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Why does the number of publications for computer science and economics PhD students differ by so much?
As a CS PhD student, I'm often surprised at how few papers econ students have when they go into the job market. Even students at top universities typically have 3-4 papers, mostly still unpublished, whereas it is not uncommon for CS students to have more than 10 papers by the time they graduate -- some CS undergraduates already have 3-4 papers or more. As this blog post confirms:

CS candidate typically have many papers while economics students typically have only a few polished papers.

I can see a few reasons that contribute to this, but I don't think they satisfactorily explain the phenomenon.

Econ students often spend the first year only focusing on classes and qual exam. However, a 1-year difference in a 5-6-year program is not that much, and CS has classes and qual exam of its own, though admittedly more relaxed.
The publication venue for econ is journals whereas CS publishes in conferences. However, top CS conferences usually have acceptance rates of 15-30% and people spend a lot of effort polishing their papers before the deadline, so I'm not sure how much more polished econ papers can be, whatever "polished" means. Moreover, many CS conference papers are turned into journal papers without major additional contribution.
The econ job market places a great deal of importance on a single "job market paper", so there is less incentive to work on other papers. However, wouldn't other papers to go along with the job market paper help toward a better profile? Even if econ students don't want to start big projects, there are journals such as Economics Letters that accept shorter papers, whose website even says explicitly: "especially young researchers and advanced graduate students are encouraged to submit their articles."

As I said, I don't think the reasons I described satisfactorily explain this huge difference in number. What am I missing?

See Publication rates in Mathematics on Math Overflow. (Specifically the AMS statement linked from the first answer.)

Well, yes, the culture of publication differs in many respects across different academic fields, and these differences result in different publication rates.  Is there some particular reason you've identified CS and economics?  I'm not even sure they are the extreme cases: as @ff524 points out, publication rates in mathematics are probably significantly lower (though they're climbing steeply enough that a culture statement from 2006 is not guaranteed to be up to date).

One difference may be the amount of work required to make a reasonable contribution. Papers based on experiments and observations generally require more person-months to complete than papers discussing the properties of mathematical objects. Of course, I'm not familiar with economics at all, so this reason might not apply here.

@PeteL.Clark The reason is that I'm familiar with (at least my subfield of) CS and somewhat familiar with econ. I'm curious whether the econ system is set up so that students do not have much incentive to publish more papers than they do, or whether they actually would like to but cannot.

My impression is that the "job market paper" system means that a young scholar is measured almost purely by the quality of their best paper, and extra papers do not help much.  This means the optimal way to play the game is to put all of one's research into one big paper rather than (as in fields where scholars are measured more by number of papers) splitting it up into many.

@AlexanderWoo That's my impression too, but I still can't help wonder whether it wouldn't be beneficial to have a side project in the students' free time that might lead to some (shorter) papers. I guess most students don't just work on their main project day and night?

More published papers would certainly help on the econ job market. If CS students are producing more publication-ready papers by graduation (I question this), it's certainly not because more published papers wouldn't help on the econ job market.

I don't believe what you say is univesally true of all CS areas; it is certainly not true of mine. But more to your point, based on my conversations with colleagues in economics, one factor (possibly of several) is definitely the submission-to-publication delay: A conference turnaround is about three months, but a journal can be much longer, especially if major revisions are involved.
Here's some insight on the subject (published a while ago).

This does sound reasonable to me. I expect that a top econ candidate with a freshly-defended PhD would have already presented many papers at conferences, but might have at best a handful of actual publications (some co-authored).

I agree that turnaround times are long in econ, but even counting working papers, students entering the job market usually have only 3-4 of them.

Complementing the answer from the CS perspective, here are some thoughts from the economics one. My experience is a bit dated, mostly in theoretical microeconomics, and for candidates at the better ranked schools.

There has been increasing pressure to not have a 5+ year graduation rate, instead, to finish in 4 or at the latest 5 years. The pressure ranges from gentle nudging, hard funding limits, to termination. In the 90s, my program had a number of 8th year students (and longer); around 2000, I've seen actual evictions (or attempts to evict) happening over progress considered insufficiently fast. This obviously limits your ability to produce a large numbers of papers.
Except in unusual cases, the amount of coursework in the first year makes research impossible; and the one in the second, unlikely. The first quarter of my second year, I got by on 3-5 hours of sleep per night (no hyperbole). Students are likely working on smaller projects during the summer of their first year, but those rarely lead to useful papers. Considering that you need a strong job market paper about 9 months prior to graduating, this leaves 15 months (to 4 year graduation), or 27 months (to 5 year), which isn't too rich to have the polished paper you need.
Theoretical work in microeconomics is mathematical to the extent that few people are ready to engage in contemporary research prior to having taken certain elective classes in their second year. It can happen, but most take extensive preparation in stochastics, or algebraic topology, or similar. While the level of mathematical proficiency doesn't compare to a math PhD, it arguably puts the degree closer to one (or probably theoretical CS, or such), in which the number of papers is low too.
A paper in Economic Letters is fairly useless on the job market when competing for the good jobs. It's quality, not quantity that counts; and the quality journals (for this sub field) include Econometrica, AER, JET, and such. You are likely to be measured by the quality of the journal of your first publication; if it's in the above, you are likely a rising star, if not, it might be seen as "That's the best we can expect from you after hiring you?". While I know of exceptions (e.g., a job market star publishing his first (joint) paper in a second-tier journal as it grew out of his Masters thesis), it isn't common. He got his faculty position for his unpublished work-in-progress job market paper (later published in Econometrica).
The attitude to value quality over quantity extends to tenure decisions. The just mentioned economist has 21 publications in 17 years as faculty (and 4 as a graduate student). This is exactly one per year over his academic career as an economist (if we count graduate school); and he's tenured at a top 3 institution. While there are extremely prolific economists, quantity isn't generally the way to success at the top.
Further to 4., competition to publish in the mentioned top journals, their quality standards, and long submission turn-around time, mean that there is nearly no chance to have a publication that matters (those friends who eventually published their job market papers in Econometrica did so several years after graduating - in the two cases coming to mind, 3 or 4 years after, from memory).
There is (or at least used to be) also close to no (no?) market to present papers-in-progress prior to being on the job market, except for any internal forum. Speakers invited to give talks at another department are faculty elsewhere, and you attend the big conferences to listen and meet people, but rarely if ever to show your work (if you even do attend). This is only a comment on something stated elsewhere here.

Thank you for great insights on publications in economics! It confirmed much of what I suspected and it seems true for myself, even though I'm on the opposite side of the globe from Ivy League.


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Why do scientists referee papers (what's in it for them)?
I guess this has different answers in different fields of science, but I'm still interested in some good arguments as to why senior scientists would bother reviewing papers. I understand that it is prestigious and fantastic when Science or Nature approaches you with a request to referee—and since their desk rejection rate is high you can trust that it is solid research—but most don't even sign their reviews and I don't expect that they actually pay you for it so that only leaves two possible motives:

Learning about what others in the field are working on
Feeling like they have to because that's just how scientific publishing works

One of the reasons I ask is that if most referees are reviewing out of obedience rather than some other strong internal motivation, that would most likely reflect negatively on the quality of their reviews. They become bored, then lazy, then angry at things in the paper that don't reveal themselves to the reader immediately and in turn more likely to think positively of work that is simplistic and lacking of tedious (but important) calculations.

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Master's thesis - lack of evidence, possibly poor topic choice
I'm working on a social science master's thesis based on a discourse analysis of documents. I finished a proposal a few months ago, which my committee approved. But as I continue to scan my sources, I am getting worried that there isn't as much significant evidence available as I had thought when I started doing research. I've done everything I can to find new leads but there is very little academic work written about the topic. I am starting to believe that the topic is a dud, and that maybe there's little written about because it just isn't that interesting...
Aside from meeting with my supervisor, which I am doing soon, has anyone else had to deal with a similar situation, and how did you deal with it? I want to finish within eight months, nine max, so I do not think I would be able to change topics...

Don't panic. It's quite normal for the direction of the research to shift a bit after the initial proposal. It's common to find out that for one reason or another it's not feasible to do exactly what was proposed. After all, if you knew exactly how to do it in a way that's guaranteed to work, then it wouldn't be research!
Unless your funding is tied to a specific project, you can probably broaden the scope or make other adjustments. I'm sure your advisors will have some specific suggestions for you, but in the meantime, think about what you could do with the types of materials that you have been able to find.

I agree with @mhwombat that you should not panic and you are right to be meeting with your advisor. Having just completed a thesis myself, I would say that a large benefit from the experience is to work on a mentored research project. It is an opportunity to learn how to conduct research and not necessarily to find significant results, although that is nice.
As you continue to work on the project it may slightly shift focus, however in your conclusions section consider how you can report on the findings you have and how your work could be used to inform future work. If you don't share this work then someone else will probably find this same question later on. As part of your defense of the work you can definitely report on this as a lesson learned from the research project.

