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How can I supervise a careless student?
I am a postdoc in physics and was in an advisory role in a project with an undergraduate student majoring in math. It was my first time collaborating with someone junior to me. The collaboration was not extremely successful, and I think I need some advice on how to supervise students.
Background information: The project was my proposal but I offered several other options in the beginning and the student picked the current one. It was purely theoretical and I simplified the project into several math problems or calculations so that the student can easily start working on them without the need of advanced knowledge. The math tools required were only basic first-year ones, e.g., calculus and linear algebra.
I knew from his CV that he has taken all required courses, so I indeed anticipated a better performance than the current one.
He also mentioned explicitly he enjoyed doing these type of analysis.
Student's performance: I was initially confident because the student seemed to understand everything I said and was also highly motivated. He seldom had questions about my notes and was working long hours. However, every time the student wrote up some notes and claimed that he solved one problem, I could always find some obvious loopholes or wrong calculations in the proof. I tried to explain these mistakes and he always quickly absorbed my point. But then the same thing would repeat. He would claim that he solved the problem once again, and then I quickly found out a mistake in his proof. When I asked him to proofread some of his notes himself, he was also not able to spot any mistakes.
After a while, I decided to take the lead and did calculations myself, because maybe he was not well prepared to do calculations by himself. I would let him proofread my notes afterwards and raise questions when he had any. He always claimed that my notes were all correct. It was not a good sign, because sometimes I found out I made some mistakes in my own calculations, but he was never able to spot them.
In the end, I had to finish the project mostly by myself. It was okay, but the experience was kind of intimidating, because I didn't expect a student to act that way. I always imagine a student should either fail to make any calculations or successfully conduct them (like myself), instead of keeping writing notes without knowing they were wrong. It was extremely hard that I was not able to teach him anything because he always acted like he already knew what I said and the mistakes were only a result of carelessness. Still, I find it hard to understand why one can make so many mistakes without knowing.
Question: I was wondering, is there any good method I might adopt if I come across this type of student in the future?

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I think that doing the calculations yourself and asking the student to proofread them may not have been the best approach. If he can't even spot his own mistakes, what are the chances he would spot mistakes by his supervisor? Maybe a better approach would have to have him do the calculations on a blackboard and challenge every step, possibly breaking everything down in small steps. This way you can maybe figure out why he makes these mistakes and how he can avoid them in the future.

Similarly, one could tell the student that they made a mistake in their calculations but leave them to figure out what it is rather than doing it for them.

The blackboard idea and the "leaving them to figure out" idea sound great, and could be quite helpful. I guess initially I didn't want to appear as too harsh on the student so I tried to avoid putting him in a tight spot and instead I hoped to offer him some room to digest the mistakes himself, which clearly didn't work out well.

In general, it's easier to spot errors in other's work than in one's own.

In his Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, von Neumann provided an incorrect proof of the impossibility of a local variable theory of QM that arguably put QM on the wrong track until John Bell decisively refuted it decades later. (This is the popular version, but others insist that von Neumann never intended his statements as a proof). I don't think anyone would call von Neumann a lazy mathematician. The point being that we all make mistakes, and beginners make a lot of mistakes.
You were working with an undergraduate. My point of view is that the primary goal in that situation should be helping the student become better at making sound mathematical arguments. If you get useful work out of the process that's gravy. My strategy would have been to circle the section containing the error, and ask the student to tell me why it might be problematic. Repeat as necessary. The goal of the exercise is to train the student on how to read and critique their own work.
Of course I recognize that I didn't see how egregious the errors were, and some students really are lazy. I'm assuming a good faith effort on the part of the student, who may simply be naive and inexperienced.

Your experiences are normal when supervising undergraduates, and do not represent any failing on your part.
Some thoughts, based on my experiences:

The comparative difference between you and the average undergraduate is much greater than you realise. As a Postdoc, your ability in your subject is much greater than the average student. You have got your degree, probably with good results, enjoyed the subject enough to want to pursue a PhD, got that PhD, and still been motivated enough and with a good enough record to land a Postdoc. Few students will go on to the second two of those. It will take a long time for you to understand the ways in which stuff which is easy for you is hard for people who are much less capable than you.
It is difficult to remember how hard stuff used to be. The stuff that undergraduates are doing now is already second nature to you. It is hard to accurately reflect on your own experiences of learning this stuff for the first time.
Undergraduates will frequently present as more confident and capable than they actually are. Not asking questions is usually not a sign of understanding and competence, but rather an indication that they either have not understood things well enough to ask questions or are worried about making themselves look foolish by asking "silly" questions. In my experience, the best approach is to get them to explain everything back to you once you've explained it.
The success or failure of an individual student is not a reflection on your own abilities. Yes, over a long period of time, your abilities will result in slightly more or slightly fewer students succeeding, but the variation in ability, motivation, etc. of each student is a much bigger factor than you are.

And finally, and I think most importantly, you need to remember that is them that succeed or fail, not you. It is not up to you to ensure the project is a success, it is up to them. You should not complete a project for them.

More info or related to evaluating self/other's ability/understanding being difficult: curse of knowledge (also curse of expertise), illusion of explanatory depth, impostor syndrome, Dunning–Kruger effect.

Unfortunately I do not think any of the existing answers are good. I am pretty sure your analysis of what happened is wrong.

I was initially confident because the student seemed to understand everything I said and was also highly motivated.

He seemed, but did not understand.

He seldom had questions about my notes and were working for long hours.

People who do not understand do not necessarily ask questions. In fact, people who do understand the key concepts almost surely would ask a LOT of questions. Working for long hours implies nothing at all.

However, every time the student wrote up some notes and claimed that he solved one problem, I could always find some obvious loopholes/wrong calculations in the proof.

This is the evidence of incompetency, which you appear to want to overlook.

I tried to explain these mistakes and he always quickly absorbed my point.

He did not absorb anything.

But then the same thing would repeat. He would claim that he solved the problem once again, and then I quickly found out a mistake in his proof.

So of course the same thing repeats.

When I asked him to proofread some of his notes himself, he was also not able to spot any mistakes.

Of course he cannot spot any mistakes when he doesn't have any understanding.

After a while, I decided to take the lead and did calculations myself, because maybe he was not well prepared to do calculations by himself.

He was incapable to do it, not unprepared.

I would let him proofread my notes afterwards and raise questions when he had any. He always claimed that my notes were all correct.

This is exactly what some incompetent people do in order to try to get by.

It was not a good sign, because sometimes I found out I made some mistakes in my own calculations, but he was never able to spot them.

This is the other main piece of evidence that you seem to want to overlook.

In the end, I had to finish the project mostly by myself. It was okay, but the experience was kind of intimidating, because I didn't expect a student to act that way.

It was not okay, and if you continue to do this then you would simply allow more incompetent students to get by.

I always imagine a student should either fail to make any calculations or successfully conduct them (like myself), instead of keeping writing notes without knowing they were wrong.

You made a wrong assumption. Not every student is honest.

It was extremely hard that I was not able to teach him anything because he always acted like he already knew what I said and the mistakes were only a result of carelessness.

Of course incompetent people who are trying to hide their incompetency would give excuses for their mistakes. They will not admit that they do not know anything if they can get away with it.

Still, I find it hard to understand why one can make so many mistakes without knowing.

Already clearly explained.

I was wondering, is there any good method I might adopt if I come across this type of student in the future?

Grade fairly, instead of assuming that they are competent. You can teach an honest hardworking student. But don't assume that you can teach this kind of student that you have described. In almost all cases you would be wasting your time and reducing the amount of time and energy you can spend on your other more honest students.

Since I've dealt with the same type of situations myself, I think this answer is quite good, but it does not present a solution. What I found to help, was reducing the interaction with the student, simplify the problem and requiring them to present a result that can be easily verified.

This answer just forgets all nuance and tries to make the issue into a black and white issue. OP if you treat your student in a tone like this post, then you may irreversibly damage your relationship with them!

The thing with this answer is that it presents a credible story and as such makes some good points. Also the clarity and directness is helpful in my view. The only issue I have is that it presents its case as if there were a subjective probability of 99% behind this, which I personally would rather put at something like 70%. We should always keep an open mind and allow reality to surprise us, even if I suspect this answer hits the nail on its head for a good number of cases.

@ChristianHennig: Yes, we should always keep an open mind and allow each person to prove himself/herself. That is why the only injunction (imperative) in my post is to "grade fairly, instead of assuming ...".

Normally people see their own failings as mistakes and failings in others as character flaws. It speaks well of you that you seemed to have done the opposite, trying to work with the student in correcting their errors, as opposed to just writing them off. Again, that's good of you. But at some point you also have to admit that other people don't care, can't get it, and are just not temperamentally suited for certain jobs. The old saying is that "you can take a donkey to the water, but you can't make him drink." The solution is then, next time, get a better student.

