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What does a Bioinformatics research assistant do in a US university?
I am interested in the field of Bioinformatics in the USA.
As far as I know, a Research Assistant (RA) is a Ph.D. student or postdoc fellow working in a funded project under a research professor, assisting them in executing experiments and publishing research papers.
Am I correct?
What else do/can they do as a research assistant? I.e. what other responsibilities may they have?

Where did you get these ideas, particularly about a teaching assistant being a master's-by-research student? Given the range of questions you ask here I'm a bit confused that you do not know at this point what a TA is, can you explain a bit?

@BryanKrause, these are the ideas that I developed by hearing from other people.

@BryanKrause, Given the range of questions you ask here ... --- what do you mean by this particular statement?

Normally postdocs wouldn't be called "Research Assistants". RAs are students. Postdocs are not.

@Buffy Even that probably isn't correct - it wouldn't surprise me if there were non-student job codes called "Research Assistant" somewhere in the world.

@user366312 This is heavily field and location dependent, you'll have to narrow it down a little, unfortunately the only answer here is "An RA is a junior person involved in research"

@AzorAhai-him-, Please, check the edit.

This is a typical question you would ask during the job interview (hopefully not phrased as naively as above). Most job interviews are a conversation between two adults to figure out whether or not the candidate is a good fit for the position (from both sides).
In practice, in Europe, I have seen research assistants do independent research and publish papers on their own, research assistants doing excellent and valuable experiments but without providing any intellectual contributions, research assistants delivering analysed results and those delivering raw experimental results only, research assistants not doing much at all, and many more flavours. It all depends on their skills and the expectations of the PI, hence the answer that the job interview is the only useful place to ask.

First, there are a huge number of possibilities as the US, at least, doesn't have a national system for higher education or nomenclature. In some labs a Research Assistant might just be a low level hire in a scientific lab who isn't involved in the educational part of the system at all.
But a frequently used distinction is that between Teaching Assistants and Research Assistants who are (usually) doctoral students and the position constitutes their funding. TAs are normally funded by departments and also normally continue for the time the student remains a student (until graduation). An RA may be funded the same way, but is also likely to be funded by grants received by individual professors (PIs) or research groups. The funding may not last for the entire term that the student remains and so they may also spend time as a TA. That might also be required by local rules as some teaching is considered advantageous to future academics.
But in the main, an RA will, as you suggest, perform research oriented duties under the direction (perhaps indirect) of a PI. The tasks may or may not be related to the doctoral research of the student. They fund the student, but the tasks are for the research group. But they give an opportunity to learn lab process in some fields.
Given that most incoming doctoral students in US have only a bachelors and need to pass qualifying exams after taking advanced courses, an RA held by an incoming student isn't especially likely to be directly related to the student's research, though it might be, and it might lead to a doctoral research project later.
For some students who enter with a bachelors they might start out as a TA, assisting in teaching the undergraduate program, and later, when they are ready to start serious researc
I don't know if the situation is the same in Canada.

There are also plenty of hand-wavy RAships if your advisor is well-funded. You could be anywhere from strictly counting 20 h/wk of pippetting to no supervision at all, even if you're nominally on some project.


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If a country in the EU spends more on R&D, does it mean that it pays higher salary to the PostDocs?
According to this Wikipedia article, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Belgium, and Finland are the top spenders in the R&D sector by PPP per capita.
Does this mean that they pay a higher salary to the PostDoc researchers?
If not, is there any metric to know this?

Higher salary compared to what?

In Germany, if you do your postdoc at a university or research institute, you are normally paid according to TVöD/TVL, which is a fixed income for public servants.

Heh heh. How many postdocs can dance on the end of a grant's budget? Just in case that's not clear, if they spend twice as much but have eight times as many postdocs, well... There's some maths involved.

@Sursula, Compared to the countries which spend less in R&D.

Obviously you want to research the salary of any potential position you apply for, but you probably also know that most postdocs pay significantly less than comparable positions in industry. So if the salary level is very important to you, don't become a postdoc...

Postdocs are more or less government employees and so in a lot of EU countries, postdoc salaries are publically available so a little bit of digging will usually tell you the exact salary of any position you see advertised.
However, if you only want a quick rule of thumb to compare different European countries I would go with nominal GDP per capita. Yes, cost of living is higher in the wealthier countries as well, but academic salaries usually overcompensate for this (when comparing countries in Europe). The standard of living a postdoc salary buys you in Switzerland or Norway is much higher than in Greece or Portugal.
If cost of living differs a lot within a country the academic salaries usually do not fully account for these differences so living in an expensive city will make you relatively poorer.

R&D spending does not equate to PostDoc salary. A substantial part of the spending is done by private companies in their own facilities, and private companies typically don't hire PostDocs. Some of the spending goes to stuff (supplies, machinery, laboratories, etc.) rather than people. Salaries in many of these countries are not driven by the available budget. If more money becomes available the universities just hire more PostDocs, rather than pay them better.
If you want to know the salary, you just look at the salary. But do take the cost of living into account. Not at the national level, but at the local level of the university you are interested in.

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Partner is not responding when their writing is needed in European project application
We are preparing a big European (HORIZON) project application (more than 10 million Euro) and with several partners. The deadline is in two months. Two partners are required to write their parts of the proposal, but they do not respond at all, or they say "yes, I will do it. Same answers after many requests. They are risking the project. We talked with them many times about this issue. We are thinking about getting rid of them directly. But before that, what would to do?

more than 10 milion Euro? https://brill.com/view/journals/jocp/1/2/26660393_001_02_s003_i0004.jpg taken from here:
https://brill.com/view/journals/jocp/1/2/article-p210_3.xml?language=en

@RobbieGoodwin: in the workplace, you can always escalate in the hierarchy, which is often not useful in academia, and IMO done very rarely.

@StephanKolassa try to not have a hierarchy with a cross-functional team of tens of people, working on a 10 mln research project. It's not going to be a a smooth ride (talking from experience...).

In addition to the other answers, I will mention that getting the proposal written is only the first step. Assume it gets funded: Then you are on the hook for actually doing the work. And you have to write project progress and final reports. When you accept a grant, you basically sign a piece of paper saying "Yes, I will do all of that".
If you have collaborators who cannot spare the time to help with writing proposals, what is your confidence in them being able to do the actual work? If you can't be confident in that (or if they can't assure you of it), this is not the right collaboration for you. It will give you the prestige of having won the grant, but it will make your life miserable in the future. Think twice -- and discuss this point with your collaborators -- whether that is worth anyone's emotional energy and in some cases friendship.

That was my reasoning behind getting rid of these "collaborators" - but I now realise I didn't mention it explicitly. You are very very right! This is a tell tale sign and only the beginning of the collaboration.

BioBrains' answer makes some useful high-level suggestions on how to approach this in a general sense, to which I'll add a different practical suggestion:
Get into the same room as them. It's much harder to ignore someone across a desk than it is to ignore an e-mail! This can be with each challenging partner individually or all together, but meeting with them for a day with the explicit goal of getting the core of their part of the proposal written could effectively get things unstuck.
You don't necessarily need to phrase the objective of the meeting in quite those terms, of course, and meeting in-person to coordinate large grant applications is not uncommon. Indeed, our university even has funds set aside explicitly to support such meetings for large grant writing.
If they say they can't possibly find even a single day to discuss the grant, then that may be a stronger indication that you should consider how essential they are to the proposal, as suggested by the other answer.

“Get into the same room as them. It's much harder to ignore someone across a desk than it is to ignore an e-mail!” +1! Most valuable thing I learned in college.

In my experience with Horizon projects, it is fairly usual that each partner is at the very least from a different institution/city, typically from a different country as well. A >10 M€ project is almost certainly a consortium spread all across the EU. So getting into the same room means either that the "room" is only online or you have to fly around.

There are two things to consider here: You application (which they are jeopardizing) and your long term relationship with these partners (which you might jeopardize by ditching them).
You need to find a way to rescue both, ideally. If that's not possible or needed, then go for damage control.
So: Are these partners you only got on board for this application or are they people you will run into later? Will they be your reviewers or competitors? In either case you will probably never pick them as collaborators again, because now you know that they don't deliver when they need to.
Assuming you are the coordinator, you are well within your right to say that in order for this to work you need all partners to actively contribute  as needed. If you can afford to lose them (or replace them), then it's better to do that now that it is still early days, using the argument above.
This is assuming that you have set clear deadlines and sent at least a gentle reminder. You final warning can be this: write the text by dd/mm/yy or we will assume you are no longer interested and take you off the application.
But also: Is the application viable without one or both of them? If they have a strong position (i.e. they are needed because of reason X), then they have the  upper hand. In that case you might have to pick up the slack and do their work for them. This is, unfortunately, what happens a lot in these cases.
Fair? No. So up to you to decide what weighs more heavily.

The other answers already here are excellent, I would add (from experience) that putting pressure on senior academics via their admin or contracts teams might be successful if writing to them directly has failed.
Hopefully your own finance/contracts office will have contacts with the collaborating institutions teams, and they want the grant as much as you do so might have levers to getting things done.

