text:
How to cite a book that has appeared in multiple versions/editions over the years?
I would like to cite a book that has first appeared in 1976 and has since seen three editions.
Book on Google Scholar
I need to cite the book in a paper I am writing that will (hopefully) be published by Springer. What version do I cite or do I cite the first but indicate I used the third edition?
It seems there are multiple choices but I can't find a concrete answer in Springer's guidelines nor can I answer this to my satisfaction with my prior experience.

Dear reader, both answers are great but I could only accept one, hence, I chose to accept the one with the most votes. However, you should read both if this question peaked your interest.

You cite precisely the version that you use and add something like "5th edition" (that is what the "edition"-entry is there for in BibTeX). Be careful to use the correct year!

Unfortunately I am using EndNote for this one. But thank you!

You should cite whatever edition you actually used. But allow me to add that you should have good reasons for not using the first edition (when it matters for your discussion when a claim was first made) or the last edition (when you want to refer to the latest/updated version of the claim made). As a reader, I'm left with an impression of unprofessionalism when I see a reference to a "random" edition of a book.

Wouldn't you in those cases still advocate citing the original works and then simply refer to the modifications my editions or date?

@Eric: No. Why would I do that?

That is a question only you can answer for yourself! ;) In my opinion it would be "cleaner" to refer to the original and than specify any modifications done in later editions, that is, except in the case of major revisions.

@Eric: Let me put it differently. I have never seen anyone do what you're suggesting, and I can't see why anyone would do it either. Hence why I asked why one should do that. I don't know what it means that it is "clean".

Let's put it this way round: Your foot- or endnotes tell people where to find the information you used. Therefore you tell them precisely from which book you took it. Anything else makes little sense as the information may differ from one edition to the next, especially in natural science.

@eric If my point was to trace how thinking about a question changed over time, sure, I might say, "In the 1952 edition of Bob's Compendium of All the Knowledge in the Universe, it said that ... but the 1960 edition said this different thing ... and the 2010 edition said something entirely different ..." But if I was just citing some fact, and the fact that theories about this had changed over the years wasn't relevant to my point, I can't imagine why I'd give some long digression about how we got where we are today.


text:
Referencing a Tapestry (History)
I would like to reference The Bayeux Tapestry for a paper. Guidelines state to use "standard footnotes" and doesn't dictate any particular system.
The Tapestry is located in Bayeux, France and the exact date and the creator are not known but thought to be approximately 1070 and commissioned by Bishop Odo of Bayeux.
What would be the most appropriate way to reference such an item?

Have you visited the tapestry yourself, and are referencing your personal observations about it? Or does your knowledge of this tapestry come from some written (citable) source?

It is based on my personal observations from pictures of the tapestry.

Then you can reference the source in which the picture is published.

This website from the library system at the University of Tasmania provides guidelines for citing works of art in the MLA style. Briefly:

Citing the original work (you went and saw the Bayeux Tapestry)

Artist (Last, First). Title of Work. Date. Medium. Location of the work.
Bayeux Tapestry. ca. 1070. Tapestry. Musée de la Tapisserie de Bayeux, Bayeux, France. (Since the artist is unknown, leave this field out.)

Citing a reproduction of the work (in another source)

Artist. Title of Work. Date. Medium. Location (if appropriate). Source reference. Plate/page # (if appropriate)
Bayeux Tapestry. ca. 1070. Tapestry. Musée de la Tapisserie de Bayeux, Bayeux, France. Everything You Want to Know About the Bayeux Tapestry. Ed. B. Ayeux. Bayeux, France: Bayuex Publishers, 2014. Plate 3. Print.

These patterns seem to derive from (1) treat it like a manuscript, with author, title, date, and home institution; and (2) treat it like a contribution in an edited anthology, with its original information as well as the usual details for a book. This follows the general idea for citing unusual things: adapt the most closely analogous thing you do know how to cite.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Etiquette for attribution when applying concepts in industry
I work as a software developer in industry, but I like to read various academic papers to get exposure to ideas that may benefit my work.  I may not apply exactly the technique described in a single paper, but my work is certainly influenced by the ideas I've encountered.  My question, though, is what is the proper way to provide attribution for the papers that have influenced my work?
If the product of my work were an academic paper, the rules would be quite clear, but here I'm making a product that is ultimately my employer's IP, for which the implementation details may even be considered trade secrets.  I'm struggling to find the proper ethical reconciliation between my professional obligations and the spirit of academia that favors free dissemination of knowledge in the hope that it encourages more of the same in return.  I don't want to steal anyone's work, but neither do I want to shut myself off from valuable lines of thought.

You don't need to do anything. Academic journals are published for the betterment of mankind. If you acquired said articles legally, then you are entitled to use their contents within your corporation as you see fit as long as you do not directly copy and distribute text or software code that is under copyright without a license. If you reimplement an algorithm described in a paper, you are fine. The only problem may come if you try to implement something covered under a patent (like the RSA patent), but these kinds of things are not typically published in journals these days.
There are more reasons that academic publish than encouraging more published work. When I publish, I hope that my ideas are used by any and all to fulfill their own goals. When I want specific kinds of returns on my work, I will choose other avenues of dissemination than publishing in conferences and journals.
There's no ethical issue here, in my opinion.

Just to add to this answer: if you are concerned about your employer overzealously protecting it's IP by unknowingly going after either the authors of the paper or someone else who has used the information, it might be a good idea to put the citation info as comments in the code. That way, anyone who looks at the code can see that the algorithm (for instance) is not their IP or trade secret, even if the code implementing it is. It might prevent misunderstandings later on.

I agree that most algorithms in papers aren't patented, but this is still a real risk, especially for attention-getting algorithms, and you can't tell without a patent search.  E.g., seam carving was patented.  So I'd disagree that "these kinds of things are not typically published in journals these days".

@AnonymousMathematician, I was speaking in informal statistical terms. By "typical" I meant that most are not patented. Do you think that the average algorithm in a paper has been patented?

Nope, I agree with you.  I think it was "these days" that threw me off; my interpretation was that patents used to be an issue worth worrying about but weren't as much nowadays.

@AnonymousMathematician, oh, I meant it in the sense that people made a huge deal about the RSA patent, and that we haven't heard much complaining about other software/algorithm patents coming out of published academic work since. There's certainly plenty of noise off and on about software patents generally, though.