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Is alumni success a valid parameter for selecting a group?
I will be starting my Masters degree and intend to be fully committed to working on interesting problems with a lot of impact. I have a few groups in sight which seemingly work on very important problems and publish in major conferences but looking at the 'alumni' section on their website, I haven't noticed MS alumni getting into top PhD programs. Does this say anything about the group's quality or could it be just because of the students?

Probably, but not necessarily.

It is a valid parameter, but not the only valid parameter. It's absolutely justified to ask, and consider, "Where did people in this group go when they were done?"

I haven't noticed MS alumni getting into top PhD programs. Does this say anything about the group's quality or could it be just because of the students?

You need more information than just "did they get into top PhD programs" - unless a research group is very large, it's likely that any patterns you see in the fates of MS students will be the result of stochasticity. For example:

Are they ending up in private industry? For many people, this isn't a failure, but a success. A group I was in sends many of it's graduate students onward to jobs, and this is considered a success by all involved. Masters programs are not just one step in a PhD conveyor belt. The same is true for "R1 Tenure Track Positions" etc. Many people don't end up taking what is conventionally considered the "brass ring" of their track because they don't actually want to.
Did they want to go to a top tier program and couldn't, or did they not want to? These are two very different things, and will be easier to assess by talking to members of the group, rather than just browsing their alumni page.
Is their alumni page actually accurate? Don't ever assume academic web pages are fully up to date.

It's a valid parameter consider when weighing choices, but I believe it would be a bad idea to eliminate a potential option simply because of their alumni page. You should also look at individuals. Where did the people who presented those important papers end up? Is there someone "like you" who had the trajectory you did? If not, it's worth talking to them about.

You have two slightly different questions. Some groups/programs may prepare MS students for jobs in industry and other for PhD programs. This tells you little about the quality of the groups. What this means is that asking

Does this say anything about the group's quality or could it be just because of the students?

is not the same as

Is alumni success a valid parameter for selecting a group?

Trying to infer the quality of a program/group from where students go is likely not useful. Choosing a group/program based on what it will prepare you for is very important. That said, just looking at where past students have gone, is not all that informative. Asking the PI how he can help prepare you for a PhD program is going to be much more informative.

@user37208 consider a group whose research is very in demand by industry such that students get high paying job offers, this doesn't mean the group cannot prepare you for a PhD.

@StrongBad if you want to become a general, prefer West Point over Harvard.  Harvard is an excellent school, but West Point alumni have a better record at making general.

@emory which is why I suggest to ask the PI. If a PI at Harvard can explain why his group would prepare you for being a General and help you climb the military ranks (e.g., the PI went to Med school with the Surgeon General of the Army and they have a project that they are interested in collaborating on), then it might make sense over a group at West Point for which the PI's interests are only peripherally related to military interests.


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Advisor wants copy of code to give to other student
My advisor has multiple electrical engineering masters research students under him. One of them came to me asking for help, saying the advisor asked her (let's call her Jen) to write some code to test out one of his ideas and generate graphs for a paper. Jen is horrible at writing code (her words), so thinking this was a rush job and not related to Jen's research (her words again), I ended up writing all the code. I spent way more time on it than I originally expected to, but it's done, the advisor is happy, and the paper is submitted with everyone's names on it. FYI, this research is completely unrelated to mine.
Turns out, according to the advisor, this is Jen's research topic. The advisor has now asked that I send the code to both of them so they can make some modifications and continue the research. I estimate the modifications to be 10% of the work that I've already contributed. While this isn't Jen's entire thesis, I feel I have completed a massive part of it for her and don't want to just give it all away, just to have to go and then do my entire thesis as well.
Is it normal for code to just be shared (likely without citation) internal to a university? Should I just send the code? Should I question the request? Should I flat out refuse to share it and make Jen develop the code on her own (given there isn't an immediate paper deadline pending)? I don't want to offend my advisor, but I don't know the standard procedure for academia and want to make sure I'm not being taken advantage of here.

What do you stand to gain from not sharing the code?

Can you clarify how much time you spent writing the code? How many lines of code?

ff524 is correct, in that if sharing the code won't disadvantage you in any way then it's probably sensible just to share it. Scientific progress is much faster when we all cooperate.

@ff524 I understand the point, which is good, but I think the question is more about what is lost, by sharing the code.

Okay then.  What do you stand to lose by sharing the code?

A good code is used for multiple piublications. 2) If you do not know how to do them out of your code, then give it to humanity. 3) We routinely share codes not only within the group, but also within collaborators. I do not know how one can make a trustful team otherwise.

I sympathise with your feelings, nevertheless notice that, especially in Academia, there is no such thing as your work, that belongs to you. Whatever everybody has done anyway comes from someone else's pillars, knowledge and lectures. We surely give contributions investing our time and lot of efforts, but I don't believe this justify the possession of the outcomes. It is different in the private sector, where outcomes have to be sold to customers (then you may want to copyright and protect them).

Should I flat out refuse to share it and make Jen develop the code on her own (given there isn't an immediate paper deadline pending)?

What would be the purpose of this?  You'll upset Jen and your advisor, she'll have to spend time redoing what you've already done, and you'll have substantially decreased the usefulness of your contribution with no corresponding gain to anyone.  The only reason I see is a feeling that Jen is getting away with something and not putting in enough work herself, but I don't think you should be concerned with this.  Your advisor is aware of the situation and should ensure that she does enough work to justify awarding her degree.  Maybe she is doing great things you are unaware of.  It's also possible that she won't end up doing as much as the average student, but that's OK: she'll still deserve the degree, but just won't get strong letters/references.  By contrast, you'll get glowing reports of how you not only completed a substantial project of your own, but also stepped in to make major contributions to an unrelated project and ensure that it met a deadline.  That will put you in a great position.

Should I question the request?

I don't see a purpose to questioning it unless you might plausibly refuse to share the code.
One option is that you could propose continuing to collaborate on this topic.  However, you'll have to handle it tactfully.  For example, it would be awkward to try to use the code as leverage to force a collaboration (by saying "I'd rather not give you the code, but I'm happy to make further changes if you let me know what you need"), or if it comes across like you are cutting Jen out of the project by offering to play her role and suggesting you would do a better job of it.  If you'd like to collaborate, it's reasonable to say so, but you should be open and collaborative, and make sure to allow everyone an opportunity to contribute.  (And it's best not to let this distract you too much from your primary project, since you'll have more to gain from a project you have greater ownership over.)

I don't really see why proposing a continued collaboration would be awkward. I don't think saying "I'd like to continue being involved" will be seen as trying to take over the project.

@ff524: Thanks, I edited to give examples of what I think would or wouldn't be problematic.

If I understand you correctly, you were asked to help write code from a colleague, you wrote it, then were a co-author on a paper related to your contribution with this code.  Now, your co-authors want the code, and will continue to work with it?
If this is the case, I dont think they can truly publish another paper without more than 10% of the modifications, unless this code has less to do with the research than you think.
You clearly feel attached to the code, but as other questions on this site have found out, developing code does not mean you will be a co-author on all papers that use the code in the future.
You could put the code online as open source software, since you wrote it.  They would then cite that link in their paper.  Otherwise they will most likely cite the paper you all published together.
If you feel strongly, you could politely discuss this with your advisor, saying something like:

When Jen asked me about writing this code, I did not realize how much
  work it would be.  After extensive amount of investement, I have
  become significantly invested in the code.  Would it be possible to
  remain an active participant in this research by contuining to develop
  the code?

Again, this depends largely on the real situation.  Code itself is most likely not the research, but instead implementation or a tool for the research.  In that case, it really would not be Jens focus.  Your advisor may agree to keeping you on.  On the other hand, your advisor may just say you already have published a paper together, and the code you developed was for the lab.
Be careful of getting too connected to your code early in your masters.  This will happen many times, and already having a publication out of your code is in a much better position than many.

If this is the case, I dont think they can truly publish another paper without more than 10% of the modifications, unless this code has less to do with the research than you think.  What, why?  Surely a sophisticated model can be used to study many distinct and relevant questions without any code modification.

@gerrit Agreed "Code itself is most likely not the research, but instead implementation or a tool for the research" .  If the model can be used to study those questions, it is not the code that is the research, it is those questions.

I would say share the code but make it clear to both the student and the advisor that you expect to get credit for it.
It might be an idea to clarify the copyright status of the code too. This can depend on both local policies of the university and whether or not you were acting as an employee when you wrote the code.
If Jen tries to claim the code as entirely her own work that is serious academic malpractice.

I think @AnonymousMathematician has already given a great answer explaining why there is no real benefit for anyone -- including you -- to not sharing your code. I have nothing to add to this, but a simple observation: You may have some moral reasons for not sharing the code unless you will also be a co-author in the future, but you have no no legal argument that supports you in this. At least in the United States, as a graduate student, you do not hold the copyright in the code you write. Your university as your employer does. So at least legally, your professor has every right to require you to pass along the code.

"At least in the United States, as a graduate student, you do not hold the copyright in the code you write. Your university as your employer does." - As a universal statement, this is not true. Here is a counterexample. In general, many universities do not assert ownership of "scholarly work" (which at some universities includes software that isn't a patentable invention.) (And we don't even know if the OP is an employee of the university, or if he/she is just working on an unpaid masters thesis.)