If you really, really want it, you can proceed as follows:

Write the whole project proposal, and send it to them with 'I prepared an possible outline of the project, see if you can use it as a basis for the proposal, or if you want to make changes'

Make sure that your project promises do not depend on the output of that group. Like having a fallback solution to demonstrate your output.

If I read you text correctly, the total number of participating groups is 3 and 2 of them dont reply. Forget it.

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EU Ph.D. in Germany: Calling yourself "Dr." or "Ph.D."
My question is about using a Ph.D. title/grade from an EU University in Germany.
Germany recognizes (properly obtained) Ph.D.s from other EU countries.
People with an EU Ph.D. are allowed to use the abbreviation "Dr." in front of their names without mentioning the country of origin (which is AFAIK required for some other countries) or using the original version. However, reading this information letter from the Bavarian State Ministry of Sciences, Research and the Arts, section 1.3.2. (German), you are not allowed to use both together.
I'm confused about this and its exact scope.
Does this mean a Ph.D. holder can't call themself "Dr. Firstname Lastname" on a business card and then list "Ph.D." together with the other titles like "M.Eng., Dipl.Ing." on a second line? Using "Firstname Lastname, Ph.D." in Germany would not have the same effect then the first form. Not mentioning the Ph.D. at all however would keep many people wondering what kind of doctor grade you have. Maybe it only means not to use "Dr. Firstname Lastname, Ph.D.", but the business card example is very close to that.
Also, can "Ph.D." be used in one occasion and then "Dr." in a different one, or do you have to stick with one? Would it be ok to use "Dr." on your German business card and "Ph.D." on your English one? Even if both are on opposite sides of the same card?

I always thought "Firstname Lastname, PhD" was a very American thing to do.

For those who are not aware of the background of this, the title of "Doctor" in Germany used to be a matter of law, and only German Ph.D.s got it automatically: others had to apply to get their degree legally recognized. I believe the law has changed recently, but can provide no reference. In anycase, I don't recall hearing of anyone being harrassed for being an unofficial "Doctor" at a conference or what not, but people employed by German universities and institutions were encouraged to get official approval so that their institution could officially recognize the title.

@dmckee: There was a case a few years ago where an American chemist, with a Ph.D. from Cornell, was investigated by the German police for misuse of the "Doctor" title.  After the ensuing uproar, the rules were changed.  See http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,540459,00.html (article in English).

Strangely the second part of 1.3.2 seems to keep Austrian medical Doctors from calling themselves Dr. (instead of Dr.med.). Only those with dissertation i.e., those having Dr. scient. med. titles can do so !?

To add some more confusion with titles, I'll mention the fact that in Italy, another EU country, you can legally use the title "dottore" (doctor) after you get your bachelor.

Not directly related to the question, but I know people in Germany who have to sign their name Doctor (University of blah blah blah) Firstname Lastname, where "blah blah blah" is a respected American university whose Ph.D.'s aren't considered official doctorates in Germany.

An American using "Dr." and "Ph. D." in the same title is double-counting, just as if a German were to use "Dr.rer.nat." and "Dr."
That said, if you're going to use multiple titles, you should probably be consistent and list the PhD as one of those degrees.

If I am not mistaken, you may decorate your name with "Dr. Dr." if you have two PhD degrees. Writing "Dr. Firstname Lastname, PhD" would probably also indicate two degrees, e.g. one from Germany and one from the UK.
PS: The information letter is no longer available, so I have not read that.

My interpretation of "gleichzeitige Führung" is that they "decorate" the same mentioning of your name. So at least in Bavaria the Dr/PhD for German/English cards should be legal even if on the same side (assuming there is no other conditions that prohibit the use of Dr), but the option with different versions of the same title in different lines would be not.

Maybe this applies to German, but in English, you wouldn't use "Dr." and "Ph.D." in the same salutation or address.

well, I read it as
you can either use Dr. without anything at the end (that is "translating" it to German)
or
you use the version which is legally correct in the country of origin (where you received the PhD). This seems to be the only viable option in terms of EU law.
Which then leave the issue how the PhD should be used in the country of origin eg the UK.
This is not really easy to answer. Because you find it in different ways:
as "Dr. Xxxx" or as "Xxxx, PhD" or as "Dr Xxxx, PhD".
I couldn't find any legal document that provides any further guidance on this matter, the only thing I found is a ruling by the Advertising Standards Authority.
In this case the body ruled that the Dr Xxxx, PhD in the context of web-page with a medical content would suggest that Dr means that the person would be a medical Dr.  However, as such the Advertising Standards Authority sees the usage of Dr Xxxx, PhD not as misleading. here the link: http://asa.org.uk/Rulings/Adjudications/2012/11/Dr-Alyssa-Burns_Hill/SHP_ADJ_194636.aspx#.U5R6q9qKCAU....
And then there is the Committee of Advertising Practice which states that :"it is likely to be acceptable for advertisers who possess a relevant PhD or doctorate (of sufficient length and intensity) to call themselves “Dr” provided they use the suffix “PhD” to clarify the type of qualification they hold and that the general context does not imply they are medically qualified."
http://www.cap.org.uk/Advice-Training-on-the-rules/Advice-Online-Database/Use-of-the-term-Dr-PhD.aspx
So I think the question is whether there is any legal convention in the UK about how one should or should not use the title.
But to be honest, I doubt that something like that exists.

The question is about Germany, not the UK. I'm not sure what your answer is really saying as a result of the confusion.

@aeismail: Well, as the poster says, Germany accepts the correct way of the country of origin, therefore it makes sense to look at that country.

@MartinScharrer: But the question is about general usage; this question devolves it to the specific case of the UK (which isn't mentioned anywhere in the original question!).

My son is Ph.D. from Technical University of Munich (TUM). He writes "Dr. Firstname Middlename Lastname"

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Grading scheme which helps figuring out what is a right/wrong answer without generating frustrations
I am in charge of the grading for an undergraduate class, and I am trying to determine the grading scheme which would best help students figure out what is a correct/incorrect answer without generating too much frustration.
My current position is to be demanding and give very little partial credit. For instance if the question asks to give a definition and the student gives an example, I would give no partial credit even if the example is a good one.
Strict grading is meant to make it clear when the student gives an inappropriate answer (e.g answering a different question from the one being asked, not providing enough of an argument to support an answer,...), and conversely when the student is answering correctly. For every graded piece, I write careful solutions and comments on how to answer properly. Strict grading is also meant to help the student figure out when she or he really needs to go look at the solutions and comments. Somehow, I fear that if students get partial credits more easily, they are more likely to believe that their answer is after all not that bad. Then they may be more likely not to check the solutions/comments, although the answer might be seriously flawed (e.g. they gave the right True/False answer but did not provide a correct justification of it).
In the class I am teaching, final grades are purely relative that is whether one gets an A or B solely depends on one's position in the grade distribution. So if they worry about final grades, student should not care too much about whether grading is strict, or whether partial credits are awarded, but rather whether the grading scheme is applied homogeneously between students. On this last point (making grading homogenous) I put a lot of effort (e.g. if no partial credit is awarded to a student answering "False" to a question without providing a proper counter-example, I make sure the same applies for every student answering "False" without providing a proper counter-example).  I explained during class and repeated in all comments note that giving 0 to everyone or 5 to everyone was innocuous in terms of the final grade.  I put the same effort in trying to make the purpose of strict grading clear.
However, I realize that there is more to getting a zero on a question than how it affects your final grade. My impression is that some students get frustrated for not getting partial credits. Some students expect to get partial credit as soon as they write something sensible even if it does not answer the question. I want to make clear that I don't blame them for that at all. I understand that this has to do with the grading culture they have been exposed to, and that my grading might be at odd with this culture. What worries me is that such frustration may eventually have detrimental effects on their learning : instead of thinking

" Oh, I got a zero, given what the instructor explained about his
  grading scheme, that means I am probably not answering the question
  right. I know that other people also got zero for the same kind of
  mistakes, so I should not worry about the way it will affect my grade,
  but I should definitely go check the solutions and comments to figure
  out what is wrong with my answer, and eventually go to office hours if there is
  still some
  confusion"

some of them react in a much different way. For many potential reasons, getting a zero makes them frustrated about the question/test/instructor, to the point that they are less likely to try to figure out what went wrong with their answer. More generally, not receiving partial credit may create discouragement on their behalf  which would definitely negatively affect their learning.
Now, I could easily (I think?) solve the frustration problem while maintaining a fair grading procedure by uniformly giving (much?) more partial credit. However, not knowing about the average students' psychology in the class, it is hard for me to figure out which effect will dominate:

Would the decrease in grading clarity overweight the decrease in frustration and eventually decrease the number of students who thoroughly compare their answer to the solutions/comments (and hopefully learn how to give better answers)?
Or is the frustration-effect so high that giving more partial credit will have a positive overall effect on their learning?