Using published work is not stealing it, so rest easy on that score.  This is particularly the case with algorithms, which in theory cannot be patented though the practice is a bit muddier.  You are also not bound by the formal stricture of citation, because you are not writing a scientific paper.
As a practical matter, however, you should provide citations.  The reason you should provide citations is because an idea obtained from a scientific paper generally has some subtlety to it, and somebody going over the code needs to know that there's some precise reasons that it's set up in the way that it is---whether that's a co-worker who's never read the paper, or you in six months when you've forgotten its details.
So put citation-style references in the comments relevant to the code.  For example, if it's an algorithm, put it in the class file that implements the algorithm; if it's an architectural idea, put it in the README that describes the architecture choices you have made.  Give the next programmer a trail back to the source of the ideas so that they are less likely to accidentally break everything by "improving" something to violate a subtlety of the work that is being applied.

This is very good coding practice and should be done whether one draws the algorithm from a recent paper or Knuth or anywhere else.

Thanks for the practical suggestion; I do try to follow this for things like algorithms taken from books or code used under permissive license from places like CodeProject or StackOverflow, so it makes sense to extend this to research papers.  My uncertainty was due to the fact that a research paper represents a much greater investment of effort than an article or answer on a Q&A site.  It's encouraging, though, to hear from academics that they actually welcome their work being put to use.  Perhaps my surprise reflects too much time in an environment where everything has a profit motive.

@DanBryant In fact, getting used by commercial companies is generally great for academics, since that evidences "broader impact" and "technology transition" and things of that sort that they get rated on by funding agencies.

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


text:
Should one stick to the organization of a paper while teaching a subject?
When teaching a specific topic in a subject, which is not generally covered by textbooks, should or when the instructor should stick with the structure of the paper?
A not very popular topic in computer science covered in a paper. The structure of the paper is Algorithm 1 - Lemma 1 - Algorithm 2 - Lemma 2 - Theorem 1 - Algorithm 3.
The paper is published in one of top journals. I am aware that the editors and reviewers are quite decent people and they really know how to suggest organization of the paper for the sake of readability and understandability.
In what cases should an instructor change the structure while teaching, for instance to Lemma 1 - Lemma 2 - Theorem 1 - Algorithm 1,2,3?
Answers with experiences will be appreciated.

when should the instructor stick with the structure of the paper? — When there is a single relevant paper (which is rare) and that paper is well-organized and aimed at the experience level of the class you are teaching (which is also rare).

@JeffE But it might be one of many algorithms which is inlined with a subject, and only outline would be the scope of the course.

I sense this question is asking for permission.  Whether you think so or not, you ARE an expert professional in teaching the contents of your course to your audience.  You should by all means ask questions and consider the ideas of others to hone your expertise, but you ought to trust your judgement (as well as learn from your experiences).

Regarding the order you suggest at the end: please bear in mind that it's generally very difficult to follow a train of thought if you don't know where it's headed. If the lemmas and theorems are there to support the algorithms, then please at least outline the algorithm(s) as motivation first, otherwise grasping the theory can be much harder.

Even if the authors are excellent writers, there's no reason to assume that the organization the authors chose as best for an audience of specialists is also the best one for your class.  (At least in math, it's very rare for the editors or reviewers to call for organizational changes.)
I'd feel quite free to present the material differently if I thought a different order emphasized the points most relevant to my students, would be easier for them to follow, or I just preferred it. Indeed, I think there's some benefit to intentionally giving a different structure, since I think students benefit more from having access to multiple explanations than from repeating one slightly better one.


text:
latex and word template for conference submission
I have seen in some conferences that they usually put two kinds of templates, one in Latex and the other one in word. The question that I have, and is because I will be on a conference committee in the next couple of months, is how to deal with the differences of fonts between both templates.
For what I know the Latex fonts are usually not found in Word, so how to do when one send the articles to print the proceedings. Should one person convert from Word to Latex or the Latex template should be made in a way that resembles the Word fonts?
Sort of easy question, but I have not been involved in conferences committees before.
Thanks

I'm guessing you are asking this question because proceedings will actually be edit and printed, correct? If yes, by who? Being in a conference committee, to me, means essentially making decisions regarding the scientific content of the submissions, not wondering about typographic tweaks. If you have more technical questions regarding editing, then http://tex.stackexchange.com/ is probably the place to ask.

Both LaTeX and Word support similar font packages (e.g., Times New Roman). So you could simply ask all authors to use the same font family (or set up the templates to do so).
What happens afterward depends on who's the publisher. If it's published in-house, both versions may just be published "as is." However, if an external publisher is used, both versions will likely be transferred to the publisher's "house style."

Presumably, manuscripts produced using LaTeX and Word will still differ. How is this addressed?

IEEE provides coherent templates for office and latex available at https://m.ieee.org/conferences_events/conferences/publishing/templates.html
You can use them as inspiration or simply use them for your conference. I think they are free to use but you have to check.


text:
Meaning of "Study curriculum with rankings"
I have decided to apply to PhD studies and in one part it says that my CV should contain: "Study curriculum with rankings".
What does that mean? because they are also asking me to submit my studies transcripts.

It's ambiguous to me.  I'd contact the department and ask for clarification.

"See attached transcript."

Do these instructions come from an institution in an English-speaking country? If this came from an university in my homeland, I'd interpret it as "list of all courses taken with grades", clumsily translated into English. Besides that, it's not unusual to ask for this kind of information in when applying for a PhD (at least in Italy).


text:
Does ethnic diversity of the academic staff affect the productivity of the faculty?
Are there any studies where the effect of ethnic diversity on the productivity studied? If so, what are the criteria?
Do universities with more diversity tend to prepare better publications, or the average salary of alumni is higher than the others?

Are all universities equal in terms of publications? And will ethnic diversity be the only contributing factor?

Do you have particular fields in mind?

There are a variety of studies of the impact of diversity (at least of views and interaction styles) on productivity. Most are within businesses. Whether there are any within university contexts is unknown by me.

@Buffy not really. I just wondered if such study has been done for any field.

"Average salary of alumni" probably tells you more about what kind of students enter the university - and how ruthless it is in weeding out those who might drag down the averages - than about the quality of the education it provides while they're there.