@ff524: We could have a much longer discussion about this than this forum allows. The fact that UW does not "claim ownership rights" is now a legal term I understand. Someone has the copyright in code, whether claimed or not. Who that is is covered by law. My only interpretation is that maybe they don't assert that right. The remainder of the statement clearly states that there is no blanket policy that everything that is copyrighted is put into the public domain. In either case, as a graduate student, it is likely a useful assumption that you don't "own" your code.

If "Jen" is "is horrible at writing code," how the heck is she going to modify your code without butchering it?  Let's imagine that you play along and hand over your baby.  The following possible outcomes spring to mind:

Jen manages to break the code, and she comes running to you each time she breaks it.
Not understanding the code, Jen draws invalid inferences.

If you and Jen were collaborators on a project together, and there were no PhD theses hanging on it, things would be different.  It is very common that on a collaborative project, one member of the collaborative team is stronger on coding and is the one who writes, modifies and explains the code to the other member(s) of the team.  In a project of that type, the code specialist can put some code modification ground rules in place, such as a version control system.
I would have reservations too in your shoes.  It's time for a one-one-one conversation with your advisor.


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Review Comments for Program Chair -- what to write?
I am preparing some reviews of conference contributions. The online review management asks me to grade the assigned papers, add comments for the authors and comments for the program chair. I cannot leave any field blank -- so I am wondering what comments I should give to the chair? To my knowledge, comments to the chair include suspected or actual cases of plagiarism.

Is there anything else, a chair might expect to read from me, the reviewer?

Should I give them a short version of my comments to the authors?

The conference homepage and the reviewer guidelines do not give any hints.
Thank you for your input!

There is no point why you should fill anything into this field, unless you actually have some confidential comments that should not be part of the comments to the authors.
You can fill the field in a boilerplate manner, by using a text fragment such as: "I do not have any additional comments beyond those to the authors."

I suggest that you make a recommendation on acceptance/rejection here and back it up with a reason or two. If there is something remarkably good or bad about the paper, mention it. You don't need to repeat what is in the author comments as that isn't exactly relevant to the job that the chair has ahead.
If you are familiar with the quality of the papers at this conference you will have an idea whether the paper measures up to the general quality. If the conference has a "best paper" award, don't neglect to make a recommendation if a paper qualifies for that.

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How to deal [as a reviewer] with a paper in peer review that breaks anonymity
I work in the field of organization theory and labour sociology and to this point of my career, I have reviewed about 4-6 papers. I have been asked by a journal to review a paper. The journal's scope is Project Management with contributions from social sciences, business administration, but also construction/civil engineering.
I read the proposed paper and found that the anonymization is inadequate. The author(s) cite preliminary work in plain text and also papers that are currently still in the review process. This allows me to narrow down the authorship to a circle of five people around a PI without doing any intentional research.
While I don't know the scientists and their papers, I think this runs counter to the point of a double-blind review process.
How should this be handled? Should the paper be reviewed normally and the editors be told that the anonymization was inadequate? Or should I refrain from a review altogether?

Are you sure you are not jumping the gun? Just because not-yet-published material is cited does not necessarily mean the citing authors are among the cited authors. At least in physics there are often pre-prints, sometimes years in advance of publication. When I was in grad school we would get dozens per week.

In some areas the title itself allows you to narrow the circle of possible authors down to five people. I don't think authors tend to actively pretend they are not who they are. You don't get the names explicitly. That's a reasonable amount of blindness.

Thank you for your comments. Basically, I asked this question, because I am incertain how to handle the situation. I agree that topics, titles or specific research subjects (in my case organizations or companies) can give away authorship. Therefore, I always redacted not only my name but also names of my research group and any other entity involved in the research when I submitted papers. This can be too excessive for others or other scientific fields/cultures.

I would just review the paper on its merits and not worry about the authors

I read the proposed paper and found that the anonymization is inadequate. - Is this just in your opinion or according to the journal's stated policies?

@Dan but then in Physics single-blind peer review is common so it wouldn't matter anyway

Frankly, I've always assumed that if the reviewer is sufficiently expert in the field to judge the paper, then it's highly likely they can make a good guess who the author is from the content alone: the citations will usually give it away if nothing else does.

Ask the editor that sent you the paper how you should proceed. Give them a synopsis of your concerns. It is really up to the journal how seriously to take possible breaches of double blind protocols.
If you think the knowledge you have would bias your review in any way then you could either reject the review or mention that as well to the editor.
In the short term you might begin a review in case you are asked to continue.

I did exactly that. The editor is checking into the paper and decides on how to proceed.

Does the journal really require double-blind peer review?
First, check the journal's requirements. Then, if the journal requires double-blind peer review, contact the journal editor, without doing any review, stating that the paper cannot be reviewed because it's not sufficiently anonymised. It's an editor's duty to require that a paper fulfills the minimum submission requirements, and let them contact the authors for a rejection or a resubmission.

It is my understanding that it is the job of the authors to properly anonymize their submission, if they want the advantage of anonymity…. (see for example the instructions to authors here: https://publishingsupport.iopscience.iop.org/double-anonymous-faqs/).  Maybe you know differently…

@ZeroTheHero I'm not sure why you think Massimo's post suggests it isn't.

@AzorAhai-him- I took Zero to mean that it is up to the authors to be anonymous and if they are not it is not the reviewer's problem. Of course - I can see other authors complaining if they feel that the lack of anonymity would lead to inappropriately positive reviews.

@AzorAhai-him- Just reacting to "It's an editor's duty to require that a paper fulfills the minimum submission requirements"...  Just not clear if the duties include anonymization (is this even a word?), even if the journal requires double-blind reviews...

@ZeroTheHero I'm not saying that the editor should anonymise the paper, but it's the editor duty to demand that the authors anonymise it (actually, I think that the editor should even check that the paper had been anonymised before sending it out for review, but maybe this is a too high an expectation).

@MassimoOrtolano you could be right… I only know the regime where the onus is on the authors…

@ZeroTheHero If there is a 10-page limit, it is the editor's job to check it conforms before sending it to reviewers. Same with anonymization.

@PonderStibbons: It is well-known that non-anonymized papers by well-known authors tend to get significantly higher reviewer scores. In the current publish-or-perish academic culture that pervades much of academia, many researches have cliques and do not perform reviews objectively.

Please everyone recall to keep a respectful tone during discussions. Comments violating the CoC will be removed.

@user21820 Agreed, from direct experience, and I never suggested otherwise.

Double blind does not mean that the authors and the reviewers must be anonymous. It only means that the Journal does not disclose the names. In particular, the authors can include their names in the text. Moreover, if you feel like it, you can disclose your name to the authors. I know referees (including myself) who have done it. There is nothing illegal about it. If you know that you would accept the paper if it is correct, and you have a question about it, you can ask the authors (although the standard way is to ask the editor to ask the authors).

This depends on specific journal policies (and what is usual varies between fields) — some journals/conferences don’t require authors+referees to maintain anonymity, as you say, but others certainly do, while yet others don’t expect any kind of anonymisation of the authors at all.

@PLL: Which journals certainly do? No references in your comment or the linked answer.

Off the top of my head, I don’t know — in my own field (pure maths/theoretical CS), there’s usually no double-blinding at all, so I know it only second-hand from friends/colleagues who’ve told me about such requirements in their fields.  But googling briefly, it’s easy to find policies requiring authors to maintain anonymisation, e.g. Elsevier’s Social Science and Medicine: “authors need to ensure that their manuscripts are prepared in a way that does not give away their identity”.

I recommend that you proceed with your review as normal (making sure that knowledge of the possible identity of the authors does not affect your evaluation) and add a section in your review that notes the deficiencies in the anonymisation.  That will give the editor all the relevant information.

Inform the editors and ask them how to handle it. This is unlikely a rare situation, and they should have policies how to handle it.

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Difficulty in thinking properly during exams
I am a student of science preparing for the JEE (India). When I normally practice problems, I find no difficulty in thinking straight. Solutions occur to me when I look at a problem, because for the most part, my fundamentals in Physics, Chemistry and Math are clear.
But each time I sit down to take a test, I experience some sort of blockage in the mind, as if I'm not paying attention to the question (when actually I am paying attention). I find it harder to work my way around a problem during the exam than I would during practice. Had this difference between practice and exam been little, I probably would have ignored it. But it is so huge that I can feel how drastically it is affecting my score. It just feels like somebody has switched off a valve in my mind, drastically reducing my brainpower. And it's so frustrating to come home from a test and find easy questions that I could have solved, but didn't because their simple solutions didn't occur to me.
Is it because of the pressure that comes with a timer going on or could it be something else?
And how do I deal with it?

I find that doing strenuous exercise, like an hour-long swim, before an exam relaxes me and calms the nerves.

@RitwikOjha I would echo this answer. The morning of my music performance exam I worked out and did some exercises and weight lifting. Also what helped me what eating a lot of oily fish, particularly salmon, which contributes to relaxation and a state of mental wellbeing. People often discount stuff like food and exercise and their effect on the brain but they can really help as exam prep.

