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When applying for postdoc funding, what are the consequences of backing out if I can get another position where funding is already secured?
When looking for a post-doctoral fellowship, I have, in a nutshell, two alternatives:

Apply to open positions, where money is already secured (at least for the beginning)
Apply together with a potential supervisor for funding agencies, such as NASA NPP, UCAR VSP, NRC, or one of the more generic funding agencies.

With option (2), I'd need to first convince a potential supervisor, then write a funding proposal to convince a funding agency.  From a candidate's point of view, (1) is easier.  On the other hand, there are a lot more options in (2) to try, than in (1).  My question relates to option (2).
Two relevant calls for me close on 1 November and 10 January.  Results are announced in February and March.  I could apply to both, with different projects and different supervisors.  While waiting for results, other opportunities, where funding is already secured (such as point (1)) may come along, and I'd apply to those too.
Is it unethical, unprofessional, or otherwise unwise, to apply to different programmes, with different supervisors, and still apply to immediately available positions while awaiting the result?  Suppose that I find a postdoc elsewhere before even knowing the result of either funding application; can I then simply back out of the still-open funding applications without consequences, or should I expect this to cause severe annoyment with the host scientist I'd be applying with?  After all, he or she would have invested a non-neligible amount of time in the proposal.  I find it different then simply applying for different jobs, because time invested is much less.  On the other hand, I don't want to have to wait until March, before hearing a negative result and having to start all over again.
I'd like to hear from senior scientists how they would look upon a fresh PhD who they'd spend time writing a post-doc proposal with, but who'd then back out for another position before the result is even announced.

Whatever you do, be honest and upfront with all parties involved. And remember, if you stay in academia, these people will be colleagues in your field for the rest of your career, so don't alienate them just yet :)

Plain and clear "NO" to the main question: since they do not guarantee acceptance, you are not obliged to restrict from applying anywhere else. However, as Fx said, you shouldn't hide this fact from any potential adviser and once you accept one position, it is a good idea to notify all other parties that you are no longer on the market immediately.

The answer to the last question: the words I would say at the moment I get this news are "Damn, those bureaucrats are so slow that Alex stole an excellent student from under my nose again and now I have to think whom else to get! I should talk to the chair about how we can be more efficient in our postdoc recruitment. Fortunately, Mark mentioned that he has some good guy graduating. Should call him the first thing in the morning", provided that you followed the advice F'x gave :-).

Depending on the type of proposal, even if you help your supervisor apply for it, you still might not be guaranteed to get an actual post-doc position in it as you might have to apply like any other person. So it would be foolish to put all your eggs in one basket. Oh, and also, what @F'x said!

With option (2), will it be you who applies, or is the potential supervisor the formal applicant (or principal investigator) for the grant?

I don't know who would be the formal applicant, but it does appear to me that in case of succesfull funding, the position should be guaranteed (in other words, the supervisor first accepts the candidate, then the proposal gets written/submitted).

The key is to be open and honest. To answer the question lets define some terms. Let Prof X be a potential post doc supervisor who already has funding and Prof Y be a a potential post doc supervisor without any funding.
Prior to working on a funding application to Prof Y you need to discuss whether he expects you to put all your eggs in one basket or if he is okay with you applying for different jobs. There may be applications that Prof Y will not make with you or it might change the application strategy. For example, Prof Y may not list you as a named post doc so as not to cause problems with the funder if you do not take the position. The key is to be honest and up front.
If you have a application in with Prof Y and Prof X offers you a job, then you have problems. If it is close to the decision deadline for the funding with Prof Y, you may want to wait before starting with Prof X. Again you need to talk with Prof X. Maybe Prof X X needs you to start right away but instead of a 12 month commitment he only needs a 6 month commitment and maybe you can delay the start of the funding with Prof Y, if you get it.
In general, most people understands that a guaranteed job is important and will try and be flexible. That said if you have funding, you need to deliver the work you promised, and you don't want to apply for funding you cannot use.


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What is a "Graphical Table of Contents" Abstract?
For one of my accepted papers, the publication editor sent me this note:

AUTHOR: Please provide a short “Graphical Table of Contents”
  abstract (maximum 80 words or 3 sentences) summarizing the key
  findings presented in the paper for Table of Content (TOC) entry.

Can someone please explain what that means? I understand the bit about 80 words max abstract but I don't understand why it's tagged "graphical". Is it supposed to be illustrated?

Good question. I actually got this request as a reviewer of the paper. My review will be enough.

Some publishers (ACS I'm lookin at you) have what they call GToC, which is like a ToC with small images. You might have seen such in some magazines, here's an example.
Accompanying the image is usually a short text that is sort of like a teaser for the article, in a way the coolest tidbit about what you have written. I believe that's what they are asking for here.

For related discussion on this see Full Text and Figure Display Improves Bioscience Literature Search (Divoli et al. 2010).

Perfect. Thanks. I found a similar "teaser" on the journal's site as well. That's exactly what they are doing.

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Where to post my math proof for scrutinized checking?
I have a not enough checked for errors proof of an important math conjecture, P=NP (for your calmness: the proof is not very constructive). 8 pages.
Where can I post it for scrutinized checking?
I posted it and the question to check the proof in ResearchGate.net. I tried to post it at PhysicsForums.com but my question was deleted. I posted it on Reddit, with no useful responses. Where else?
I also negotiated to check it for $100 at Fiverr. It's not very small sum and I doubt whether to spend it.
I can't post on arXiv, because I am not affiliated with an institute.
I do realize that the final destination is a peer-reviewed journal. But I want feedback before I submit it to a journal.

Sorry for being nitpicky on language matters, but there is no such thing as a "not enough checked for errors proof". Something either is a proof or it isn't. If you don't know whether it contains errors, you don't know whether it is a proof.

For the specific case of proposed P=NP proofs, you could compare your proposed proof against this list of common warning signs that a proposed P=NP proof is wrong: https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=458. This is written by an author who wrote a well-received survey paper on the P vs NP problem, which probably provides useful prior literature on the problem: http://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/pnp.pdf

If I may make a musical analogy, what you are doing is in effect saying that your interpretation of Beethoven's piano sonatas will blow Richter's and Brendel's and everyone else's out of the water, but you first need someone to listen to it and confirm that you are actually playing the right notes, because you're not quite sure. Just – no. I don't mean to offend, but there is no chance in hell that you have resolved the P vs. NP problem if you need someone else's assistance to confirm whether or not your 8-page (!) argument is logically sound. (I would understand if it were a 200-page proof.)

The reason you are not getting any answers is that P=NP is right there in crank-land along with proofs against evolution, the 2nd law of thermodynamics, general relativity, etc. Nobody wants to even look at your proof because what you are asking is to be educated in some very basic concepts in computer science (or biology, or physics, etc.)
This is not to discourage you, or to say that outsiders cannot make important contributions. It's that you need to do some homework before expecting others to take you seriously.
Is there a single example of an outsider considered a "crank" publishing a ground-breaking result that was found to be correct (in the last 30 years)?
I believe I have solved a famous open problem. How do I convince people in the field that I am not a crank?

You’re right but this doesn’t answer the question of where they can get their proof checked.

@cheery, there are other "crank-land" red flags too.  I looked at the OP's websites and found this link "My projects are more important than yours. Donate all your money (or at least how much you are willing to donate) to me." and another page of his has the popup "A biblical prophecy says that I have the right for 1% of your income (or 10% if you receive tithes)"

https://endofgospel.wordpress.com/2017/04/01/how-much-to-donate/ for the first quote

@user438383 - sure, the first sentence could say ‘There is no chance a competent person will review your paper.’ That is strongly implied from the rest.

@JonCuster right but this isn’t really about the OP and whether they are cranks or not. SE is meant to be a repository of useful questions and answers, not a personalised help desk. The actual question OP asked, ‘is there somewhere where someone can reviews a maths paper’ is useful, even if the answer is might ‘no people don’t generally won’t do that’. Dissecting whether or not the OP is a crank isn’t really useful to anyone.

I disagree that this is equivalent to arguments against evolution, thermodynamics, or general relativity.  P vs NP is unresolved.  It is possible that someone will eventually resolve it.  This is in contrast to the scientific theories mentioned, which are pretty settled by now.  Resolving P vs NP would be more like resolving Riemann, or completely describing the nature of dark matter.  The rest of your post is spot-on.

@XanderHenderson It's not an argument about the nature of the problems, but about the nature of cranks. Please. And the crank is strong on this one.

@Cheery I'm not sure what the "Please" at the end of your comment is supposed to indicate, but it feels rather sarcastic and rude.  My point is that cranks often rules-lawyer.  You gave examples that are not alike to P vs NP.  I offered other examples which might be more alike.  I think that those examples, instead, make your point stronger.  You are free to take it or leave it.  There is not need to be sarcastic in response.