Because this will differ from one class/university culture/topic to another, I am not primarily interested in guesses about whether 1 or 2 would hold.
What I would be more interested in is getting your insight on grading policies which would potential get me the best of both world, that is making it clear when a question is not answered properly and motivate the student to understand why, while avoiding any kind of detrimental frustration effect.
Thanks in advance for your help,

This recent review on grading gives evidence that when students receive both a grade and comments, they do not absorb the comments and become discouraged rather than motivated:
Schinske, J., & Tanner, K. (2014). Teaching More by Grading Less (or Differently). CBE-Life Sciences Education, 13(2), 159-166. Link: http://www.lifescied.org/content/13/2/159.full.pdf
If motivating students to answer questions more carefully is your primary goal (and it is a good one), I would suggest considering a "redo" policy rather than stern grading. And skip the thorough comments and develop a simple system. That will make the time spent similar on your end, while motivating students to improve because they get another chance to earn all the points.

On the point of redo/resubmit policies, this question has some useful answers.

Ooo, and pre-marking and peer review was mentioned there as well. Other great options for teaching thinking skills without relying on grades. Thanks @earthling.

A professor in the math department has a really nice HW policy: there are 2 deadlines for every HW (a week apart), and everything is graded twice with the highest grade taken.  The grading itself is very rigorous, and there little partial credit. Because the grading is harsh, it is very efficient and assignments are turned back in 48 hours.  This subtly encourages a lot of good behavior:

students start at least a week early
students need to be clear to get better feedback on mistakes (instead of trying to get partial credit through ambiguity)
it helps to have typed work
there is complete transparency with the grade
it promotes a healthier attitude about mistakes
student correct their misunderstandings instead of mounting a legal defense for partial credit
never have to deal with late HW excuses/ extension requests

Since originally answering this question we have implemented something similar in a for a computer science class.

Very harsh automated grading that gave very specific feedback about program mistakes, with no limit for the number of submissions
25% of assignments could be "resubmitted" on the last day of class with no penalty

I think the "best of both worlds" is the world of strict grading that you are currently in:

My current position is to be demanding and give very little partial credit. For instance if the question asks to give a definition and the student gives an example, I would give no partial credit even if the example is a good one.

Sounds okay to me.  Either the student doesn't know that such an answer is inappropriate, or knows that it is but chooses to give it anyway.  This is bad in either case.

Some students expect to get partial credit as soon as they write something sensible even if it does not answer the question. I want to make clear that I don't blame them for that at all. I understand that this has to do with the grading culture they have been exposed to, and that my grading might be at odd with this culture.

It's always good to understand students rather than blaming them.  But this should not lead you to compromise the standards of your discipline.

For many potential reasons, getting a zero makes them frustrated about the question/test/instructor, to the point that they are less likely to try to figure out what went wrong with their answer. More generally, not receiving partial credit may create discouragement on their behalf which would definitely negatively affect their learning.

They'll get used to it.  Trying to shield students from the experience of frustration is just passing the buck to the next instructor and ultimately making the problem worse.
Moreover, unwarranted partial credit itself negatively affects learning by causing students to focus on tricks to get points on problems they don't understand, rather than focusing on understanding problems and writing correct solutions.
In my opinion, the only downsides to strict grading of the kind you describe are:

you have to make your expectations clear,
you have to grade carefully, and
you have to make the grading scheme clear.

But it sounds like you understand this and are doing it already.  So I think you're fine and you don't need to compromise.
If you really want to give more partial credit, you could build it into your exam questions: for example, offer some smaller number of points for an example instead of a definition/proof.  This way you don't encourage bad habits.

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Studies about how to improve human civilizations' ability to anticipate and react to incoming hurdles to long term survival?
In which field of academia should one search for studies about how to improve human civilizations' ability to anticipate and react to incoming hurdles to long term survival?
BACKGROUND
Many problems can be avoided altogether if predicted with enough anticipation, and most problems are much easier to solve when efforts are engaged early, and more difficult or impossible to solve if waiting for the last moment.
PROBLEM
Many of the interdependent hurdles currently facing humanity (massive extinctions and collapse of biodiversity, extraction debit peaks of most fossil energies on which the current human civilizations are dependent, triggering and acceleration of inexorable climate drift, generalized civil unrest and derive toward authoritarian governments, etc.) were predicted before with a relative precision (about the conditions if not the timing), but largely ignored. Among other examples, the most iconic might be the report to the club of Rome from 1972, which content was mostly ignored for 50 years, even though its content was updated and its accuracy measured every 10 years or so.
QUESTIONS

Among the various governing structures adopted or imagined by human civilizations in history and fiction, which ones have been or would be more apt to anticipate and react to incoming hurdles?
Among the formations given to future citizens, citizens, and administrators, which exercises could promote the ability to anticipate and properly react to incoming hurdles?

I asked some people working in sociology, and they seem to consider such topics as beyond their area of study?

https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/

I am not sure if the way of your thinking is strictly scientific, but I would recommend you to ask experts from Future and Humanity Institute as linked above by Daniel R. Collins.

Disclaimer: I don't actually have any experience with this. I don't deal in these questions in my day to day. I just think this is interesting.
I think you are looking for future studies. Really though, I would guess that these questions are not limited to one field. That is, any researcher in any field could investigate this through the lens of their own expertise if they were interested. If you're looking for specific studies, you probably want to check out interdisciplinary think-tank type groups. I know I've seen a few popular science books related to this general topic, but I don't know what they publish in terms of peer-reviewed papers - you'd have to do some digging.
You might start with the institute linked in the comments. You can also check out Future of Life Institute or Centre for the Study of Existential Risk.


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How does a faculty member get to work at two universities or more?
This question is a follow-up on a comment at a recent question, where Dave Clarke mentioned that an acquaintance of his has "3 professorships and 2 doctorates."

How does a faculty member get appointed simultaneously by two or more universities? Are all except one honorary posts?
Can any faculty member work with a second university with the consent of their present employer? What are the conflicts of interests that come into play usually?

The situation I've seen most often is that a professor will hold a primary appointment at school A, where they have a lab and complete their research. Often for reasons related to collaboration, school B will then give the professor an appointment in a related if not identical department. If the professor also teaches a few courses at school C, they will likely be granted an adjunct position there as well.
This was my setup when I was in graduate school; I was a grad student in bioengineering at U Pitt, and I had a secondary appointment at CMU due to both lab collaborations and my being registered in a certificate program there.

Harvard/MIT/BU/Broad/Whitehead/MGH comes to mind.

How about the salary? Paid in full at all univs? Or is the pay suspended at the primary univ?

@Bravo - Most joint appointments are honorary/convenience titles, and do not come with pay (unless the faculty member takes on responsibilities, such as teaching). Adjunct teaching positions pay their own (typically pretty low) salary.

Another common scenario happens when a professor leaves university X for university Y, but still has grants and PhD students at university X.  In that situation, it's fairly common for university X to keep the faculty member on the books without pay, possibly with the word "adjunct" added to their title, so that the students and the grants that pay them don't have to move from X to Y.  (And to simplify the paperwork if the professor changes their mind and moves back to X.)

"changes their mind" ? yikes.

Maybe it would be more politic to say "in case, when the professor finally makes up their mind, they decide to stay".

Yes, singular "they".  If it was good enough for Shakespeare....

No I was merely surprised that people change their minds. Faculty moves are painful.

It's not unusual for very highly sought after researchers to take a job for a year to try it out and then possibly keep the old job. It's not something that should be abused, or done often, but it's hardly the worst thing ever.

Speaking from more experience on this subject than I care to admit: it's quite normal when one moves from one TT position to another to stay on the books at your previous position as being on leave.  I would regard it as the default; there's no cost for the person moving and negligible for either department.

@Suresh People change their minds all the time.  One mathematician (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Ozsváth) has managed the pretty impressive feat of having TT positions at Berkeley, Columbia, MIT and Princeton in under a decade.

Here in the Netherlands it is relatively common to appoint somebody as a professor for one day a week. For instance, one of the colleagues is 4 days a week at our university and 1 day a week at a different university. Another colleague is 4 days a week working for a company, and works at the university only on Mondays.

A common scenario I've observed is where University A offers a job to a professor at University B, a far less prestigious and well-connected institution, but the professor and his/her family wish to remain in the location of University B for personal reasons.  If the professor is good enough, University A may agree to a half-time or similar arrangement, where the professor is only on-campus for one semester per year (usually 4 months).

In addition to the excellent answers given above, here are some reasons I've seen for professors to get an appointment at a different university (or to retain an appointment when they moved):

They're a major part of a center at University A, and University A really doesn't want 'Co-Director of the A Center for Really Important Research' to be listed as a faculty member elsewhere.
Weird university tradition. For example, my university automatically gives all outside readers on a dissertation committee an appointment at the school. It's utterly meaningless, but technically its a thing.
Collaboration, grants, etc. are sometimes easier if everyone is technically faculty at the same school, and schools will sometimes bring in a professor from another nearby university to "shore up" a program, allow for easier mentorship if a professor keeps appearing on grad student committees, etc.


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Are there any examples of legal issues with academic fraud?
If somebody gets a law/engineering degree or something similar with academic fraud surely they could be sued for malpractice?  Maybe another examples is/are doctors.
Are there any examples of this ever?  If somebody got a Computer Science degree (via academic fraud) and then marketed it couldn't they be sued for marketing something they didn't earn?

I'll note that civil law and criminal law are quite different. They overlap in a few ways, but not all. For example, you can be sued for some kinds of fraud and you can be imprisoned for other kinds.