If you are cramming for the exam, or studying up to the last minute, stop doing that. Let your mind have a chance to settle and integrate your knowledge. Otherwise you are liable to remember only the last thing you looked at.
Also, if you are "studying" by trying to memorize facts, find a different method. You speak of doing "practice problems". That is usually better than reading the book or memorizing.
But longer term, if you take good notes, you can also "study" by going through them and summarizing them in a smaller space, reducing 10 pages to 1, or to a few note cards. You are more likely to recall what you wrote than what you read.

Along with the previous good advice:

I would try "easing into problems" by rewriting the question within your answer space.  Often doing this gets your subconscious engaged a bit in the problem and it decreases the anxiety versus having to immediately spit out an algorithm.
Do more practice.  I know this sounds counterintuitive since you say 'I'm fine on practice, but not performance', but (a) even if this is true, "overdoing" the practice may compensate for your blanking and (b) it is INCREDIBLY common for students to say they do enough practice, but really...THEY DON'T.  An easy thing to do is to work 100% of the text's drill problems versus just the assigned ones. [One sneaky benefit is that teachers often use unassigned problems or at least the methods or tricks in unassigned problems on test questions.]
Use your practice/homework to somewhat mimic exam conditions.  Work the problems expeditiously (not frantic, but also not slow).  Be very strict about working all the sections problems, then checking the answers (not one by one, but whole section.)  If you do not have access to full answers, then try to purchase an answer book or at least go to office hours to use the instructors solution guide. Try NOT to look back for formulas or methods but after reading the section, write down a small "cheat sheet" of formulas/methods, memorize that and then set it aside, and then work the problems, closed book.  If you miss ANY problem for a conceptual reason OR a "dumb mistake", force yourself to work the entire problem over again, closed book.  That is the "punishment" for getting it wrong.

P.s.  Other study habits: read the section and work the drill problems BEFORE the lecture.  The lecture then becomes review.  Make sure you work every example problem as you read the text.  You may think this is inefficient time-wise, but I find that you end up saving time "on the back end".  In addition, you will master the subject much more strongly than if you rely on lecture as your initial learning tool and use the text as a reference.  In any case, you are not doing well and need to compensate.  So going a little overboard is worth it.  (But I actually still, paradoxically, don't think it is time inefficent...mastery learning ends up being way better use of your time.)


text:
Post-doc applications
I am having terrible experiences with my PhD program. I have no feedback and no supervision on anything. I have been working with other people in other departments so that I can get proper training before I graduate. Recently, I realize that if I apply for a post-doc fellowship and stay here, I can actually learn more about these techniques. But I heard from many people that staying in the same university or with the same people that you worked with is not possible. Does anyone have any opinions on this? I have been travelling around throughout my entire university journey. This will be first time that I will be staying in a place for two different positions. Is it still a no?

I don't understand the part "I have been travelling around throughout my entire university journey. This will be first time that I will be staying in a place for two different positions." Can you elaborate?

@WolfgangBangerth I believe they mean they went one place for undergrad, then maybe another for a master's, and a third for PhD, and so a postdoc at their PhD institution would be their first time staying in the same place after changing status.

If you're having such a bad time at this place, why do you think a post-doc would be better there?

thanks all! Yes, I did my undegrad, my master's, and my phd in different places. The only reason why I want to stay here is that I found another mentor in another department so I would like to stay with them and learn more from them but I am running out of my PhD period here, and I cannot officially switch my department because I am already at the point of writing my dissertation.

One of the biggest reasons for moving around is so that you learn, over time, a variety of techniques and viewpoints. If you stay in a place too long as a student, you may already know whatever it is that they are able to teach you.
But that isn't your situation. You are moving to a new situation within the university, broadening your horizons with these other people. My guess is that it would be good to take advantage of the situation. You also, as you say, seen a variety of different faculties already, so it is less important to move on than if your education had all been in one place.
Don't stay forever, of course, but learn what you can from the people able to give it.


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In the United States, are there any ethical oversights on self-funded and published research?
I'm currently working on my CITI ethical human research certification. Given its dense nature my mind started to wander and I had the realization that all the protocols and ramifications I've so far read have only to do with institutional funding and recognition. In theory what if there was an eccentric billionaire who was self-funded and published (or didn't care about becoming published), with a personal interest in human behavioral studies. Could they circumvent all the regulations and create an unethical study without punishment? I suppose research participants could sue, but if said hypothetical researcher didn't have to follow any IRB guidelines couldn't they add a clause to their consent waivers in which participants waive their right to financial recourse? This isn't a pressing question, just curious and likely missing the obvious. Thank you.

Are you asking about ethical or legal implications?

If the question concerns research in the US, it may be a duplicate of Is IRB approval required (by publishers or otherwise) for volunteer human subjects research?

More so legal implications. Are there any concrete punishments given out by a recognized power?

I started an answer, but ultimately decided this is far too broad and would touch primarily on legal, rather than academic, topics, such as limits to liability waivers. A more narrow and answerable question might target a specific requirement. This one seems too hypothetical and unfocused.

Most of this is covered in this answer to a related question (conveniently written by Bryan Krause).

Legal implications? You can get fired, and your institution can sue you. If you're independently wealthy, and on your dime you publish something wrong for the heck of it, I suppose others can sue you for libel if it's personally damaging, but "false information" and "free speech" go hand in glove, unfortunately.

This might be a better question for Law. As a general rule of thumb, when you see a federal regulation tied specifically to funding, and not laid out as a criminal statute, it's usually because restricting funding was the only enforcement tool available, for one reason or another.

The short answer is there are no binding ethical requirements. There are some potential legal ones. For example, if the subjects were employees, they would be covered by Workers' Compensation laws, which are state laws. The participants might be covered by contract law. The suggestion of tbrookside to take this to Law is fine, but that Stackexchange is not about ethics, only law.

To give a concrete answer: no. Private companies can, and do, perform research without obtaining IRB approval all the time.
As a benign example, I recall reading some time ago that Wikipedia tested adding an option for people to donate using Bitcoin, but ultimately decided against it because during A/B testing, they found that the extra option made things seem too complicated and fewer people donated. This study certainly had no IRB approval, but was nonetheless conducted and everything was well. They even "published" the results, at least in the sense that non-affiliates like me know about it.
As a less benign example, Facebook in 2014 did a study where they intentionally hid emotionally-triggering stories as an experiment. They did not get IRB approval, nor did they have an alternative "IRB-like" process at the time (they have since created one). Curiously, professors from Cornell were involved, but Cornell confirmed that since this was a Facebook-led initiative, their faculty licitly participated without IRB approval. They published their results in a respected, peer-reviewed journal (PNAS), which again found that since this was a Facebook-led initiative, they could use internal data without an IRB. PNAS later published a "note of concern" that the "principles of obtaining informed consent" may not have been fully adhered to. But even in the light of day, everyone seems to agree that "as a private company Facebook was under no obligation to conform to the provisions of the Common Rule when it collected the data...and the Common Rule does not preclude...use of the data" in a publication that follows the Common Rule. (Here is a summary from Slate and here is the journal's "expression of concern").
But I suspect part of your question is: what about doing research that involves "actual risk," like subjecting people to extreme cold? For the most part, there is nothing special here. If an eccentric billionaire wanted to have people spend hours in the freezer, take measurements, write a paper, and publish it in a journal that they own, they can do just that. The only boundaries would be the regular laws: the billionaire might face criminal charges (e.g., battery) or they might get sued, particularly if someone gets hurt.
Note that I'm deliberately avoiding scenarios involving drugs, medical devices, etc. Such scenarios may have additional considerations, but I cannot speak to those.
But the short answer to your question is: IRBs are required for federally-funded research and for most reputable journals. Since the vast majority of academic research comes from the former and goes to the latter, it may certainly seem like "all human-subjects research requires an IRB." But if your funder and publication venue don't require an IRB, then you are good to go. Such a scenario need not involve eccentric billionaires: for example, large commercial websites are constantly doing A/B testing without an IRB.

AB testing doesn't meet the US definition of research because it's not to advance generalizable knowledge.

It could be though; a high-traffic website could be a great place for doing generalizable experiments. Indeed, that's pretty much what Facebook did in my second example, and that indeed led to a peer-reviewed publication in a research journal.

No.
It is necessary to distinguish ethical standards with administrative enforcement from legal standards with statutory or common law enforcement.
Ethical standards are imposed upon employees by funding agencies (eg, the Federal government), institutions, eg, research centers or universities, journals, professional associations (eg, medical societies, survey research societies), and possibly others. Ethical standards are voluntarily assumed.
People who are not connected to any of these funders, organizations, or publications are covered by statutory law or common law. That is, they can be charged with a crime or they can be sued.
If participants in their research are employees then they are likely covered by Workers' Compensation for injuries. If not, they may be covered by a contract. Or they might sue.
So a self-funded and self-publishing researcher is not entirely free of standards. In particular, if there are clear, definite ethical standards that apply to a lawsuit, you can bet a lawyer will raise them in court.
So the answer is also, such research is not without risks.
The suggestion to refer this to Law Stackexchange is especially appropriate, but the question should be about the law, not the ethics.