In theory, there is a way to get your proof fully verified without the cooperation of other people, namely formal verification. That would involve first formalizing the statement that P=NP, and then proving that statement to the satisfaction of a proof verifier (Lean, maybe?).
Formalizing the statement is in itself not going to be easy but I would expect someone willing to learn a suitable formal system who is very persistent about it to eventually succeed; the project could be made fairly concrete by saying e.g. that Levin's universal algorithm halts in polynomial time on SAT. I think once that is done, someone who has a short correct proof would also eventually succeed in formalizing that, albeit not without significant additional work.
It is however probable that finding a flaw in your proof is far easier. One approach for doing so automatically could be to show your proof to a system like GPT-4 and asking it to highlight the least plausible bit of the argument. While it would certainly not be able to verify the proof, it might just succeed in spotting a part of the argument that is in contradiction to established knowledge or intuitions, and if so, such feedback might be easy for you to verify.

To be honest, I tried to study several proof assistants (at the later stage, Lean) several times. It appears very hard to write proof tactics and I had no more succeess than proving one novel theorem about formal verification. (On the other hand, I am the world-best general topology researcher (there I checked the proofs), this makes for myself plausible that I solve P/NP, even despite I have a trouble write tactics in proof verifiers.) Also my P=NP proof is not easy one: It requires to model ZFC in NBG, what involves many axioms (and theorems).

I meant not easy one to fully verify formally, without referring to existing results in literature as to axioms.

GPT-4: "As an AI language model, I am unable to provide a thorough evaluation of your proof since it requires detailed analysis of mathematical concepts and technical details." and further it follows trivial general advice on proof checking.

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Approach expert in field - afraid of losing idea if expert doesn't need me
I have an idea that I have developed after extensive literature review, I am quite sure I have formed an interesting hypothesis, although I am not completely sure this hypothesis is testable.
I would like to contact the expert in the field which I think should have most of the data I need and has probably done part of the analysis but has not looked at this data through the perspective I am interested in. I do not have any common collaborators with this person.
I am afraid that if I contact this person and explain my idea he might think that I am not needed to complete this research because I am not offering data or any particular methodology, and I would only be able to do only a small part of the data analysis. Basically I am not offering much aside from the idea and writing the article, thus my concern for being excluded by a potential article.
Due to time constraints I would not be able to do this on my own so I do not have many alternatives, how should I proceed?

"Due to time constraints I would not be able to do this on my own so I do not have many alternatives"
I think you just answered your own question here. Clearly you need help so you will have to take the risk. An idea is not worth much without the time and expertise to carry it out.

And I'm not sure how you intend to write the article if you don't actually do the work needed. Ideas are a dime a dozen. Doing experiments and analyses is hard. Writing it up without understanding what was done is impossible.

@JonCuster Good point, I do understand some of the methodology and would contribute with part of the data.

Due to time constraints I would not be able to do this on my own so I do not have many alternatives, how should I proceed?

As the comments note, you have essentially answered your own question - by not approaching the expert, who has data and can (in theory) advance the question where you have admitted you can't, you have essentially already "lost" the idea. An undeveloped idea has no inherent value.
However, beyond that, you should be aware that most professional researchers have more ideas than they have time to pursue. Right now, for example, my planning board has a 4:1 ratio of Projects I'd Like To Work On : Projects I'm Working on. This has two implications:

You shouldn't be worried about losing your idea, because in all likelihood, they already have more ideas than they know what to do with and won't particularly be searching for more to add to that pile.
You should prepare for the very likely answer to this proposal to be "I don't have time/funding".

I should probably have added that I don't need any funding for this because I have a salary already and the project doesn't require any cost. But the time constraint is definitely the biggest problem. Although this project would be an extension to the work this expert has done.

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Cite articles "in preparation" or conference presentations in post-doc/junior positions grant application
There are already questions on how to handle unpublished material in CVs. But here I am wondering if would be reasonable to cite an article in preparation in the application of a grant for a PhD or a postdoc position right after a PhD. So basically only for Junior scientists  who are still  in the process of finishing their PhD or their Masters and have one or two papers in the pipeline which are very relevant to the application in question.
I have seen published papers citing  other manuscripts in preparation, usually from the same author or a co-author. So how is this handled/seen in a grant application, provided that the manuscript in preparation exist and can be  provided if requested? Would it be better to reference a presentation at an international well-known conference?

As noted by @aeismail, there are many grant mechanisms that expressly prohibit listing anything that's not "in press" or published, so the first stop would be checking the rules for the grant application itself.
If it is allowed, it's understandable to a junior scientist to do this (and indeed, I did this on several job applications). A few general notes:

Don't list a journal. No one cares that something is "in submission" to Nature or Science or Cell or what have you, and it erodes your credibility.
Do be sparing in what you list. These should be papers you're actively working to prep for submission, are being circulated to co-authors, etc. Things where in another few months your CV might look markedly different. "I've written the title and maybe half the intro" doesn't count. Every idea and musing you've had doesn't count. There shouldn't be a wall of these, or way more in prep entries than actual published work.
Do be prepared to talk about each and every one of them (this follows from the previous point). I have been asked about papers I had in prep in a fair amount of detail (they were interested in the topic).

In general, most grant applications do not permit you to list unpublished work for consideration. This is to prevent "gaming the system," whereby somebody could claim a whole bunch of work is "in preparation" when it really isn't. However, you need to check the specific instructions for each funding source to see what their rules are with respect to unfinished or unpublished work.

I was referring to listing something in preparation/review in the methodology or introduction of the proposal itself, not in my  CV. The idea is to show that  you are becoming an expert in a particular subject.

Two other possibilities, which should be considered in parallel with aeismall's and Fomite's comments, which are both sensible:
1) Post a preprint on arxiv/biorxiv/etc, cite the preprint. That way they can read the paper without requesting it explicitly. (I think it's unlikely someone will request it.). If journal policies prohibit you from posting it on arxiv, you could put up a PDF copy on your website, and link to it. Both of these plans demonstrate the state the work is in; the arxiv plan also shows that you are willing to expose it to the outside world, even if it is not yet published.
2) Request that your advisor specifically address this unpublished work in their letter. "In preparation" is much stronger when there is a paragraph or two of someone else describing the work's context and importance.

I would say you should only post a preprint if the paper is actually done, i.e. substantially complete and polished enough that you could submit it without embarrassment.  ArXiv for instance frowns upon the posting of incomplete manuscripts and may reject them.

This is a good point, and I agree - but if the paper is not substantially complete and could be submitted without embarrassment, why would you send it to a potential employer? And if you wouldn't do that, you should definitely not list it as "in preparation"!


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How to evaluate a thesis based on papers with multiple authors
I was asked to be a referee of a PhD thesis.
The thesis is completely based on several papers published in journals.
All the papers have, besides the PhD student, other authors (different authors for different papers).
Also, the field of study is Mathematics,
so the order of authors is Alphabetical, and there is no information about the contribution of each author.
Given this situation, how should I evaluate the thesis?  Is there any general advice on how to proceed in such a situation?

The thesis is based on several papers, I'd say you can evaluate the thesis on its own merit, the author is presumably claiming they produced the work it contains. Any work that appears only in journals is not the author's contribution. For clarity, email the PhD candidate, their supervisor, or their institute.

There should be some guidelines by the department for which you review the PhD thesis. Many actually require an explicit contribution statement from the PhD candidate (signed by all collaborators). If you were not presented with any such guidelines, it s a legitimate question to ask them.

So is it a kind of "stapled thesis" consisting of the papers, or is it a reformulated coherent thesis which main results coincide with those of the published papers?

@J.FabianMeier, it's roughly a stapled thesis.

Going along with @lighthousekeeper 's comment, what exactly did they ask you in terms of refereeing?  Are you just supposed to evaluate the written thesis?  For what?  Are you supposed to ask questions at the oral defense and evaluate that?  These are different things.

I was asked to just evaluate the written thesis, and to say if it proves that the author is capble of producing original research.

I've been a referee for exactly one "stapler" thesis, but its introduction included a description of the candidate's contribution to each of the joint papers. My report included a summary of that information as part of my overall assessment that the candidate had demonstrated the ability to carry out independent research.  So I agree with @lighthousekeeper that, if such information is not available to you, then you could reasonably ask for it.

