realm. Lured by the vision of being part of something so valuable and collaborative, I became an academic. The longer I'm an academic, it hits me really hard when I hear about...

fraudulent researchers, some coming from prestigious institutions, some even still being kept by their institutions,
wasted resources and damage to the reputation of conducting research in general due to fabricated research results,
predatory journal practices that will publish just about anything,
the fight for citations that fuels unethical citation practices,
publishing AI-generated research & texts,
unethical authorship practices,
the rushed and poor-quality works being produced due to academics being overworked, spread too thin, and stressed by not meeting arbitrary metrics

...the list goes on.
How do you, academics, deal with frustration, loss of motivation, and loss of belief in the value of your occupation when you hear about those stories worldwide? The only reason why I ask this question is that I want to stay in academia. In the end, this occupation still fits my core values, and I personally enjoy all the good and collaborative sides of it. If I could learn to manage my frustration, loss of motivation, I could better focus on my little slice and doing good work for as long as I can.

You see that your own processes and dealings are ethical and you teach students to be ethical.

You will find even more of such staff outside of the academia.

You keep your house clean. Find friends who keep their house clean. Be an example, maybe also your students (or some of them) will keep their house clean. The biggest triumph if you set an example to someone who is on the fence who then, at some point, decides to keep their house clean when they were tempted to drop the trash on the floor. It's not an achievement if a clean-freak does so, but if only one or two of potential litterbugs decide, by observing you, that one more time to drop the trash into the can instead of on the floor, you have achieved success.

How would a scientist—ideally—deal with observations that don’t match his or her hypotheses or preconceptions? A growth opportunity!

@Aruralreader, ha, that's a nice perspective! :)

Could someone please explain why my question strongly depends on individual factors? Is it that the strategies to deal with this issue will be very personal?

@MoisheKohan: [citation required]

@postdoc: note that only one closure reason is given, even if different close-voters gave different reasons for their particular vote to close. I personally would have voted to close as "opinion-based", and I imagine that some of the actual close-voters also gave this reason. After all, you are asking for our particular and personal strategies for dealing with this, so there probably will not be one correct answer, nor one that is commonly accepted by the community.

FWIW, my personal impression is that the amount of sheer crap published outweighs actual falsifications by orders of magnitude, though this is probably field-dependent. Yes, each specific instance of fraud is more damaging than each instance of crap. But on the aggregate, I wonder whether the bona fide crap is not the bigger problem. As an AE and reviewer, I feel like the boy with a finger in the dike... but on the other side of the dike, there is not just water, but a sea of... you get the idea.


text:
How do I efficiently update myself on what's expected of me as a postdoc?
When it comes to what's expected of a postdoc, advice on this SE seem contradictory to me.

Some advice seems to be along the lines of: build your own profile, focus on your future goals, do not dance for your PI. Example:

Focus on self-improvement and (implicitly and politely, but only if possible) tell your peers to bloody sod off. Too many professors nowadays will suck postdocs and PhD students dry, while sitting comfortably on a fixed income, pretending to be busy around empty/ghost meetings, random signatures, staring at some computer screen. They are just waiting. They are vultures waiting over you to offer papers and data for them to claim as their own. Do not dance for them.

And some other advice is along the lines of: you're not an independent researcher yet and you were hired to do a specific job. Example:

I am sorry to break it to you, but yes, postdocs are generally not independent researchers. To do what YOU want to do, you've got to secure funding yourself (...)

In the first months of my postdoc I've been trying to be very independent. I've been reading any literature that caught my interest even if it was somewhat further from the subject of my postdoc. I initiated contact with a couple of researchers I admire in the field of my postdoc with a plan that we could set up a collaboration in the future. I've been coming up with research ideas for what I could accomplish. And after a few months, I found out that my PI doesn't want me to come up with ideas that are not very related to the research direction of his group. He also mentioned that for now it's better I work with the team here rather than bring external collaborators.
So I felt like a fool and I kept searching this SE some more. I came across this question where the message I got from the answers is more like: Sorry, you're not an independent researcher yet, you will have to work on what your PI tells you to. After reading this I thought okay, maybe I will just have to suck it up and complete the tasks that my PI tells me to do.
But to make things even more confusing, today I got an answer on another question I asked  that postdocs should pay attention to their own academic objectives :)
So far, my process of synchronizing expectations with my PI has been painful and I was only finding out bits of expectations here and there after making a fool out of myself. I did ask my PI what does he expect of me in the first month and he told me: I want you to learn technique X. So I've been mastering technique X since but 6 months into my postdoc I guess it can't be the only thing I need to do, so I started doing other things as well (reading, experimenting, talking with researchers in our department, attending seminars...)
I find that this answer does not help, because it still doesn't tell me how to do all those things in such a way that my PI is okay with.
I am so lost right now about what's expected of me. At this point, it seems that I need to directly and frequently get that answer from my PI, otherwise it doesn't seem applicable to my particular lab situation.
So my question is: what's the most effective way that I update myself on what my PI expects of me at any given time? Regular chats with my PI where I ask him exactly that? Many occasions to hear my PI's feedback of my progress? Do I need to ask my PI first with every bigger decision I need to take, like contacting an external researcher? Or, perhaps, I should simply accept that at times I will screw up and make a fool out of myself?

I’d say your issue stems from favoring SE posts over crucial conversations with your PI.