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


text:
Is it less valuable to participate in a paper with a lot of co-authors?
My question is specific to computer science area since in departments like medicine and physics, good quality work usually is a result of big team of researchers.
Not arguing that publish or perish is a fact in academia, I believe there might be some nuances that make an adacemician more or less valuable in terms of preferrability, credibility and reputability.
Publishing quality papers is always a big plus. However, suppose that there are two papers (call them A and B) where A's significance is 8/10 with seven authors whereas B's significance is 6/10 with two authors. And suppose that two people (call them X and Y) have 20 publications each.
X has a lot of instances of A in their CV, and Y has a lot of instances of B.
Assuming that every other parameter is identical (their references, their universities, their field of studies, etc.), which one is more credible? Which one's reference is more valuable? And which one of them is closer to get a the only position in a university, if applied simultanously?

It depends on the department.  Some will value A more, and others will value B more - sometimes for reasons related to their needs, but sometimes just because of personal preferences of people on hiring committees.  You don't know which is which ahead of time, which is why you apply to 100 jobs so that it is statistically likely one of the departments you applied to will value your combination of strengths.

Sorry but I can't see how a hiring committee can see the fractional value of collaborators contribution to a paper: all one can see is whether you are  or not the first author, and how many citations the paper attracted. The rest is word of mouth (or call it informal reputation, in contrast to the "formal" reputation made by your visible contributions).

@famargar The authors' names might be in an alphabetical order. In that case, I am very lucky if my surname starts with an A?

@padawan a hiring committee is typically capable of recognizing whether the author list is sorted alphabetically or not. That being said, I seem to remember some scientific piece of work finding that authors whose last name starts with "A" or even better with "Aa" to enjoy statistically better reputation.

@famargar That reputation bonus is maybe not only based on their publication, but also on the fact that the applications sent to the hiring committee tend to be sorted by something that is supposed to not disclose the order they were provided, so is quite often alphabetic. And people tend to be more positive while reading application 1 compared to dragging yourself through application 49.

Being first author, or the most significant author in case it is simply alphabetical, is more important than the number of collaborators.  And the impact of the papers is crucial. I'd take someone who is the key author in top venues over someone who had just their advisor, say, but was less important in impact.
One key question is how the recruiting committee knows the impact of the student on the publications. That's where reference letters come in.


text:
Can a Computer Science Post Baccalaureate Student get Graduate Assistantships?
Recently, I have been going around university websites to find a good post baccalaureate computer science programs. Most of them cost around $45k for living and tuition. Well, I was wondering is there any chance that post baccalaureate Students get Graduate Assistantships? Or Are they eligible to do any other on-campus Jobs?

Every department is different. You just have to ask them.

Depends on your profile. If you are expert in a specific track and the faculty realizes that you might actually be able to assist the students, you would easily get a GA/TA/RA. An alternative to that can be tutoring, I've tutored all through my grad school. It actually pays almost all of your living expenses.
Of course any and all students are eligible to work on-campus for 20 hours per week during the school session and 40 hours when the school is not in session. This applies to international students too, if they are on F1 visa.


text:
When do offer letters usually arrive?
I contacted a professor about working on research with him. I met with him in person and he let me know he wanted to work with me, that he would be my research advisor, and if I applied to the department he would get funding for me. I applied to the university, got accepted into the program then filled out a TA application.
I was informed by my research advisor that I was selected as a TA and that I would receive my offer letter soon in the mail. It has been several months since I was told that and he checked on the delay and said that the TA offer letters were being held up in the provost's office for some reason. Classes start in August and I still haven't received my offer letter. Is this sort of thing common, or should I start to worry? My research advisor has guaranteed me I will be funded and I have nothing to worry about.

Rather than going through your advisor, you might want to talk directly to the person in the department who's responsible for TAs - often there's a faculty member with a title like "Vice Chair for Graduate Studies" and/or a staff member with a title like "Graduate Coordinator".  They should be in a position to explain what's going on and reassure you.

The department may well be unable to expedite the letter; usually there are several layers of approval that have to be completed first, and/or budgets that have to be reviewed and approved. This can seem completely opaque from the outside, but the department almost certainly wants to get the offers out, and they will work behind the scenes to try to keep the process moving. In other words, the explanation you received about the provost's office is completely plausible.

I followed your collective advice and contacted the department. Apparently although TA positions had been selected as my professor had informed me, the department can not send out offer letters until late July when they have the majority of their undergraduates enrolled. Luckily for me, my research advisor got a research assistantship position for me so now I have my funding settled for the Fall. Thank you for your input.

It is important to get as much as you can in writing (in case advisors/department chairs change, or finances change), but, ultimately, even that is not really a panacea, as most written documents have weasel clauses (e.g. guaranteeing TA while you are "demonstrating sufficient progress" or "subject to available funding".  Even many faculty offers
have an option to cancel before the first day of the semester.).
Ultimately, it's really all about your advisor and the reputation of the department.  Any respectable department, should stand behind a reasonable interpretation of their oral guarantees no matter what happens (i.e. fund you as a TA even if there is some shift in finances or availability that was not expected).  Word spreads, especially among graduate students, and
disrespectful behavior will be known among the students of the department.
To sum up:
 - Are you joining a respectable department?
 - Talk to graduate students in the department about whether this is common.
 - Have a backup plan just in case.

You are in a tough position because 'offers' cannot be guaranteed until you have an official letter in hand.  And, when letters are sent is really specific to a department and university.  For example, when I was accepted to graduate school, the acceptance letter and funding were part of the same letter.


text:
Job Application - Non-Tenure Track and Tenure Track in One Ad
I am working on an application for a job ad that lists available tenure-track and non-tenure track jobs in the same ad. I would want (and am qualified for) either position, but there are, of course, more non-tt positions. Is there an industry standard for how I should approach the cover letter. For example, should I:

Just choose one job to apply for.
Mention in my letter that I would like to be considered for
both/either.
Send in separate applications for both?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Probably very field dependent, there are not a lot of "ndustry standards" in academia. In my neck of the woods (a US research university in math), I would definitely recommend applying for both (if you're interested in both) and sending in separate applications, since the hiring committees might be different.

Check if the ad is wrong; sometimes ads appear on job sites that were not approved by the university.