Let me start with a story.  At Harvard, before a PhD student is allowed to schedule their oral dissertation defense, which (as is the case in many places) is usually a formality, the advisor is required to explain the significance of the dissertation work at a faculty meeting, and the faculty have to agree that the work is significant enough for a dissertation for the defense to go forward.  The possibly apocryphal story goes that, after a contentious faculty meeting at which a dissertation was grudgingly approved, the advisor, a well-known mathematician who has had many students, remarked, "Well, this isn't the worst dissertation I've written."
The point is that, while we claim that a dissertation is the work of the student, in most cases, this claim is really partially true polite fiction.  Certainly the student is expected to understand all of it, and to have contributed significantly to it, but, in any sort of collaborative theoretical work, it doesn't even make sense to precisely separate out which ideas came from whom.  I've heard mathematicians claim that they correctly decided which idea to pursue to solve a problem based on the quality of the silences during a conversation with their collaborators, and I believe this claim.  When ideas are developed with such subtle yet vital contributions, it makes sense to just give each co-author 100% credit for the ideas.
Unless you have a policy that theses should not be based on collaborative work - and, frankly, this policy is unenforceable due to the common but not universal custom for advisors to decline co-authorship with students on papers where they would otherwise be a co-author - you really have no choice but to take at face value the claim that the thesis represents the student's work.  At the least, you can expect the student actually wrote the text of the thesis and understands its contents, and if there is an oral defense you can test whether this is true.  Beyond this, you will have to trust the student and the advisor that some acceptable portion of the ideas in the work actually came from the student.  Someone contemplating hiring the student will get more information in the recommendation letters from the advisors and the other collaborators.
It's generally understood that an advisor usually ends up spending more time advising a student on solving their dissertation problem than it would have taken the advisor to solve the problem themselves.  You might want to read between the lines of the following statement about the culture of PhD advising from the American Mathematical Society: http://www.ams.org/about-us/governance/committees/Statement_DirectingPhDTheses.pdf

I am not sure if it matters, but actually, non of the four papers is coauthored by the advisor of the student.

And note that collaborative mathematical work is often synergistic and that is a good thing.

I'd add that the purpose of a PhD thesis is to train the student to be an independent researcher.  Even in the case of a "single-author thesis", it's not clear just from the written thesis how far this aim has been met, depending on how much help they received from their advisor.  And even someone who is capable of independent research may need help finding new problems and additional mentoring at the postdoc level.

@Kimball and beyond!

You don't say which country you are in, but if this were the UK, I'd evaluate the work in thesis on its merits, and then interrogate the student on which parts of the work they consider to be their contributions in the viva. If you are convienced in the viva that the student had made a significant personal contribution, I would work with them, through the corrections process to add a statement/statements to the thesis to make clear what the students contribution to the work was.

French perspective here. My understanding is that the contents of the PhD manuscript handed by the candidate should mostly consist of their own work, or things of which they are a main contributor: they should definitely understand it, probably have written it (or wrote a version of it), etc. If the candidate is an author on a paper to which they only contributed in a minor way, they can mention the paper in the PhD but probably not include the material in the manuscript. And by extension: if the candidate hasn't been a major contributor to any paper to which they are listed an author, then the manuscript should be pretty lightweight indeed. :)
Concretely, if you have doubts I'd advise getting in touch with the thesis advisor to clarify expectations, i.e., ask them to briefly describe the personal contribution of the student to the works they have co-authored, clarify if the contents of the thesis is indeed the candidate's specific contribution, etc. If phrased politely, I think this is a pretty sensible request.

I doubt that if such regulations were in place, that such a thesis even would be contemplated or attempted and the question would be moot.

@Buffy: this is an informal "expectation" I've heard, not a formal regulation.

From your comments I understand that the coauthors are not advisors and that the work itself is more or less a verbatim copy of the papers.
In this case, I would indeed ask back which parts of the papers are the results of the PhD student.
Alexander Woo is certainly right that in many cases, the work of a student and his/her advisor cannot be separated (although there are advisors which do not discuss ideas with students), but if the student collaborated with other people, there should be a statement about what (roughly) belongs to whom.

Your last sentence is not the view of pure mathematicians.

Maybe I did not express myself clearly enough. If A and B write a paper and A uses this paper nearly verbatim in his/her PhD thesis, it should be made clear which parts of the paper are the work of A. Of course, if A and B worked together smoothly, it may be hard to draw the line, but one can at least often attribute certain main ideas to certain people.

Let me be more precise, then. If you and I have a series of conversations in which we, over time, close in on some important mathematical concepts and it results in a paper, then it is, in essence, to split up who did what unless you want to include the tapes of the conversations. I have a wild thought. It triggers something in you. You bounce it back. I take it around a corner. We both say wow. 42 iterations later we have a theorem. Now what? Mathematics isn't a mosaic, but a unified whole. Not always, in any case.

Ok, I see that this is a possible path. This leads to the question: If a PhD student and some other guy (not his/her advisor) write a paper together (in the way you mentioned), can anything of that paper be part of the PhD thesis?

Absolutely. It is actually how professionals work in the internet age and tried to prior to that. Being an "independent" researcher doesn't mean toiling in isolation. It means using best professional practice to advance the art.

I would not be so sure. My last university required for "group projects" (not PhDs) to clearly mark which part belonged to which student. Other universities want you to sign a document that you did everything on our own. I can image that formal rules might cause trouble in these cases.

Suppose you put two students on a programming project and they come back to you later with the statement that they developed it in true pair programming - test first development style. Acceptable? Or do you require that they bifurcate the project in some "equal" way and each do their own part?

Of course I would love to see the students collaborating in true pair programming but the regulations of the faculty require the students to clearly mark who has done what (and also require my grading to be based on that).

@JFabianMeier: If formal rules cause trouble in this case, those rules are bad. The way Buffy describes it, fruitful research has happened by the candidate which is exactly the goal of a phd programm.

@J.FabianMeier - I think we have a difference in national cultures here.  In the US, when there are stupid formal rules, we usually look the other way and either pretend they don't exist or comply with them in some meaningless formal way.

All the papers have, besides the PhD student, other authors (different
authors for different papers)

This student can work with different set of co-authors, and be productive. This shows that (s)he is already an independent researcher. Moreover, they are also independent from their advisor:

I am not sure if it matters, but actually, non of the four papers is
coauthored by the advisor of the student.

If the papers are good, then they are good, what else do you want to check? Is there a mediocre student who manages to publish good papers with different set of authors? if there is, it is also a fantastic skill that I want to learn :)

The main point of a PhD thesis is not to show that the candidate can work independently with others, but to show that the PhD student is capable of setting up, leading and completing their own scientific project (potentially with contributions from others). In fields where first authorship is a thing, a candidate wouldn't get away with having only middle-author papers.

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I wrote a new paper. Should I reapply for a postdoc at mathjobs?
About a month ago, when the deadlines for applying for postdoc positions at math at the US were approaching, I applied for several research universities via mathjobs.
In the time that passed since, I made a new discovery, and am now in the last stages of writing a paper about it.
Obviously, once the paper will be uploaded to the arXiv, my application will be improved.
However, for that to happen, I must update my c.v and my publication list, to include the new paper.
To do this in mathjobs, I will need to "reapply". Given that deadlines passed, will this be a good idea? Can reapplying now with my new c.v and my new publication list harm my application because of deadline issues?

As I understand it, "reapply" is merely a technical term in mathjobs and this should cause no problems.  See, for example, the statement "Update (re-apply) applications as many times as you like, or whenever you have new info to add" in MathJobs Workflow & Features.  I don't know why mathjobs uses the term "reapply," which certainly has the potential to cause confusion.  I can't guarantee that nobody will hold it against you, but I'd be very surprised if anyone did (and I think it would be a big mistake on their part).
Updating your application may not be enough if it has already been read.  I'd recommend also e-mailing key people you would like to work with to let them know about your new paper once it is on the arXiv.  Of course you shouldn't spam large numbers of people, but sending out an announcement is perfectly appropriate if you restrict it to people who would genuinely like to hear about the paper for mathematical reasons, and not just as an advertisement for hiring you.

Maybe worth adding to your answer: in MathJobs, the reviewers for applications can both see the date an application was first submitted and the date where it last updated.  "Reapplying" will change the latter but not the former.  Also, at least in my experience, no one cares whether you submitted an application on time or not.  If the data is there when people want to see it, then that's good enough.  It's just that submitting late takes a big risk of the data not being there for people.

Thanks! this is very helpful. I will send announcements, but I know that at least some of these people are not reviewing applications (but of course they have a say on them...).

I have had several of my pre-prints be submitted in the flurry of activity between job application and the last few months.  I haven't decided if it's still reasonable to re-submit or not . . .
I do know, or at least, this has been my own experience, that there is something funky going on in the mathjobs database on 'submission' dates and 'updated' dates.
I've had one application that I know that I had sent in by the deadline (I have an email from mathjobs indicating that all my material had been submitted) on such and such a date, but then when I highlight the little info image next to the job on the status page, it is several days afterwards.
I know that I did not un-apply for the position (as it was one of my top 5 post doc choices ), but I did do an update of the application, at some point (change some of the preprints to submitted).
I've only heard from two places so far (post-doc wise) on interviews.  I'm really not going to start sweating until a bit after the coordinated deadline, but it's not fun when it's all up in the air and you have no idea.
Actually, quick q and I'll probably run this by my advisor, but would it be appropriate to indicate the mathjobs fubar in the database to the school of interest?  I just don't want that to be the deciding factor for a position to be submission of materials on time or not, especially considering the mathjobs system is just plain wrong (and I can prove it)!