Note that you are drawing on advice from people from completely different fields. In different fields the expectations can vary widely.

What field are you in? If you are in an experimental lab science where as a postdoc you are still part of some professors lab this is very different to being in pure maths or the humanities where almost everything you need for good research is inside your brain.

@Aruralreader - to be fair, it sounds like their PI also chose to skip at least one crucial conversation when they started work. I always made it clear to new postdocs what the group's expectations were to begin with.

@JonCuster: Agreed, I was a bit quick with that comment.

@quarague - I'm in mechanical engineering. What best describes my research is indeed "everything I need for good research is inside my brain" (and in computational resources ;)) What changes in terms of expectations between experimental vs. theoretical research?

There are different types of postdoctoral positions, and different answers reflect different experiences.

In some cases, a postdoc is hired to progress a specific research project for which the PI has secured funding. If you have this type of postdoc, your job is to work on the project, largely in the way that your PI has envisioned, but with a high level of independence reflecting the fact that you have a PhD. The PI is your boss and the project is of their design. At the same time, in the interests of your own career, you need to make sure you are publishing your work and looking towards the next steps, such as applying for grants with your PI’s support.
In some cases, your PI might have won funding for a postdoc to progress an area of research rather than a specific project. In this case, your job is to collaborate with your PI, coming up with ideas of your own and progressing those that your PI approves while also progressing your PI’s ideas.
In the case of some more prestigious postdoctoral fellowships, the funding has been won by the postdoc rather than by the PI, or has been secured by the postdoc in collaboration with the PI. The money funding the position would not have come to this research group rather than another without the efforts of the postdoc in writing the grant proposal, and the funding was awarded partly on the strength of the postdoc’s CV. In this case, the postdoc has the opportunity to develop their own ideas more independently, with the PI more a guide and advisor than a boss.

So: how was your position funded? If you don’t know, find out, and make sure you have read the proposal that funded your position if you did not write the grant application yourself. Then remember that the three cases above are a little idealised: your PI might expect more control even in the second and third cases, though there is more room for negotiation in these cases than in case one.
But yes, you should be meeting with your PI regularly to discuss plans, progress and and expectations. If you don’t have an agreed plan for at least the next year of your research, your first job once you have oriented yourself should be to write a plan on the basis of your understanding of your position and see what your PI thinks of it. Don’t get too detailed before you have agreed on a broad outline.
How often should you be meeting? That depends on you and your PI, but I recommend insisting on at least monthly meetings. Some research groups meet every day.

What you have discovered here is that there is a lot of variation in post docs and the expectations. Some are very similar to entry level faculty positions with a lot of independence. Others have expectations around a certain project or the work of the PI.
Yours is more like the second.
The best and most efficient way to determine the expectations is to ask in some regularly scheduled meetings with the PI in which you have an opportunity to bounce ideas off of them on your next stages. Some project oriented post docs can be guided by regular meetings of the group in which it can become clear what direction you and others are expected to take.
It isn't magic. You need to communicate in both directions. You can make proposals in most cases but it may be that only one direction is acceptable. Ask.

Some very personal observations from the business world.
My assumption is that there is a reason for having a postdoc and that it is limited in time and has a stated goal. In this way it can be compared to other projects in the business world. Projects are by definition run for a time in order to order to achieve a result.
Plan for success
Achieving goals requires you to work on firstly definining the goal(s) and secondly managing the work. Write a plan and then spend a bit of time every week to check if you are on plan and moving ahead. Preferrably start every day with a realistic plan for what you want to do today, then prioritize the list so you at least do the most important things.
The plan
In your situation I would spend a few hours of my time and maybe a meeting with your PI to set down a working document describing the fundamentals of your project. Keep it short, max one page. The first sketch does not have to be perfect, anything is better than nothing. Share this plan in advance with your "owner" and meet to improve the plan. Typical sections might be:

Stated goal or target. It might be to produce a research paper or to prove or design something. It might be simply to investigate an area.
Who is the "owner" or manager of the project, ie has last say if you are doing the right things: probably your PI. Note that the plan often can and will change for the duration and the "owner" is the one making that decision (everyone else may suggest).
Resources used for the project. This includes you, your PI but maybe other people or resources as well. Sometimes how the resources are to be allocated may be described here, say how much to spend on equipment on participating in conferences.
A tentative plan for how you plan to work towards the goal. Good plans are often divided into steps or phases, where you can both check if you are moving towards the goal and if you need to make other decisions. Discussing and deciding on the next steps and modifiying the plan is typically done as the current phase gets close to being finished.
A plan for how the work will be followed up and reported. In my experience, biweekly meetings with a short agenda works very well. Maybe there are other parties that you will need to report to.