Schools sometimes double up their job ads in ways confusing to applicants. For instance, a school may identify a single position as "Instructor, Assistant, Associate, or Full Professor," or as "Instructor/Assistant Professor/Associate Professor," signalling that they would offer a title based on the chosen applicant's experience and credentials. Alternatively, they may have multiple positions open but file one job ad. (It could be a deliberate cluster hire, or just a matter of how the department filed the positions.)
What you're describing is a blend of both approaches - hiring for positions of multiple ranks in one institution in one ad. There is no industry standard for how applicants should handle this exact situation. Instead, I'd advise treating each position like a separate search. File applications for each position you would like that you are qualified for.
This is the recommendation of Karen Kelsky (The Professor Is In), for instance, if a department advertises two positions:

But anyway, my answer is yes. If you are a plausible candidate for both searches, apply for both. In most cases the search committees will be made up of different faculty members, and while files may be shared across searches, you can’t assume that they will be. So to make sure your file is read by all concerned parties, send it to both searches.

So you should tailor cover letters and other materials to each position and its requirements.  If that means applying for an NTT position that emphasizes teaching and a TT position that emphasizes research, address teaching more in the NTT application and foreground research in the TT position. Let the respective committees behind the ad decide whether they want you.

Assuming that this is a university that does not have a billion-dollar endowment, if you state in your letter that you are willing to accept either tenure-track or non-tenure-track jobs, you are unlikely to get a tenure-track offer.
Apply for the lowest ranked position you will accept.
The job market is currently at its lowest point since 1945.  If that does not apply to your situation, then this advice might not apply.

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


text:
Interview Follow-Up Email Etiquette
I am writing a follow-up thank-you email for a teaching position that I interviewed for at a place where I am an adjunct. If I have had a (good) idea based on something the committee discussed, can I include that in the email, or does it come off as over-eager and/or desperate?
For what it's worth, the committee did say to get in touch with them if I had any further questions.

I think it good to share. It shows you are thoughtful and got something out of the discussion. But keep it short.


text:
How to become committee member of a conference workshop?
Is there a formal process behind deciding who should be the members of a workshop committee? Or is it more about the organizers contacting people based on their experience within that particular field?

The question linked above is asking about conferences, but the principle really is the same.

Organize that workshop
Be invited by the organizers to be on the commitee
Ask the organizers while the committee is still being formed (and be known and respected by them)

I can't imagine I would ever be so pushy and directly ask the organizers to put me on the list.


text:
How to do evaluation when the methodology is unique?
When it comes to the evaluation of a methodology (or an algorithm (CS)) we usually see how well the methodology actually is by comparing it with other similar methods that achieve the same thing.
However, in my case, the method we are proposing is unique and novel and, to best of my knowledge, isn't used anywhere else. Is it valid to evaluate it on its own, for example by simply measuring its time/complexity against n datasets? How would we perform evaluation for methods that can't be compared against others?

The fact that the method itself is unique is not the important thing here. The relevant thing is that the thing it achieves is something nothing else does.

TL;DR: if you don't know how to evaluate your work, you probably don't know exactly what research question you are working on.

How would we perform evaluation for methods that can't be compared against others?

I work in applied computer science, and this qualifies as the Number One statement my master students usually have when I ask them how they plan to evaluate their work - "I can't compare my tool / approach against anything - no existing tool has exactly the same scope, so the comparison won't be fair!".
This is of course true, but it also shows a misunderstanding about the research question that the work is addressing. Essentially, the "compare against a standard tool" approach is a valuable evaluation method if the research question is "Can we improve the performance/quality/whatever of an approach that does X?". If the research question is rather, as presumably in your case, "Can we find an approach that does X?", the evaluation of course needs to be different.
In that case, you need to find an evaluation that actually shows what you claim your approach does. Some recent examples from my students:
Is your claim that it makes sense to show software developers certain information, which isn't visualized by any other development tool? In that case you need to set up a study where you show that developers that see this piece of information do something better than developers that don't. Is your claim that taking costs of cloud resources into account when scheduling tasks allows for cheaper execution with the same quality? Set up an experiment where you compare costs with and without taking costs into account for a number of representative workloads.
Orthogonally, it often makes sense to do a partial comparison to existing approaches and tools, to also check how your approach fares in comparison to standard tools on standard problems, essentially to make sure that the improvement your approach presumably has in a "new" dimension does not mean that something else does not work anymore. For instance, in the development tool example above, you may also want to check if the new visualization distracts people so much that they now fare less well in usual development tasks than with standard tools.

There are two things that you need to evaluate with your method:

Does the method actually do what you want it to / claim it does?
What improvement does the method offer over prior work?

No matter what you are doing and how unique it is, you need to be able to validate #1 (preferably experimentally, but simulation and analytic methods can be fine as well).  If you can't do that, you aren't doing science.
The improvement, however, may be either qualitative or quantitative.  If it is a quantitative improvement, you must be able to validate by direct comparison (e.g., 30% faster, 5 db more gain, quadratic rather than exponential growth).  For a qualitative improvement, however, you may not need to compare if you can demonstrate that prior methods simply do not address certain aspects of your problem (e.g., you can predict upcoming frozbozz failures, but nobody else has even tried).  In this case, the comparison with other methods is most appropriately done in the literature review.

When proposing a new technique, where there isn't an equivalent to compare performance with, I tend to do as you suggested, and measure the time/complexity, and give some real world data points (it would take X time to operate on realistic situation Y).
Depending on the specific work, you could present an analysis of it based on rationale (for example, evaluating the security of a proposal by explaining the assumptions and demonstrating it is secure against certain threat models).
If there really is nothing which can do the same task, then you can't do a comparison. But perhaps there is another technique which, while technically different, can be used to solve a similar problem to your technique? You could compare performance within the context of that problem in that case.


text:
Enter academia with no undergraduate degree (only professional experience)
I'm wondering whether there's any way to enter the academic world, do research at a university for a living, without an undergraduate degree, but instead with several years of experience in industry (the same field of the research).
This is actually my situation. After 8 years of software development in several professional environments, I want to enter the academic world. But I'm frustrated about having to go back to the basics.

Do you mean a graduate degree or as a full-time researcher ?

this seems very similar to your previous question From industry to academia.  The answer hasn't changed since you asked.

I'm sure it varies by country, but in the US you would not have a good chance of getting an academic position.
However, you might find a position at an academic institution as an OPS (other personnel service), which is considered equivalent to a "contractor" position with no benefits and hourly wages.
I'm by no means a degree snob, but getting a degree is akin to getting a ticket to an event. If you don't have one, though shall not pass..

They can also be called "consultants" or "research assistants". I know some working in biology, for example running analysis on data or creating webs to collect and synchronise several labs.