It's probably okay.  I was a bit worried when I updated one of my applications and then the 'submitted' date appeared as that day's date (almost two weeks after the closing date).  But it seems I'm on the short-list for that job, so I guess it didn't cause a problem.


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What standards to apply when refereeing for a new journal?
I was asked by an editor (someone I know very well, actually a former postdoctoral advisor of mine), to referee a paper for a math journal.
The journal is new. It only started receiving submissions a few months ago, and no paper was published in it yet.
How do I know what standards to apply?
All I got in the instructions from the editor is the usual generic stuff all MSP journals write:
"We would like you to consider acceptance only if, in your opinion, the article contains substantial and interesting new results.  The number of submissions to the (---) continues to increase and we would like to publish only articles of very high quality."
Should I ask the editor for examples of established journals whose level they aim for?

What is an MSP journal?

A journal that uses the MSP system - https://msp.org/editflow/main/     Many math journals do this, and they all send similar messages from the editors.

Sure, there's nothing wrong with asking. If you know the editor well, I don't see why you even hesitate.
In fact, in this situation, it is usual for the editor to preemptively include some informal remarks about the level of the journal. I received such remarks a few times even if the journal in question was not new. They were quite diverse as well, on one instance, along the lines of "we struggle to get any submissions in this field that are not complete junk, please be forthcoming if you can."


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Why do law journals require a CV when submitting a paper?
I recently learned that journal submission in the field of law is very different from other fields of study. In particular, I learned that when a person submits a paper to a law journal, the person must attach a CV.
This sounds to me the exact opposite of the purpose of peer review, where papers should be judged according to the merits of the paper, and not the person.
What is the reasoning behind this practice?

It's not my field, but it may be that only the editor, not the reviewers, see the CV. And it might be because of issues of credibility in a sensitive field such as law.

@Buffy That doesn't seem to be the case, law also doesn't have separate editors and reviewers like most other fields. The vast majority of law journals are run by students at the law schools who do all the work, rather than reviewers who are themselves professionals in the field.

Law does publication a lot differently  than other fields. Journals are run by students rather than any sort of peer review;  they do parallel submission also. Generally, what gets into law journals is determined in part by the social status of the writer and CVs help them do that. Historically this meant that people who were prominent were likely to get published. In the last few years allegedly some journals have gone out of their way to have articles by minorities, which some people see as a legitimate corrective action, while others see it as damaging the signal to noise ratio.

Apparently, in law publishing, articles can be rejected based on the CV.

@Anyone, That's a very interesting, and disturbing link. They indicate there that they  use the CV to reject outright anyone who isn't a law professor. They also say that if the CV indicates they aren't publishing successfully that apparently makes rejection more likely. I have difficulty imagining steps better engineered to encourage groupthink and to emphasize status over rigor or originality.

Law sounds like a very different field. From that blog "The only time I ever reject an article based on the CV alone is when the author is not a law professor". Wow. Also having to screen over 1000 articles to decide what to publish for the year. That is very different from many other fields especially the sciences.

Is this specific of a particular country?

So weird! Surprised, are there other fields like this? What about doctors?

Data point: Th European Law Journal does not require a CV.

I'm an occasional reviewer for a prestigious law journal in Canada. I mainly deal with articles that talk about data science in the law field.
Now, you're more likely to listen to my answer specifically because I stated my credentials. I gave you a reason to listen to me: I'm an authority on the subject. The main reason they ask for your CV is to give you an opportunity to do the same.
In my case, if the author doesn't have anything in his or her resume that approximates professional experience with data science, I'll pay closer attention. This is because, in my experience, the person is more likely to try to sweep his or her lack of understanding of a specificities under the rug. For example, he might talk about p-values and draw conclusions based on them, but then fail to mention the numerical values and/or the interpretation context (i.e. fail to define "highly correlated", etc.).
In my opinion, the CV is an intuitively valuable data point for the reviewer. Just remember that it's one piece of information out of several.
EDIT
I want to add that the CV alone does not and should not change the outcome. As a reviewer though, if you're talking about tech and I see that you have no relevant experience in it whatsoever, it helps me give you better feedback. A lot. I regularly take the time to give thorough explanations in my comments and the depth of my interventions will vary based on the CV. If you have experience in say statistics and you mess up p-values, I'll rip into you. It's that simple. Don't waste my time when you should know better. If you have no experience and make broad generalizations that turn out to be false, I will also rip into you, but I might be generous enough to offer general advice. If you have no experience and you make a slight mistake, then I'll be kind and helpful even if I don't accept your paper right away just because you're from Harvard. I'll provide links, book titles, articles, etc.

I strongly disagree with this.  A manuscript should be judged on its own merit, and one would believe the reviewer herself or himself is sufficiently knowledgeable to detect incorrect analysis of a p-value.  Indeed incorrect analysis on the part of the author should be disqualifying, irrespective of the CV.

@ZeroTheHero do you work in law, though?

@ZeroTheHero I don't disagree with you. If you reread my answer, you'll see that I did not say or imply that the reviewer doesn't have to be qualified. I made a statement about the fact that it is more frequent for people with sparse CVs to make such errors. Also, incorrect analysis should not be disqualifying, because the review process is there in part to point out presumed mistakes and ask for clarifications. If it becomes clear there are gaps in the author's understanding, then that does disqualify him regardless of CV, reputation or what have you. The onus is always on him.

doesn't this mean newcomers, or students from less-prestigious unis will be seriously disadvantaged, even when all else is equal?

@Allure, In which ways is law different than other fields? In my field, ML/AI, even single-blind review seems rare, I think people would revolt if this CV thing were required on top of that

@Allure I do not.  I simply observe it is already difficult to fight - when they occur -implicit biases based on academic provenance of a manuscript.  There is a way to make sure that prestigious scholars get published: an invited paper advertised as such will do that.

The problem you are all having is that you immediately assume that reviewers will care more about the name of your school than say a list of publications or any kind of relevant experience. I don't, I never did and I never will. I'm sure some reviewers are like that and maybe some journals even encourage it, but you have to remember that nobody's forcing you to publish in their journal.

@ZeroTheHero I don't disagree with your point about implicit bias. I wouldn't see a disadvantage to removing provenance from the document to mitigate its potential impact. Personally, I couldn't care less where it comes from, but I do care about expertise and such so I maintain my position on the validity of having to send your CV.

@IaNick Asking for a CV just reinforces the perception that reviewers will care more about the name of the school.

@ShihabShahriarKhan I don't work in law, but it seems to be a unique field in that it has elements that are subjective and opinion based, as certain aspects of law could be interpreted in various ways (and those are the focus of legal journal articles, not clear-cut issues that are just for textbooks), but also some of these opinions turn out to be objectively right and wrong depending on whether courts will agree with them. So it matters if the author is somebody who's opinion courts will respect, because that may turn their opinion into precedent and fact.

@ZeroTheHero the question isn't about what should be, only about what is. You could disagree with it, but that doesn't change whether this is the correct answer or not.

Which journal is that? I'm particularly interested in data science <> law. What a coincidence.. :)


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Authorship of an article based on semester project
I was teaching a graduate course in previous semester. One of my student implemented an idea I discussed with him during semester project. The results are astonishing and we decided to publish our findings in a prestigious journal.
I included his supervisor as co-author, and before submission I sent the manuscript to him for his feedback. But in response he said, he should be second and corresponding author. He has zero contribution in idea, write up and experiments etc. The student told me his professor is angry to him that why he is publishing article with other professor; although, it was outcome of semester project based on my idea.  Being a young faculty member how to handle this situation (Professor is very senior person in his 60s)? especially without hurting the relationship between student and his supervisor.

Another instance of those really nice ethical, moral academics who set such a fine example...

I included his supervisor as co-author — Why??  As you say yourself, he made no contribution to the paper.

@JeffE I know its not right, I did upon request of student and  that is the reason I sent him before publication so he may give his feedback and his authorship can also be justified. But things went in other direction.

What is considered normal, hence ethical, varies by field. In mathematics, this would be a highly unusual situation. But in some lab sciences, the PI is normally included on all publications since the lab itself exists only by their efforts.
I suspect you are in some such field and would then suggest that the senior professor should probably get his way. It may even be advantageous to have him as "corresponding" author as it may ease publication. In such fields readers understand these things and know who does the actual work. Thus it isn't considered to be a problem in those fields.
If you are a co-author it is probably as much as you can expect here. And maybe even that is impossible. But work to get an acknowledgement in the work, at least - especially if it says that the original idea came from you. You actually say that the student did the work of developing the idea, of course. If the student is "first author" it is a good outcome. The rest is just a bit of an arcane dance.
I think that if you don't press to hard for what might be considered in the field to be an unusual outcome that the relationship between the student and the senior professor will settle down sufficiently.