In the business world we often start with a "pre-study" project with the purpose of investigating what direction to take when work really starts (or sometimes not go ahead).
The follow-ups
I suggest a short meeting every second week work with the "owner" or project manager where you report progress and get feedback or changes in direction. The meeting is about the work as such, not really about the content of the work. Note that the "owner" is the representative of your employeer, paying for your work.  Keep this biweekly meeting short, to the point and factual, preferrably max 20 minutes.  You write a short report and send it in advance as it will help in structuring the meeting, max one page. Typical sections:

Done: work done since last meeting.
Next: what happens until next meeting
Contribution: how does this contribute to fulfilling the project goals and how are the results achieved when compared to the plan
Problems: are there any special problems or hinders that you have encountered and that you possibly could get help with

When projects have many identified tasks that need to be fulfilled, it helps to have a separate list for this and share it as well. Typical headings include: what to do, who does it, how is it done, when is it to be finished, what is the status (not started, in progress, finished).
In the meeting you write a short protocol for your memory and share it with the "owner". Document decisions made in the meeting as you need to follow up on these.
Note that sometimes you basically have no idea what you are doing or how the work contributes to the goal. This is OK in my mind to state but is in effect asking for help in finding your directions. Try to schedule a separate meeting maybe brainstorming or searching for ideas.


text:
Tired of going above and beyond to prove myself in a new position. Can I still succeed?
I'm a first year postdoc in the EU. In every research or industry appointment that I had before the postdoc (my Ph.D., two research internships, working in a company), I was very motivated to go above and beyond so that whoever was my boss at the time notices my efforts and builds a great opinion of me. I always had this thought when given a task that I have to complete it in such a way that my boss thinks "Wow, he's really good!". Whenever my Ph.D. advisor would be "wowed" it brought me satisfaction. I believe that this mindset brought me some excellent reference letters through the years.
I started a postdoc a couple of months ago and one thing that surprised me is that this mindset was completely gone. I noticed that I'm tired of going above and beyond just so that my PI notices me. In my head I started to think: Shouldn't the Ph.D. be enough proof that I have the ability? Shouldn't the fact that I have great accomplishments from my Ph.D. be already enough for my new PI to appreciate me? This might still be the aftermath of a huge burnout that I had after my Ph.D. After that I took one year almost completely off before I started a postdoc. In the end I felt ready and rested. But maybe going through burnout and therapy numbed my mindset of going "above and beyond" for good.
Is it normal that such a mindset disappears at the postdoc stage? Can it be a good thing?
And more importantly: Is it even possible to succeed in a postdoc without this mindset? Only showing 70% of what I know is my full ability? Doing what my PI wants and nothing more? Being in the office 9-5 and not working during weekends? And what about beyond the postdoc? I want to stay in academia. Is it even possible to keep your head above water when you only do the minimum required of you and never "wow" anyone?

Take a break, then reorient yourself towards your own academic objectives
It sounds like you are suffering from burnout, which is perhaps not surprising, since I think you have been focussing on the wrong objectives.  Academia is certainly an industry that requires people who are motivated to go "above and beyond", but that motivation is most fruitful when it is oriented towards improving your own learning and productivity for your own sake, rather than to impress a supervisor or some other authority figure.  Supervisors and other colleagues come and go, but your knowledge of your field and your capability to turn that knowledge into useful output is the thing that will remain and determine the trajectory of your career ---not to mention your personal satisfaction--- in the long-term.
I recognise myself in your description of your go-getter attitude in your doctoral program and internships.  When I was going through my undergraduate degrees, my postgrad/PhD program, and then my early-career work as an academic, I was also someone who was accustomed to going "above and beyond" with various objectives that would advance me beyond the usual learning schedule.  In my university program, this manifested in overloading courses to learn more quickly, and in my research work, it manifested in taking on a broad range of projects in disparate fields and researching them heavily to become a "mini expert" in various areas of academic work.  However, unlike you, I was never concerned about getting pats on the back from supervisors, or even whether or not they noticed my additional work.  The goal of the additional work was to help me learn more broadly and deeply than other students/academics at my level, with the long-term goal of being as knowledgeable and skilled as possible to create cool stuff.
With great respect, I think you may be labouring under a destructive dichotomy that comes from an orientation to "second handedness".  You work like crazy for years to impress others (rather than to achieve something for yourself) and then when this doesn't bring you satisfaction you conclude that the appropriate response is to rest on your laurels and "tread water" to ride out the remainder of your career.  That dichotomy only makes sense if you are oriented primarily to impressing others and have not intrinsic personal goals for your own work.  You might find some useful insight in Rand (1963) in the discussion of "second handers":

They have no concern for facts, ideas, work.  They’re concerned only with people.
They don’t ask: “Is this true?”  They ask: “Is this what others think is true?”  Not to judge, but to repeat.  Not to do, but to give the impression of doing.  Not creation, but show.  Not ability, but friendship.  Not merit, but pull.  What would happen to the world without those who do, think, work, produce?  Those are the egoists.  You don’t think through another’s brain and you don’t work through another’s hands.  ...  Second-handers have no sense of reality.  Their reality is not within them, but somewhere in that space which divides one human body from another.  Not an entity, but a relation—anchored to nothing.  That’s the emptiness I couldn’t understand in people.

As to practical advice, I think the first thing you should do is take a break and rest.  Be proud of yourself for the work you have already done and the things you have already achieved.  Allow yourself time to refresh and feel rested.  Once you have done this, have a think about the things you would like to produce and achieve over your academic career (focussing on first-hand accomplishments, not second-hand markers of success) and then reorient yourself towards the learning and work you need to do to achieve what you want.  Try to adopt a "first-handed" approach to setting goals and work in your life, and adopt a sensible approach to dealing with the opinions and evaluations of others.  (On this point I recommend the suggestion of Kipling, to "trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too".)