Isn't there anything @Doris could have improved in their teaching approach? Picking a different student (if that's a choice you have) might help the supervisor, but it won't help the student. If you care about teaching, that's not a satisfactory answer.

That would be true in a world with unlimited time. One must triage.

Thank you. I think it is a good point that I shouldn't let this unsuccessful experience affect my expectations on students and have me question myself too much. Maybe next time a different student should suit better.

@henning: Don't forget that the student already had (at least) 12 years of primary and secondary education. Apparently, all those professional(!) teachers were unable to teach the student how to work carefully. It is quite unlikely that a postdoc (= a scientist, not a professional teacher) can fix this by just "trying a different teaching approach". It's very noble of OP to try, but I would not invest too much time in trying to fix something as an amateur where multiple professionals have failed.

This does not answer the question "How to deal with a careless student?" Your 'solution' is simply throwing the problem away and ignoring it, rather than coming up with a plan to solve it. Ironically, you are the one who is ignorant by writing off the student as incompetent and incapable of learning.

@Heinzi What OP needs to do in this case is not 'reteach' the student but rather clear misunderstanding. Labeling every single teacher and professor who has taught the student is arrogant and misguided. You are simply blaming them for your inability to work with the student than actually try to do so yourself. Clearly, the student is at least somewhat competent, otherwise how would they have passed the dozens of classes taught by different professors that got them to this point?

As an experienced IT person, I am not quite in your shoes, but I occasionally work with juniors that display similar behaviour or characterial traits as you describe. My advice thus is this:

Focus on helping them help themselves. Maybe you can point out a specific chapter in some book they have access to, or name a specific technique they can google to help them. Even if they then just transfer the read knowledge unto the task, that will help them already.
Don't be afraid to point out errors. As long as you do that objectively, it's fine. If you, at the moment, have no time (or nerves) for a deep explanation, it is fine to simply point to an error; give maybe a small hint of what it is about, and send them off.
Them being "nice" or "understanding" or agreeing to all you say, or mirroring your sentences, and so on and forth, is neither her or there. It does not reflect in any way about what's going on inside their head when it's time to solve problems, which is the ultimate goal they have to achieve. Feel free to repeatedly remind them that unless they ask you about something, you don't know what to teach them. If you have a scheduled meeting, and they give you no "fodder" for anything to tell them, then the meeting will just be a short one. After 2 or 3 such events, they should be able to get the message.
Remind yourself that they are adults being where they are willingly. They are not in school anymore, which arguably is forced on a good percentage of children against their will. This means that if at any point you get the feeling that they just don't care, it is a good point for you to stop caring as well.  You will not make them better against their own will.
Finally, if it's someone who usually is totally on the right track and just made an obvious, honest, error, you can simply correct it on the spot to save both of you some time. But regularly, do not do that. Nobody is helped by you providing the solution. If they cannot solve a task with the help mentioned above (i.e. you pointing out where they went wrong, and with some helpful pointers what to do instead, but not the whole solution), they might simply not be ready for the level of difficulty yet. They have to work on their skills; or maybe look for simpler tasks (which may or may not be in your scope to help them with).

Finally, you should yourself become clear whether you are in the role of a teacher, a coach or a mentor. It sounds to me that your role is that of a mentor. There are best practices and rules of engagement there - that Wikipedia page should give you some pointers for inspiration. The most important bit about the concept of mentorship (for me personally at least) is that the responsibility lies with the mentee, not the mentor. If the mentee does not pull, the mentor has no reason to push.

What do you mean by "is neither her or there"?

I'd have said it backwards: mentor pulls, mentee pushes... :-)

Do you and the student have the same cultural background? In some cultures you just say "Yes, Sir!" or "Yes, Ma'am!" enthusiastically because you don't question those who rank above you. If the student learns to operate in your culture, the math part might get easier.

It's not just the culture. I have many students and peers from such cultures but they do not do the dishonest things that have been described in this question.

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I believe there is an emotional maturity piece here. It doesn't seem to me that the student is careless about this project if they're putting in the hours, it sounds like they simply don't yet have the "emotional maturity" (which is not a bad thing and normal for an undergrad) for this type of work. If this student's CV seems to be up to par and their technical knowledge is there, but from the inability to ask questions and admit mistakes, there seems to be an emotional aspect missing from this student's ability to perform.
In this case, it's your role (should you accept it, most people don't and just fail the student, which is fine) to provide a safe space for the student to ask questions and "scaffold" (this is a parenting term) the technical work at the student's pace, so you're kindly and supportively there to lead him through getting stuck or stumped.
This takes building a safe, personal, and informal relationship where the student can show up as themselves, rather than the "I know everything" robot that they think you expect them to be.
I vividly remember doing research as an undergrad and thinking I need to put on my armor to make myself seem smarter or more legit around the grad students, post docs, and especially the professor at the expense of vulnerability and true learning. The emotional immaturity makes us believe we MUST to show up as more capable than we really are to be accepted, supported, and respected. It's intimidating to be the new (little) guy amongst giants.

Here is my opinion as a student of this type.
Let's take, for instance, something as simple as F=ma. This is something which can be introduced to high school students, and they may say they understand it, but if you give some random questions, then they may not know how to start, or have a lot of misconceptions of be able to use the law, but incorrectly.
The main issue stems of a feeling that the person feels that they understand the main text completely, but when trying to apply in another context realizes that the main text actually said something different than they thought, and that the issue is more complicated than initially thought. This is a fundamental problem that pedagogy has to tackle. Related question on Philosophy SE by me, also tangentially related Veritasium video
I believe, this fundamentally stems from a conceptual gap in understanding the material, and if the student were to somehow have an introduction to the material which tries to give the concepts which the technical details try so hard to capture, then they would be able to make all the calculations up to arithmetic errors.
For example, I'd imagine it'd be the same type of difficulty one has if one tries to paint Mona Lisa from a description of it, without ever seeing it. It seems clear to me that a person who has actually seen it, or has active sight of Mona Lisa would be able to pain it easier than a descriptive person.

Incidentally, I found a certain fix to dealing with these kind of issues when I started doing powerlifting. In videos where they instruct on how to do the motion that you'd typically find on YouTube, there'd be an end section where they discuss how the exercise commonly go wrong. So, perhaps you could try giving probing with questions of common misunderstandings to check if he understood the material/ kick him out of the Dunning–Kruger state.

In my personal opinion, very few number of people can understand the text in the intended meaning by author in first go. And everyone suffers from these issues to some degree. For some people, on the outside you feel they don't have the problem, because they try work themself their problems in private or ask on SE :)

Since you said physics, maybe you could ask them to read Penrose's books?

According to the book The Peter Principle, your student has reached his level of incompetency, and therefore, is not capable of figuring out the mistakes all by himself.
I am a software tech lead, and I'm facing exactly the same issue. When doing code reviews with junior developers, I can easily point out the mistakes while they were having hard time to identify them.
Albert Einstein once said:

You cannot solve a problem with the same mind that created it.

So, with that said, I think we're down with 2 options. First one would be continue to help the student to raise his level of competency, and second option would be to find a replacement, if necessary.

An "undergraduate student" is someone that started his university studies and will end up with a 3 years diploma (at least this is how I understand it - this is how it works in most of Europe).
You therefore have the whole zoo of students: the ones that arrived there by mistake because there was some light on, the ones who wanted to do A and realized that this is not for them, the ones that wanted to do A but are not good enough to do it, the ones that are in the right place, the ones ...
You got an average student who is nice enough to show enthusiasm but was maybe not that interested in the topic. He maybe wants to go through it to put a checkmark and go ahead. From my experience, this is 76% of students.
I studied physics which I loved. I also had math which I saw as a useful toolbox and that's all (I also have screwdrivers and I am not that interested in all the love that was put into their engineering). Calculus was great, algebra was a walking nightmare. I smiled my way through algebra and was happy to close that chapter of my life.

is there any good method I might adopt if I come across this type of student in the future?

With time you will get better at choosing the students to have the ones that are actually interested.
In the meantime, well, you will not change the world and will end up with students like me. I would have loved my teacher to just give up. She did not, which I appreciate as a human, because she loved her topic and I am a rather nice guy so I smiled and tried my best to do pretend work.
I also had economics during my PhD and I forgot to take part in any of the courses (which I now regret). I realized that a bit late (when I read that we had to get a mark for that) and crawled miserably into her office. She said that she prefers to have students that are interested and she also realizes that economics is like any topic - someone may not like it (she said she hated physics at school). Gave me a top mark (it did not matter the slightest, just bureaucracy) and we were done.