My personal feeling in this matter is that the student or you should be the first author (better if the student), his PI the second or later, and you be the corresponding author.
Breaking it down, if you be the first and corresponding author then it is kind of redundant with no extra benefit. But if the student is the first author, it shows that you guided the student through the project and writing, hence good teaching and leadership skills. Lastly, in no instance, I believe the other PI should be the corresponding author. Just because he is senior and might be established in the field should not just get his way. If you are an early career, then getting on the publications as the corresponding author is a great way to get exposure and network. In this situation, I believe the best course of action would be to sit with the student and his PI and discuss this in person and explain everything. And make sure he understands that this publication is the result of a project that was conceived during semester teaching to ease out the tension he might be having with his student working with other professors.
This is my own opinion, so proceed with your own gut feeling.


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How to become an Editorial board member?
How to become an Editorial board member?Is it appropriate to contact journal's Editor in Chief to show interest for joining editorial board?

That's generally not a job you can apply for, but a job you're asked to take on. At least in reputable journals, the members of the editorial board are largely scientists well known in their field. They have that role because the editor-in-chief trusts their opinions and perspectives on submitted papers, and also because they have the stature in the field to write to potential reviewers and ask them to review a paper. Well established researchers also have fewer potential conflicts of interest: They no longer have promotions coming up, and so feel less conflicted about rejecting papers by people who might otherwise be asked to write letters of evaluation about their promotion.
I don't know what your career status is, but suspect that because you are asking the question that you are still young. As an editor-in-chief, I usually try to avoid using younger researchers as members of the editorial board. That's not necessarily because I don't trust their judgment, but because they have conflicts of interest and because they will have a harder time receiving the necessary reviews within a reasonable time frame.

How to become an Editorial board member?

I think the most common way is to be refered by somebody who is already on the board (or has been before), or by somebody who already has a good reputation in the community and suggests your name.
So you should let people in your network know that you are interested and ask them if they can recommend you (starting with your advisor/PI if you are a PhD student/postdoc).

All you need is an academic email address.  Then you will start getting un-solicited emails inviting you to publish in shady journals.  And (occasionally) inviting you to serve on the editorial boards of those same shady journals.

I am receiving such emails frequently, but I am not interested in shady journals

I became an associate editor for a journal after I effectively left academia.  I reviewed 2 journals submissions per month as a hobby, and I make it a point to still read one paper per week in my field.  At some point, the other editors notice that you are making their lives easier and then you are invited.
As an editor, I generally find this is what you need to know:

Enough of recent research in the journal's field to understand the value of the contributions.

Other recent contributions to the field outside of what is explicitly published in the journal.

Understand where the journal seems to be headed and what topics are relevant to the community who is reading the journal.

If you are really into your field, you should find that this organically happens even if you do not have an explicit academic affiliation.  (It's probably didn't hurt that I have had one at some point.  In hard sciences, people tend to look more at quality of work because it's easier to quantify.)

In some cases, publishers issue a call for editors.  For example:

Applications are invited for the positions of Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Remote Sensing and Editor-in-Chief of Remote Sensing Letters.

Source: Taylor and Francis.
Taylor and Francis is an international publisher founded in the mid-19th century (see Wikipedia), one of the "Big Four" STEM publishers, it is certainly a mainstream publisher and the journals mentioned are certainly mainstream journals.

To become an editorial board member, contact the journal and ask. You can contact the editor-in-chief directly, or the publisher (who will probably discuss with the editor-in-chief in any case).
You'll likely be asked for your CV and area of expertise, and might also be asked about what you can do that the editorial board can't (e.g. if you have expertise in [topic] that nobody in the editorial board knows well).
It's potentially possible they ask you to publish/review a paper for them, or even organize a special issue, to show commitment to the journal.
Edit: It seems many people don't believe that non-shady journals can consider self-nominations. Real life example.
In this article, a group of Polish researchers create a fake academic profile "Anna O. Szust" with woefully inadequate qualifications, and send applications to a variety of journals. A substantial amount of journals listed on Beall's list accepted the fake editor, which is not surprising. However I will point out two things:

Some DOAJ journals (technically a whitelist) also accepted her.
Even among JCR journals, almost half the journals sent a formal rejection. Because the fake academic has woefully inadequate qualifications, it's not surprising that they will reject. This indicates, nonetheless, that if you have the necessary qualifications, they will consider self-nominations.

Of course, if you have the necessary qualifications, it's likely that the journal either knows you or knows about you, and might approach you without you having to approach them. However it's one thing to approach someone who might not be interested, and another to be approached by someone who's already interested.
This doesn't even consider those journals that are having trouble filling their issues, for whom if the new editorial board member can attract submissions ... why not. It's not ideal, but the alternative is to let the journal struggle.
tl; dr: You can contact the journal and ask. Your chances of success are slim especially if you contact a top journal; however, they are also not zero.

I do not know of any board that accepts self-nominations, except possibly for shady journals.

@ZeroTheHero I do, although of course the chances of being accepted are low.

@ZeroTheHero https://think.taylorandfrancis.com/call-for-editor-ijrs/

Not sure why this is being marked down.  There are many top IEEE journals where you can self-nominate.  Your CV is then considered by the various Editor-in-Chief.


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What is the proper method to give credits in lecture material
To prepare the lecture material. I use the book, my own slides, but I also take a few slides from MIT or other top universities open courses.
What is the best way to give credit?
I must provide source information on each slide?
Or Is it better to enlist all the resources/citations in the first/final slide?

Do as you'd expect your students to do; set an example.

I downvoted this answer because it does not provide an explanation that helps the OP and other readers understand why this is a useful answer.

@BryanKrause Isn't it obvious? Setting an example is a known concept. Elaborating would surely be condescending.

Clearly is it not obvious, as someone felt the need to person asked the question. This answer does not provide concrete guidance to the OP.

@eykanal I never suggested my answer nor the question was obvious (indeed, someone felt the need to...ask). The motivation behind my answer seems obvious. Others seemingly like my answer, since it was the top-voted answer (but has now been removed by administrators), so I presume some were happy with it.

@user2768 - It was removed by me. For sarcastic answers, upvotes simply indicate that people appreciate the sarcasm, they should not be read as a referendum on quality. This site is rife with examples of that.

@eykanal The answer was not sarcastic. It wasn't the first answer that came to me, but I think it is the best. Ironically, I don't think it is obvious, even though it seems so. At least, it wasn't obvious to me and until I thought through the question rather deeply. Was it obvious to you? (You've already acknowledged it wasn't obvious to others, since someone felt the need to...ask...the question.)

Do you include the slides verbatim (e.g., by copying a pdf or image into your slides), or do you just base your slides on those other slides in the same way in which you might base them on a textbook?
In the first case, I think that a note on that slide (on the first slide, if you copy several slides in a row) is mandatory – probably not only a reference, but a copyright notice.
In the second case, I'd include the reference in a bibliography section, like for other journal papers or textbooks that you base your slides on. If I can avoid it, I prefer not to clutter every slide with details that are irrelevant for understanding the content.

I am doing the second case

@MBK Then it's one reference out of many, so treat it the same way as, say, a textbook.

What is the best way to give credit?

Apply the same rules you'd use for slides presented at an academic event. Personally, I'd include source information in a footnote on each slide.

I ask them to cite at the end. The reason I like to put at the end because I want a clear screen to write on the slides during the online lecture. But I feel putting on each slide is is more appropriate.

Did you mean to post two answers?

@AzorAhai Yes, they're distinct

It is strange to give two different answers. Either they two pieces of advice are compatible, or they are incompatible. If compatible, they could be combined into one answer which explains both pieces of advice. If incompatible, that raises doubt about both answers as it is unclear whether you hold the opinion that that answer is the correct one.

@6005 They're incompatible: The OP asked for the best. I have two candidates, so I gave them both.

@user2768 This appears to have been covered on meta before here and the answer is that having a single answer is preferred instead of two answers. I asked on meta here (but then noticed the other question and closed as duplicate)

I downvoted this answer because it does not provide an explanation that helps the OP and other readers understand why this is a useful answer; in particular it provides no guidance that separates it from the other answer by the same user.

This does not provide an answer to the question. To critique or request clarification from an author, leave a comment below their post. - From Review

@AloneProgrammer I don't understand: How is providing a personalised methodology not an answer?

@BryanKrause I consider the answers different. What is expected of students in class can be rather different to what academics do at conferences, because classroom/conference norms are different.


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The Impact of UK University Lecturing Experience on Faculty Positions in Leading Universities Abroad
Can the experience of being a university lecturer in one of the best universities in the UK enhance the chances of securing a faculty position in top universities in the USA and Australia? Additionally, do other English-speaking countries place equal or greater value on experience gained from UK universities?
PS: I do know that my personal accomplishment is the most important factor, but I want to know the reputation and importance of work experience at UK universities.