Oh yes... Some politicians have had their degrees revoked for plagiarism (see https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/mar/01/german-defence-minister-resigns-plagiarism for instance) and resigned... Most likely not only politicians but their CVs are scrutinized more than others and it tends to make the news.   A good place for such stories is the blog RetractionWatch: https://retractionwatch.com/

Did you mean to write your last sentence differently? As it stands, you've written it asking if someone can be punished for marketing something they did earn.

Are you interested in the laws of a particular country?

In the United States and many other countries, engineering and medicine have revocable licenses to practice with an exam as well as the degree requirement.  The same is true of other professions such as law and the CPA designation.  It is presumably difficult-to-impossible to pass the examinations without the knowledge required for the degree.
Practicing such a licensed profession without the requisite license is a criminal offense, at least usually, but it is the absence of the license rather than the academic fraud that's illegal.
Generally what happens to (unlicensed) people who claim degrees they do not have is they get fired for lying on resumes.  I suppose if one held oneself out to the public as having a certain degree and charged for practicing the skill implied by the degree, one could be charged with fraud.  In fact, what likely happens is a civil suit for non-performance.
On the other hand Frank Abagnale did get imprisoned for fraud, although I believe it was the bank fraud, financial fraud, and forgery that nailed him and not academic misconduct, even though he both claimed a non-existent Harvard degree and impersonated a physician.

Signing off on a design when one is not a Professional Engineer May result in civil or criminal penalties (criminal if what you signed off on killed somebody).

Yes.  I've edited my answer to address "practicing without a license."

+1 licensing is where it’s at. So far there’s no license or bar for CS majors (maybe there should be...)

Is the answer specific to a certain country? If yes, mentioning it in the answer would improve it.

Denmark has an explicit law against scientific fraud and bad practices. I do not know if anyone has been sentenced to anything based on it. You can read the law here: https://www.retsinformation.dk/Forms/R0710.aspx?id=188780

I have seen examples about teaching. Court can find someone guilty of malpractice if it decides that the professor is being intentionally unfair with assignments or grading. Academical bullying is also a thing.
In such event one can potentialy sue for damages and malpractice.

Can you provide a source please?  I'm aware of cases where professors have been sanctioned by their university for unfair/discriminatory grading, but I've never heard of a court actually convicted someone of a crime for unfair/discriminatory grading.

@JeffE I will send you one in private as I hope to keep this account anonymous.


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Should I write a recommendation letter for a student at a previous job/institution?
I receive requests for recommendation many times, but I have received one from a student belonging at a previous affiliation of mine, asking for a favourable letter in view of their achievements.
I am aware of the fact that if I comment on the performance of the student, it could be used against me, since it is good practice to "erase" all the material, marks, personal information of the students and staff relationship at a previous job. So I am hesitant to go in that direction. On the other hand, I could comment only very generally on the skills of the student, which could backfire their application to a new job
Differently from this question I am not looking for a recommendation, but giving one...

I think if the student was a good student, it would be very appropriate to write a recommendation.

When you change job, you don’t erase your memory (well, not in all jobs), nor do you all your responsibilities related to this previous job vanish. It is true that leaving a position creates certain obligations in the data you can retain, and how you can use non-publicly available information pertaining to your older institution. However, in the particular case of a reference letter, I don't think it should cause trouble. Moreover, reference letters are confidential.
Actually, I'd go further than saying it should not be a problem. In fact, I think if you can honestly write him a good recommendation letter, it is part of your responsibility to do it. This responsibility is not to your former institution, but to the student and the academic system as a whole.

If you are an academic, your responsibility and commitments to your former students and advisees does not end if you change jobs. The same also holds true in reverse.

of course. But I can comment on "this person is a good team-worker; has social skills; is motivated. Access to his/her academic profile is barred to me, though"

The student's grades are visible from their transcript. A reference letter that just echoes the transcript is not very helpful. A student's potential_for_future may be what reference letters can discuss that is less clear from grades.

To be more direct: A reference letter that just echoes the transcript is worse than useless.

You may want to ask the student to send you any material that you need for writing your reference, for example grade sheets and a CV. Bringing in your personal experiences with the student in addition shouldn't be a problem at all. After writing the reference letter, you should erase all confidential material that the student sent you... :)

This is generally how I've seen it done. You can ask the student for backup information so there's accuracy in what you write.  Personally, I've given basic information to everyone who has written a recommendation for me over the years, even those closest to me. Just to make everyone's life easier.  Also, @silvado, it is within the right of the writer to keep any information (confidential or otherwise) unless the student explicitly asks you to delete it.  Now, it's probably the right/nice thing to do but I'm just pointing out that it's not legally binding. :)

I've previously been asked to write my own recommendation letter, with the professor merely signing it...

@gerrit: See the discussion under this question. Many people (including me) consider ghost-writing your own recommendation letters to be grossly unethical.

Well, he did edit it a bit, but indeed I thought it odd and it happened to me only once. Interesting Q., thanks for the link.


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Is it possible to go through registration without a passport and a visa?
I lost my passport with a F1 Visa today, 1 week before registration at SUNY Buffalo (I am attending as a PhD student), will it prevent me from being registered if I don't have a passport with the stamped visa by the time I arrive (I am already in the U.S)? I can't contact the university staff since it's Saturday and I am freaking out with no clue on how to proceed.

The US has gotten a bit weird lately, but I'll guess that if you talk to the university directly they will try very hard to manage the issue. Don't panic until you have a better idea of your options and the university response. Contact the university first, but you will probably need to also contact the police. Perhaps the university police would be better than other possibilities.

Also, contact your consulate to get started on the process of getting a replacement passport.  The sooner the better.

Get a replacement passport and contact the university's international office ASAP. IANAL, but I think you can stay in the US without a visa and only need to get a new one to re-enter, so you might be OK. Do you have a scanned copy of your visa?


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What does GE stand for in community colleges and education?
I found this comment on a youtube video:

My own community college graduation is tonight actually. I’m getting
two associate’s degrees and will be transferring to University of
California, Irvine. I paid about $1800/year out of pocket but saved
roughly $65,000 by not going to university right after high school.
Community college is a great option and allows you to get your GEs out
of the way.

What is a GE?

Presumably, "general education [credits]."
In the US, major requirements are broader than elsewhere. For example, students of any major may be required to take a year of a language, or two or three arts classes (for the sciences) or two or three science classes (for the arts).
So, "general education" often refers to these, or entry-level courses like Chemistry 101 that students will often take at community colleges  where they are cheaper, and sometimes easier (i.e. not weed-out classes). Often class sizes are smaller, too.
Suggested in the comments was "general electives," which would be similar.
You might need 200 credits to graduate, but your major only prescribes 150. So your last 50 credits would be "general electives." Popular ones at my alma mater were drawing classes, Earth Science 101 (space!), or stuff like "Human Sexuality" or "Taboo Language."
They are slightly different in that "general education" credits are required to be those classes, where as electives are class you take just to reach a number of credits.

Synonymous to your description, general electives is another possibility.

@Cardinal Slightly different, but added.

@Cardinal Plausible, but GE/"gen-eds"/"generals" for general education credits is a pretty common term in the US. You wouldn't expect something else unless it was stated.


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What's the consensus on sharing raw data?
Let's say I authored a paper or a study - published either in an academic journal or release just on a website. The study is well received, but I've received some requests from "colleagues" who want access to some of the data sources. The issue I have is that either I'd paid for some of the data sources - or spent considerable time and labor (or paid to have the data collected, transcribed etc)- thus I am conflicted about just releasing the data to those who did not expend the same amount of time or resources.
I once requested something similar from a professor (we only knew each other's names via the industry) - and he explained that his research data was as a result of along time relationship with people inside a particular company (who collected such data), and he did not feel comfortable giving it away. I did not think less of him, nor did I think he was hiding anything.
Is there any kind of consensus among academic or professional researchers about sharing raw data?

I think you will find there is no consensus. A certain group of advocates will say all data should be shared, but I'd suspect those people have never worked with the types of data that are complicated to share. For everyone else, there are too many complex issues involved to have any sort of blanket policy. Some journals do have policies, however, that may work within their particular field - it's good to start with those if you are looking for narrow consensus.

I'll share some thoughts with you as someone who has made all of his research software publicly available for the past 20 years.
My experience is that the risk of others "scooping" you by taking your data (or code, in my case) and doing analyses with them that lead to important studies is relatively small. The likelihood that they ask you to participate in such studies -- given that you know the data, how it was collected, and how it was curated -- is, on the other hand, relatively high and may lead to you writing papers you never dreamed of. So there are substantial positive upsides that, in my case, have always made it worth my while putting my work out there.


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Welfare academics
Does anyone know if there are academics (such as mathematicians) who use welfare checks to free themselves up to just do research? That is, as an alternative to the ivory tower, either due to preference or failure to meet selection criteria. How successful have they been without an official post? I feel like this would be an ideal life.

If you have worked with any institutionally unattached academics, that would be interesting too.

Would you please clarify? Are you asking about "independent" academics living off social welfare provided by their state or country?