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Does a masters degree help completing PhD sooner?
Do students with Masters Degree complete their PhDs (in US, but I am curious about other countries too) sooner than the one's who have entered the PhD program after their undergrad?
I know it depends upon the individual, project, major and the supervisor but is there a general trend?

In Belgium it's quite uncommon to start a PhD without having a Masters degree.

yes, but does people with masters degree complete their PhD's sooner..

Yes, you will probably complete the PhD a bit sooner. You'll have more research experience, and if continuing your research on the same or similar project, you'll already have experience in the field. However, the time shaved off your PhD will almost certainly be much less than the time invested in your Master's.

@Moriarty sounds like an answer, not a comment :)

In some European countries, having a Masters degree is actually mandatory to apply for a PhD program.

This varies by program.  In the US, in mathematics, "par" for a master's is 2 years.  In some PhD programs, this will cut a year off your time-to-degree.  In others, no help at all.  In rare cases, it will cut two years off.

It depends on the university and the program.
In the US, most PhD granting institutions have pre-requisites for getting your PhD.  This may include coursework and will also require research.
For research, one could argue that if you did research in the course of your Master's degree then you would have a time advantage in that you may be able to hit the ground running and engage in publish-able research more quickly.
In institutions that require coursework, the amount of coursework that overlaps with a Master's program can vary.  Often, even if you've taken similar coursework in another university, you would still need to fulfill the course requirements in the department where you're going for your PhD.  For programs that offer a combined Master's/PhD program, the courses for getting your PhD may be covered under the requirements for getting a Master's, so by already having a Master's degree you may only be shaving off a few of your requirements.
Last, at least in Computer Science, a Master's degree and a PhD are fundamentally different in what they're trying to educate you for.  A Master's degree is more like an advanced bachelor's degree where you're taking additional courses and gaining extra skills.  A PhD is for research.  Given that fundamental difference, it's difficult to say how much would transfer over and again, it would really depend on the university and the program's expectations of what you should have when you enter and what you requirements you need to fulfill once you get there.

It is true that it may not shave much time off of your Ph.d, however, it prepares you for the radically different type of education that is graduate school. Forget about time, an M.A will ultimately contribute to your doctoral success in so many varying ways from acclimation to research habits.

Not really, for example if you make your master's is like 2 years, and then your PhD in 4 years, roughly is going to be 6 years that you spent until you got your terminal degree.
I some universities is not required to follow a Master's first. I know the case of one undergraduate student who was always interested in research (when he was in his last year of bachelor he published two good articles in an important ACM conference); he applied directly to a PhD program and he got it. Now he has finished his PhD in only 4 years, and the background that he was missing he got it by following specific courses. So at the end all depends in your background and the passion you got for research.

In my department, students who enter with a masters don't have to take much formal coursework, while those who enter without one have to take much more.
Students with a masters therefore (in theory) have more time and focus to spend on research in the first year or two.
But this doesn't seem to help them finish faster (maybe by a tiny imperceptible amount). Most students aren't working very much on what will become their thesis work in that first year anyways - it's hard to come in and hit the ground running. So while the students entering with a masters might have more time for research in year 1, it doesn't usually directly advance the thesis work.

From my experience in Biochemistry and Neurobiology (and I'm assuming most Biology and Chemistry fields).
Unfortunately, in the US, no it does not help in completing a PhD sooner.
Sometimes a masters is necessary for a person just to get into a PhD program, depending on the person's history and the program.
It would help if the PhD had some requirement of a certain level of understanding or even amount of research work, but instead a PhD tends to just require an amount of time as an indentured servant to your PI - and that amount of time doesn't change if you have a masters. Although, if you're clever and a good salesman maybe you can convince your PI and committee that your masters time should count toward your sentence/years of labor.

I disagree with the characterization of a PhD as an indentured servitude - it's definitively not that in my field.

Well it is in many fields, and down voting my comment doesn't make it any less true. There are positives and negatives of Academia. But ignoring the problems doesn't help anyone.

I didn't downvote your answer, but if you believe this is standard in your field, maybe you can specify what field your answer applies to.

True, it varies widely from field to field I'm sure. Some fields have very little interaction with their professors.

I would say that it does not only rely on the field but also on the person you are working with and how they are working.

I would agree, but my experience (not just personal) is that a Masters doesn't help, and that it is mostly just an amount of time that determines the awarding of the PhD. I have seen horrible defenses... and they graduate. And I have seen fantastic defenses, where the person should have graduated years before. And since the research is so specialized there is standard as to a level of knowledge one needs to gain. Granted the majority get the knowledge they should, I'm not saying a PhD doesn't signify expertise. I'm just saying the time to degree has little to do with anything except time.

It would help if the PhD had some requirement of a certain level of understanding or even amount of research work — Any PhD program that does not absolutely require research is completely worthless; it's indentured servitude attached to a diploma mill.  But hey, that's just my opinion, man.

@JeffE I'm not disagreeing, I'm answering the question and saying the reality of the situation. It isn't, however, worthless. The people coming out are, for the most part, reaching some level of expertise and if they don't produce some level of research they can't do much with their degree anyway. BUT, this IS what I have seen. So I would hire a PhD knowing they are likely advanced. However, I know that PhDs have become somewhat devalued, and the system is kind of broken and exploits grad students as servants.

@ff524 In defense of the life sciences broken system. We do get paid (not a ton) as student researchers. And thus it is more like a job than other grad programs. But you are kind of at the whim of the professor, and your getting way underpaid for your skill level... well at first the skill level isn't great so maybe the PI's justify themselves by thinking they are getting their moneys worth?

I get paid as an engineering PhD student, and I will graduate when I have shown that I can do independent research. No indentured servitude here :)

Yeah, my friends in engineering and computer science have a different story (generally). I am (with my life sciences PhD) now working mostly writing code, for bioinformatic analyses :) I'm guessing the grad experience of engineering, CS is somewhat because of the job prospects preventing such abuse of the students :)

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Map (tree) of citations/references
I was wondering if there already exists a software/service that allows to build a tree of references/citing articles starting from a selected paper X. For example paper X has a list of references, call it bibliography[X]. This list of references is usually presented in the journal's webpage and, in fortunate cases, the list is also accessible by cross-reference. The idea is then to go to all the papers Y in bibliography[X] and repeat the process for the papers in each bibliography[Y] up to some depth.
On the other hand, we could also look at the citing articles of X, which is also displayed in the journal's webpage as well as in other resources, e.g. Google Scholar.
In this way the tree of references/citing articles of X up to some depth can be obtained and plotted in a nice graphical framework and perhaps display relevant information of the vertices of the tree like title, doi, etc. In my opinion this would be a very nice and efficient way of discovering new papers related to some paper, e.g. a seminal paper (citing articles tree) or to look into the history of a subject (references tree).
I have been looking for something like that for some time but so far nothing. I think Microsoft Academic Search would have the potential to do this by using the same framework they use for the Co-author path. Also there is this project for JabRef but it is not what I'm looking for.
Edit:
Something like this would be perfect but unfortunately it is not available to the public.

I think it will only be useful when you add other filters, e.g. specific keywords or minimal number of citations. Otherwise it will be too large to display reasonably: e.g. 30 references per paper makes 900 nodes at depth 2.

Web of Science has this, but it's slow and ugly.

I totally agree with David. And I think the reason it's nearly useless is basically what silvado said; partly because of its UI, but mostly because, without some sort of intelligent filter, the tree becomes too huge to be of practical use at an exponential rate.

If citations in my humanities discipline / sub-discipline had a decent level of automated pick-up and appropriate automated graphing I would be excited.

@YuichiroFujiwara I don't think it is useless even without filter. See for example http://www.autodeskresearch.com/projects/citeology

@Barefeg If I'm not mistaken, Citeology you linked to used only 3,502 papers. Accoding to Wikipedia, Web of Science now indexes around 65,000,000 items per year and covers data from the year 1900. I tend to think that your tree used a pretty strong filter and only proves my point.

@YuichiroFujiwara My point is that it is possible to show many papers (>900) and still get useful information

@Barefeg I don't call 3500 "many" when we're talking about data that contain hundreds of millions of items with no filter. It's a tiny drop in the ocean. If you're responding silvado, not me, who mentioned 900 nodes at depth 2, I think what he means is that $30^n$ is exponential, i.e., n=2 doesn't have a special meaning to it. If 900 is something special to you, take n=3 and you get 27000. If you find a nicely drawn tree with 30000 nodes, take n=4 then. "With no filter" is a very strong condition. I'm sorry, but whatever point you wanted to make, I don't see it.