"Enhance the chances" compared to what? What would the person be doing if they didn't take a UK lecturer role?

Given that the UK treats Lecturers (Grade 9) in about the same way that the US treats assistant (or even associate) professors, depending on probation, I'd say that such experience would be valued for any combined teaching/research position.
But, most hiring at US universities is at the Assistant Professor level and is for people fresh out of grad school with doctoral degrees. So, assuming that one has a doctorate and the university is willing to hire someone who is moving across universities it should be treated as a plus, equal to someone moving from one US university to another.
Some positions are open to people wanting to move up a level from assistant to associate, as well. The same should apply.
For level 10 people (Senior Lecturer) there are fewer openings and more scrutiny, but, again, the US is sophisticated enough to recognize that "Lecturer" has a different meaning in the US and in the UK.
The only information I have about Australia is that the system is similar to that of UK, so I doubt there would be an issue, but IANAA (I am not an Australian).

I Am An Australian, and "the experience of being a university lecturer in one of the best universities in the UK" would probably be relevant to a hiring committee in the following ways:

It shows you have previous lecturing experience.
Assuming you have a decent research record, it shows you can balance lecturing and research.
If you have good teaching reviews (from student or faculty feedback), it shows that you're a good lecturer.

In short, it's relevant in all the usual ways and I doubt the fact that it was in the UK, and not some other country, is particularly relevant. The UK system is similar in broad strokes to the Australian system, but there are enough little local quirks that the UK experience wouldn't by itself count for more. (I've just moved, in the same city, from one university which has two teaching terms a year to one which has three -- and that's a much larger change than anything else I've ever experienced!)
Australian universities understand full well that young academics (often) move all around the world, and hiring committees will know how to look up different universities and decide what to do with a candidate's CV.

Someone working in a Japanese university vs someone working the UK/AUS has a completely different work environment experience. What you mentioned is a very minor change within the same system.


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Is it allowed to publish an extended version of book chapter in as a journal article
In computer science, it is usual practice for researchers to publish the expanded conference paper as a journal article. In most occasions, journals request a 30-40% extended version. However, I am unable to locate any such information concerning chapters published in an edited book. Is it permissible to publish a longer version of a book chapter as a journal article, and vice versa?

Are you the author of the original?

Yes, I am the author of original chapter.

The only binding constraint, other than acceptance by an editor, is copyright. If you don't hold it yourself, then you have to depend on the copyright holder for a license or quote judiciously. This assumes that you want to include substantial sections of the original in the new work.
If the new publisher is the same as the old, permission for copyright would probably be easy to obtain. With different publishers the copyright issue might prevent it. It wouldn't likely be considered a "fair use" as it would probably reduce the commercial/economic value of the original.
You will also need to cite the original as necessary.

Its a springer book. "Springer Nature authors retain copyright of their book or chapter manuscript. The majority of book and chapter authors will sign a broad exclusive Licence to Publish for their contributions. Further information on copyright and licensing can be found in our publishing policies", but in publishing policies it only talks about Self-archiving policies.


text:
Can a journal prohibit an author from releasing the article after the embargo in a public repository/website, such as ResearchGate?
A few days ago, I received an email from the IEEE copyright team informing me that one of my articles had been removed from my researchgate account due to a copyright violation. However, after the 24th month of the embargo period, I published my paper on researchgate. In response to my request, IEEE stated that even after the embargo period, I am not permitted to upload articles in any public repository other than my institution's public repository.
Can a journal prohibit an author from releasing the article after the embargo in a public repository/website, such as ResearchGate?
PS: The posted article is 20~25% extended work.

Read the release form you signed giving the IEEE the right to publish your work. It will probably describe the restriction you cite.

*IEEE policy provides that authors are free to follow funder public access mandates to post accepted articles in repositories. When posting in a repository, the IEEE embargo period is 24 months. However, IEEE recognizes that posting requirements and embargo periods vary by funder. IEEE authors may comply with requirements to deposit their accepted manuscripts in a repository per funder requirements where the embargo is less than 24 months.
IEEE don't restrict, rather let funder decide it. My funding agency don't put any restriction.

Like everyone else you are bound by applicable copyright laws. If you have given up copyright to a publisher then you can only do certain things with your work. Likely you were given a specific license when you signed the agreement and it permits some, but not all uses.
So, depending on agreements made, yes, they are within their legal rights or not.
You imply that the article is extended work, but also that about  75% of it overlaps the earlier work. That is the heart of the problem. Another person would not be able to publish such a paper without permission of the publisher (copyright holder).
A version of the new work that quotes judiciously and cites the earlier work would not have this problem.

I would suggest to upload your article in your institution’s repository. At research gate you present an abstract with link to your institution’s repository. No restrictions in sharing a link, I suppose.


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Associate Professor position I applied for changed the selection criteria after 3 stage process
Recently, I applied for an associate professor position in a high rank university. I cleared 3 stages, document screening, presentation/lecture, and a long interview. But, I received a rejection email stating that I have so many Journal publications but I don’t have enough conference publications. It is really disappointing that they already cleared me during document screening, and this is something they should have told me during first stage. The rejection email didn’t say anything about presentation/lecture or interview.
Should I ask them to give a better reason or feedback on interview? Or should I ask them for the compensation for wasting my time, I travelled 250KM twice.

Rejection emails nearly always have no useful information in them.

You seem to be very angry. Obviously, it is a very bad idea to contact them as long as you feel that way. Take some time off to let this cool down before you do anything with it.
As to the reason they gave for rejecting you: If this was a good university, then they probably had multiple good candidates to choose from. You were apparently one of those good candidates and you can feel good about that. It is easy to find a good reason when choosing between a good and a bad candidate. Finding a good reason to differentiate between two or more good candidates is a lot harder. That is when small differences start to matter. I guess that is what happened in your case.
"should I ask them for the compensation for wasting my time" You voluntarily chose to invest your time and money for a chance to get that job. If they offered beforehand to pay for example travel costs, then by all means, take it. If they did not offer it, and you still applied, then it was your choice to gamble that time and money. This time, the gamble did not pay off. That can happen when you gamble...

Regarding travel costs: This is called an "opportunity cost", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost

they already cleared me during document screening, and this is something they should have told me during first stage.

You seem to be assuming that the document screening was pass/fail, and you passed, and so your documents should never have been considered again.
But here's another scenario: on the basis of your document screening, you were ranked second or third. The top three candidates were then invited for an interview, where your good performance (or another candidate's poor performance) might have changed this ranking. But all three candidates interviewed well, and so the rankings were unchanged.

The rejection email didn’t say anything about presentation/lecture or interview. Should I ask them to give a better reason or feedback on interview?

This is exactly why most rejection letters just say "thank you for your time; unfortunately, we chose someone else." It is very kind of the department to take the time to give you individualized feedback. It is absolutely not an invitation to second-guess or debate their decision.

Or should I ask them for the compensation for wasting my time, I travelled 250KM twice.

If you go on a date but don't get a second date, would you send them a bill for wasting your time? Better to assume that you got a fair shot and it didn't work out. Better luck next time.

While it is annoying not to get a job you really wanted, the basic fact is that we do not have a right to be hired by anyone even if we think that we are well qualified.
As a consequence, you can complain all day long, but the complaints are not going to change the basic facts that the university decided not to hire you because, presumably, they found someone who on balance of all criteria considered, was a better fit for what they wanted. Any complaints can only have one result: That you are considered unreasonable in your community, and that you are burning bridges you might want to keep.


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It is ethical and common that a professor ask the student to write their own recommendation letter?
I am in a unique situation. My supervisor and two other professors I approached for recommendation letter have asked me to write the my own recommendation letter and they will sign it.
Is it ethical and common practice?
How can I handle this situation? I already requested three of them multiple times, but always received same response that they are busy and will sign the letter which I sent them.

Did you ever mention to them, that everyone else also asked you to write the letter yourselves and that you would prefer not to hand in three letters by the same person? Maybe they are all choosing the "easy way out", but this can really go bad for you. One self-written letter might be okay (though not optimal), but all of them?

I believe that the professor does it as a gift to you, a complement about the esteem in which you are held -- she or he allows you to focus on specific aspects of your character, skills, or expertise ... since two professors give you this opportunity you should exploit it to produce complementary letters for the committee.

I see no ethical conflicts, this is not uncommon practice in my experience.

This practice will vary widely by field. Perhaps you could state a broad field in your question. For instance, I have been told that in the medical fields, applicants are almost always asked to draft their letters. In my social sciences field, I was only asked to provide bullet points on several topics by my committee.

I have had a referee ask me to provide a list of accomplishments, qualities and skills that I would like them to mention. (Note: I'm an engineering researcher). It can be a real help to the referee because even though they know you personally they aren't necessarily able to name a bunch of your accomplishments off the top of their head. Maybe you could provide your referees with such a summary instead of a completely written letter and ask them to write about your accomplishments, etc. in their own words.