Done. (character count)

I am not sure what at all is "ideal" about this plan, to be frank. Social welfare recipients usually receive only enough money to ensure subsistence, if even that much. Moreover, in places like the US, there are major time limits placed on the amount of time someone can be on unemployment "insurance" and receive such funds.
So, even if you do get such money, it would almost certainly not be on an ongoing basis, nor would it be a particularly comfortable life, unless you have sufficient additional resources (other working family members) to supplement welfare payments.
Moreover, being unaffiliated with any institution means that you don't have access to the resources of such institutions (journal access, computer and laboratory access, and so on). Obtaining these resources without institutional affiliations can be very expensive, and could completely negate the benefits of being "free of the ivory tower."

No pressure on what to work on, no teaching, etc. Free from too many material objects. I was thinking of something like Paul Erdos's lifestyle, though somewhat different.

I'm not sure how he got journal access. Maybe his life only worked due to his demonstrated genius, idk.

@anon: If you really are like Paul Erdos and don't care about anything else, maybe you can pull it off, but otherwise you might find it gets to be a drag.

Paul Erdos got journal access from being a visitor at universities that had subscriptions to the journals. He life was better described as "itinerant mathematician" that is he was usually visiting somewhere and not just sitting in an apartment somewhere.

@anon there are places in academia that give complete freedom, no teaching duties, no need for getting grants, and so on. Of course you would have to be good enough to get the position.

@Bitwise, maybe I could postdoc hop until I get to that point. I'll check if math postdocs have much freedom.

@anon Often post-doc positions are available only to those who got their PhD within the last 5 or so years.

@BSteinhurst, Does arxiv replace the need of journal access? Or is it not widely implemented enough?

@anon it really depends on what field you are in. In mathematics arXiv will get you most but not all of contemporary research. I can't vouch for other fields. ArXiv itself only pretends to cover, math, physics, some chem, some bio, some CS, some finance. If you are in the wrong field then it won't help much.


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How do I know if a journal was indexed in ESCI on a specific date in the past?
There is information for journals in the Scopus database as follows "Years currently covered by Scopus:from 2017 to 2024". In this way, we can learn the date the journal has been in this database. I would like to get the same information from the ESCI. But I could not find this information. Is there a way to learn the year the journal has been in the ESCI?

Did you ask ESCI?

@WolfgangBangerth Yes.

Web of Science shows for which period of years a journal has been indexed, but I'm not clear on whether it reliably updates which index the journal was collected in for each year or if just the most recent index is given. I also don't know of good example journals to check this for.


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Should I contact potential PhD supervisor of a pre-defined project?
I want to apply to some PhD projects in the UK (all either already funded or competition-funded). Most of the posts that I can find regarding contacting supervisors mention contacting them for self-defined (as in the PhD student) projects.
Is the etiquette the same when the project topic and basic outlines are already defined and the supervisor is expecting applicants to said project?

Yes, and that helps them quite a bit. If you contact them and they are interested in you, they will probably book a informal chat so they can see if you are a good fit to the project. Others might just talk to you via email. Either way, showing interest is key and can help you quite a lot. Some programs also require proof that the supervisor is willing to supervise you, so taking to them is the only way to get into those.


text:
Splitting Time Between Computer Vision/AI and Computational Geometry?
I'm currently working at a private company where my main passion and focus is AI, particularly computer vision. I want a research career in this field and I'm interested in public research. However, due to company needs, I'm also spending a significant portion of my time working on computational geometry projects.
While computational geometry is related to computer vision, the work doesn't involve machine learning and isn't really aligned with current CV state-of-the-art approaches or major research directions. I'm genuinely learning a lot - getting deep into algorithms, optimization techniques, and working with specialized computational geometry frameworks. Some of these skills might transfer over to CV work, but I'm not entirely sure.
My main concern is about future job prospects. The AI/CV field moves incredibly fast, and I wonder if splitting my focus like this might put me at a disadvantage compared to others who are working purely on AI/CV projects. While I appreciate the broader perspective I'm gaining, I can't help but worry if I should be pushing harder to focus exclusively on AI/CV work.
I'd really value any insights from people who have experience working across these related but distinct fields. Has anyone managed to leverage computational geometry experience in their AI/CV career? Or do you think it's better to specialize more narrowly?
Thanks in advance for any advice or perspectives you can share!

This seems to be about the job market, not about academia. The workplace is a better fit: https://workplace.stackexchange.com/

You’re very fortunate to have a position allowing you to work in both fields. Are you certain its path doesn’t allow (or require) you to develop into a researcher? The grass is greener, etc.

This is a perennial problem and in a broad sense probably unanswerable. Can only wish you wisdom and a good dose of luck!


text:
Are open access papers read by a larger readership than paywalled papers?
One of the potential upsides of open access papers is that they can be accessed by anyone for free, including people who don't live or work in a university. As a result, one might think that non-"professional" researchers may access open access papers more than paywalled papers.
Is there any research/study/survey that tried to quantify to what extent open access papers are read by a larger readership  than paywalled papers?

This is an excellent question.  My gut reaction is that the quality of the publication is more important to it getting cited than its access, but this does seem like the sort of thing that could get quantified.  And in particular, since some professional organizations (in CS this would be ACM and IEEE) will for some publications take a "hybrid" approach in which authors can opt to pay up-front for open access, that would provide the best testbed for analysis: do papers in the same publication get cited more when provided for open access?

I seem to recall a study that mentioned citations were higher for papers authors posted online, I'll see if I can find it (or maybe someone has it handy). That makes sense to me since those of us in smaller institutions might need to wait several days to ILL a paper that's not freely available. Easier to use the one immediately available

A good rule of thumb is that I cannot cite what I cannot find/read :). Not everyone has access to journal/publishers subscriptions, not all subscriptions have access to every journal. The publication doesn't need to be open, you work just need to be "findable", if you catch my drift...

Science is not a number game. On long term it is more important who reads your paper than how many. If the name recognition of the open access journal is low (and nowadays it can be a real problem), than it can bite you back even if you have more readers in terms of numbers.

@Greg FYI the question was triggered by https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/3690/community-countdown-event-for-march-for-science/3696#comment11231_3696 The original intent was to investigate whether open access papers have a higher readership and enhance scientific literacy among the general public, compared to closed-access ones. Also, (journal) ranks are numbers.

@FranckDernoncourt I think you might want to clarify that little bit in your question (that you're looking at the general public).  You kind of do already, but it sounds at the moment more like non-university researchers, rather than the scientific laity.  (my answer will stay the same — I didn't see any articles specifically on the topic, unfortunately, but maybe there's been some written on NASA's open publishing and science literacy that could be relevant)

Scientific papers, on average, are NOT read by the general public. Zero.

@Karl I fully agree, and even would go further: scientific papers are not meant to read by general public. Not because there is any secret, but because by design they are hard or impossible to understand by anyone who has no certain knowledge in the subject (the definition of general public). Actually we can see many disastrous attempts when average bloggers or even scientific journalists try to interpret papers.

@Greg "Actually we can see many disastrous attempts when average bloggers or even scientific journalists try to interpret papers" -> so they do read papers?

@Karl I have seen plenty of patients reading research papers to better understand their medical condition as well as the treatments available to them.

Software developers reading papers from related fields (e.g. cryptography, machine learning, distributed computing) isn't that unusual. For me personally the free and easy availability of papers in those fields helps a lot.

@Karl Depends on what you mean by “general public”. Check you sceptics.stackexchange.com if you find the time. As an example, I avidly read papers outside my field. So for that field I’m definitely “general public”.

@FranckDernoncourt No one denied that some do. The argument was that science in many ways a  "don't try this at home" business for people who have no idea about the field

@KonradRudolph No, you're not. You are acquainted to scientific discourse, and likely intelligent and an open minded sceptic (in the widest sense). That makes you top five percent of "general public". ;-)

@Karl Less than 5% of the population are professional researchers, so if  only 5% of "general public" consult the scientific literature they would already outnumber the professional researchers :)

@FranckDernoncourt I'll doubt that even 5% of scientists regularily consult literature outside of their field. ;-)

This answers is not exactly what you ask for — you ask for readership, but most of the research has focused on citations. The two are, of course, related, and the answer seems to be a pretty clear yes. (In my field, it's practically the only way I find stuff from overseas, as many online repositories don't seem to have much international coverage except for a handful of big general journals but not the niche ones).

Gargouri, Yassine. “Self-Selected or Mandated, Open Access Increases Citation Impact for Higher Quality Research.” Public Library of Science ONE 5.10 (2010): n.p. Web.
This article indicates that citations are more common for open access articles, and that this is a result of higher availability and access (=likely readership) by researchers. [Link]
Lawrence, Steve. “Free online availability substantially increases a paper’s impact.” Nature 411 (2001): 521. Print.
This comes to the same conclusion — way back in 2001. The effect is found to be quite massive: “Averaging the percentage increase across 1,494 venues containing at least five offline and five online articles results in an average of 336% (median 158%) more citations to online computer-science articles compared with offline articles published in the same venue.” [Link]

Since the OP only asked for a correlation, this is a perfectly valid answer. Just one caveat: based on this evidence, it is unclear whether OA publishing increases citations or whether authors who anticipate many citations are more likely to opt for OA publishing.