Thank you for this answer, it resonates with me a lot. Your advice seems like something that could help me. In fact, I still have a lot of motivation to do things that directly benefit me, and not at all my PI. For example, I wanted to learn a particular subject in the next 1 year that will probably never serve my PI or his group. I have no problem motivating myself to start every workday with 1h of studying it. The tough thing to balance will be to know how much I can focus on myself and how much do I need to focus on serving my PI's interests in the postdoc position...

I recommend you pursue that subject of interest to you, even if it is not a service to your PI or group.  Try to develop it enough to allow you to publish something in that area, so that it still manifests in a useful output for your own benefit.


text:
Is there a way to easily match zbMATH and MR numbers?
I'm a mathematician and I love using the MathSciNet and zbMATH databases to trawl through the literature, find new papers, and generate citations. So in my own papers, in my own bibliography, it makes sense to mention the zbMATH and MR numbers of every paper I cite: I believe that bibliographies should be maximally useful.
The problem is that when I generate a citation using zbMATH, it only has the zbMATH number, not the MR number. (And vice versa.) I could find the other number by just looking up the article in the other database, but that's more effort than I'm willing to put into this.
Question: Given a zbMATH number, is there an easy way to identify the corresponding MR number of the underlying article, if it exists? (And vice versa, MR to zbMATH.)
Somehow I suspect that neither MathSciNet nor zbMATH maintains these cross-references. It's not in their interest (especially for MathSciNet) because it would make it easy for users to switch from one database to another, risking a "day of reckoning" when the mass of users finally come to prefer one of these nearly identical objects over the other. (And with zbMATH being free, it could very well win out . . .)
So I don't have much hope, but hopefully someone will pleasantly surprise me!

I work for MathSciNet as an editor, and I don't know of any such tool that does exactly what you suggest, or plans to make one.
However, if you already have a full citation for an article, e.g. from zbMath, you can use the MRef reference matching tool  to easily look up the MR number (no login needed).  This is the same algorithm that MathSciNet uses to add MathSciNet links to reference lists, and it's generally very accurate even with incomplete data (though it occasionally gives false match if you try to look up an arXiv preprint that hasn't been published yet and so isn't in MathSciNet).
(A quick google also led me to GetMRef, a github repository that automates this process, but I have no experience using it.)

Thanks, I think this is about as good as I could ask for. Truly a marvelous tool! I realized that zbMATH must have a similar tool, and indeed they do: https://zbmath.org/citationmatching/

Yes, MRef is a fantastic tool, and should be better publicized!


text:
Finding data for primary criminological research - help!
I'm a PhD student in Criminology and this will be my first experience of undertaking a substantial independent research project. I'm in the process of designing my project, but the problem is that I just can't understand how or where I can collect data from.
I've read so many articles where criminologists are using primary data, usually gathered from interviews, from surveys, or from getting access to police/intelligence/court records. I've also read loads of research guides that say 'you can use X sources' (again mostly surveys, interviews, law enforcement records etc.), so together these tell me the types of sources that I should be thinking of using. However, in none of these readings have I found any guidance on actually how to get hold of such data e.g. who to contact to set up interviews, who to contact to get hold of police records etc. I'm completely lost and stumped by this, since clearly I need to actually find a viable source to undertake the research, yet there's no information on how to get access to sources.
In case context is useful, my project will be focused on the UK. I'm torn between undertaking a project on either organised crime or post-prison experiences, but hard to decide this without knowing what sort of data/sources/information is out there!
Final note: this isn't something I can address with my supervisor, since they have been very unhelpful and ignore my requests for help/guidance since they are busy working on a number of different projects (in fact, I've only met them once and never get email responses). I'm also not part of a lab, so don't have any peers to ask.

The reasons you've listed why you cannot ask your supervisors are actually reasons why you absolutely should ask your supervisor. Not just about this topic, but also the general working relation. You cannot do a PhD with a supervisor who does not talk to you, or put differently with a supervisor who you don't know how to talk to.

Hi @PeterFlom, not sure what this means as I'm new here (new to StackExchange completely). Are you suggesting I remove the post and post it somewhere else?

I think you can do that. I think it belongs on the OpenData site, which is all about finding data.

Is all of this data open? Nevertheless, VTC as it's about the content of research.

@PeterFlom OP doesn't seem to be asking about open data but about how to collect new data.

Ooops .... You are right.

Hi all, very confused here as a new poster and don't understand how my query is about Open Data, but I'll see if I can figure out where else to post instead...


text:
Applying for Mphil in Ireland without transcripts due to war
I would like to know what the likelihood of being accepted into Trinity College Dublin Mphil in International Peace Studies if I don't have my official transcripts due the war in my country Sudan. There is no way to receive the transcripts because my university has been literally burnt down. However, I have my general certificate which testifies that I graduated with a Second class honours division one. The website only mentions getting a 2.1 from a university in dublin or equivalent. I am also sitting for my CPE english exam to attach to my application.
So honestly speaking, will I be able to get in. I spoke with my dean and she said she could write them a letter to explain my circumstances. Would that help?
Thank you very much.

You have to ask them.

(more) You need to contact them for what alternatives there might be and what you need to do to find acceptance. No one here can speak for them. Support letters from professors are probably needed.