When I asked an old professor for a letter of recommendation for grad school, she had me write the letter and send it to her to use. I don't know how much she changed, if any.
The reason given was that she wanted to know what I wanted her to write about me and what to focus on. I had a reasonably close relationship with her as I was a TA for her for a semester.
It can be difficult to write the letter about yourself, but as long as you're honest, talk yourself up! Take this as an opportunity to highlight what you do want this letter to highlight about you.
@Dawn mentioned in a comment that this may be field specific, this experience was for an MBA program.


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Uploading a 7 years old published conference paper on arXiv
I have 3 conference papers which were published around 7 years ago. However, the conference proceedings are not well indexed. If I upload a 7 year old published work on arXiv to increase the audiences, will the research community take this action positively or negatively?

Yes I checked and they allow to upload with condition to add a link to conference proceedings.

I cannot imagine a negative response.  The worst is: no one cares.

It's not uncommon. (eg https://arxiv.org/abs/1504.05741). As long as you make it clear in the comment section that's completely fine.

@John Ma, would you consider posting your comment as an answer? In fact it is a good one and the question would no longer appear in the "unanswered questions" section ;-)

@Artic Char while it is clear from the the comments both the meta data and the google index the indicated arxiv submission as if it from 2015 rather than 1994. Is there now way to specify this?


text:
How can I stay active in academia from an industry position?
Places like the old Bell Labs and Genentech gRED have an environment where the scientists publish quite a lot. Suppose I wanted to build my research R&D departments to have strong academic ties. What would I need to have in place to keep in touch with academia?

Great question! Is your goal to keep open the option of moving back to academia, or simply to stay in touch professionally with your academic friends? Personally, I'd love to hear answers for both.

It's worth pointing out that this depends a lot on the field.  Some areas (like CS or genomics) often have very strong ties between industry and academia.  It's not necessarily easy to build such ties in a new company, but it's a widely recognized and valued tradition in the field.  On the other hand, math doesn't have this tradition.  There have been several noteworthy examples over the years (for example, Bell Labs) where people pulled this off in mathematics, but each one is something of an isolated case.

What field are you in? If you're in mathematics, it's just impossible; if you're in computer science, it should be quite easy. (And with very exceptions--- say, Microsoft Research--- places like the old Bell Labs no longer exist. Research for research's sake is not really something industry does.)

@anomaly I'm in biopharma. Publishing from industry is quite common.

People tend to do whatever gets rewarded.  So if you want your department to establish strong academic ties, then find ways to formally reward that.  In addition, people do stuff that they like to do when they don't have to cut through red tape.  In particular, you should

Make it easy for your researchers to attend conferences
Establish a culture of seminars, and make it easy to bring external visitors

Have a decent summer intern program. It brings in fresh blood on a regular basis

I agree with Suresh: a intern (or student placement program) benefits the company by bringing in (hopefully motivated and talented) youngsters. The student benefits by obtaining extremely valuable experience. You would be in pretty continual contact with the academics at the one or more institutions for which you have set up a student placement program so you will benefit from the latest advances. Institutions these days are very keen to show that their students are employable and my experience is that they highly value their industrial partners who take placement students.

Start collaborative projects with members of university departments. Initially, this could begin as informal collaborations,  but ideally start submitting collaborative research proposals to relevant funding bodies. For certain funding sources, having an industrial partner strengthens the collaboration. In fact, some funding sources are only available if an industrial partner is on board. The catch here is that sometimes the funding agencies require that the industrial partner commit resources, although others (such as EU FP7) will provide funding for industrial partners.
Many academics in university departments will be willing to form such a collaboration if it provides them another (potentially easier) way of getting funding. From that perspective, you have a strong position, assuming that you have the track record to convince funding agencies that giving you money is a good idea.


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Ideal ways of making a call for nominations
We're currently putting out a Call for Nominations for graduate research and historically we've received very few nominations. What are some good strategies to get more nominations. Should we be more specific or broaden the qualification.
The award is from a minority organization for "doctoral candidates who have demonstrated excellence in research or in teaching".

Do I understand correctly that you're having trouble giving money away?

OK, I know my comment sounds flippant, but I am asking for clarification: is it that you are seeking to award funding on behalf of the minority organization? And I don't know what  "minority organization" means. Does it mean that the awards can only go to certain groups, selected on the basis of say demographics, religion, sexuality, physical ability, etc? Is it that you are having trouble reaching doctoral candidates from some particular minority?

Find a conferences that are attended by potential candidates and nominators and sponsor something (e.g., cocktail hour or keynote address).

@EnergyNumbers, not money but a bright shiny plaque! Technically speaking, the award is open to everyone but it is offered by a community organization for a specific demographic (Asian American, you would think that there are a lot of us in academia).

Improve the reward. If you're not currently offering money, consider doing it. Other forms of reward I can think of can be:

the opportunity to give a talk at a prestigious venue, to a nice audience
the opportunity to give a talk alongside a famous speaker (say, allowing the awardee to give a 15' talk just before a 1 hour talk by some famous person)
an introduction to some influent people, possibly looking to hire researchers


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Tables or Stadium seating for a conference?
I'm organizing a conference and we have the option to set up the seating either around multiple tables ie a wedding arrangement or in the classroom style. There are benefits to either strategy but the way I see it, the tabular format allows people to put their stuff down and relax. On the other hand, the classroom style creates a much better learning environment for people to actually pay attention to a talk and creates a more cozy impression for the speaker.
I'm curious, what do people typically expect out of a conference and what is the ideal scenario for a one day conference? Does it make a difference if it's a bunch of students or a bunch of of professors?

Since it's a one-day conference, I'm assuming it's a little more relaxed than a powerhouse 3-day affair. But even then, I think the classroom format is a little more appropriate. Here's what happens with the table format:

either people will have to move chairs around to see the speaker, in which case you've effectively created a classroom format with much less desk space.
or people start talking to each other and ignoring the speaker. I've seen this happen in particular at business meetings, where arguably it's less important to listen closely, but the level of noise created is still annoying.

Either way, it's not serving its purpose. By all means use the table format for the coffee area or break spots. But I don't think it makes sense for the conference itself.

I agree that using caberet format (ie tables) costs space, especially since only half of each table is occupied. However, I disagree that encouraging people to talk is a bad thing. Obviously talking during presentations is rude and unhelpful, but when I've been to conferences that have adopted this format it has greatly improved the networking opportunities, as it is natural to chat to people at your table before and after presentations and during breaks.

but how do you stop people from talking during the presentation ? I think the hybrid model (with tables for the presentation area and small-table seating for the breakout areas) works best.

We have the option to do the hybrid. Tables for lunch and interaction with the stadium seating for the talks.

Different seating arrangements are best suited for different types of conferences. Auditorium style seating is best for listing to talks. For conferences that are built around breakout sessions then tables large enough for the size of the group are best. For conferences that are built around posters, small tables are the way to go. Ideally you decide how you want your conference to work and then find a venue that supports it, practically you find a venue that you can reserve and tailor the conference to fit the venue.

Depending on the size of the venue and the number of rooms being used, it need not be a one-way-or-the-other affair. Plenary sessions can be in an auditorium format; breakout sessions can have round tables. It might be good to think about what will go on in each room (best you can), and then arrange the furniture accordingly.


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What is the appropriate mechanism for finding administrative support for a conference?
We're organizing a conference and I currently don't have administrative support to process our income and receipts. I don't have a personal admin and I curious about the best and polite way to find support without pressuring someone into the role.

A little bit more context could help: specifically, who's "we"? However, I suspect the answer is probably to contact the administrative staff of the institute / department you're formally operating under and ask them what to do.

We = a bunch of graduate students.

You may want to think about whether you need a full-time administrative assistant for that, or maybe students could take over some of these tasks. It probably depends on the size of the conference also. But I generally found that students are very well willing to take over such tasks, because it allows them a little bit to peek behind the curtains of conference organization.
An important question when engaging students is whether you have funds available to support the conference organization. If yes, then I think it should be easy to find students willing to help for a small salary. Otherwise you would have to rely on volunteering, which may be more difficult.

To address @iilmari's comments, we are already volunteering students. Good suggestion regardless.


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Strategy for teaching in a room that is laid out "wrong"
I teach a mixed undergrad/grad course that has lecture (300 people) and seminar (15 people) components. Thankfully for me, only the grad students get seminars. I have 2 TAs that assist with the seminars allowing us to break into 3 five-student 1-instructor discussion groups. The problem is that thanks to the miracle of central time tabling this year I have been given a tiered lecture hall that seats 25 people for the seminars. How do you run discussion groups in a cramped lecture hall?

You could pow wow. Sit in a circle on the floor. Or bring in six chairs. Or have them sit beside each other on the front row and you stand in front of them. They could still talk amongst themselves, albeit hindered.