Some colleges do not have an IRB (Institutional Review Board). One fairly large college that avoids Federal funding and involvement is Hillsdale College. They instituted an IRB in 2023. They had clear ethical standards in place for faculty and student projects before that. I believe that having an IRB makes it easier for faculty to publish.

"In The United States" is not well defined. Do you mean US journals? US publishers? Or US-based authors? I think the answer to your question is that, from the point of submitting a manuscript for review to the point of publishing, there is barely any ethical oversight.
Recall the controversy over the article in which researchers rated the attractiveness of women and correlated their findings with prevalence of endometriosis. This should have been a fairly obvious violation of the Belmont Report. In addition to not getting paid, most reviewers don't actually understand their scope - this partly explains why the process is so wildly variable. Somehow this paper was reviewed and published. The ethical oversight of published research, then, seems to be entirely post hoc and really boils down to the community raising a unified voice. While ethics and populism rarely intersect, in this case I'm glad this dumb paper was stricken.
The major issuances on ethical research are the Declaration of Helsinki and Nuremberg Code which largely apply to interventional and prospective research, and concern the manner and nature of data that are acquired for research purposes. In addition, there is the Belmont Report, which addresses messaging, utility, and value of research. There are other regional laws that concern data privacy, data sharing, and medical conduct like Interantional Council on Harmonization, the code of federal regulations, and good X practice. These lead to the formation of independent review committees like data monitoring committees (DMC), internal review boards (IRB), and steering committees (SCs). Typically, IRBs review and approve protocols and research proposals and are housed within institutions that individually contribute data, DMCs monitor ongoing clinical research and are independent consultants hired by pharma companies or medical universities, and SCs will review manuscripts and are research staff within data coordinating centers.
I have personally voiced complaints against several SCs that believe open data don't require ethical oversight. I wasn't taken seriously, but I think it's an ongoing issue.
The most famous example of a "medical study" that we now believe would have never started is the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. But there are other significant studies that fell through the cracks. Examples include the Stanford Prison Experiment, the Milgram Experiment. These all underwent some internal approval by ethics boards (IIRC). Lastly, another very recent example concerns a study of regional alcohol use that singled out Barrow, Alaska and led to a massive decline in the "social credit" of this region https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1989-36833-001
You question whether self-funded and published research receives ethical oversight. The assumption here is that funded research is more critical received, and that unpublished research does not have penetrance in the community. Pause. Recall that during the era of COVID, "unpublished" or "preprint" papers were being cited prominently in media. Furthermore, if the authors declare conflict of interest (COI) on the paper, what additional effort if any do you believe the journal takes to evaluate the credibility of the authors? If authors lie about COI there are some watchdog groups such as Retraction Watch that will seek these issues. Researchers found guilty of misconduct can be blacklisted from participation in research and consulting.

+1 for an interesting and wide-ranging viewpoint but there are many initialisms (SCs, CoI, etc) which someone not from your field (like me!) don't know offhand

I don't think this is really responsive to the question about self-funded and self-published research and contrasting them with the more "ordinary" conduct of research within institutional control. Instead, you're identifying flaws with the ordinary institutional approach.

@BryanKrause I think the first paragraph of my answer addresses this, the rest of the post is to point out that most of the CITI training is focused on data collection. Aside from this, peer review is the only form of control, and a very weak one at that..

To me, 'open data' is usually called publicly available data. That is, anyone can get the data and use it for analysis. Every institution, editor, and IRB I know of has decided that such research is exempt from review. Such use is covered by the First Amendment of the US Constitution. Is there something here that I don't understand? In particular, does 'open data' include another kind of data source?

In order for sanctions to be applied for unethical and/or illegal research practice, it has to come to the attention of some authority who is willing and able to act. That might be one or more of the subjects of the study, if human, or an observer, or, well, anyone who knows of it.
But it is possible, in theory, for evil to occur outside the range of light. If no one knows of it, punishment isn't likely to occur.
But if the "research" is published, even by a private individual, then, certainly, people will know of it and if it also breaks civil or criminal law, action is possible assuming anyone reads it. Reputable publishers ask for evidence that the research was vetted by an independent ethics body, such as an IRB. Disreputable publishers might not.
Note that an IRB is a protection for the institution as well as for subjects. Likewise, publishers want to be protected against publishing harmful material.
Their have been cases, of course, in which certain oppressors have been killed by those they have harmed. The law may or may not punish the victim/punisher in such a case.

Clarification: research isn't automatically 'evil' because it hasn't been sanctioned by an IRB. It can be but this is not automatic.


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How can a student improve his attentiveness during lectures?
I'll be starting my 4-th year of post-secondary education, in a few weeks, and during my first 3 years, I've had problems with attentiveness. My latest problem was last year, where I don't think I've been able to follow a single lecture during more than 30 minutes out of the 2 to 4 hours (There is one break during the 4 hours lectures).
I don't think it's my teacher's fault because it has always been an issue with me and, for instance this year, even though many students such as myself had problems with attendance and attentiveness, about 25% of the students felt the lectures were satisfying and managed to follow most of them.
It might be due to the fact that the courses are not always, the one I would like to attend, but I won't be able to chose until my 5-th year so this option won't work for me.
The thing is I've managed to fall through the cracks so far by simply working by myself with the textbooks we were given but I now realise it was a mistake, first of all because several times the textbooks we've been given were either obsolete or not related at all to the knowledge and skills we were actually expected to get and a few times we were simply not given anything besides the lectures.
I usually get enough sleep, 8 to 10 hours. I also play sports 3-4 hours a week.
Second of all I'm pretty sure my understanding of the course was pretty much limited to me getting good grades on the tests but not actually understanding the essence of the courses. I'm supposed to be an engineer in two years and I feel like all I know is how to get good grades but without proper actual engineering skills, and I'm pretty sure it's mostly due to me not having the right approach on lectures.
Basically, I would like to know if someone had the same problem and what approach they took or if anyone has pieces of advice or tricks to improve attentiveness during lectures ?

You didn't mention if you do any regular physical exercise, like playing sports. Universities typically have excellent opportunities for that. Something like badminton, perhaps. You can easily find many articles on the subject which suggest that regular exercise has a positive mental effect.

This sounds like the physiological phenomena associated with the Third Barrier to Study.  If you haven't encountered Study Technology before, I highly recommend you look into it.  It applies at any level of study.

I disagree with the close voters: this is one undergraduate question that could be generalized to graduate studies also (see also this meta discussion: http://meta.academia.stackexchange.com/q/3300/20058). Voted to reopen.

I agree with @MassimoOrtolano, I don't exactly see what makes this question undergraduate specific. Furthermore I guess it could be argue that I'm an undergraduate student, but in France I think the academia is extremely different than in other countries. Considering, i'm in my 4-th year of study in a "Grande Ecole", it's the equivalent to the first year of study of a Master's Degree, which is why I can do my 5-th year of study in a foreign university to get an MSc at the end of it. If I came from a university I would have a "License" (BSc) even though I studied in "Classe prépa" instead

@Roland In my university we have 1.5 hour lectures without breaks, and 3 hour lectures with one break (no break if it's a lab). In the past we had lecture slots of 2 and 4 hours, with breaks left to the professor's discretion. For instance, I used to do one break for a 2 hour lecture and two breaks for a 4 hour lecture, but when I was a student I had a professor who would do 4 hours without breaks.

@Roland Of course 4 hours without break were inefficient, but at the time -- it was about 30 years ago -- students were supposed to withstand wathever lecture rythm was adopted by the professor.

Professors can't keep concentrating for four hours, either!

@AndrewMorton you're right, I think I should have mentioned it since it can have a direct influence on my problem so I edited the post.

@Roland besides very rare occasions, there is one break during the 4 hours lectures I edited that too to be more accurate.

In general, if you aren't "pumped up" about major classes and not fully engaged with the lecture, you're probably in the wrong major, however, with some research, you can see that the average attention span of an adult is around 20 minutes, so your situation is totally normal.
I've struggled with ADD my whole life, so learning how to zone in while I'm zoned out was a full time job for me. I've gotten to the point where I'm pro at being attentive during lectures, here's what I've learned:

Lectures are much more interesting when you apply a purpose for them. For me I'm a computer science major, so what I did was compiled a "reference bible" of useful things that I could use in the future. Another thing I did was continuously develop a game. I tried to incorporate everything I learned into the game, it was pretty much a challenge, so that made programming lectures much more fun.
Invest in a smart pen. I swear I will never live without one of those things ever again. It kind of forces you pay attention to the lecture so that you can mark important topics down to make it easier to reference. Be carful though, it's easy to get lazy while using it, but just keep in mind that having to listen to a lecture twice isn't fun nor is it a good use of time.
Force yourself to ask questions. I ask at least 5 questions per hour before the end of a lecture, which for me is a question every 12 minute; well below the average attention span.
After you do homework, look up the next chapter online. Use everything at your disposal: YouTube tutorials, blogs, research documents, forums, etc. Not only will you be prepared for the next lecture, you'll already know what you're having trouble understanding which is huge, especially for #3. If you're book is outdated and you find new information on a topic, use that to challenge the professor's lecture. Not only will that keep you engaged, it will make you look like you actually care about what they are teaching (hopefully you actually do!) and that you are taking the initiative to activly learn more than just what they are lecturing about; nobody likes a yes-man!