It depends on what you consider academia. It is very unlikely that you will be able to become a professor. However, working in an industry research lab is always an option for computer scientists, for instance at Microsoft, IBM, Intel, or SAP. I do have collaborators at these places that are working in research in reasonably high positions, and which at least do not have a PhD. Whether there are people that do not have an undergrad degree either I am less sure, but it is not entirely inconceivable.
That being said, not having any degree will be a huge disadvantage during your entire career. I presume the number of doors you will find closed due to your background will significantly outnumber the opportunities where people do not care.

Academia is a circle. Normally you need an outstanding work during your PhD and Post-PhD to get a university position. Without these, the possibility of getting an entry-level long-term (not tenure) position in the university is near to 0, let alone without an undergraduate degree.
But your situation won't prevent you from doing some serious research work yourself, in an UNUSUAL way. I'd suggest you give up seeking any normal recognition in the academia circle (like a long-term position or a title) until you've achieved something obviously awesome.You have to understand it's hard for people to view you as an exception unless they are surprised by what you've achieved. People would doubt, if this guy is awesome enough, then an undergraduate and PhD degree are like a snap for him, why he didn't just get the degree.
If you insist on not pursuing a degree and go for an usual way, that would be very hard. But maybe you are indeed an exception. Wish you good luck!


text:
Half good and some not good results in a research paper?
I have made some research about a computer science topic. The initial idea seemed good, but when I implement the idea; this works in some cases and in some others it does not bring conclusive results.
How can I write a paper about this subject in particular? I mean, I do not want to hide the bad results. I want to include them, but I feel scared that my paper could not get accepted because of that.
I was thinking also to submit it in a not so prestigious conference, but also I do not see any advantage on doing so.

Points similar to the answers are also covered by Dick Hamming's You and Your Research, which is a great read anyway.

It's important to remember that a paper is supposed to make some kind of contribution. It's not merely a report on "things you did". So if you have some good results and some inconclusive results, what's the contribution ? As sr3u says, you need to work out what's going on and come up with some answers. It's entirely possible that you fail in this endeavour and end up with NO paper. That's not fun, but it's something that you must accept as a possibility.

It would be good to dig a bit deeper and analyze why the idea works in some cases and not in some others.  More than the fact that your idea seems not to work in some cases, a conference PC may be less than impressed by the fact that you have not worked out all its ramifications and clearly identified the structure of the problem for which it is good.  In all CS research conferences and journals of some reasonable quality, it is the responsibility of the author(s) to present ideas as well as to work out their consequences in some depth -- it is in general not acceptable to present a bare idea (or an idea not thought through properly) with the expectation that the audience/readers will take it forward on their own.
Presenting more analyses would also make your submission stronger by adding some other theoretical results to the paper.  You could also identify future research directions for addressing the cases not covered by your current work, which could add gravitas to your current paper as well as suggest your own future direction.


text:
issues regarding student research work in an undergraduate level
In the program of CS, in which I am currently working, we have a group of students that for ending their Honour´s degree they should submit and present a research in the field; limited to their undergraduate knowledge. The process is that they get an adviser, read some papers, ending up with an article that describe their experiments and discuss their results. After that, they should make a small dissertation about their research findings. Before going to this stage, their research work is revised by two lecturers to give their insights about this work. Regarding this procedure I have found, that in some occasions, the following occur:

The adviser of the student agrees that the current research work is adequate to the educational level, that is an undergraduate level. It is not a master´s or a PhD.
One of the reviewers asks for modifications in the research made by the student, that in the majority of the cases, would imply to make deep modifications in the research work that would take more effort and, of course, time allotted for the student.

In some cases, and this usually occurs in the dissertation, the questions asked from some of the other lecturers are very biased to their expert field. Making the student to feel discouraged of their work.

I mean how to deal with these situations, in this cases the adviser feel bad for the student also, but there are so many details that in my personal opinion is hard for the student to cope at this level. For example, imagine that a student X has chosen the topic of using neural networks for predicting diabetes treatment outcome. The student has made a literature review, obtained some datasets and perform some tests with the build model. Then, according to the adviser the paper is fine, and in the dissertation this happens:

Lecturer X suggest to use GA for feature selection instead of PCA. If this observation is not raised the student can pass, but with a minimum grade.
Lecturer Y, to test the knowledge of the student, starts to ask specific details of the architecture of the neural network. Lets suppose that Y is a mathematician, then he will start asking about what is the reason of the vanishing gradient issue and how to solve it. So this was a detail that the student has not considered, and according to this lecturer the student should fail.

So, what can we do to ameliorate this situation? Because at the end is bringing discomfort to either students, advisers and lecturers.
Thanks

Are you the teacher? Or what other role?

I think you have built a counterproductive structure into the course and you should probably change it, perhaps radically.
But there are some lesser things that you could, perhaps, do to make the problem go away. Maybe this isn't possible, but your staff should discuss these and all other options.
First, is that you can decouple the "advice" given by the reviewers from the grading/marking of the work. The actual marking and assigning of grades should be someone with an overall perspective on the course and its students, not the parochial views of some specialist, no matter how skilled.
The second thing is to have a session before the work goes out to the reviewers in which you are clear to the students about the marking (if you can get it changed) but also that they are likely to get weird, even hostile reviews. The students should be clear that while they need to be respectful and to consider any proposed changes or extensions that such things won't affect their marks. But of course, if project revision is part of the exercise the students will need to show that they have considered suggestions even when they must be rejected.
Another thing you might be able to do is to give the reviewers some training. Perhaps they don't understand the requirements at the level the students are at - undergraduate. Perhaps they don't understand their role - helping, not abusing, students. You can probably do this with written material given to potential advisors at the time of selection. A face to face meeting of all reviewers would be preferable if possible. That way you get feedback on the attitudes of the individuals. If you can fiddle with the grading scheme, you can make it clear to the reviewers that while their reviews will be considered in grading, they won't be definitive.
Finally, you may need to do a better job of matching students and reviewers as well as rejecting reviewers who have behaved badly in the past.

Assumption
In my department academics get hostile(not all, but most of them) if they consider themselves expert about a topic and kept out of the loop of any research done by any student. They will contest the adviser by ambushing students during dissertations.
As a student even if Lecturer Y or X was not my formal adviser, I would ask for feedback from Lecturer Y and X before dissertation. Because they knew the topic better than me and I don't like being ambushed during a dissertation.

Before going to this stage, their research work is revised by two lecturers to give their insights about this work.