If the weather's good, just consider getting outside, on a grass somewhere… or around a table at the students' union!

In a tiered lecture hall that has the long continuous tables with chairs, rather than auditorium seats, was the gather students around one end of the long tables and basically have students on one side sitting backwards. The room I did this in has chairs that swivel 360 so this was not actually uncomfortable for them. And then you sit on the end of the table with 2 or 3 students on each side from your point of view. This generally works for small enough groups like you have.


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How to keep plans for a job change quiet?
I am most likely leaving my permanent position at my current university for a permanent position at a new university. I have been given an unofficial offer and we have agreed to terms. I have been told it could take over a month to generate an official offer and contract and that I should not give notice until then. I would prefer not to broadcast the news widely since nothing is set in stone until I am given the contact. Obviously I do not care that much since I am asking here.
In the few days I have known, I have told:

My current department chair since he wrote a reference and my other references
A couple of close colleagues since I valued their opinions
A collaborator in my department since we were beginning to to write a grant together since the move, it is international, would cause major problems
I am now faced with having to turn down a prospective graduate student which would require me to tell at least the head of our graduate admissions committee and maybe the whole committee

I am clearly failing at keeping it quiet. How do you not screw over your colleagues, but still keep the job change quiet until it is official?

Congratulations! That is great news for you. I think you're doing everything right in this case. In my own history, the same happened and I told pretty much the same group of people. I think the only thing is that University B doesn't want you to post on FaceBook before all of the paperwork is finished.

Ideally I would hold off telling anyone (except significant other) before having a formal offer in hand, no matter how tempting. Experience suggests a good rule of thumb: there is no offer until there is a formal offer on paper. Anything else (no matter what) is not official. Strange things happen in the twilight zone between the almost-offer & formal offer on paper. In this case, especially since the move is international, you would have had a few weeks after receiving the formal offer to notify folks at current work. With this approach your dilemma would be a non-issue. Good luck!

@Aymor so you would accept a new PhD student and become CI on a grant knowing that it is likely that you are going to leave. That seems more likely to cause issues than saying I might leave and then not leaving.

"If you would keep your secret from an enemy, tell it not to a friend." - Poor Richard's Almanack

Might you simply tell the grad student that you had an interview, and might be changing jobs?

As per @BillBarth's answer: why do you want to keep this quiet? What do you want to avoid? Word will get around, anyway, at least among your colleagues, so if you are afraid of straining relationships but not changing jobs after all (because the offer doesn't materialize), then I guess this will happen anyway.

Maybe you shouldn't have posted this question under your usual SE account.

@StrongBad I would carry on business as usual, until the change becomes finalized through a final offer. If I am interested in keeping the news private, I would keep it private from everyone. I do not believe this would be seem as problematic as it might seem. Change happens and everyone has their own circumstances. I think the American society (if you are in the U.S.) is individualistic enough that a strategy of keeping the news about job search private as a personal matter until it's all said and done would be socially acceptable. It is culture dependent and here it is on your side.

This is common in academia. I think you have to be honest with everyone who might rely on you being at your current job in the future, let them know what stage you are at, and ask them to keep it to themselves until you get the official offer. You can only control what you say to others while asking others to respect your privacy in the meantime.
Suppose that you told everyone in your current department exactly what you have told us, and for some reason your new position falls through at this late date, what's the worst case situation you're worried about? It seems to me that, assuming your current job is held for you, your worst problems will be interpersonal with other faculty that resented your desire to leave. Is that it, or are you worried about some specific ramifications if word got around?

Potentially, my question should have been, should I keep the job change quiet and not how to do it. I am not sure what I am worried about.

I would keep it need-to-know and ask for discretion, but also not worry too much if word gets around. You've already told enough people that it might happen anyway. Unless your colleagues are awful, you can repair relationships if they find out but then it falls through.

I think this is common across most fields, not just academia. Whenever someone is in the process of a job change, there's a time to keep things under wraps. (As an aside, I often chuckle at sportscasters who get miffed when a coach won't give a straight answer about a potential change in jobs – what do they think the coach should say? The coach isn't going to make a premature announcement just to give a reporter a scoop.)

@J.R., in the non-academic world in the US, most people can be fired for looking for a new job (or wearing the wrong color socks, or almost anything else). This is why employees in general should keep their job searches quiet. I don't know how many faculty in the US work under contract vs. at-will, but either they can't be fired so easily or firing a professor mid-semester or mid-year just for looking for a job would be more disruptive to the department than a typical business. As such, faculty should be able to have a more open process.

"If you would keep your secret from an enemy, tell it not to a friend." - Poor Richard's Almanack

The wheels in academia turn slowly but with momentum. Nevertheless, I think it would be wise to not tell a single other person going forward that you want to leave for any reason.
If you need to turn down others, you should do so expressing your concern about your availability, or a desire to put what you can on hold for personal reasons. This weakens your position should you stay, but at least you don't give away your intentions to leave.
But you've already told your department chair. You mentioned in a comment that you are not sure what you are worried about. You're worried that you may not actually get the offer! And having set everyone else's expectations for the end of your continued work there, you possibly lose face and certainly have some difficulty resuming your relationships. And meanwhile, your department chair, who was perhaps anxiously searching for your replacement, now may be in a difficult position.
What's done is done, but going forward, I would not mention it to a single other person.

I generally agree, but might add that there is often less face-losing than we like to imagine. We are not nearly as important to anybody else (at least at work) as we are to ourselves. We often forget this, thinking that everyone minds our every misstep till the end of time. My experience suggests people might give it a thought on one or two occasions, but the world keeps turning and others' missteps will inevitably overshadow ours. Face is regained over time, which is on the face-loser's side. Everyone has their own problems to worry about; being mindful of this saves lots of self-worry.

Some cultures care more about it than others, but I generally share your perspective.


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What is a "graduate school"?
Specifically, why do some universities have a defined "graduate school" and associated "graduate faculty," with separate appointment process, and some do not, even when they offer many graduate programs?  What is the organizational and administrative thinking behind this?

A 'graduate school' is usually an administrative entity. I haven't heard of faculty being associated with the school instead of with a department.

When googling for a form several months back, I ran across this form, which kind of got me started on the question.  http://www.umbc.edu/gradschool/docs/forms/faculty/graduate_faculty_membership.pdf

Browsing that page, it appears to be an administrative entity to collect together all faculty that have the ability to advise grad students. From my own university, I can see why this might be an important category to define.

I think you might be right.

@Suresh I am officially a member of the Graduate Faculty at my university, as is every other tenure-track faculty member, which means I can officially supervise graduate students.  Some non-tenure-track faculty are also Graduate Faculty, but not all.  Also, all graduate degrees are officially conferred by the Graduate College, not by the college of the department in which the degree is earned.

In US universities, a 'graduate school' is usually an administrative entity that manages all aspects of graduate life. At the University of Utah, for example:

The Graduate School fosters excellence by providing administrative
  structure and leadership to maintain and enhance graduate education at
  the University of Utah.
Our programs offer financial assistance, rigorous academic
  opportunities, and professional development to students, staff, and
  faculty.
We are guided by the principles of quality, diversity, and integrity
  as we help students to prepare themselves for successful, relevant
  careers.

The link posted in the comments suggests that faculty are required to be associated with the grad school in order to function as advisors etc. I think this is also an administrative action, designed to demarcate faculty that can advise students from all the other people who are designated as faculty (for example, adjuncts, research faculty, teaching faculty, and so on).
So there's no academic function associated with the graduate school.
You can think of the graduate school as the university-wide entity that manages the individual chairs of graduate studies at departments.

I am not sure about the US, but in Belgium, Universities are only allowed to give a "real" PhD when they have a doctoral school (equivalent to grad school) attached to them. In some cases this institute can be more silent (background function), and the university is the public face of the PhD, but it HAS TO exist and it has to be recognised. Concerning faculty appointed solely to the doctoral school... well, in my university, the normal faculty where the profs are working has a internal contract with the doctoral school and appoints normal staff to it for a given number of hours.
So in short. It should exist. But it might not be publicly advertised.

At many U.S. schools, faculty must "apply" to be "graduate faculty" in order to do various things related to graduate education: teach graduate courses, sit on thesis committees, serve as thesis advisors, etc.  The university's official catalog for each year will have a list of these faculty members.  The faculty don't receive anything special (like extra salary) for this.
There is typically a very straightforward "application" consisting of a cover form and a vita that has to be submitted every few years.  From the perspective of faculty, this is just a small bureaucratic thing to take care of every few years. It is essentially invisible to students.
Someone in the graduate college reviews each "application" to make sure that the faculty member meets the necessary criteria. But the goal is typically just to document that the graduate faculty are qualified - which already we know they are when they are hired. So the faculty who "apply" are rarely in doubt about the outcome. Faculty who are removed from graduate faculty status typically have stopped being active in research (e.g. on their way to retirement).