Closing this for now -- since you're only asking about one school, you need to ask that school. If you like, you could rewrite the question along the lines of "how does/should this work in this part of the world generally" (and we could reopen it in that form) -- but this may or may not be useful to you, since there is no guarantee that your specific program will handle things in a usual or reasonable way.


text:
Would I be able to get an undergrad degree in CS and the get a PHD in mathematics?
Would it hurt my chances? Obviously if i was applying from a history undergrad to math PHD it wouldn't help, but I dont know if a CS BS would hurt with my math PHD, because CS is just math right?

What makes you think ‘CS is just math,’ out of curiosity?

Depending on which country your applying in and which math courses you've taken this could be a duplicate of one of How does the admissions process work for Ph.D. programs in Country X?, How feasible is it to pursue PhD in mathematics for a computer science undergrad?, Applying to math PhD with CS undergrad, What do I need to do to move from a CS major to a math PhD


text:
How will a very short undergrad impact PhD applications?
I am a mathematics undergrad looking at applying for PhD programs in the coming fall. Due to a combination of AP credit, dual enrollment, and high courseloads every semester, I am on track to graduate within two years instead of the regular four. While this definitely benefits me in certain ways (especially financially), I worry that this could also be a big issue for me when applying for programs. I feel that due to my short undergrad, I have not been able to get very much done yet since I have had so little time in my undergrad, which I think will lead to me having worse letters of recommendation and less research experience than other applicants. In addition, I am not entirely sure which field of study I want to get a PhD in - my research so far has been mostly in the fields of computational biology and mathematical biology, but I am not entirely sure that those are the fields that I want to spend the next half decade of my life working on, so I am also considering applied mathematics.
As such, I have two main questions:

Should I expect my accelerated undergrad to be something that will be harmful towards the competitiveness of my PhD applications? beneficial? neutral?

My university offers a one-year master's program in mathematics that I could also do. Would it be worth it to get a master's this way before going into a PhD to get more research experience and to get more experience with different fields of research?

I would say that my undergrad was a roughly 40/60 split between pure math and applied math.
20
To be honest, I'm not too sure since I feel like I don't really have a frame of reference here, so I'll just say that I go to Georgia Tech.

One additional set of factors that I don't think are mentioned in the current answers: age and social maturity. Consider how you will feel about 'hanging out' with a typical set of grad students, and how they will feel about hanging out with you. If your life is in a very different place from the rest of your cohort, you may find the PhD experience lonely and unrewarding.

Just an aside -- many schools in the US have some sort of residency requirement, in the form of how many semesters you need to be at the school for a degree, or how many credits need to be taken in residence.  Two years is rather short, so stop my your registrar and ask if there is any rule preventing you from graduating in two years.  This is pretty infrequent stuff, so you should not count on your advisor knowing this stuff.

I encountered some version of this problem during my undergrad a decade ago. My local advisers recommended against an abbreviated degree, and I continue to think that was a good call. The following are all somewhat general considerations. You could be good-to-go on one or all of them, but it's hard to be. To your two questions:

Should I expect my accelerated undergrad to be something that will be harmful towards the competitiveness of my PhD applications? beneficial? neutral?

The duration of your undergrad is unlikely to be considered directly in PhD applications. Departments are looking for students who they think can succeed in their program. The downstream effects you've started to identify likely will impact you negatively, though.

Students at the most rigorous schools take 4 academic years to complete a math major, and frequently include courses near the end that are considered introductory graduate level elsewhere. With only 2 years, you're almost certainly behind on these.
You've likely had less time to study for the Math Subject GRE than students who take 4 years. It's a poor exam, but a (thankfully decreasing) number of PhD programs still use these scores to winnow down their applicant lists.
The number and quality of your recommendation letters is likely lower than what students who have spent a bit more time around some specific professors can muster up.

It's hard to be successful on all these points in only 2 academic years.

My university offers a one-year master's program in mathematics that I could also do. Would it be worth it to get a master's this way before going into a PhD to get more research experience and to get more experience with different fields of research?

I'd talk to a professor you trust in your local department about the local option, including costs/benefits. In my case, it was cheaper with close to the same output as a local masters degree to do the following with the full four year time frame. The choices are somewhat personal, but they give an idea of what you can do with the amount of time available.

Double major in computer science. The skills and degree still provide an ongoing job-market boost.
Take several courses my state university offered as introductory graduate level, but cross-coded as undergraduate courses (at undergraduate tuition rates). Over the full 4 years that let me get in a year of graduate intro. point-set topology, abstract algebra, and analysis.
Spend the summer + fall of senior year interning in software development. I don't necessarily recommend exactly this, but the general point is that you have more time and competitiveness to get funding for some kind of extracurricular thing or another during at least the summer of any additional years. The money didn't hurt.
Write a bang-up undergraduate research thesis over the course of the year or two.

One other alternative to some of these ideas on the Masters level you can look into is applying for short masters courses and funding abroad. Coming from the US, you have a few different pots you could look at. Just as a few overly-UK-centric examples because I ended up doing something like this in the UK after undergrad: The Rhodes scholarship (very hard, but you miss 100% of the shots you don't take), Marshall scholarship, Gates-Cambridge, Fulbright often has some funding, and I'm sure a good number of others.
These sorts of things are all competitive, of course, and take a chunk of effort to prepare applications for. The window of time coming out of a US undergrad on a good pace is about the only time you can try to take advantage of them, however. Once you start a US PhD these specific opportunity all close down rather quickly, though there will be other opportunities to travel abroad.