Overall, just getting rid of distractions never did it for me, so the way I bought of it is "solve the root of the problem, not the effects," because technology is a great thing to have when used correctly, so give yourself a reason to pay attention. Hopefully this helps!

I can't change my major, I don't know if there is an equivalent in other schools, but right now I'm studying different field. It's a non-specialist school, during the first two-years you have to take the same classes as everyone else. Which is why I may not always be able to use your first advice, for instance I have to study electrical engineering but I'm trying to get a mechanic related major next year ... I'll try to consistently apply #3 and #4 I always tell myself to do that but I procrastinate too much.

I'm not sure what a smart pen is, but if it is what I think it's too expensive for me. It's like 10% of my tuition fees for the year. It might be very useful though.

@PaoloH Touching up on #1, I'm sure electrical & mechanical engineering can be integrated, so both would prove to be equally useful. Besides, those are just examples, come up with something that would work for you. Pro-tip core classes can be more useful than you think. Procrastinating isn't a terrible thing as long as you get it done. I'm a huge procrastinator because I love the rush, but if you want to get rid of procrastination in general, try to be more prepared & plan things out; don't deviate from the schedule, because it's easier to repeat the deviation and harder to get back on track.

As for the smartpen, it's about $100-$200 USD. Besides, if it makes the difference between having to take another semester, I'd happily pay the 10% rather than another tuition bill.

With regards to number 3, be very careful about this. Of course it depends on the environment, and in some types of class this would be fine, but in what I understand by "lecture", that would be very disruptive. If even 10 others in the room did this, it would lead to a question every minute and would completely stall the lecture. Jot your questions down somewhere and ask them at the end. This has another advantage that you can scribble them out when (as is frequently the case) in two minutes' time, the question is answered anyway.

Yeah I considered that, that's why it's never more than 5 questions. Typically in my experience, I was able to bank on no one asking questions. Even if a question is answered before you asked, you were activly listening to the lecture. That's where common sense comes into play, but great point! I should have addressed that in my response.

Obviously, I won't blindly follow these strategy and I understand #3 more like trying as much as possible to be active and not be afraid to ask questions during these lectures, if common sense makes it relevant. Thanks for all the hindsight and precision though I'll take that into account.

I think that a key question here is why and how you stop paying attention.  If you can understand what's happening, you can try to address it.  Two main routes that I have seen (and experienced) are:

Availability of distractions: if you start reading email, browsing the web, etc., then a good strategy is to start taking notes on paper by hand.  Lock your devices away from yourself and make sure you take notes, as the act of note-taking forces you to follow along more closely.
Physical impairment: long sitting in a warm and poorly ventilated room can impair your ability to pay attention for physiological reasons.  If you find yourself falling asleep, zoning out, or daydreaming, this is likely to be a cause.  Here, a good strategy can be to seat yourself in the back of the classroom, and then when you start having difficulty with attention, stand up and move around.  Getting your blood circulating and your body in motion can do wonders for your ability to pay attention, particularly if you are generally physical or restless person.

Note that in a small class or a country with more formal classroom etiquette, it may be useful to have a conversation with the professor before doing the second strategy.  In a big lecture in an informal place like the US, however, you can probably just go for it.

I am studying in a french engineering school with small class, and as you said, I can not use the second strategy. It would seem strange (the only reason why a student would move is to go to the toilet), but if I could apply it, I think this advice would actually benefit me, I've never thought of it. I will definitely try your first point (I always end up doing so. I didn't consider it, the issue, I thought it was only a consequence but I might have been wrong). Taking notes might help but usually my problem with that was that I had a hard time following the course while doing so.

@PaoloH If you can't get up, an alternative that may give some of the same benefits is the inflight exercise programs recommended for air travelers (e.g., this Virgin-Atlantic recommendation).  You may also want to just ask your professor if they would mind if you did larger motions at the back of the class: some are more open-minded and supportive than you may expect.

Take notes. Even if you are perfectly able to follow along and the lecturer hands out the slides, actually write (can type, but not as good) because the act of writing activates your brain in different ways. It doesn't matter if you never read the notes again, writing notes helps you pay attention.

I have been in this situation several times throughout my educational career. One thing I have found that can be helpful depending on how much free/study time you have outside of school is to invest in a recorder that can plug into your computer. This way you can keep logs of your classes while taking notes. Then, when you are studying and feel lost on a concept, you can go back and listen to the lecture again.

I've never thought of recording a class but that might be a very useful idea, it won't help the attentiveness but it could help me out when I do miss something important. i'll try to look into that.Thank you

There are two simple principles you can follow here, rooted in experimentally confirmed behaviours of the brain.

Active summarisation
Repetition

Active Summarisation:
Your brain finds it easier to engage for longer periods if it is active, rather than passively receiving information. Also, once your brain begins working in a particular way, there is a momentum-like phenomenon whereby it will continue with the same behaviour.
So the key to attentiveness is to start your brain actively working. The best way I have found to do this is to summarise what is being said in my own words (in a shorthand). Even things that I already know - because if I start that way, it's easier to continue that way. I personally use pencil and paper rather than smartphone etc. - I remember seeing that there is some evidence that pencil and paper notes are more effective than digital notes. But honestly try things and see what works for you. The point of these notes is only superficially to have material you can refer back to later (which is why I think most digital apps somewhat miss the point). The main effect is that you are more engaged, and absorb information better the first time. Whatever technology you use the goal is to form the right information structures in your brain.
Repetition:
Another strategy is to skim-read material relevant for the lecture ahead of time - even if only for 15 mins. Attention requires anchors - even if you barely understand the material first time you will have created references that will work as anchor points. When you hear related concepts repeated in the lecture you will find it easier to absorb them. After the lecture skim your notes again to help it stick.

One break in a 4 hour lecture is a bit little. Teaching experience shows that most students struggle to keep on paying attention after about 45/50 minutes. Your 30 minutes is short (for university students), but the other answers should help (prepare the materials so it's easier, make notes, try to come up with questions - even if they get answered by the lecturer before you get a chance to ask them) as well.


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Is there a standard ethical codex for publishing of research?
I am asking about some kind of standard well known and complete ethical codex with versions of strictness (a list of rules comparable to the creative commons licenses in the field of software/art publishing).
It seems to me that every journal has its own ethical codex stated, although all of the codexes seem to be almost the same (with minor differences). It seems a little bit silly to me.
I would like to know about something usable like:

to tell my team: "all publishing should be done according to the ethical codex XY v1.x", or
I would like to state in my hypothetical journal: "the journal complies with the ethical codex XY v2.x"

What am I missing? Where I can find it? Does some open ethical codex standard exist?  If not, why not?

What is a codex?  I assume here it does not mean an ancient manuscript but it would be really interesting if that was the case.  If this is a standard term in academia, perhaps there is a reference I have missed.

Pretty sure "codex" is the wrong word.

@TerryLoring You are correct, I am wrong. Feel free to edit my question to clarify it.

@matousc I don't think you are wrong here, just a bit unclear.  I found a secondary meaning of codex (derived from Codex Justinianus) which fits here.

The Committee on Publication Ethics (https://publicationethics.org/) "is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to define best practice in the ethics of scholarly publishing and to assist editors, publishers, etc. to achieve this."
They have many documents; you can probably start with their core practices.  These cover:

Allegations of misconduct
Authorship and contributorship
Complaints and appeals
Conflicts of interest / Competing interests
Data and reproducibility
Ethical oversight
Intellectual property
Journal management
Peer review processes
Post-publication discussions and corrections

(Note that this focuses on publication ethics.  If you want research ethics then that would be a separate question.)

See, for example, the journal Science:  "Science is a member of COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics)" and the journal Nature:  "In August 2015, the Nature Research journals became members of the Committee on Publication Ethics.."

COPE does not set standards.  I think the answer to the question should be "No, but COPE is the closest thing."

The German national funding association "DFG" publishes a codex of good scientific practice that is legally binding for all research funded by DFG.  You can find an English translation online.  Switzerland has a similar document.  You can try the US "NSF" site next for further search.


text:
The status remained "awaiting for reviewer selection" after 5 months since re-submission
Anyone give me some advice:
I have made a major revision after receiving one very positive feedback and one very negative feedback for my manuscript. Then I revised and resubmitted. It is almost 5 months since resubmission. The status is remained “Awaiting Reviewer Selection” since then. I have emailed the editor several times, but I still have not received the feedback.
Have anyone had this experience and please give me an advice.
Thanks!

Contact someone else from the journal. This could be the editor-in-chief, the associate/managing editor if the journal has one, or simply the journal office. The journal is the only one who's able to solve your problem.
If the journal never replies regardless of who you contact, then you'll have to assume the journal is dead, withdraw your manuscript, and submit elsewhere.

Dear Allure, thank you very much for your sharing!

Yes, I have contacted the Editor in Chief several times. However, they have not responded! I don't know what happened!