@YuichiroFujiwara But say that you could insert a node, expand it, and then select only a couple of references; then expand one of them, and select again. It's less automated but you would still be able to reconstruct 10 years of relevant articles in a very short time.

\begin{pedantic} It will generally not be a tree, since it happens frequently that source A cites both papers B and C, where C is used as a reference in B. \end{pedantic}

You could give Docear a try. It allows you to create a "mind map" among many other things. Not sure if its still maintained though..

Here's a list https://musingsaboutlibrarianship.blogspot.com/p/list-of-innovative-literature-mapping.html

I suspect the OP is asking for something that does more of the details automatically, but I will mention that networkx has been a very useful package to me in working with citation network and co-authorship networks. Not publication quality, certainly made on a hurried schedule, but you can take a peek at my related school project.

http://www.qiqqa.com/About/Features has mindmap network visualizer too

If you're serious about such a project, I think what you need to do is recognize that this task naturally separates into two parts. It will be very easy to find a good, general purpose and freely available program that suits your taste for visualizing/analyzing/discovering networks in general. I think cytoscape is pretty good, although I've only played around with it a little and many others exist.
Now, the second (well, first) part is to fetch and prepare the input data for the citation relationships of interest to you. You need to be very specific about exactly where you want to get this from and for what subset of articles, since it may not be possible (due to license restrictions) or technically feasible (as noted, the size of the network grows exponentially).

I was looking for a similar tool! I found four resources with varying implementations/usefulness but they are all online and based on doi/paper title search:

Citation Tree (mentioned in another answer, not a lot of information/interactive elements)
Inciteful.xyz
Litmaps
Connected Papers

The Web of Science based applications like CitNetExplorer (from the same developers as the recommended VOSviewer above) might be more exhaustive or have more customization tools, but I found them difficult to get working and they required downloading an application.

ResearchRabbit is another. Unfortunately it seems these all rely on databases of citations and just won't work for some papers, especially those that don't have DOI.

This is probably the online tool that is the closest to what is described in the question here:
https://www.citationtree.org/

This is a tool if you use Zotero to manage your references and use the Related feature to link references together: https://www.conundrumescapes.com/zotnet/zotnet.php

One way to do this is to use VOSviewer. It will not fetch the citation information for you, but you can download the results of a Web of Science search into a (series of) file that contain so called records with the cited references of each article in the search.
VOSviewer can build a citation graph from such files, and has a bunch of features to color the graph based on other publication info (publication date, number of citations, ...). The graph nodes may either represent publication, authors or keywords, and the vertices may represent citation, keyword co-occurrence, co-authorship, ...
Still, I wish there would be a better option, for the features of VOSviewer remain limited and the graph layout is not so easy to control.

Web of Science has a similar tool called Citation Map. but it is not free even on many public university campuses. I wonder if there are free tools/scripts who do  https://youtu.be/Qr8wQnTHMMg

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
Contributions of indirect research toward getting a post-doc
I am an engineering student, however, my graduate research is more inter-disciplinary (computational science).  Which is good for me in some ways, because one of my better skills is programming, since I've been doing it avidly as a hobby for a very long time.  Because of this, it would be much easier for me to create a widely used computational science software tool rather than a highly-cited journal article.
With the specific aim of getting a post-doc at a top-ranked university, how does creating a useful piece of software (like an original, optimized quantum monte carlo implementation for example) compare to a widely-cited journal article?  In other words, if done well, both would be highly-cited, but do frequent citations of software carry the same weight as top-tier research articles?

If your work is original, there are a number of conferences and workshops which will accept a paper that describes its novelty and why it is better/faster than competing work.

It is a common pattern to ask those who use your software in a publications to cite the manual, which can be published as a technical report, or a short paper describing the software. See for instance http://wiki.hpc.ufl.edu/doc/FFTW, http://wiki.octave.org/FAQ#How_can_I_cite_Octave.3F. If the software is useful, those citations pile up to form a huge critical mass. For instance, the manual of the MAGMA computer algebra system has been the top-cited math paper in 2009, 2010, 2011 (according to mathscinet).

The following applies to the neuroscience and the biological sciences.
In almost all cases, the article will win. This is typically due to the attitude that writing software isn't research; it's implementation. In some cases, you will have to overcome technical challenges when implementing the software, but for the most part you'll simply be coding up techniques that were developed and iterated upon by a different research group.
Note that there do exist labs that both developing analytical techniques and then have a team as part of the group who translates that into software development. The Wellcome Trust Center in UCL comes to mind here; they have developed a number of techniques used for detecting brain activity, as well as brain mapping, and they maintain a software suite that allows researchers to use their techniques. There are a number of similar groups in different fields (e.g., medical image analysis (project)(group), MEG analysis (project)(group)). These labs have typically demonstrated over time their strength in developing research software, and are able to obtain grants to specifically support development of their software.

I would agree, except I would add that it doesn't matter to them whether the software writing is research and that collecting data using obvious biological protocols and then interpreting the results in the standard ways is also "just implementation".  In the biological sciences, people value biology and are not particularly willing to consider--except when such is in excruciatingly high demand--tools that aid biological research in lieu of the research itself.

@RexKerr - That is completely true, and as you stated yourself, people don't care. To be recognized you have to do research, period. Everything else is icing on the cake.

"That's not writing.  That's typing." — Truman Capote on Jack Kerouac

My attitude is that if software development is held in low academic esteem in your field, don't do it. My fantasy is that enough of us will vote with our feet until the work is recognized or the fields collapse.

There's a thresholding effect for software. If you create a piece of software that has a huge number of downloads and has visible impact, that will count for something. However, with papers, you wouldn't need to have the same level of impact to have the same effect on interviewers.
The problem really is that academics don't know how to evaluate the impact of software development, and would need help doing so. I imagine that if your potential post-doc advisor has used your software, you won't need to do much explaining. But if not, and your research credentials are otherwise weaker, it might be difficult to justify.

Attitudes are slowly but surely changing--here is an indication. As of January, the NSF required that the Publications section of NSF biosketches be changed to Products. It is remarkable how important names are to bureaucrats; in this case, the change reflects the awareness that the publications category excluded much of the work of scientific programmers, inventors and the producers of data sets (data sets are routinely referred to as products in the geo and social sciences). The previous biosketch format tended to make the inclusion of software and data sets (not to mention other contributions) under Publications often seem forced. The practice of citing technical reports and papers on software instead of directly citing it ought to be questioned. Given the ever increasing importance of software and data set production for many kinds of scientific research, it is a welcome development not to have to diminish significant and specialized contributions by citing published reports on products that could be cited directly (in contrast to certain inventions) or by hiding them under Synergistic Activities.  In time, administrators will get the message that software production ought to count more than it does.

"the publications category excluded the much...". The "the" may be redundant.

Excrescent 'the' removed.

Hey, I learned a new word! :-)


text:
What is the difference between dual degree, 2 Bachelors and double major?
We are considering to offer double majors between my department and other departments. While looking at examples from other universities, we came across other terms such as dual degree.
On the undergraduate level what is the difference, generally speaking, between:

Double Major
Dual Degree
Two Bachelors

Moa

The Double Degree (Dual Degree) wiki page has some explanation about the difference between double degree and double major. I don't know how accurate it is, though. Thanks for asking this question. I didn't know.

My understanding is that:
Double Degree often means you get two full Bachelors degrees, which may be from two different universities, in two entirely unrelated subject areas. Often these programs are designed to be completed in 5--6 years total. I have also sometimes seen it used with reference to graduate programs. For example, a double degree Masters/PhD program, though this is rarer in my experience.
Double Major means you get a single degree from one university, but with a speciality in two related subject areas. For example, you could be a Physics/Chemistry double major. Typically this means you satisfy the core requirements of both programs, possibly using the electives of one to fill in the core of the other.
Two Bachelors means you get two full Bachelors degrees. Sometimes this is used as a synonym for a Double Degree, sometimes it is differentiated by requiring that both degrees be granted by the same institution.