Agreed on the double major in computer science.  In addition to providing a viable "backup" career, it can open up interesting opportunities in pure mathematics as well!

@Trunk I don't entirely understand what you're asking! Partially though: I've tried to make it clear in the body of the answer, especially the more anecdote-centric part after the second question, that I'm certainly not suggesting: "You should do exactly all these things". It's more "as non-exhaustive examples, here's what you can do using all 4 years in undergrad without having to cram your class schedule full to fulfill requirements". I definitely didn't say that competitive fellowship apps can be done in "spare time"!

@Trunk: This answer is showing the OP ways to make an extra year or two of undergrad as advantageous as possible academically and financially.   But in parallel, that allows much more space and opportunity for “social and personal development” (by most standards) than OP’s other suggested track, of proceeding directly to a PhD.

Ph.D. committees try to identify individuals who are going to be successful in the Ph.D. program and also after graduation. Being able to graduate early would seem to be rather indicative that you are a hard worker who can function under stress, which would be a positive.
Given the other points you are making, your strategy overall might have been "sub-optimal", but this is largely water under the bridge. Given your current ambiguity, an intervening MS degree might be very helpful to you for figuring out what you want to do, but also for a Ph.D. admissions committee to assess your suitability and chances of success.

I agree with Thomas Schwarz that the short duration of the degree is more likely to be positive than negative.
But I don't think that spending an extra year on a masters will be beneficial, at least in the way you think. First, one year is probably not enough time to get any significant research experience. That requires time and there is no schedule for such things. You might wind up spinning your wheels. Second, there is no guarantee that such a degree is strongly compatible with the early years of a typical doctoral program, which, in the US, involves (generally speaking) advanced coursework leading to passing of the comprehensive qualifying exams. You'd (IMO) be better off starting a doctoral program immediately. And a masters program is seldom funded and often expensive, whereas a doctoral program normally comes with some kind of funding, usually a TA which typically covers most costs as well.
If you need to spend extra effort, I'd suggest working to shore up your relationship with a few math faculty who can write  you letters of recommendation, which are especially important in US. Note that relatively few doctoral applications here have significant research, again due to time constraints in the typical undergrad curriculum.

Ask yourself honestly: Are you some kind of prodigy, meaning all that studying in that short time was "totally easy" for you and you can just go on and on? Or do you feel burdened actually, because of the fast pace and uncertain future (or feel otherwise forced-to-be-faster)? If you feel inbetween, what is your tendency to either extreme?
In the first case, I think you are likely capable of going on studying, making a PhD or whatever as fast as you feel like it. In this case a short undergrad is maybe a sign of "you are faster than others anyway" and you do not need to bother to much. Getting into a PhD program might be difficult, if you cannot convince them of your skills and they filter you out, because of the short times... but this is hypothetical. You need to find some better clues to that question than to ponder about it yourself. Go get some advice from someone of such programs who are in charge of selecting, let them "pre-evaluate" you or something, I'd strongly suggest.
In the second case (and also in the first case, actually), I recommend being extra careful on packing on more and more load. Step back, take it easy, make a vacation, relax, come to rest and strength. Think about your future meanwhile. Then take the next steps.
And also: Do request help of some of your professors or other student counselling (maybe asking parents and friends is a good start as well) and be totally honest about your feeling towards your future career and a probable overloading/burn-out - only then they can help you for real. They are able to check your grades and ask you questions on the spot and are far more experienced in giving the right advices.
But be careful: perfect scores everywhere can either be a sign to be a prodigy, but it is also very likely a sign of being on the burn-out track.
Good luck, mate! Hope you do well!

I'm going to approach this from a slightly different angle, which is the risk of "studying-fatigue". There comes a point as a young adult where you might get tired of being a student and instead want to be financially independent and learn a job. I think it happens to quite a few people, but it's hard to predict. I've certainly seen it happen to people in PhD programs, but the sunk cost logical bias (plus their own vision of success/failure) pushes most people in that case to continue with the program even if they're deeply unhappy.
For context: I got a master's level graduate degree in France in 5 years, then took a year working before starting an MS at a top-tier US university, which I graduated from in 2015. That MS in the US was great, but I didn't make the most of it because I somewhat fed up with studying at that point.
Studies can easily give you the feeling of being in a rat race – everything you do is graded, and the next part of your studies depends on those grades (and as a result, it can feel like the rest of your life depends on it).
The reason I'm mentioning it is: you're looking at this question of timing only from the perspective of that race, and how you're going to be evaluated. I think you should also think about from the perspective of personal development/happiness. Once you're in your PhD program, a key element of success will feeling good with yourself, feeling like you are where you want to be etc...
How you get there depends on your own tastes and aspirations.  It could make sense to graduate in 2 years, then go get a job for 2 years so that you don't stay in academia because you feel you have to, but because you want to. It could also make sense (as others have pointed out), to enjoy the next year or two in college, take more advanced classes in the subjects that interest you.
In my case, spending a little more time outside of academia would have given me a hunger for studying again, which I didn't quite have anymore during my master's (but that I did get back a few years later).
In any case, my point is that you shouldn't focus solely on getting through the PhD program admissions, but on getting through the PhD program itself.