I am assuming Lecturer X or Lecturer Y are not the advisers in your example. Their questions are directed to the undergrad students, but it looks like they don't appreciate not being asked for their input about the quality of research before dissertation thus they are reflecting their anger towards the poor undergrad students.

So, what can we do to ameliorate this situation? Because at the end is bringing discomfort to either students, advisers and lecturers.

In my experience either adviser steps in and explains the topic to the lecturer X and Y in front of everyone because undergraduate students get petrified against hostile lecturers and they cause more damage or advisers meet with lecturer X and Y behind closed doors to explain why the research is good enough for an undergrad student.
From my point of view Lecturer X and Y should have been in the loop before the dissertation either by making them advisers of the undergrad student or by asking their input before dissertation.
Keep in mind if a lecturer thinks that he/she is an expert about a topic most likely he/she will get hostile if you keep them out of the loop until dissertation. They are simply challenging advisers about the topic.
If this is the case, protect your undergraduate students. They do not have to learn politics yet.
edit: this is only a workaround not a complete solution to your problem.

In my view, anyone that would "ambush" a student should be fired. Terminated with prejudice. Asking tough questions isn't ambush, of course.

+1 "protect your undergraduate students. They do not have to learn politics yet.


text:
about academic proof-reading, what to do in this situation?
I have submitted an article for a journal in the field of CS and it has been returned and suggested to pass thru a professional editor or proof-reading (this is because my mother language is not English). So far what I did was to pass my article to some online paid tools such as Grammarly and Paper Rater, checking the suggestions, lifted the corrections made by these programs (and being careful enough to check it first with some English grammar books). After that I sent the new version to a past Professor from my master studies and he returned me back the paper with some corrections (he is an English native speaker, but he told me that he was not a professional editor so maybe there could be some mistakes along the way). With all these changes I submitted again the paper, which by the way in the reviews that I got it was accepted by three reviewers, but one of them mentioned that the English needed more work. So I waited, and again it was rejected by the editor pointing me that still the English part needs to be corrected.
So what to do? I have found that there are some proof editing services online, but how to know if they are good? I have not seen the reviews of any of them and well the prices are not so cheap also (ranging from USD 350 to even USD 700). The services that I found were:
Enago, https://www.enago.com
Elsevier, https://webshop.elsevier.com/languageservices/languageediting/pages/howdoesitwork.html
American Journal Experts, https://secure.aje.com/en/prices
Wiley, https://secure.wileyeditingservices.com/en/prices/quote/new (this one its pricing form looks mysteriously the same as the AJS)
Any advice what to do in a situation like this? I would not like to submit to another journal because it passed quite a long time since this research started.

Did you write this post yourself? For what it's worth, the English is what I consider readable. (Although in an academic setting I'd try not to use the informal spelling of 'thru')

Are you associated to a university? It might be worth to check whether your institute already has such a proofreading service.

One issue with some of these services is that they don't have the field-specific knowledge necessary. I had a "discussion" with someone who ran a translation service who told me that they could translate anything... Really could not translate buckling theory from French to English :)

If the reviewers liked the paper, but the editor did not, you might be more lucky with a different journal.

I don't have any advice about who to use, but I do suggest that you look to the long term. Try to find a person or a service that you will be able to work with on future papers, not just the current one. The person will get used to you and how you write and so the task will go quicker and maybe cheaper in the future.
Don't look for the cheapest service, I think. Your English skills will improve over time, but you will probably have a better experience if you can establish a relationship. You might even get writing tips from such an editor if you ask, after the person gets some familiarity with how you naturally write.

This! Use a service or a professional proofreader. The difference between a professional and a “friend who is a native speaker in your field” is dramatic.

Find a friend: a native-speaker of English who is familiar with your subject. Failing that, there is a wonderful UK organisation, the Society of Proofreaders and Editors
which includes amongst its members people who are both skilled editors and who have specific academic knowledge.
I have used them, but I am not personally involved with them: this advice is disinterested!

I freelanced for some of these companies in the past. As far as I can tell, they do what they say they do - their editors are experienced in academic English writing, they will edit your manuscript until it passes the English check, and they will edit any revisions as well.
Hence the real question is whether you think the service is worth USD 350-700. Only you can answer that question, unfortunately.

I applied to, then was given a work sample, and then (theoretically) worked for one of these companies for a few months a little over a year ago. However, despite their advertisement saying they were seeking editors for mathematics papers, out of the 100-150 papers that were offered up for editing during my time there, only one was in mathematics, and it was a purported proof of some major unsolved problem (or maybe it was a simple proof of Fermat's Last Theorem), and the only reason I didn't accept that particular assignment (despite being curious) was that I was terribly busy (continued)

at the time with some other contract work that came up. I had to choose 5 fields, and besides math I chose computer science, physics (maybe it was subdivided), and related things. However, virtually every paper that was offered up was in computer science, and the two or three I selected, I felt that I didn't know enough about the field to intelligently make any but the most trivial editing changes, so I returned them for others to select after a day or so. Also, the pay rate was roughly $45 per paper, and I doubt I could have done anything nontrivial in less than 10-15 hours . . .

@DaveLRenfro were you just editing for English, or were you looking for errors such as assuming Log(Ax+B) = Log(A+B) + Log(x)? I vaguely remember that in my case, I didn't get papers in my specialty, but I did get papers in the same field. The papers tended to be badly written, which makes sense (otherwise why would anyone engage these services), with the result that doing the editing was time-consuming and nontrivial.

It was just for English (AJE, if anyone's interested), but after looking at two or three papers I realized that there was no way I could get myself to do the editing quickly enough to make even $5 an hour at it unless maybe it was pure mathematics (and even then I wasn't sure how difficult it would be for me), but nothing showed up dealing with anything I remotely knew anything about. For example, in math it is common to say something like "for each 0 < x < 2" to mean for each number (real, rational, ... ? this might need to be made explicit) x such that 0 < x < 2 is true, (continued)

but someone not steeped in math writing may wonder whether the universal quantification is over inequalities rather than over numbers, and if not, to what extent should the ambiguity be cleared up. I could see that I would have a lot of trouble reading past things that would probably be considered "below the radar" for this type of work, given that the past 14 years I've been full- and part-time involved with editing items for a well known high-stakes test, where even "at least 4 men and 3 women" is crucial (at least 4 men and exactly 3 women? at least 4 men and at least 3 women?).