I would have supposed things would be the other way around for 'double degree' and 'two bachelors' with regard to getting them from the same university or not.

a double degree doesn't have to mean 2 Ba degrees. It could be a PhD in computational physics and a Ba in CS for example (can imagine one engaging in CS work to gain knowledge required to create complex computer simulations or computer controlled lab setups).


text:
What to do if most of the students did badly in the 1st midterm?
What to do if the average of the 1st midterm is like 35%?
Should I repeat the exam? should I ask them to redo the problems in which most of them did poorly in the exam and average the old score and the new score?
Other suggestions?
(The level of the exam is not different from past exams, where the average was around 60%. Same learning outcomes, same everything as past semesters. The only difference I made this semester was to break each question into sub questions, each of which will target certain concept in the main question. Students usually have the habit of asking for partial credits for writing relevant equations without knowing how to use them properly. I made that change to see how clear they understand things and to make grading scheme less ambiguous. I have already trained them on similar problems and concept questions in class, but it seems that they did not take it seriously or they are not used to that, I am not sure)
An Update: I regraded some papers using the same way I graded papers in past semesters (just by looking at the overall solution of each question) and the average became slightly higher (~40)

The first thing you need to know is why they did so poorly. If you do not know that, any change might well make things worse.

Was it so that they did poorly in the exam because of poor learning outcomes during the course or in spite of good learning outcomes?

@earthling I edited the question.

That helps. It would also help to know what percentage on the exam is passing. The US and UK, for example, can be quite different.

@earthling passing grade is 55%

Start by learning the difference between "doing bad" and "doing badly."

It sounds to me like you're underestimating how different this exam is from your previous exams.  This sounds like a pretty major change, and I wouldn't expect when implementing a major change in format for the scores to be comparable to what they were in previous years.

@CarlWitthoft : surely you mean "doing poorly" (smile). But more seriously, given that many users here will be non-native speakers of English, I personally try to focus on the content and not on the grammar, unless the grammar makes the content too difficult to discern.

@OswaldVeblen I'd agree except that I have much higher standards for anyone in the teaching profession.

Thanks @CarlWitthoft for pointing out my mistake, I overlooked it.

Speaking as an older (40+) student... Not everyone is brilliant with an intuitive understanding of the subject. Carl Sagan himself said students who struggle often understand the material better. If even the people who put in the work aren't "getting" it, then you might have to face the idea that there's a problem in the presentation. It isn't letting people "slide" when you try to maximize the number of people who come out of your course with the knowledge you want to impart. To me, treating a class as a "winnowing" is not really helping your field out in the long run anyway.

Not to say, BTW, that some kids don't put in the work. Some don't. But I have had a few teachers who I felt really did a great job of teaching, and some who I thought didn't really work out what areas were conceptually hard and which ones were not. I am taking Quantum Mechanics now and the professor is good precisely because he doesn't use it all the time in his work; so he has done a bang-up job of helping us all through the math and the concepts. i.e. Much of it isn't "simple" to him either. Am I making sense?

If the exam outcome looks like a glitch there may be some external factor. Was there a party the night before the midterm? Some sports event? Anything you can think of?!

What I usually do, and this would also apply in this situation: I tell the students that if their performance improves significantly in the final exam, and if any of the remaining exams/quizes, I am willing to ignore the grade for the first midterm when I calculate their grades.
But they have to prove that the first midterm was an accident.
This usually motivates them to work harder for the remaining of the class, and for some students a poor first midterm is a good wake up call.

It's worth noting that this approach will be prohibited at many institutions, where (quite rightly) the lecturer will not be permitted to adjust the assessment schedule during semester.

@sapi Yes, I was thinking about adding to my answer that one needs to check if the rules allow the instructor this freedom. The reason I didn't add it is because the OP said that he considers redoing the exam, or allowing the students rewrite the problems where they struggled. This implies that he has enough flexibility...

Just play a bit of devil's advocate here (actually, students' advocate.)
I feel it's unfair to say if a student just put down some relevant answers, then he/she is just trying to slide by. To lecturers all these appropriate answers are like a well organized wardrobe. We can immediately tell if the answer is spot on or is beating the surrounding bush. However, for students, their wardrobe is their whole dorm room. New information is being incorporated on a daily basis and students may not have enough time and experience in applying the information to make the organization happen before the exam date.
Just because the concept of "you should meticulously answer the questions" was demonstrated and stressed in class does not mean it can be successfully applied in exam because there are a lot more stress and a lot less sleep the night before in an exam condition.
Because the expectations are different in both entities, once you have delivered the exam back, I believe the immediate reaction from them will not be "I should pay more attention in class," but more like "this lecturer is a very unreasonable grader (or anything more profane/derogatory.)" A 35% average is not unheard of; a 35% average plus a group of eager students who want to make their final exam right is something I've definitely never heard of. They will hate you and the atmosphere in class will deteriorate.
All these are to say, if you're going to unleash this chaos, you must be 100% sure you don't bear any problem or fault. From all the related posts of yours, I couldn't help but wonder why this change (from granting partial credit to everything has to be right on or you'll get a zero?) To make sure there is at least some reliability, I'd suggest picking a few papers from the low, medium, and high tiers and give them to a couple colleagues with your new grading scheme and ask them to grade in their own privacy. Check with them and see if their scores are different and discuss why.
I also love the idea of @earthling about interviewing with some students or class representatives.
In future tests, I'd suggest instead of using the new strict marking scheme all across, use a separate system to denote questions that will be marked strictly (for instance, with a *** in front of the question or dedicate a subsection for them.) This is to allow you to phase into this new scheme slowly. The information you gain in the process will also help you refine your questions. Students will not take such a big blunt, and they will have a chance to see these questions as a challenge rather than a threat.
To conclude, I'd like to share this inspiring quote (which I unfortunately don't know to whom I should attribute):

Teach the students that you have, not the students that you want to
  have.

While I fully embrace the idea of teaching the students to be serious and meticulous, I'd still consider an overall positive learning environment takes priority. And if I have to relax my criteria somewhat, I will do that within reason. This 35% ordeal is an unfortunate event; I am really sorry that happens but can't help to also think that this is tainted with some overly zealous expectations, and I do hope you'll fine an optimal decision soon.

It is good to know that there are people who even care about these things. :)

I never said that my criteria for grading is strict, 1 or 0, all or nothing. The way I wrote the exam this time made me pinpoint their weaknesses. I give partial credits for the sub questions. I care about their leaning, and I try to keep a friendly atmosphere in the class. What I meant by not letting them slide by is being too easy with them as far as grading is concerned.

@Moa, you don't need to defend against me, you'll have plenty of defense to do. :) From the question I could only guess the scheme has become stricter because the course has "same everything as past semesters" and "[t]he only difference [you] made this semester was to break each question into sub questions." From your case, I think you need peers' inputs to ensure the grading is reliable. I agree with your motive, but I don't like the 35% outcome, it'd be a classroom disaster. And these all are just my own opinion/experience.

@Penguin_Knight I completely agree with everything you've written. I would add that my first thought was that by breaking up big questions into several smaller questions the earlier students might have had it easier: Maybe Moa was giving the benefit of the doubt before, but there is no doubt now because of the details now being produced. I know I've certainly assumed, in the past, that my students understand details not written simply because it was one (not the only) way to interpret what they did write. Either way, yes, it is difficult situation for all involved.

I'm somewhat surprised by "Teach the students that you have, not the students that you want to have."; to my understanding, what is expected of someone pursuing higher education should not be adjusted to their capabilities, willingness or discipline. Having people pass courses certifies that they acquired a specific standard of knowledge and skills to a certain degree. If you don't have students who are up to that standard, the reasonable course of action is to not offer the class, not to let standards slip, no?

@G.Bach, thanks! And I think you took that quote a bit too far. Say, I want my students to read the assigned chapters before class, but none of them are reading nowadays. Then I'd consider making serial online lectures in place of reading. Just like instead of switching the marking scheme overnight, I advised phasing in. There are learning objectives that I would defend and try my best to get them thorough, but the processes to get there need to be adjusted according to students, trends, technology, and practicality.

@G.Bach Some professors see teaching as an annoyance at best. As I said in another comment, the ability to learn the material and being a brilliant prodigy in a given subject aren't always correlated. Also, every student hasn't had the same opportunities or experience before university. Many things you might take as common knowledge often are not. But ignorance =/= stupidity or slacking. Think of how many great contributors to your field there are you might miss because the student was struggling and you said "Well, they aren't up to standards." When students give up, we all lose.

@G.Bach My personal experience is of a big cultural difference between the UK and North America (I can't speak for other places). In the UK the school system is based on the idea of reaching a fixed standard that's then certificated. When students get low marks, they think they have not worked hard enough. In North America, the students are generally only used to being compared with their peers. If the marks are low then they say the test was written wrongly. The golden rule is that the marks come out the same each time. Even the lectures see absolute standards as either unworkable or wrong.

You have two issues:

how to make sure that student's final marks in this course represent their true understanding of the material
how to fix whatever has caused a generally low level of understanding so far in this course.