text:
I don’t read the syllabus and exam question thoroughly, then got reported to academic integrity
I recently took a course in the math department. During the final, I used calculator to compute some large numbers. Then my professor asked me if I use calculator in the exam, and I admitted it immediately. Since the professor didn't mention if we can use calculator in the exam on the first page of the exam instruction and in the exam rule. Also, the professor asked us to compute the exact number of this type of question instead of leaving the equation. That's why I use calculator. Also, I didn’t read the question carefully, which result me to calculate the exact number. Besides this, I always participated in class actively, I asked questions, and pointed out the mistakes the professor made. My point is I really learned by myself, and I did the exam by myself, only one question using calculator.
After the professor told me that he/she would report to the academic integrity, I talked to her/him, that why I use calculator. Then I was informed that it was stated in the syllabus. Unfortunately, I didn't read the syllabus thoroughly. I understand it's my fault, but I didn't mean to do that.
It was my last course before graduating, and I never cheated in any exam. For now, I'm really stressed out since I'm worried that it may influence my graduation.
I'm looking for someone who used to have a similar situation and wants to know how the process will go, and how serious the punishment will be.

I didn’t read the question thoroughly because professor gave us sample exam, and there is a similar question. So I ignore what result are expected.

I understand you're worried, but I don't really see how anyone here can help with what you're asking.  Even if someone else has gone through a similar situation, it would have been at a different university, with different policies, a different professor, a different official or board adjudicating the case, etc, so it wouldn't really be useful in predicting what will happen in your case.

You're just going to have to let the process work itself out.  Make sure you have someone who can help you navigate it (e.g. student justice representative, ombudsman, lawyer if necessary).

You’re absolutely right! Since it’s summer semester, many resources are unavailable in my school.

The only thing you can do here is do your research on the academic conduct guidelines at your institution and be honest about your ignorance of the policy. You already admitted to having a calculator, so being honest about your lack of knowledge concerning the policy is the only way to rectify that. As another answer said, make sure you contact your ombudsperson as well for any advice. Even if it is summer, it won’t be for long.
Academic conduct violations will typically be heard by a committee as well, so you’ll have the chance to explain your case to multiple people. Some universities, like mine, will allow one to have an advisor (faculty member, friend, family member, etc.) present during the meeting as well. All in all, you need to formulate a plan by looking at your university’s policies and contacting someone at your university.

In some European countries, such as France, there are committees that thoroughly examine the "intentions" of the person involved in such cases. For example, there are situations like "organized fraud" which can aggravate the situation. However, if the committee determines that the student did not really mean to cheat or was simply unaware that using a calculator was not allowed, they generally issue an academic warning that does not impact the student's academic record.
As mentioned in the previous answer, in such cases, it is always better to be 100% transparent and admit your mistake to demonstrate your intentions.


text:
Follow-Up on Assistant Professorship Offer Status
I have completed several rounds of interviews for an assistant professorship position with a university. In June, the department chair verbally informed me that they wanted to hire me. At their request, I presented my preferences for the start-up package (e.g., lab space, start-up funding, number of postdocs and PhD students) and my proposed start date, which they were okay with. Following this, I presented my research funding plans. Subsequently, I received an email stating that my case had been forwarded to the dean for approval. I was also verbally assured that the dean had been involved throughout my interview process and related discussions.
Given the positive feedback from the department chair, I expected to receive an official offer letter within a couple of weeks. However, it has now been nearly four weeks since I was notified that the dean’s approval is pending, and I am starting to feel anxious about the delay, especially since the verbally agreed start date is approaching very soon. I am contemplating whether I should reach out to the department chair or search committee for a progress update, or if I should continue to wait. Do you think it's okay for me to send a follow-up email? Also, is it normal for the dean's approval process to delay the official offer letter this long?

"...the verbally agreed start date is approaching..." - You can frame your request for an update around this. It's entirely reasonable to point out that if they want you to start on the agreed date, they need to confirm the position as a matter of urgency so that you have time to make your personal arrangements (e.g. resign from current job, find accommodation, book travel, etc.)

Related: How long does it usually take to hear back for academic positions? Why haven't I heard back and when should I follow up?. I realize your situation is a little different, but the answer is ultimately the same; no one on the internet can tell you what's going on.

@avid You completely understand my situation. I was feeling a sense of urgency because I need to figure out my lease, flight, movers, etc. Additionally, I wanted to start advertising for undergraduate and MS student positions for the fall semester, as well as recruiting PhD students and postdocs.

Yes, you can send that letter asking for current status and offering to provide any additional information they might need. If you've met the chair that might be the one to send it to, otherwise the head of the search committee.
Vacations at this time might explain the longer than seems usual delay. And, there might be a lot of signatures needed.

Please have some sympathy for overworked underappreciated faculty overburdened with departmental service and don't send it to the head of the search committee. Their job is done and they have plenty of other things to do. Once they handed the recommendation for hire over to the Chair, it is out of their hands. This is obviously now in the hands of administration. You can follow up with the Chair as they are directly involved with the Dean for hires.