[Declaration of interest: I am a freelance proof-reader operating as a sole trader and who does not undertake any proof-reading work for an agency or intermediary.]
My advice would be to engage a freelance proof-reader with some knowledge of your field (he/she need not be a specialist -- sometimes, the perspective of a not-quite-specialist-but-still-knowledgable person can be very valuable). Going through an independent freelancer is likely to be cheaper and better than using an agency (because there would be no commission and the freelancer would care more, because he/she does not have as many customers as one of the big agencies, and thus has more to lose if he/she does a bad job).
The difficulty, of course, is finding a suitable freelancer, since they tend not to be as discoverable as the big agencies. Another poster has already mentioned a relevant professional association in the UK. Other steps may include:

send a circular to all your colleagues asking for recommendations -- there is a good chance that one of them would have experience with engaging a good freelancer who would also fulfil your needs (as a freelance proof-reader myself, a lot of my work arises from a personal recommendation, despite the fact that I have my own website);
check notice-boards in academic departments and libraries, in case a suitable freelancer might have pinned an advert (personally, I do not advertise my services in this way, because I have enough work on my plate not to be desperate for more, but many people do);
some libraries and societies maintain listings of freelancers on a website or can send such a list to you on request (relevant keywords may include "proof-reader", "editor", "editorial assistance", "translator", "typesetter", or even "proxy researcher" [somebody who visits a library, archive, or conference and take notes on your behalf -- useful if you need to consult a unique manuscript on another continent and do not have the time/money/inclination/visa to make a research trip yourself]).

Do you have any university in your area which a) employs native speakers of English or b) has exchange students who are native speakers (a + b: maybe even in a related field) or c) has very good English professors (even if they are not native speakers; you could talk to students to find out who is good at their job)?
Depending on where you live, there might also be local translation companies which employ native speakers or local freelancers which are native speakers of English.
You might benefit more from this type of relation, since you get to know the person and you could use their services again in the future.
You might also ask the journal editors if they have any suggestions for this. Maybe they have collaborated in the past and had good results with a specific company/freelancer.


text:
Has anybody had any success with a college level "flipped classroom?"
The "flipped classroom" seems quite successful and growing in popularity in high school. Students get their lectures at home from youtube or kahnacademy, write clarifying questions about the material and then bring it to class. This allows the instructor to focus on practice and application. Does anybody have any information about its success or failure when implemented at university?

We have a number of lecturers in the math department at the University of Tennessee who have successfully been using flipped classrooms for a couple of years now.

Yes, Lorena Barba at BU has been very successful and you can find several articles by her or about her classroom on the web.

Lorena Barba, per @DavidKetcheson, is right on the money with great, extensively cited, very smart discussion. I've never personally participated as a student or otherwise, but its an interesting concept. Here's a great "update" article from here: http://lorenabarba.com/blog/everybodys-flippin-an-update-on-the-flipped-classroom/

@BrianDHall maybe you could summarize that post and turn it into an answer.

Oxford and Cambridge University courses in England have always operated a bit like this.  In my Oxford Maths course, I'd attend 1 or 2 1-hour long lectures on the subject, have worksheets to do, then have classes in college of about 5 students to 1 instructor where we would discuss and work through the material.
What you're suggesting is basically the same, but having recorded lectures.  Given that most of the lectures were non-interactive, it amounts to much the same thing.  In general, I found it a very successful approach.


text:
How to Stop Making Stupid Mistakes
This has been a plague upon my performance for what seems like all my life (or all my graded life).
No, it's not an 100, it's a 98 because of calling bromine a gas carelessly.
No, it's not a 6/6, it's a 5 out of 6 because you didn't realize that such a simple question had a minor twist
No, it's not a 100, it's a 98 because you had all the right work but you mispunched the calculation.
I'm sick of making careless errors that can truly mean the difference between obtaining one grade and the other. I need to make sure that from now on, I don't, because it is killing me inside.
If it is of consequence, I don't have much time for sleep due to 6 hours minimum of work per night. I get around 6-7 hours a night as opposed to the recommended 9 for a teenager.
Any and all tips would be greatly appreciated.

No, it's not an 100, it's a 98 because... — Let it go.  You're fine.

I used to complain about the last few points like that, then my classmate asked if I needed him to call a whambulance. Then I stopped. Yeah, I endured losing a couple points here and there through college and grad school, but at least now I got to keep all these friends.

If you can at all arrange it, pick a week where you make sleep a priority, and shoot for 8 or 9 hours a night.  See how your performance changes, and if you can maintain such a schedule for a longer stretch.  And don't worry about the mistakes you learn from; it's the mistakes you don't learn from that get you.

I think most people throw away a few points on every test due to stupid mistakes; I certainly did; that's just human. That's why A is 90 not 100.

@Penguin_Knight you get +1 because I wasn't sure if any others had ever had the whambulance called on them and I am happy to see that I am not alone in my plight.

@user11629 are you high school or a younger college student.  Asking because of this "I get around 6-7 hours a night as opposed to the recommended 9 for a teenager."  I promise this will be relevant to my answer.

I'm not sure that general study habits questions are on topic here.

"it's not an 100," it's a 100.

What @NotQuiteAnOutsider said: http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/15/what-do-students-need-most-more-sleep/

Sorry—this question is not undergraduate-specific. Graduate students also take classes, and could be worried about the same issues.

Yes, I am a high-school student. Also it is "an 100." "An a-hundred" is how it is pronounced. You can also say "a one-hundred," but that isn't how I imagined it.

I had a student come to me trying to get back "lost points" on an exam, because the lost points dropped hm below what was needed to get an A, and he got an A- instead. This was in spite of the fact that his answers were demonstrably wrong.
When I spoke with him, he said that he needed to have the top grades in the class, because he didn't know how else he could demonstrate that he was a "good student." I had to explain to him that the degree to which he was insisting on a regrade (effectively demanding that he be awarded the points, even though they hadn't been earned) actually could hurt him in the long run, because it turns people "off"—no one wants to work with an inveterate complainer. And, ultimately, if he wanted to go further in either the academic world or in a professional career, what he needs are good letters of recommendation from people who are willing to vouch for him and support his career.
My reason for including such a long-winded anecdote here is that the underlying issues are the same: don't worry about little issues here and there. (That doesn't mean don't complain if there's a big problem—clerical errors and mistakes do happen!) Small mistakes are a part of life, and we learn more from those mistakes than from successes.
Nobody is going to think poorly of you because you make small mistakes. Just keep doing what you're doing, and try not to stress out about it when taking exams and doing your work. Worrying about perfection is a good way not to achieve it.