For the first one, I have once or twice given this speech:

Some of you feel that this year's midterm was [too hard, not enough time provided, unfairly weighted to one set of topics, held on a day you couldn't think properly] and does not represent your true knowledge in this course. If you think so too, then send me an email within the next week and I will replace your midterm mark with [your mark on the next midterm, your mark on the final exam] when calculating your overall mark in this course. You may not wait to make this decision until after you have written another test or seen your mark on another test. Tell me right now that's not me and the mark won't count.

Surprisingly, some people who failed the midterm do not take this offer. "What if I do even worse on the final?" they ask me. I tell them, "then you'll fail the course no matter how I calculate your mark," but they hold back anyway. People who take the offer usually do extraordinarily well on the final. I think they crank their studying up dramatically.
That stops all the "but I am going to lose my scholarship!" "My parents will disown me!" responses. They can set this mark aside if they need to. But you need to address the fact they haven't really learned the material, they are just scribbling down some equations they hope are related. This may mean extra tutorial hours, taking two or three times the length of the midterm to walk through solutions slowly and carefully, taking questions. It may mean offering practice questions so that they can see if they get it now. (Have them mark their own work with the textbook as a guide, to keep your workload manageable.)
Once they are actually learning the material, you won't feel bad about giving them a final mark that is not pulled down by their initial difficulties. And you'll have solved the underlying problem for both yourself and for them.

If you are confident that the students did not take things seriously, then I believe you only have one option: Fail them and leave it at that. If you allow the students to "slide by" without putting in even the minimum effort then you will see even more of that in the future (and so will other teachers, until someone allows the students to fail).
Of course, you need to be sure of this. I would interview some of the stronger students and see what they thought the problem was.
As a point of personal experience, I had one student who failed a subject I teach (he took it from another teacher whom I replaced). When he retook the class, he got me. I failed him because he put in no work. He took the class a third time (second time from me) and I failed him again because, again, he put in no work. Then he took the class a third time and I failed him again. Finally, he did put in the work. What he produced was still quite weak but it was enough to justify a minimum passing grade. I am confident that he would have never learned the need to actually put in effort if I did not take a hard stand like this.
Now, your case is a bit different because you are talking about a whole class and not a single student. I also had a case like this where the students thought they could "outsmart" their teachers. I failed 50% of the class that semester. Some of those dropped out of school (not only because of their performance in my subject) and others re-took the subject. I actually thought the school would complain about me failing so many students but there was not one word (and years have passed since then).
Don't let them slack off but do make sure it is really them slacking and that the problem does not lie elsewhere. If they deserve a 35%, then give them a 35%.

There is no way I would let them to slide by.

I meant to imply that letting them redo some problems is letting them slide by. That is, you would be letting them off the hook for their poor performance by allowing them to do it again. Of course, if there are other assessments coming up, then they don't need to fail, they just live with the results of not working hard enough for the first one (lower score for the module).

I think you mean "flunk them," not "fail them."  The latter implies the teacher did not do his job properly, not that he's going to give them all a failing grade.

@CarlWitthoft I was referring to definition 4b here. I have never heard a university educator use flunk (in the US, UK, or Asia). I have many complaints about how English is developing, such as people using "till" meaning "until" but I try to go with the masses.

OK, well, I'm just a grumpy old-timer (you know, get offa my lawn, etc)

@earthling - where I am I hear professors use "flunk" all the time. In a formal setting it is less common. But in front of the class? One said "I WILL flunk you if you try X..."

@CarlWitthoft In Taiwan, the most common word students/teachers use for fail/flunk is "down". You hear people in the university say "I'll down you"/"I am down" all the time. I personally think the word "down" is abused or misused too much. But, this is the masses, what can you say?

@scaaahu  Interesting -- slang varies wildly, doesn't it?

In my experience, when an entire class does that badly, it's almost always the professor's fault, although they will usually never admit it, not even when the faculty commission just gave them a rap on the knuckles for it.
In all my years as a student I came across only one such situation where it wasn't the professor's fault: the courses were planned unreasonably close together and the contact time (lectures, lab work, and so on) was greatly reduced compared to the previous year. One day the class realised that considering we would all fail some course anyway, we would be able to help out each other a lot better if we all failed the same course.
But most of the time an entire class does bad, the professor simply was an inept teacher. Other causes of situations like this have included: exam drawn up by a different professor than the one who taught the class, exam unreasonably hard compared to exercises, exam covered different subject matter than the lectures, lecturer tried to cram too much material in a short course, and bad comprehension due to bad study materials.
It is possible for a student to overcome these problems by self-study (I got through some of those massive failures unscathed myself) but only to some extent and not consistently so.

While this anecdote is interesting, it doesn't necessarily answer the question, especially from a professor's point of view. The exam is done, and the issue of the poor grade needs to be addressed with this in mind.


text:
At what point is someone considered too old (in terms of experience) for an Assistant Professor position?
I competed for an Assist. Prof. in Greece with someone with 12+ years experience since PhD. Suffice it to say that it did not turn out well for me (4 years of experience) or other interviewees for that matter, even though many of us had the better* research output in terms of quality, ranked venues, and achievements (3rd party grants and so on), but clearly not as many citations as we do not exist long enough in the field.
It also did not help that the committee favorite had their BSc, MSc, and PhD in that same university, and 12+ of postdoc in a partner lab in the vicinity.
But, anyway, I asked the committee the following question, which I also pose here: At which point (if there is such a point) is someone considered too old (in terms of experience) for an Assist. Prof. position?
They told me that the favorite had a higher citation count, so even if they were 60 years in the field they would still rank them first because of that. In my opinion, even though that might well be legal, it does not seem very ethical to me.
I am under the impression that an Assist. Prof. position is an entry level position where you are supposed to form your own lab, attract early-career grants to help you with that (which have experience-age restrictions), and work towards becoming a professor.
*As an example, I will simply say that the position was on AI with a focus on Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, and the committee favorite had 0 articles in IJCAI, AAAI, KR, AIJ, or JAIR, whereas I had 6.

Are you suggesting that there should be a bias toward younger people and against older ones?

@Buffy no, I suggest there should be a preference to people with less years of experience, regardless of their physical age, because the position is entry-level. As an example, Assist. Prof. positions in Finland and Germany are typically limited to up to 6 years of experience since PhD. If you want to apply, you can do so for an Assoc. or Full Prof. position, assuming that there is such an opening; likewise, they will not consider anyone with less than x years of experience for the latter positions.

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https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/3426/how-old-is-too-old-for-a-phd

"I am under the impression that an Assist. Prof. position is an entry level position"  This just is not true in most fields.  Perhaps certain humanities fields.

Did the call for application mention any age-limits?

To me, what you are suggesting sounds to me a little like a hypothetical case of discrimination where a firm says, "We don't have any preference for males; we just want a candidate who pees while standing up."

No sane committee is ever going to turn down a candidate solely for being 'too experienced', and it is rarely meaningful to reduce someone's CV and accumulated experience to just a few numbers. However, this comes with some qualifications:

If someone is reaching career milestones (e.g. first Asst. Prof. job) much later than the norm, a committee might question why, and whether this is a sign that future development will be slow.
If someone is applying for a job that is 'too junior' for them, committees might be concerned that either (i) they're not really a serious applicant, or (ii) that they'll quit as soon as something better comes along.
By definition, if someone has more experience, then the committee has more information on which to base a decision. Junior candidates often have to be assessed in terms of 'potential for success' rather than 'evidence of success'. This can count for or against the more experienced applicant: some committees may prefer to gamble on a rising star, others may prefer the security of an established candidate.
Hiring decisions (just as everything else) are influenced by many external factors. Everything from financial considerations (experienced candidate may cost more) through to government policy (how candidate's metrics would influence the university's ranking and hence income) may help sway a decision for or against a particular candidate.

No sane committee is ever going to admit to turning down a candidate solely for being too experienced.