@HRSE the Gargouri paper delves a bit into that.  How well, I'm not a good judge — definitely outside of my area of research.

it is a bit complicated, but there seems to be some trouble in their paper. one problem is that their results hinge on differences between compliers and noncompliers to mandatory OA publishing. the quality of a research paper is very likely to be correlated with whether its author follows his/her institution's rules...

Reads outside of academia don't generate citations. I'd say that citation count is not a valid indicator of readership breadth.

@capecod note that I answered initially before realizing the focus (by way of comments on the original post) was on non-researcher readings.

The first reference isn't about OA publishing versus paywalled publishing. They are all paywalled articles, and the question is whether a pre-publication version is freely available or not. Since pre-publication versions often appear (and start being cited) before publication, the results are not surprising!

Paywalls are very porous. Depending on your field, you might find many paywalled papers available for free through Google Scholar. I know there are major universities, at least in Europe, that encourage their staff and students to use proxies to log into libraries like ScienceDirect for free.
In my experience I googled up shared PDFs of thousands of paywalled papers in the field of economics. I only encountered a handful of papers that weren't available for free somewhere online so I contacted the authors and they sent me copies of their papers for free.
I'm not aware of any data out there that would suggest that open access papers have a larger audience nowadays.
My intuition is that top paywalled journals have more readers than top open access journals, but average paywalled journals have lesser readership that average open access journals. Mediocre paywalled papers don't seem to generate enough interest for someone to share a copy online so they are the ones that end up truly paywalled.
Sorry for the lack of data references. I just wanted to point out that any data on this question should take into account the field, the rating of the journals, and readers who google up paywalled papers for free.

The answer is 'yes'.
Relevant section on Wikipedia

OA articles are generally viewed online and downloaded more often than paywalled articles and that readership continues for longer. Readership is especially higher in demographics that typically lack access to subscription journals (in addition to the general population, this includes many medical practitioners, patient groups, policymakers, non-profit sector workers, industry researchers, and independent researchers). OA articles are more read on publication management programs such as Mendeley.

Several sources are cited; I'll just link the first two.
You can find more effects of OA publishing in that article.


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Earnings generated by open-access papers vs. paywalled papers
Is there any research/study/survey that tried to compare the  earnings generated by open-access papers (researchers/institutions pay when publishing) vs. paywalled papers (researchers/institutions pay when reading)? I.e., for a given paper, do publishers make more money through the open-access model, or through the paywall model?

This question came from Mark's comment (mirror).
FYI: Are open access papers read by a larger readership than paywalled papers?

Interesting question! Sadly, I think this relies on inside information from a publisher. I sure hope open access turns out to be more profitable, though...

The comment seems to be referring to per-article fees, which are likely a small minority of total readers. For profit journals are unlikely to release this commercially sensitive information. Is your question specific to these per-article fees, or are you interested in the economics of the total business model?

@MJeffryes I'm interested in the economics of the total business model since as you said, not so many people buy individual research articles (Do people actually buy research articles?).

Coincidentally I just came across this tweet, reporting from this conference I think:

Daniel Pollock at @DeltaThink notes that OA publishing accounts for 20-25% of STM publisher output, but only 6-9% of revenue #stmfrankfurt

...implying that the earnings are (currently) lower for OA papers.
Daniel Pollock apparently is a publishing consultant. so those numbers are probably relatively accurate.
I would expect this to change now that more and more countries are signing Big Deal-type agreements with publishers on APCs.

What is a puglishing consultant?

Someone who works as a consultant for publishers, I'd guess, and thus has likely seen such numbers at different publishers.

For subscription earnings, the most prevalent figure is in the ballpark of $5,000/ per paper. It is obtained by dividing the total revenue of the STM journal subscription market by the number of published paper in the same year. Some sources: this blog post and link therein provide estimate based on precise sources; this STM report (2015) mentions an estimate of £3095 per paper, with a rough decomposition of the cost.
Remember this is an average, I know a publishing house who would typically have prices of the order of $50 per page (in math, so about $1000 per paper) - but hey, they do a much better job than Springer or Elsevier, so of course they are 5 time cheaper. Heu, wait...
For Open Access article, things are way more complicated. First, it is not true that OA means that "researchers/institutions pay when publishing": Green OA is quite independent of journals (authors deposit their postprints in a repository) and many Gold OA journals, including high-standing ones, run on voluntary work or subsidies or both and do not ask for APC (Article Processing Charges, aka publishing fees). Here, it is my duty to introduce Fair Open Access.
Second, there is the case of hybrid journals (some papers are OA, the others are closed to non-subscribers). Figures have to the best of my knowledge not be compiled and publicly available.
Third, even for those Gold OA journal relying on APC, I do not know of a good source to get an average price; I have seen prices from $500 to $5,000, possibly more. But it is true that currently Gold OA seems quite lower priced than subscription on average. However Nature have said that if they where to turn OA, they would "have to" charge several tens of thousands of dollar per article. So one can guess that OA may have developed first in the lower-cost segment of the market, rather than being intrinsically lower-priced.


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Is there any point in keeping the paper versions of one's college diplomas?
Aside from decoration, memory, self-infatuation or other personal reason, is there any non-personal reason in keeping the paper versions of one's college diplomas? Or can one just throw them away and present the electronic versions at the rare occasions when they are required?
Assume the degrees are from universities based in the United States, if that matters.

@Roland Thanks, that's good to know. I'm indeed interested in any potential use of the paper version.

If it's a professional degree (say Engineering) and you are a US citizen wanting to work in Canada under the NAFTA rules, then a paper degree is the easiest way to prove your status (actually, I'm not sure about US into Canada, but I used my paper degree many times to get TN status as a Canadian in the US)

Is it standard for US universities to issue an electronic version? My (British) degree certificate came on paper and the only electronic version I have is my own Scan-to-PDF of it.

@dbmag9 I do not know there are electronic versions.  However, the universities I attended (and every US university) I am aware of will issue paper transcripts to students.  These transcripts have security anti-counterfeiting measures and are considered a better way to share your academic accomplishment than your diploma.

Related: https://workplace.stackexchange.com/q/72026/17890 and https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/38484/43873

My transcripts were apparently kept on an older computer system.  It has taken my university a week or more to deliver transcripts.  Some hiring decisions will not wait weeks, because the company needs a person right away.

Considering that it is fairly simple to print a fake diploma (with engraving & fancy lettering), and still easier to fake a scan of one, why would one be required/accepted as proof of anything?  Basically wall decoration, if you're so inclined.

They are accepted so the employer can say they made a reasonable effort to ensure the employee had the qualifications, so its entirely the employees fault for faking it (and for getting caught).

@Roland: I am not so sure a (physical) paper version will be required. I always provided a scan and it was good enough. The diploma can be checked with the school anyway.

Usually the background check will be the thing that verifies the work and education history.  I'm kinda surprised that asking for the physical diploma is still actually a thing.

How do these small pieces of paper stress you? https://money.stackexchange.com/questions/144882/is-it-ok-throw-away-my-unused-checks-for-one-of-my-bank-accounts

@BernhardDöbler no stress, just clutter. https://money.stackexchange.com/q/121092/5656 ; https://money.stackexchange.com/q/80478/5656; https://money.stackexchange.com/q/62193/5656; etc. people need to learn how to use
computers, the Middle age is over.

@jamesqf I guess you can see it as upping the stakes. Claiming a degree that you don't have in order to get hired is "just" fraud. Faking a diploma is forgery, which usually carries a higher sentence. It turns out that the bureaucrats which make most of the laws really don't like people messing with official paperwork. Also you can always claim that e.g. improving your final grade in your CV was a typo, but providing a doctored diploma is a certain proof of intent.

@mlk: Possibly, but I think there are many people who wouldn't be bothered.  It all seems rather strange to me, since I've never been asked for a diploma, or any sort of proof of college, for any job.  Closest I came were a couple that were a direct result of the work I did for my MS thesis.

@Roland what makes you think that you need it in Europe? I see that you're located in Germany so maybe you have a point there. But I'm from the Netherlands and I'm pretty sure digital versions are just as good. And I actually can't imagine it being any different in other European countries

I've got one word for you: hard disk failure.

@Thomas I've local copies and online backups.

While I don't disagree with any of the arguments for keeping the diploma, when my wife was hired into a (US) faculty position she was required to have her graduate institution send an official transcript.  She asked if she could just present her paper diploma (which she had on hand, so it would have saved $5 and some paperwork to get the transcript), and she was basically told, "No, the diploma itself means nothing."

@mlk: Further, in a case like this, you wouldn't be printing a fake diploma, just your own personal copy of a diploma you'd earned.

Keep all paper certificates always.
Depending on what job(s) you apply for, and whether they require a certain degree, you may be asked to present the paper version. I have been asked in my last few jobs to present the paper version (an electronic copy was only accepted as a temporary measure while I tried to find the paper one), though this is in academia where it required that you have these degrees.
Industry jobs may or may not ask, so better safe than sorry and keep the paper ones.

You'd be more sorry if you couldn't get the job you wanted because you didn't have the right paperwork (in time) for the small cost of storing a few sheets of paper.

@Rob I have never been asked for my diploma.  I think it would cost me $10 to get a replacement diploma.

@emory I think it's the delay, not the monetary cost, that is being called out.