@Buffy Thank you for your response. I was hesitant because I didn’t want to pressure anyone or leave a negative impression, especially since I believed everything was now beyond the professors' control. Without an official offer letter, it's hard to relax and focus only on positive things. I will try reaching out to them.


text:
Transitioning from engineering to math research
I'm a PhD student researching fluid mechanics in an aerospace engineering lab. My undergrad background was primarily mathematics.
I originally decided to join this lab, which was the same lab I was in during undergrad, because my advisor had enough funding to fully fund the entirety of my PhD, and the pay was confortable. My university also has a really strong graduate math program, so I thought that I'd be able to continue to learn about mathematics during my graduate studies on the side. My advisor also convinced me to stay by saying that I would get to work on projects relating to my interests in math. So overall I thought this lab would be a great fit for me. I would get more specific about my current research and my research interests in math, but I want to avoid doing so in case it makes it obvious who I am (I think some of my colleagues are on here).
However, I now feel like engineering isn't aligned with my research interests. My research projects are mostly for industry sponsors who don't care much for math. Additionally my advisor seems to have backtracked and is asking me to be in their words "less of a mathematician". I'm in an awkward position because I would like to continue fluid mechanics research in a mathematics lab but I don't think I can leave my current lab without burning bridges to a lot of people in the field. My current plan is to take as many graduate math courses during my PhD with the goal of transitioning to applied math research after my PhD.
How easy would this transition be?


text:
Duplicated work submitted in the same conference - is it self-plagiarism?
My group is currently submitting two papers in the same venue and the first three sections of one are copy/pasted from the other. About half of the text of the two submitted papers is identical with just a few words and formatting choices changed here and there.
This seems to be the result of miscommunication. When I realized what's happening I flagged it up to my colleagues as self-plagiarism and advised that we retract one of the papers.
One of my senior colleagues instead advised that what happened is not necessarily a problem. My colleague says that it would be good practice if the two papers referred to each other but otherwise it's not an issue and it's not self-plagiarism.
My colleague is the area chair for our submission and I don't want to take the matter to the program chair because I don't wish to cause a scandal. I checked the code of conduct of other relevant venues and they all define self-plagiarism as copying one's already published work. I don't think that makes a real difference, we're still copying our own paper and not telling anyone about it. If it was someone else's paper and I noticed the same thing I would surely complain.
What is the right thing to do here? I'm worried that if we don't retract the paper and both papers get published people will notice what happened and it will leave a bad stink over the reputation of everyone who is a co-author in the paper.

"My colleague is the area chair for our submission" what? This is a very clear conflict of interest and should not be happening, submission systems should not allow for this, I would worry about this aspect as well.

My colleague is not reviewing or making any decisions about the papers where they are the author. At least not that I know of. I think if they did then yes, that would be a huge issue but conference chairs should be able to submit their own papers in the venues they chair, especially in small fields, no? As it happens our community is indeed small and the venue in question is one of the few chances to get a paper published on our subject.

I am not talking about being author, I am talking about being area chair for papers in the same institution as your affiliation, that is definitely frowned upon in many conferences, because its an obvious conflict of interest, even if you are not co-author in those papers.

My colleague is not reviewing or making any decisions about the papers where they are the author.

Maybe I write in simple words: colleagues at the same institution should not be area chairing their colleagues' papers, and not making decisions about them, even if they are not authors or co-authors.

Well, it certainly seems like self plagiarism unless you cite at least one of them in the other. There isn't a copyright issue (yet) as you hold copyright yourselves.
There is a small subtlety in that if neither paper is published then you can copy from either to the other. But, once you release the one copied from, plagiarism is suddenly an issue.
The reason for the "prohibition" on self-plagiarism isn't that it mischaracterizes the originator of ideas, but that it hides what may be important context that is in one paper but not included in the other. That is a disservice to scholars.
I suspect that this will be noticed by the conference committee and/or reviewers. But it is worse if not, since it will almost certainly be noticed by the audience. Your reputation will take a hit.
If one paper extends the other, then cite the extended paper in the extension. If they are "somehow" independent, you will need to find a way to provide citations that makes it clear that both paper exist and overlap.
Don't confuse copyright with plagiarism. If you hold copyright you can certainly reuse the expression. But you also need to make the context of ideas clear to readers. That is a distinct, but equally important, issue.
You run the risk of both papers being rejected, actually.

Thanks for answering. I think you're right there's no copyright issue and like you suggest my main concern should be the reputational damage in case both papers get accepted for publication. At this point I feel like the best result is if both papers are rejected.


text:
How to Access HTC Dataset for Transport Mode Detection?
I've seen several research papers using the HTC dataset for transport mode detection, but I can't find a way to access it. Does anyone know how to obtain this dataset or whom to contact for access?
Any help would be appreciated!

If the usual means (google searches, asking colleagues, asking advisors) do not work, then you can contact people that used the data set in their research. This is not really a question for this forum.


text:
How should I email a tutor about missing a group formation class?
I was stuck in traffic despite leaving early and couldn't make it to class on time. We were supposed to form groups in this class for a research project. I'm not sure how to email the tutor about this. Should I ask them to assign me to a group through email or is it better to discuss this in a consultation?

Basic person-to-person communication.

You can start your email with a respectful greeting, such as “Dear Professor [Name].” Then briefly explain your situation, mentioning the traffic and your absence from class. Ask if it would be possible to be assigned to a group or if you should discuss this in a consultation. End by thanking them for their understanding. Here is an example:
Dear Professor [Name],
I hope you are well. I am writing to inform you that unfortunately I was unable to attend the group formation class due to traffic problems. I would like to know if it would be possible to be assigned to a group for the research project or if I should discuss this in a consultation. I thank you for your understanding.
Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Your Course]
[Your Contact]
This is how you address the situation clearly and respectfully.