"No sane committee is ever going to turn down a candidate solely for being 'too experienced'" well, ETH Zurich has in their official recruiting guidelines that Assistant Professors should be under an "academic" age of 35 ... https://ethz.ch/en/the-eth-zurich/working-teaching-and-research/faculty-affairs/arten-von-professuren/assistenzprofessuren.html

When an employer hires someone to do a job, in academia or anywhere else, their goal is to hire the best person to do that job, according to some notion that the people in charge of hiring have of what “best” means.
Now, you can reasonably disagree with someone else’s idea of what “best” means and think that they’d be making a mistake to hire person X over person Y. You may well even turn out to be right about that. But if they are operating in good faith and their definition of “best” is free of biases related to characteristics of the job candidate that have no effect on the candidate’s ability to do the job, you cannot claim that the action of hiring X over Y is unethical.
By this logic, your view expressed in the comments that “there should be a preference for people with less years of experience [...] because the position is entry-level” makes no sense. The only type of preference an employer should legitimately have is to hire better people. And it may be that “academic age” (time since PhD) can factor into the evaluation of who is “better” in such a way that the person with a smaller academic age comes out on top — for example some employers might quite reasonably prefer a candidate with academic age N and M published papers to a candidate with academic age 2N and M+1 papers, since while the latter has more papers, the former has a higher rate of publication. But the idea that a candidate should be automatically given preference just because of having a smaller academic age does not make any sense as a notion of “betterness”.
The bottom line is: it’s possible that there was some corruption or bad faith involved in this hiring decision; we cannot rule that out (or in) based on the information you provided. But the mere fact that a person with 12 years of post-PhD experience was hired for an assistant professor position is not by itself evidence of any wrongdoing or unethical behavior.
In other words, the answer to your question is “never”.
Disclaimer: I don’t know anything about hiring for academic jobs in Greece specifically. But I believe that the reasoning above will apply to most Western countries with healthy employment laws and practices comparable to places like the United States, UK, Canada etc.

I admit that my expressed view of giving preference to people will less quantity (not quality) of experience might seem odd, but one must take into account that Assist. Prof. positions are either temporary or with a tenure track of X years (X=3 in Greece).
So someone has 12+ years of postdoc: either he/she simply does not cut it, so giving him/her an extra 3 years to qualify for sth he has not qualified for in the last 12 years (tenure) is simply a bad choice, OR he/she is qualified but for his/her own reasons did not apply for sth similiar earlier, and now can be invited for (Assoc.) Prof.

Actually, in the UK the strict requirements for "removing bias from the selection criteria" often plays out badly for academically-younger candidates in all but the very top-tier universities. As Lecturer (entry post) and Senior Lect. (slightly-above-entry) posts are usually advertised together, any candidate with some grant writing experience and teaching experience will nearly always beat any candidate fresh-out-of-postdoc. I've noticed academics in the UK often enter their "tenure" at low-to-mid-tier Unis in the UK, and move up the Uni rank (rather than up academic titles at their Uni).

@Chim3ra if the person “does not cut it” then they should not be offered the job, regardless of the number of years since their PhD. You are trying to use academic/postdoc age as a proxy for (lack of) ability, and while as I said the academic age contains some useful information and may be a factor in assessing ability, it is one of many factors and does not say very much taken by itself. So yes, your position is odd and illogical. Anyway, I’m sorry you didn’t get the position. I have experienced such things and know it’s not fun. Better luck next time.

@DanRomik Thank you :) Actually, I do find it fun, I have been short-listed a couple of times and even was successful on one occasion in a Top 50 uni recently, I would say that it mostly has been an educative and fun process. Obviously, I know how things work in Greece and I had zero expectations, but interviewing still allows one to network with some people, practice, and gain some insight. I just never had to compete before with people that had stayed for so long in academia.

At which point (if there is such a point) is someone considered too old (in terms of experience) for an Assist. Prof. position?

I don't think there's a common answer to this question. All else being equal, the only real downside in hiring someone older for a Asst. Prof position is that they have a shorter time before retirement at that institution. Practically speaking, most individuals with years of experience are either near the Associate Prof. level already, or have other reasons (e.g. lack of research) that have made them un-hireable thus far and would continue to affect their hireability.

It also did not help that the committee favorite had their BSc, MSc, and PhD in that same university, and 12+ of postdoc in a partner lab in the vicinity.

For your situation, I doubt having too much experience is relevant. It sounds like they were very familiar with the person they hired already. Many departments are required to conduct faculty searches, with an official job posting and multiple interviews, even if they already know who they want to hire.

They told me that the favorite had a higher citation count, so even if they were 60 years in the field they would still rank them first because of that.

This sounds more like them trying to rationalize their preferred candidate rather than being official department policy. Alternatively, there are some countries where quantifiable metrics such as citation counts or number of publications are prioritized over quality.

Many years ago a friend of mine went back to school after a bit of a detour and wrapped up his PhD at the ripe old age of 31, then started applying to academic positions. One response, from a highly-regarded east coast school, was a rejection stating "we're looking for younger candidates, thank you for your interest." No doubt an outlier, but it tells you that sort of thing is out there, or at least was. This was back when one would send a letter and CV to the selection committee through the mail. Last time I visited him he still had that rejection letter hanging framed on his study wall.

Let's suppose that we grant you your premise that a person with less experience in the requisite job skills should be preferred for an "entry level" position.  You do not give any justification for this in your question, but let's surmise that you take the view that it is desirable to give people with less experience a chance at entry, specifically due to the fact that they have a less competitive application than someone with more experience.
In view of that premise, why stop with hiring the PhD graduate who has a low number of years of service?  Surely someone without a PhD at all has even less experience in the field, and so is in even more need of assistance in gaining entry.  Come to think of it, an adolescent who has not yet graduated high-school has even less experience again (lacking experience even as a tertiary student learning the field), so surely they require even more assistance to gain entry.  Young children who have not yet learned to count have even less experience in any preliminary skill in the field than a high-schooler, a fortiori for newborn babies who have not yet learned to hold their own heads up unaided.  One observes here a reductio ad absurdum --- if less experience is preferrable, notwithstanding that it reduces the ability to do the job better, then what is the logical stopping point for this principle?

Your aversion to latin terms notwithstanding, the point is that the OP is treating a positive quality (experience) as if it were a negative.  Whilst there are certainly several factors at play in a hiring decision, if you reverse one of them to treat a positive quality as a negative (and indeed, as a disqualifying factor) then that leads to irrational decisions.

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


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Is blogging experience (on medium) relevant on the CV for PhD CS Admissions? (US)
Background: Undergrad applying to PhD CS Programs in the US
I had done a blogging internship in my sophomore year and I had written 10 blogs during the tenure. All the articles are relevant to my domain and are balanced between technicality and general information on the domain.
Why I want to put it in my CV:

The blogs were supervised by someone who has been a "linkedin" top speaker and I have his recommendation as well on my page.
The blogs were generally well received (but nothing extra-ordinary).
I exactly have space for one more "small" component in the "experience" section of my resume.
The other option I have is working part of a start up for a month but I have nothing to show for that as I am not allowed to.

Short CV Background:

2 pages
First page: only undergrad uni details and "experience (research internships)
Second page: Projects, External collaborations, Awards, Skills.
It's complete and organized with only that small portion of space remaining.

Actual Questions:

Will it help showcase any part of my expertise? (Communication, writing, English in general)
Is it relevant to the Admission panel? (or would I be wasting their time by adding this?)

I don't plan on mentioning it anywhere else like SOP, LOR, SOH (Personal History statement).

Related: Should I mention my blog in my SOP?

Sorry about that, I somehow missed that post. It did not show up while writing this either. Also, this is a little bit different. So I feel it could generate a different insight!

Almost any experience is useful on a CV, provided that you can link it to the job you are applying for in a sensible way (this is nearly always possible). It is likely that all candidates have similar diplomas, so the "extra" things you did besides your degree are very valuable. Being able to demonstrate that you are a skilled technical writer and science communicator will almost certainly help.
Mentioning "medium" by name has no value (see also below), but the fact that you have written well received articles on a weblog will improve your CV.
There is a good chance that the hiring committee does not know "medium", and if they do, they probably know that a lot of very bad articles are published on medium (as well as some good ones). If you get through a first screening the hiring committee could be interested in reading your articles to see if they are any good: it would help to provide them with a link to the list of articles.

My guess would be "positive impact but small". But neglecting to mention the experience would be a mistake and a lost opportunity.

@Louic Thank you for the insight! Especially regarding medium. I had not thought about that thoroughly. I will make sure to provide a link!

Thank you @Buffy. That helped me clear my mind!


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Weightage of a review paper on an undergraduate CV
Background: CS Undergraduate applying to CS PhD (USA)
I am involved in a review paper as a 2nd author. The review paper is of a very high quality and most likely will get accepted in a journal with a high impact factor. There will be 2 other authors who are both Co P.I. s of the project.
Question:
Does that hold any weightage in front of a PhD Admit Panel?
Note: The paper length is around 30 double columned pages so ample research is covered and future prospects are suggested in depth.

I ask this because I have come across a few people saying that review papers aren't that impressive (on the CV) as there is generally nothing novel in it.

It's not that review papers are less impressive, it's that they are less relevant to what you will do as a PhD student.  You can't get a PhD by writing review papers.  A PhD is for original research.

@AnonymousPhysicist to further your comment, I would like to show a diametrally opposite view: I would consider a big plus a (good) review paper: from an undergrad willing to be a PhD, it means he is already updated about the latest developments.
A student is a student, what is the point of enrolling into a PhD program someone that can already do research? (I mean, I see the point, easy publications for the PI, but that's not exactly the idea about a PhD student being ... a student!)