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US Postdoc in Japan not allowed to be first-author due to being foreign. How to proceed?
I am a US postdoc at a lab in Japan doing niche research in computational biology. I recently found out my advisor will not allow me to be first author on papers. He says the datasets (which were my primary reason for joining this lab) were funded by the Japanese Government (although the data collection was international) and so a foreigner cannot be first author (though I would be doing most of the work).
There is a half-Japanese/half-American professor who teaches a short course for foreigners about how to survive/excel at the university. He told me this is common and that most foreigner postdocs leave the university with zero first-author publications - because first-author credits are typically reserved for Japanese researchers. He said I will need to creatively navigate these issues while not stepping on toes.
I want to figure out a way to obtain first-author publications during my postdoc without stepping on anyone's toes.
Question: Is this typical for foreigners in Japanese Academia? How can I navigate it? I know it is difficult to switch labs in this niche field, but if I do not take action, I will finish my postdoc with 0 first-author publications.
Possible solution: I have connections with a scientist at a government lab in the US. I have a negative impression of him from our past interactions, but he does have datasets in this niche research area. I could ask if he would be willing for me to remotely analyze one of his datasets. Does this seem like a reasonable solution? Any caveats I should be aware of?

I have no idea for Computational Bio but in some fields, the order of authorship isn't important but rather who the corresponding author is. Is it at least possible for you to still be listed as the corresponding author?

What is the government agency that funded the datasets?  It wasn't JSPS?

FWIW, I know non-Japanese people in Japanese universities who regularly publish as first author when using datasets collected with Japanese government funding. This may be your advisor's policy, or potentially even a university policy, but it isn't a universal Japanese one.

@ssjjaca. I can definitely bring this up. But I feel first-authorships in computational biology have more weight in committees than corresponding author.

@Kimball. It was not JSPS, although I am currently applying for JSPS funding mostly to increase my pay. The agency is a JAXA. I am hesitant to give too many more details publicly, but the data is quite expensive and rare. What surprised me though was that it does not just seem to be these expensive and rare datasets funded through the Japanese Government, it seems to be the case throughout the university (according to the Japanese/American professor).

@Flyto Thank you. I have also done summer internships in Japan and have not come across this problem. There is a foreigner graduate student in the lab and he will have a first author publication. It may be because graduate students require one first author publication to graduate (whereas postdoctoral researchers do not). The university (and my advisor), surprisingly, are quite international - which makes this even more of a shock to me.

It seems that JSPS certainly doesn't have such a policy, and since JSPS and JAXA are both Independent Administrative Corporations under Japanese law, it seems unreasonable that they set very different policies in this area... But OTOH, that's not impossible.

Sounds like a bad advisor.

No Japanese governmental agency have such policy. Some cases data, software is protected, meaning foreigners cannot work with it, but it is obviously a different situation. Your advisor just wants all the credit to himself/herself, and dishonest about it.

While what you are describing is entirely inappropriate from a perspective of scientific ethics, I would not be surprised if:

there may be a language/culture miscommunication causing you to misinterpret the situation, or
there is indeed an informal policy of this sort amongst some laboratories (but individual labs all over the world sometimes have odious policies)

Anecdotally, while I have not worked in Japanese academia myself, I have Japanese colleagues who don't appear to have such a policy and have non-Japanese colleagues who did postdocs in Japan and published as a first author.  Such a policy is at least thus not extremely common.
So, what should you do?

First, I would recommend starting from the position that this is a mis-communication and asking how your advisor recommends you getting first author publications during your postdoc, since this is important for your career.
Your advisor is unlikely to say no (for a number of reasons), but if they do not give you a clear path to getting first-author publications, then I would indeed suggest finding other people to work with, while doing what's necessary to maintain relations and face with your current laboratory.
Finally, note that while first author publications are wonderful, "co-first-author" and second author publications are also good, and if the common denominator amongst a number of papers is you, then people will likely recognize that fact.

Thanks @jakebeal. My advisor was quite clear that I could not be first author because it would "look bad" to have a foreigner as first author when these data were funded by the Japanese government. On his proposals for these projects, I am listed as contributing to 50% of the effort (which I am hesitant to agree to). The Japanese/American professor is a bridge between the cultures/language, and he was very clear that most foreign post-docs at the university leave with 0 first-author publications. I only met him briefly and plan to ask him for more advise before speaking again with my advisor.

Thanks @jakebeal. I think it is a good idea for me to ask directly how to obtain a first-author publication. So I am at least being clear that is an item I am hoping to achieve during my work in the lab. I could also ask about co-first-author publication (since the written proposal seems to suggest I will be asked to do 50% of the effort).

Thanks @jakebeal. I am hesitant to leave this postdoctoral position because I have invested substantial time applying to various funding sources and moving overseas. However, I am considering finding other people to work with, as you suggest (remotely). I am considering asking contacts in the US who do similar work if I can analyze one of their datasets remotely (as my solution above). I am hesitant to do so without seeing perspectives from others about whether that is appropriate.

sounds like a bad culture of slaving off the postdocs.

As a person working at a Japanese university, I never encountered such cases. Having said that, I can imagine reasonable motivation behind your advisor's actions. It all boils down to the fact that the "first author" is considered the "primary author" by default, and being the "primary author" makes reporting a smoother process. Say, I obtained (as a "primary investigator") a certain dataset, and I expected to report results achieved with the dataset. So it would look better if I am also the main contributor of the corresponding research paper(s). Similarly, it is easier to obtain additional funding for a conference trip if I am the primary author of the paper to be presented. (There are also various internal evaluations where your authorship counts, so it's tempting to increase own score, even at the expense of others).
None of these considerations turn into ironclad rules, but I understand that it's much easier for an advisor to be "the one who contributes" and "the one who reports" at the same time (especially if you aren't planning to stay long there and you might not be a lab member at the time of reporting). However, as I said before, these are my informed guesses rather than hard facts.
What you can do... well, perhaps, negotiate. Maybe you can sacrifice first authorship of this particular paper, but you have to do it on condition that your next paper will go with you as the first author, and if is means switching the dataset or adjusting anything else your advisor considers necessary -- let them sort it out before you do any more work for them.

Thanks @rg_software. He could have other motivations, but his outward reason was that it would "look bad" to have a foreigner as first author when these data were funded by the Japanese government. Still, it seems to be university-wide. I like your suggestion to negotiate (and I will try). However, from the start, I expressed interest in a specific subtopic of his lab work, and since these data are all funded by the same agency, I worry he will probably not allow me to be first author on any of them due to his stated reasons.

Thanks @rg_software. I am considering asking contacts in the US who do similar work from a corresponding US government agency) if I can analyze one of their datasets remotely (as my stated solution above). I would of course inform my current advisor as well (who seems open to collaboration). I am hesitant to do so without seeing perspectives from others about whether that is appropriate. What do you think of this approach?

Well, I'd also try passing the ball to your advisor. You can state that you absolutely need a first authorship for your own career reasons, and it is his job to find out how to do it if he wants you to contribute. I understand you are in the same boat, but after all you are both motivated to get the job done, so you may as well ask him first how he can help you to make it happen.

It might be a little late to contribute to this topic, but officially there is no such thing in Japan that foreigners cannot be first author of their papers if the material (data) upon which the paper is based on was obtained through Japanese government funds. It is certainly not an official rule in any Japanese research institution and he has just told you that HE THINKS that is doesn't look good... In other words, it is just your boss treating you in a discriminatory manner, which is not uncommon in Japan (e.g., not considering foreigners for promotions or a permanent contracts, though I have never seen up to this level of denying authorship as 1st author). I know many people who work for Japanese research institutions and all foreigners publish as 1st authors. All the data required for research is obviously obtained directly or indirectly by Japanese funding. The bottom line is, if a foreigner cannot publish as 1st author, a foreigner shall not be hired for that job in the first place. I unfortunately believe that there is no negotiation that will work but you should try anyways, as other suggested, to make your point clear that you DO NEED to publish 1st author papers... In case he denies that, I would suggest you should contact the JAXA compliance desk (madoguchi) perhaps by an anonymous e-mail (they do accept this according to their website) and ask them to advice you on how to proceed. Obviously there is always the risk that if you start pushing your boss on that matter, he will not renew your contact, which is likely renewed on a yearly basis.

And please let us know how this story ended up.