You should apply this to any official document you receive in your life, from bills to diploma, and everything in-between (tickets and the like).
Better to store something you don't need, than to lose something you do need.

An former instructor of mine once told a story about the school where he earned his undergraduate degree.  A decade or so after he graduated, the school completely ceased operations after enrollment languished, the school went bankrupt, and a large portion of the campus was damaged beyond repair by a windstorm. He has protected his original diploma like gold since then, as it very well might be the only official record remaining of his degree.  When a potential employer wanted to verify his degree, there was no records department they could contact. Someone at the state's education department had to look at the original diploma and certify that it was authentic based on the format, the seals, etc (akin to how someone would authenticate a historical document).
A friend of the family graduated from a smaller college that has since been absorbed into a larger nearby school. It changed its name to match the parent school, "something Women's University".  Since this friend is male, and his graduation date was before the parent school started admitting men, he frequently fails background checks when applying for jobs.  Employers request a certified transcript that will have the new name on it, which makes them think he's doing a poor job lying about his degree. He always has to show them his original diploma with the school's original name on it and explain the merger/rename, which resolves the dilemma fairly easily.
Never get rid of any official document (diploma or otherwise), even if it seems like you can easily replace it.  You may not always be able to do so.  Things like this seem less likely to happen in the digital age, but digital data can go *poof* much easier than physical documents.  Between software bugs, cyberattacks, and human error, you shouldn't trust the preservation of vital records to anyone other than yourself.  Not to mention, digital formats are notorious for becoming unreadable as new technologies develop.  We have readable copies of paper documents written millennia ago; meanwhile, I have a research report written in 2001 that's in a format no modern computer can read.
Not to mention, it would be rather depressing to think that I worked my tail off for how many years and all I have to show for it is a measly PDF file.

I know of a man who earned a GED, probably in the 1960's.  However the place where those records were kept burned.  He became unable to prove he had a GED.

Just in case there are others confused by the acronym, here’s the Wikipedia page for GED: General Educational Development.

My grandmother had trouble getting married because she didn't have the paperwork to prove she had been born.

@MichaelKay Perhaps your grandmother was never born. In the absence of proof, skepticism is warranted.

@JohnColeman Or a missing proof for "I am myself" (typical in China).

I'm not that old, but the digital version of my birth certificate has 11 errors, differences anyway, when compared to the original. The transcripts I kept for my Bachelor's are not the same as the ones that would be reproduced now. Everyone at my workplace recently had to pony up any testamur to support CV claims, mine were framed, solidly.

Difficulties with checking diplomas were/are pervasive after the Balkan wars in the 1990s and 2000s. If you got a degree from the University of Sarajevo in the 1980s and want to have that verified today, good luck.

In addition to possibly having to present the diplomas for verification upon hiring in certain jobs, you may also be asked to present them (or verified copies) when applying for visas for certain countries.
So yes, keep them!

As pointed out by other answers, in Europe it is common that one has to present relevant degrees either as an original, or a notarized copy (or a certified translation of one of the former). In fact, this can go significantly further than the last relevant degree - e.g. in Germany, it is not uncommon to ask for high-school diplomas even for postdoc jobs (in the public sector, that is).
As pointed out in other answers, you can usually get a replacement document issued by your university, high school, etc., but given the small numbers of certificates to keep, I cannot see why one would want to risk that.

As an example, even though its an exception, the ETHZ (the best engineering school of tha country) in switzerland will ask for a paper version  of your swiss diploma. They will normally not take a digital version. This is also partly to prevent people from enrolling in many universities.

I once arrived in Wroclaw, Poland, for a visit and found the set theorists there, especially my host, Ryszard Frankiewicz, putting the finishing touches to a grant proposal. The one remaining task, which turned out to be highly notrivial, was to prove that Czeslaw Ryll-Nardzewski (a member of the Polish Academy of Science, and a very familiar name in mathematical logic) had a doctorate. (I suggested photographing his office door, which had in a large font "Prof. Dr. Habil. C. Ryll-Nardzewski", but it seems that wouldn't count.)

Have you any references that this is the case in Europe? You can't generalize it for Europe if you only know about Germany. I'm from the Netherlands and I'm pretty sure digital versions of degrees are just as good. We can download them at any time and they have a digital signature that makes it a legal document. I'm actually surprised to hear it's not the case in Germany.

@IvoBeckers Electronic diplomas are not a thing in the Czech Republic. When applying to UK 6 years ago there was no mention of any electronic possibility either, although they were actually satisfied with a leter from the uni (they had to, the diploma comes many months after the end of the study).

@IvoBeckers I was going to write "in Germany", but then I know it is the case in some other places in Europe, and someone would complained that this is not only the case in Germany. I'd say it is pretty common in Europe old-style. Things are changing, of course. - Also, regarding digital versions, are you sure this is also true for people who did their degree pre-digital time (say, 20 years ago, when - probably in most of Europe - digital certificates were not a thing)? Not to mention that no-one knows whether the digital signatures will still be ok 20 years from now ...

@BrockenDuck How would that prevent people from enrolling in many universities? Do they keep the diploma until you un-enroll?

@user151413 Most universities in Switzerland will accept a digital version of your high school diploma, but for ETH it is different. (Which is pretty funny considering it is the biggest technical univdrsity). And they will send it back in October, so months after you have enrolled. It is also worth noting that everyone with a high school diploma can enter any university they want in switzerland, this is probably the reason why the universities don't want you applying everywhere.

@IvoBeckers This is a situation where the "places that do require paper version" count in much bigger weight than "places that do not require paper version".

I live in Texas and I used to escape the Summer heat by teaching a course at the University of Calgary every Summer.  I had to present my diploma at the border to get my work visa each year.  That's just Canada.  How much more this would go for less neighborly countries.

Anyone requiring a paper copy of a college diploma is also going to accept a certified copy of your transcript (which will include any degrees earned).   Alternatively, you can request a replacement copy of your diploma.  The above suggestions will incur a fee (a quick search indicates in the range of $20).
So, if you do not anticipate any immediate need, want to rid yourself of clutter, and are ok with a nominal fee should your situation change, toss it.

Thanks! Is the certified copy of the transcript paper-based or does a digital suffice?

@FranckDernoncourt You can always get a paper copy.  Whether you can get a digital copy is up to the particular institution, whether it would be accepted would be up to who wants it.

See my comment about NAFTA above.  I'm pretty sure that transcript isn't an acceptable proof of graduation at the US/Canada border.  If it was, I probably would have done that instead of carting my degree up to the border, over and over, back in the day.

It's anecdotal, but this was not my experience. When taking up a job in the US my employer (a large academic hospital) demanded an original copy of the degree certificate, before I arrived to start work. A certified transcript was flat rejected (from an EU institution, which may have been a factor). This was ~8 years ago so maybe people have become a bit more accepting of digital documents in the interim, but I wouldn't be surprised if some places still followed a paper-first attitude.

Assuming the college you went to hasn't gone bankrupt, and the replacement copy of the diploma isn't actually possible to get any more...

That testamur can hide a lot evil that exists in the transcripts. (Conceded passes, fails, supplementary exams, substituted elective credits, taking 10 years to complete etc.).

Think of keeping the paper diploma as a kind of insurance policy. You “pay” a small “premium” in the form of allocating some space in your house to hold a piece of paper (probably together with other important paper documents). In return, you have protection against the very low-probability event that you will someday need that piece of paper. This also buys you peace of mind.
The benefit of getting insurance to protect ourselves against unlikely but unpleasant occurrences is well-understood. This one has a zero monetary cost so it’s an even better deal than most types of insurance. If you find it reasonable to pay for car insurance, health insurance, dental insurance, or any other form of insurance, the decision to keep your paper diploma should be a no-brainer.

In Europe they usually ask for the real diplomas signed by the universities.
Sometimes they ask for a translation into the language that requires it

My diplomas and certificates are in a drawer.  I moved them every time I moved.  But I have never used them.  Conceivably, if my career had taken a different path that it did, there might have come a time when it would have been appropriate to frame (some of) them and hang them in a grand ante-room to my palatial office.

Even if your office isn't palatial and is lacking any anterooms, if you have an office, it might be worthwhile to set up a "love me wall" with all your qualifications and awards hung on it.