@EarlGrey "what is the point of enrolling into a PhD program someone that can already do research?"  PhD students are there to be low-paid scientific staff.  They are not there to learn.  I would prefer this were not true and I try not to enable it, but it is how the system works currently in the fields I am most familiar with.

@AnonymousPhysicist I agree about the "state-of-art" of PhDs ... unfortunately I can only fight it by pointing at some criticalities of the selection processes. Someday, someone smart enough will propose a coherent framework to effectively change the system. Someone like Lenin 4.0, for example.

Yes, it holds a weight.
How much? it depends on the sensibility of the Panel, if no hard-rules are set.
Maybe 0.5 times the weight of a regular paper, because it is missing the novelty? Or maybe 1.5 times the weight of a regular paper, because if you took part in the review, then you already are updated about the State-of-Art on the topic and it can be very relevant to your PhD?
In absence of hard rules, it depends strongly on how you frame it. Be smart.
Then of course it has not much weight in the CV, if it is a 10 years old review paper: in 10 years the SoA changed a lot ... and if did not change much, you can publish an update of the same review paper, updating the content.

Thank you very much for this answer. This is exactly what I was looking for.


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Difference between research paper and scientific paper
What is the difference between a research paper and a scientific paper? Does the research paper also mean a term paper at the end of your Masters?
I need to present a research paper. So does it mean I need to present a solution to an existing problem or does it mean a summary of various solutions already existing?

A research paper is a paper containing original research. That is, if you do some work to add (or try to add) new knowledge to a field of study, and then present the details of your approach and findings in a paper, that paper can be called a research paper.
Not all academic papers contain original research; other kinds of academic papers that are not research papers are

review papers, (see What is the difference between a review paper and a research paper?)
position papers (which present an opinion without original research to support it)
tutorial papers (which contain a tutorial introduction a topic or area, without contributing new results).

A scientific paper is any paper on a scientific subject.

Does the research paper also mean a term paper at the end of your Masters?
I need to present a research paper. So does it mean I need to present a solution to an existing problem or does it mean a summary of various solutions already existing?

If the term paper at the end of your masters contains original research, then it's a research paper.
Depending on the policies of your department, you may or may not be required to attempt original research during your masters. In some departments, a review of existing literature may be fine. If you're not sure exactly what's required from you, you need to ask the relevant faculty or staff members in your department.

Related: What is a "white paper"?.

It also bears mention that "a summary of various solutions already existing" does not usually qualify as a research paper.

Research means that you add something new. Something you didn't know before, and ideally something no-one knew before (although at BSc. and MSc. levels the novelty requirement is generally relaxed). This can be a new investigation, or simply an analysis of a number existing papers. It must however not be a summary of existing solutions. It should go beyond that.
An important thing to remember is that in terms of assignment you are expected to demonstrate insight and understanding. To demonstrate this you need to engage with the topics, not merely summarise (which requires less understanding).


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How to write a survey paper?
I want to write a survey on one emerging research topic in wireless communications (It can be applied to any field!). There are almost 500 papers on this topic as published or in early access. And the publishing rate in this topic is increasing day by day. So, I want to write a survey on this topic keeping in mind that it will get high citation and it will help new scholar who are in struggle with this topic. I found only one survey written by some reputed authors, however it lacks in many ways, like detailed information related to particular direction, it just assembles the papers in a good manner. I want to pick some directions and discuss  important approaches with good connection between them. However, I find it very difficult to proceed with large number of papers. Is there any good way to handle the survey process in a good efficient and quick way? PS. According to me, many people have already started to write this.

As you said, the publishing rate in this topic is increasing day by day. I am afraid the survey paper will be a living document. You probabaly will need to update it every week. My suggestion: only discuss the most important papers in that survey.

@ scaaahu  yes, it is true that I have to keep updating every week. Any detailed suggestions is appreciated. May I just add some reference of old paper in proper place without digging more inside the paper?

I am no expert in your area. I don't know how critical those old papers are to your field. So, it's up to you.

The think you are asking about is called a [tag:literature-review] - we already have a lot of questions about that. And people write whole books to answer your question: see, for example, the Booth reference here

If you have trouble getting an overview of the topic due to the number of papers, then you are probably not the right person to write a survey of it.

@ Tobias Kildetoft I am not afraid of numbers, I was asking about the systematic review. I got the answer by @ EnergyNumbers.

The point of a survey paper of the type you are discussion (as distinct from a systematic review), is to provide an organized view of the current state of the field.  As such, you should not be attempting to cite every paper, but only the ones that are significant (which will still be an awful lot).
Writing a good survey paper is hard, and there really aren't any good shortcuts: you do need to become familiar with the content of a very large number of papers, in order to make sure that the view you are presenting is sane.
My suggestion, based on my own experience in this area, is to use the following iterative process:

Begin by collecting a large pile of papers to survey.
Based on your experience and a few initial readings, hypothesize an organization schema for the field.
Start reading (mostly skimming) and organizing your collection of papers you read using this schema, including noting which ones are most important and which do not fit the schema well.
As you find significant numbers of papers that do not fit the schema well, adjust the schema to better fit what you are actually finding and shift the organization of your collection to match.
Add new papers to the "to be read" collection based on the adjusted schema, then return to reading and organizing.

When the process converges to a stable schema and an empty to-be-read pile, you will have a well-developed view of the current state of the field and be in a good position to write a survey.  Note, however, that this may take a number of months...

That's what I am looking for. Hope this will help me to proceed. In addition to this, I got some information about good software or package to handle reference like mendeley, Zotero etc.

I recently wrote a survey paper (which is now accepted and published) and here is what I learned from it:

Set the scope Each research field is evolving (some at a faster rate) and hence you need to define the scope of your paper. Scoping has to be done not only for the topics/dimensions to be covered in the paper but also for the time duration in which relevant papers are published that you will explore. The first part of the scoping can be done by defining research questions concretely.
Search protocol Define the literature search protocol early, document it, and follow it rigorously. Number of papers may reduce if you apply well-defined inclusion and exclusion criteria.
Take notes Read all relevant papers and document relevant notes. If possible, classify each relevant paper according to your research questions.
Infer, classify, and synthesize This is the most important step of writing a survey paper. IMHO, a survey should not produce a laundry list of papers for a specific dimension. Information in the synthesized form is much more appreciated than simply listing main contributions of the papers. For example: if a concept has been defined by 20 different authors, infer main characteristics of the concept commonly appeared in these definitions, and report them (obviously, cite relevant authors with each identified characteristic).
Take away/implications Compile implications of your inferences/synthesis.
Open research questions Include open research questions of the research domain - not (only) what you believe but also more importantly what the research community believe in general.

To further add something on the accepted answer, your paper should have a clear aim or should eventually reach to a well-justified conclusion. Whereas its purpose can always be a collection of top notch papers in wireless communications, this would not probably make it a high-citation/high-quality one, as it will again be "one of the many" in that sense.
Barton P. Miller's answer on researchgate.net better describes what I am trying to say above:
"Think of a survey as a research paper whose data and results are taken from other papers." And based on these results, you can make your point and identify a possible gap in your field of research e.g. "To conclude, we see a lack of reliability in X wireless protocol" or "Power consumption is still an unresolved issue in this area".
The conclusion you try to reach to will help defining the structure of the paper. See Barton P. Miller's answer again for examples.


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What is the difference between a research paper and a student paper?
The i-Society conference calls for Research Papers, Student Papers, and Case Studies.
What is the difference between a "research paper" and a "student paper"?

In computer science conferences, there is often a "Best student paper" award, which goes to the best paper where all authors are students. But I don't think that's the answer to this question, since this type of "student paper" is never listed separately in the CFP.

Where in the site it is written these paper formats?

A research paper is original work and could be written by anyone with the background.  A student paper is a research paper written exclusively by student(s).  The reality is that faculty will be involved in some way, even if it is only running the research program which made the work possible.  In reality, the faculty will be more involved than that: discussing, reading and suggesting.  But that's part of the job, in my opinion.

I believe that the difference would be in the scope, length and research significance of the paper, basically significant pieces of research compared to smaller pieces of research.
Also research in progress could be submitted as a student paper in some circumstances.

What information is this answer based on?

Personal experience submitting academic papers to journals in student or researcher form. http://www.elsevier.com/journals/journal-of-parallel-and-distributed-computing/0743-7315/guide-for-authors See the 'Types of Articles' sub-heading. Not called student papers, but research notes which I equate to the same thing.