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What, if anything, obligates a student to work with an advisor who lobbied for them to get funding?
In my department, PhD admissions and funding are two separate processes, which means many PhD students are admitted even if there is no funding for them. To be admitted, an applicant typically needs to impress a faculty member enough to want them to take the applicant on as a student (which means this faculty member becomes the applicant's advisor, if they decide to accept the offer of admission). To get funding, an applicant need to impress at least one of the several faculty members who controls a training grant enough to want them to offer the applicant a slot on the grant. It is very uncommon (if not impossible) for any PhD student to receive funding outside of a training grant via an RA, TA, or other source, at least in the 1st year.
As such, it is fairly common for a professor who wants a particular student to join the department as their advisee to lobby for the student with one of the training grant directors. This is particularly true in cases where the student of interest has communicated that they have a funded offer from a rival department and will likely not consider our department without a similar funding offer being extended.
Because of this practice, a difficult situation sometimes arises when funded students want to switch into a research area that is still within the scope of their training grant but not within the scope of their advisors' interests. Because both areas fall within the goals of their grant, these students are not risking their funding by switching (although they may be risking an additional year of PhD studies, depending on how late they switch). However, because their initial advisors usually had a large role in helping them secure funding, they are hesitant to make the switch out of a feeling of obligation to their advisor (e.g., "Dr. Z did a lot of work recruiting me and helping me get a funded offer, so I feel bad leaving her").
In situations where funding is not directly tied to one's advisor (but may be indirectly tied to them), what obligations does the student have to their advisor? Should the student feel free to switch advisors if they discover that another research area appeals more to them? Are there any special considerations or etiquette protocols?

My guess is that norms vary considerably across fields. That aside, students should ideally be able to pursue whatever direction is best for their growth as researchers. Many faculty are OK with this -- but unfortunately, I've also seen occasional instances where faculty take this sort of thing very personally and behave quite badly as a result.

Nothing (with the exception of guilt on the students part). Professors advocate for students knowing full well that sometimes the student can end up working with someone else.

I think it is hard to answer this question without actually knowing the system and seeing whether such switches are commonly done. Typically, admission systems are either central (e.g., US-style, you apply with the faculty and once you are admitted you get an advisor) or decentral (e.g., central European, you apply and get funded directly by a specific professor). In the former case, transfers are not entirely uncommon. In the latter case, transfers are a bit of a dicey topic as students really only apply with and get accepted by one specific professor.
Your system sounds a bit like a mixture of both - somehow, admissions are centralized, but it sounds like individual professors have so much say in the process that it in practice may well work like a decentral system. One important question may be how this "lobbying" for students works in practice. Does every professor have an "alotted" number of students that they can choose (either explicitly or by common practice)? That is, does the transferring student "take away" an alotted place for a professor and add one for another? If that is the case, I would assume that transferring will indeed lead to some hard feelings. However, if the system is more flexible, and "lobbying" for a student really just means that the advisor sent a recommendation without many more implications, I think transferring may be just fine for everybody.
In the end, I think you need to see whether transfers happen regularly, and how the students that transferred are seen by the old and new faculty. If they never seem to happen, I would assume that professors will not be thrilled about the idea.

I've certainly seen admissions in the US work whereby a professor with funding for a student can put their hand up in committee and offer to take them on. If no one claims the student in this way, the student is not admitted. That being said, I have no idea what happens if the student and advisor later decide to part ways. Presumably this can be done amicably if the student finds someone else to find their work.

You should select your advisor based on your actual research interests and abilities, bearing in mind that that might not be possible given a change in funding. You should never maintain a relationship solely out of a feeling of guilt. However, you should carefully scrutinize your interactions with the potential abandonee, to be sure that you didn't make promises that you would now be breaking. If Professor X had a 4-year position to offer to you or an alternative student Z and you promised to see the project through to the end (which resulted in the actual offer), then that is a kind of promise / contractual relationship that should be taken very seriously. But usually, all the student knows about the matter is that they have an offer, and they are not contracting for anything long-term. It seems clear that in the situation that you describe, there is no broken promise.
The right (polite) thing to do is have a frank discussion with the faculty member, explaining your interests. It is okay to acknowledge his/her interests, but you need to hold fast to your own interests, which are primary. There could be bad consequences if the professor isn't sufficiently rational and professional to handle this, but you can't live your life for someone else's sake.


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Is it always necessary to write an abstract on top of your research work?
Is it always necessary to write an abstract on top of your research work or can I immediately go over to my introduction?

This is usually specified in the guidelines of the journal, conference etc. you want to publish in. For a thesis, there will be university guidelines. I have never seen any guidelines that say that an abstract is only optional.
Ask yourself about the purpose of an abstract. A missing abstract will make it unnecessary difficult to grasp the contents of the work. So I see no proper reason to avoid writing one.


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Does publishing on Arxiv diminish chances of publishing in a journal/conference?
If I publish a paper on Arxiv, does it diminish my chances of getting published at a reputable peer reviewed journal? Does it diminish my chances of presenting my paper at a reputable conference?

This  has been explored here multiple times. It depends on the field, and even more on the  journal or conference. It probably doesn't enhance your chances, though. But some places accept only unpublished (anywhere) work.

@Buffy: Fields are math and cs.

For journals and conferences consult their individual policies. Even in math.

@Buffy: In physics, I know of a case of journal that for some time period tracked for all their submissions whether they were posted to the arxiv (and when). They actually found that papers that were submitted to the arxiv before submission had a significantly higher acceptance rate. So, there is some indication that posting to the arxiv can increase the chance of acceptance.

@mmeent - there is a logical fallacy in your last two sentences. As the financial ads state, past returns are no guarantee of future success. While papers submitted to arxiv in the past may have had higher acceptance rates, that does not suggest that submitting some random paper there will increase its acceptance rate.

@Jon Custer: Hence the hedging with "some indication" and "can". There is no logical fallacy.


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Where to place a variable legend in a math thesis?
In a math thesis, where do I place a variable legend, i.e. a list that indicates the "type" of each variable used, e.g.

x, y, z denote real numbers
s, t denote sets of numbers
f, g denote functions

First, I don't think that's called a legend.  Second, one often has a notation section at the beginning.  Have you tried looking at other papers or theses?

@Kimball: What is it called then? Could you give me a link to a thesis that has such a legend (or whatever it's called)?

Hmm, may I ask for which reason you would like to include such a list? I know of a few articles (most of them are several decades old) where such a list is given (though in plain text rather than in list form), but in my experience this is done rarely nowadays (at least in pure maths) . Consistent nomenclature for variables is obviously a good thing, but for which reason would you like to explicitly mention it in a list, given that every variable that occurs has to be introduced at the place where it is used anyway?

@JochenGlueck: Just seems good form to me, and makes for an easier read. Just like an index or a glossary of symbols are redundant, but make reading much easier.

@EvanAad: Thanks for your reply! I completely agree that an index and a glossary of symbols are extremely important - but not due to a matter of form: the main point about mathematical notions and universally (throughout the text) used symbols is that they are defined at one point, and then used throughout the text. [...]

[...] So assume that you, as a reader, want to look up a theorem on page 86, and the theorem contains the sentence "Let $f,g \in L^{2,3}([0,1])$; then $f\cdot g$ is a mumbo jumbo foo." If you don't know what the notation $L^{2,3}$ means you have to look it up, and if you don't know that it is defined on page 34, a glossary of symbols is extremely useful. [...]

[...] Similarly, if you don't know what a "mumbo jumbo foo" is, the index is your best friend. On the other hand, there is no need at all in this example to look up how the variables $f$ and $g$ are typically used in the thesis, since they are actually quantified directly in the theorem. That's why I think that an index and a glossary are very useful, while a list with the typical meaning of variables is not.

@EvanAad I've usually seen it called a "List of Symbols", but like others I'm not convinced of its usefulness for the reader.

Check with the office that handles dissertations/theses.  Many universities have very specifc requirements for how you format the document.

Ask someone in your department?

I would call it a table of notation or something similar. It can go in an appendix or at the beginning of the thesis or anywhere else where you think it makes sense to put such a table (say, at the end of each chapter to summarize the notation used in that chapter). There is no standard place where it should go. Such tables are also not very common, but I have used them in some of my longer papers and find them quite useful. I’d recommend including one, but with more of a focus on the meaning of specific symbols rather than generic classes of symbols that denote real numbers, variables etc.

@DanRomik: Thanks. Do you know why my question was closed?

@Wetenschaap: The point is, that question has evidently been very useful to many people, and it is hard to imagine any other stackexchange forum that would be more suitable for that question than the present one. Therefore, even if it were asked today, there would be no reason to close it, just like there is no reason to close my question, despite it concerning a more niche subject matter than a glossary.

The text in your edit would be better placed as a meta question. That is the place to discuss and resolve such disputes.

@EvanAad no, I wasn’t involved in the closing, but think it’s a reasonable decision as your question is only of interest to mathematicians.

A commentator knows such a list as "List of Symbols", other names are "Mathematical notation", "Notational conventions", "Mathematical symbols", and permutations thereof. (Note that this is sometimes not a list but a text describing the notation.)
I just checked a few textbooks and found placement right before and after the table of contents, and as the first appendix. While I would prefer putting it right before the main text, it's really up to you.

I'm under the impression that "mathematical notation", "notational conventions", and so on, typically refer to the definition of symbols that have a fixed meaning throughout the text, whereas the OP refers to notational convention for variables.

I can't see why that wouldn't be a notational convention? Your comment even includes the term.

Oops, you're right, of course; I'm not quite sure what I was thinking... But I guess what I actually intended to say is: In a comment the OP suggests that they might list definitions of symbols in a glossary of symbols - so, given the question, I assume that they would like to list notational conventions for variables in a different list. But I think you're right that "notational convention" would probably be an accurate description of this second list.

Thanks for the answer. Do you know why my question was closed?