It's very unlikely you'll need it
Remember that paper documents are easily forged - all it takes is a printer and some fancy paper. Back in the day this was harder to do, but these days any kid can fake up a certificate in Word. No sensible employer will rely on paper documents these days. That's not too say that there aren't employers around with obsolete ideas about this, but they're dying out. I've worked in industry for 25 years and I've never been asked.
If you attended a reputable university in a G20 country, the master record for your degree is not your paper copy, it's the university records. If someone wants to know if you got a degree from the university, they call the university. Even if the university shuts down, the state will normally preserve records for exactly this reason. But most universities in G20 countries don't shut down, because the trend is for increased higher education. At most they might merge with another university, but the historical records will still be preserved.
All this assumes anyone cares about your degree, of course. Remember that a degree is only a beginner's qualification in that field. Within the first few years of uni, your degree is going to be a major part of your "show reel" for getting a job, sure. After a few years of real work though, employers are far more concerned with the work you've done. A degree only proves that you've had some teaching - your experience at work proves whether you can apply what you were taught.
And even when you've only got your degree, as an interviewer I don't care about the piece of paper. I want you to talk me through the major projects you did, what the challenges were, and how you solved them. I want you to be able to geek out on the details - and after 25 years you'd better believe I can keep up with you on that! I want someone who's as excited to be working in the field as I am. If all you can tell me about is passing exams, you aren't the person I want working for me.
Assuming you're looking for a job in the same area as your degree...
All this does assume that your degree was in any way relevant to the job you're applying for. If you're going for a completely different job, and the company is using "do they have a degree?" as a placeholder for "do they have a functioning brain?", then maybe they're more likely to want proof of a degree even after some time.
But I take exception to that attitude, because it implies people who've chosen to do some other line of work instead of getting a degree are somehow "lesser". The best engineer I've ever worked with, who mentored me for a number of years, started as a technician and got a degree in his free time a number of years later. I'd strongly disagree with any suggestion that he was ever "lesser" before he got his degree. So if this is the mindset you're faced with, you should think carefully about whether this is actually a good place to be.

It would be very hard indeed to fake my diploma in a basic printer. It does not even fit in an A3 scanner and it is on a hard paper with 3D features. The English/Czech supplement (the main thing is Latin) contains security features often found on paper currency.

Surprisingly to me, I have needed them.  It is unlikely my diplomas could not be verified because I attended a state flagship school, but a large percentage of colleges in the US are expected to go bankrupt in the next few years.  It will make it really easy for people to claim that they graduated from colleges that no longer exist.  Most diplomas are hard to fake.  They use a number of features that make it pointlessly difficult.  I don't think much of that is for forgery reasons so much as colleges were extensions of the church at one point and picked up traditions that are old.

authors: Vladimir F Героям слава


text:
Are there situations when it is logical to include the today's value in a history paper?
I am writing some papers in History, 16th and 17th Centuries, where dollar amounts from that time came up, example:

profit margins traders were making selling goods on a trail
taxes/fees they were paying on the trail
how much the local government was collecting annually on the trail

I'm not sure if it is meaningful to convert the amount to present-day values using a converter like this and present them in parenthesis next to the then-amount. In my case, $500 then turned to $15000 today.
Is there any meaning to ever provide readers with present-day values of the dollar amounts? What are some situations where that is meaningful to readers?

I find that such conversions from even the 1960's into todays dollars often seem off - the whole structure of the economy has changed in 50 years, much less 500. How much would you pay for a beaver skin hat today? So, in an academic context I would avoid such conversions.

Yes, of course there are such situations. The price of an acre of land was x then. That is equivalent to y*x now.
But for the example you have given, it seems like the numbers relative to each other are more meaningful that their relation to today's numbers. A 50% tax rate is meaningful in any era. It is probably similar for profit margins. There might be exceptions, but ask what is the relevance of the comparison first. Absolute numbers are hard to interpret, but rates normally are not unless you are trying to, for example, discuss exploitive governments in some era.

In the field of history, it is often meaningful to convey the context of that time to the present reader, and it's not all that rare for historians to use conversion tools to explain certain monetary amounts in today's currency.
What needs to be kept in mind, is that such conversions are only acceptable as a brief aside or a quick remark, that is, as a small service provided to the reader. Except in cases where economic historians have developed relatively robust or complex tools for analyzing economic data from various periods, historians in general should not be relying on conversion tools for making definitive research statements as the core argument of their academic papers.
Therefore, in your case, I would not try to use conversion rates for all of the points that you mentioned. Choose one or two points at most where you feel that it makes particular sense to convey this contextual information to the reader, and keep it brief. For example, to make it clear to present readers how emotionally painful a certain tax hike would have been felt by the population of that time, and how this could become one of the causes for popular uprisings. Another example would be to convey the depth of economic inequality between the average people in the rich neighborhoods of a city, and poor communities in another neighborhood.


text:
Where do graduates in Chemistry from small PhD programs in the U.S go?
I am gathering information about the universities I intend to apply later this year and I've noticed that even in small graduate programs, most faculty members come from top universities such as Harvard, UC Berkeley etc. I was wondering, if those "small" programs are awarding degrees to many candidates every year, where do they go after the PhD is complete? In which field can these professionals find employability?
I'm sorry if this question is too obvious but as a foreign applicant, I don't know exactly how it works in the U.S.

industry research/engineering positions

Industry, or academic positions where no PhDs are granted (e.g. small non-selective liberal arts colleges.) For Chemistry specifically, let me recommend you read Chemjobber: http://chemjobber.blogspot.com/ who has sections on "industry vs academia" job search stats, etc....

Lots of small programs have very low rates of producing PhD's- a small program might only produce one new PhD per year.

You could ask the schools of your interest where their graduates are. Most should be happy to oblige, if only to show off.


text:
How to improve my Analytical Writing skills for the GRE?
I took the GRE for the first time recently and my Quantitative and Verbal Reasoning scores were somehow good. However, I've scored only 2.5 on the Analytical Writing section and I believe that would kill my application even to a small graduate program (I'm an international student applying to chemistry grad schools).
Now I am studying to retake the GRE and I've found plenty of materials for quantitative and verbal reasoning, but I am struggling to find (free) content on the internet on how to prepare for the AW part of the exam. Are there any resources online or books that can help leveling my writing skills in the short term? (I'm planning to retake it by october)

Are you still in an undergraduate program? Perhaps your university has a writing center that can help.

Magoosh's GRE blog?

@SeanRoberson Unfortunately not, I've graduated in 2016 :(

@RaulLuciano I bet your school has alumni support. Doesn't hurt to reach out and see what they can do.

@MichaelC. Unfortunately it doesn't. I'm from Brazil and universities here barely offer help to their alumni in portuguese, in english it would be even worse.

I don't have any specific sites or resources but I have some advice,
Write, write, write, and write some more
Get a notebook and set aside 40 minutes every day to write a sample essay. A list of topics can be found on the ETS.org website (so I guess I have one resource :) ).
Then analyze and grade your own essay. Compare to the template, to any available sample essays you find, etc.
The best way to improve writing is to write.


text:
GRE Scores for Graduate programs in Chemistry
I am planning to apply to PhD programs in Chemistry this year so I took the GRE last week and my scores were the following:
Verbal - 161 - 88%
Quantitative - 154 - 55%
(I still don't have the scores for the Analytical Writing section)
As a foreign student, I am not familiarized with the American admission system for graduates and I'm not sure if this score is sufficient (alongside with my CV, which is not that extraordinary) to guarantee acceptance in north american graduate programs.
In your experience, should I retake the GRE and try to obtain a better score or this should be sufficient? Please note that I am not aiming super top institutions like Harvard, MIT, etc, a decent normal PhD program will be a huge improvement for my career already, since I come from a country with substandard research in chemistry.
I looked up in some institutions and it seems that the quantitative score is acceptable (verbal seems to be ok for chemistry programs), however, some institutions put the lower limit to 155 on the GRE, which is higher than my score.
Thanks in advance
PS.: I would like to retake the GRE, but I'll only do so if I judge it is extremely necessary, since it costs $215 and where I live it is a great amount of money

There's never a guaranteed score, each program has their own baseline (they will post "averages"). You'll probably want a better quantitative score and be in about the 70th percentile.

Your question, In your experience, should I retake the GRE and try to obtain a better score or this should be sufficient?, depends upon other personal factors as well. Many (most?) PhD programs in the US depend up other factors as well such as research experience.

While I am not in Chemistry, I can tell you from a US perspective that there is no such thing as a GRE score that guarantees acceptance. As long as you are above any "minimum score" (which most places are moving away from, but many admission committees reportedly still privately use), it guarantees your GRE won't alone prevent your file from being considered, but that's really it. Even a 99% on all sections is no guarantee of admission to anywhere I've ever heard of.
In general, higher scores are of course better, but the general advice is that retaking the GRE should only be done if you have a good reason to think you would do very differently. I retook the GRE once after a month of brushing up on some of the algrebra and geometry I had not touched in years, and it still only changed my quantitative score by just a few points. The only reason it wasn't a total waste of money is I didn't have to wonder, "gee, if I had just taken it again, would I have done much better?" I got the answer, which was no, I would not in fact do better without a lot more work that I didn't actually want to do :)
The GRE overall is pretty good at test-retest reliability, and if you prepared reasonably well (went through a practice test or two, were familiar with the type of questions being asked, were not very rusty on the topics covered) it takes considerable effort to do substantially differently. However, you can test this out for free in an afternoon by looking up the ETS free POWERPREP software (from the makers of the GRE), which allows you to simulate a full test at normal testing conditions, in the comfort of your home. If you follow the test protocol on your own (no outside source, only blank paper and a pencil, timed breaks with no food, etc) and the estimated score is not wildly different than what you got on test day, then you just have to decide if it is worth spending many hours of intense preparation to try to get better at taking the test.
Regardless of what you end up choosing, don't let a focus on the GRE score prevent you from making the rest of your application as good as you can. A well written statement (edited and reviewed multiple times) and working with your letter writers to get good letters (delivered on time) is essential, while extra points on a test are just "nice to have".