While it a good thing to be able to move on from small mistakes (everyone makes them and there have been studies about rates of error), it also good that you realize that you make "careless" mistakes. You will never be able to do everything 100% all the time and you might drive yourself crazy (and make more mistakes) if you try too hard, but there are somethings you can do to decrease your risks/catch yourself when you make mistakes.

Prepare yourself mentally and physically. This means being fed, watered, having enough sleep and not stressing yourself out. It isn't always easy to do, especially when you put a lot of pressure on yourself to do well, but it will help you make less errors and catch them when you do.
For exams, always read questions twice and look over your answers. If you have time look everything over at the end.
If you have papers, proof read and have someone else look things over. It can also help to read what you wrote out loud.
Don't rush through things if you can avoid it and still complete your task.
When you do make errors, keep track of what kinds they are. Do you misread questions more often or do you mix-up words? This will help you be more aware for next time.


text:
What is the equivalent of "good honors degree" in terms of universities in EU
The requirements for applying for a master's programme in National University of Singapore are stated as

The candidates must possess:

A good honours degree in computing; or
A good honours degree in a related discipline with 2 years IT industry experience; or
A good bachelor's degree in computing with 2 years IT industry experience; or
A good bachelor's or honours degree in business related discipline    with 2 years IT industry experience.

In my country, a student is considered as an honorable student if he/she completes his/her education with a GPA over 3.00/4.00 but I don't know what is a good honour degree?
I have looked it up on Google but there are a lot of different definitions.
Also, I could not find any statements in the university website. Can you help me?

It has been said here numerous times (and I guess it will be said even more) but there is no one admission policy generally accepted in the EU. Countries and indeed universities in the same country might have different requirements. I have never heard of an "honor's degree" in Sweden, and sounds rather silly to my ears, if your grades/GPA matter, they just ask your transcript of records.

It does not matter if there is any honor's degree or not. I just wonder what is good honour in Singapore? Is it about cumulative average grade or something else.

For historical reasons, Singapore often uses the U.K degree classification system.   'Good Honours Degree' usually means either 'First class Honours' or 'Upper Second Class Honours'.   These map (approximately) onto the U.S 'cum laude' classifications.
For more info, see Wikipedia 'British undergraduate degree classification'.

There is probably not a general equivalent (EU is not a monolithic block). For instance, in my country, Italy, the nearest equivalent is probably that of the Laurea a pieni voti (roughly "graduated with full marks"), which means a grade between 99/110 and 109/110 (in Italy MsC grades range from 66 to 110 cum laude).
Years ago to apply for certain positions in Italy, especially in the public administration, it was required to have a laurea a pieni voti, but I haven't seen such a requirement for years and it was more spread in the humanities.
In any case students from European universities can ask to their universities the so called Diploma Supplement, a document which should help the international recognition of the qualifications. This document should provide information on the local grading system and report the corresponding student's grades in the ECTS grading scale.
Maybe if you look at the ECTS User's Guide you can find information on what can be an equivalent to the good honor's degree.


text:
What constitutes a proper scientific result in Computer Science?
I work at a university at an Information Technology department. My colleagues claim we are 'computer scientists'. However, from what I observed, most of our work is pure implementation and often follows the Engineering Method, not the Scientific Method (see this page). What is the proper scientific output for research on a real life problem (how to transform a data model encoded in XML Schema into a useful web form for entering/editing data) that involves implementation of a new software (a new data model annotation language and a web form generator software)? Is the resulting software a scientific or an engineering result? What would constitute a proper scientific result?

Coming from a similar research area myself, I can say that in practice the borders between science and engineering are often not clear-cut in applied computer science.
That being said, usually, the starting point of our  research is indeed a hypothesis, but more of the style it is possible to build a system that does X using Y in order to achieve Z. (and, consequently, this new way is better in some meaningful regards than the traditional way of doing it via X^*). Naturally, the way to falsify such an hypothesis is to set out and do a proof-of-concept, optimally in a realistic setting, and compare it against the traditional way.
Note that the proof-of-concept implementation here is not the scientific output. It is a vehicle for scientific validation. The scientific output is the knowledge that X can indeed be usefully done via Y to achieve Z. Maybe, the proof-of-concept can be improved into an open source tool or product (either by the researchers directly or by partner companies), but this productization is not science anymore - this is pure engineering (we know that it can be done, but now it needs to be done properly, which takes time, effort, and domain knowledge - all things that researchers often don't have in spades).
As such, to answer your question:

Is the resulting software a scientific or an engineering result?

It is not the scientific result, but it was used to validate the scientific result. It may be considered an engineering result (depending on the quality of the proof-of-concept).

What would constitute a proper scientific result?

I strongly dislike the term proper in this context, as it implies an ordering of value between science and engineering.

It depends on what area of Computer Science you're in.  However, I think where things are getting confused for you may be in what you do with the thing that you built.
In a "scientific" perspective, particularly for Computer Science, the key lies in explaining why.  After building the system, your goal is not only to have accomplished the construction but to either:

Compare it with existing solutions to "prove" your unstated hypothesis that your system is better while explaining -why/what makes- it better; or
If no solution exists, tie your solution in with previous work and explain not only how it solves this problem, but why it works.

If what you do is you build a solution to a problem and stop there, without trying to explain the why or testing it against the often unstated hypothesis of "my approach will be better than other approaches", then that may be what you're referring to as an engineering method.
The "science" or "research" method that you seem to be looking for is in the aftermath of building the system and seeking to add to the theoretical knowledge of the field by testing and explaining why your approach is faster/more efficient/easier to use/etc.
This is, of course, in addition to the big two factors of reliability (is it reproduceable?) and validity (is this a problem people care about, does this move the field forward, are you using the correct measures to prove your hypothesis, etc.).


text:
Non-degree courses and Masters admissions
I had a low Undergrad GPA, around or below the cutoff of most of the masters programs that interest me. I have since started pursuing a graduate certificate (Mining Massive Datasets from Stanford) and am doing much better (A's) than I did as an Undergrad.
What should I expect in terms of how universities look at the non-degree courses I have taken towards the certificate? I realise I could draw attention to the grades in my personal statement, but is there any precedent for including post-degree courses in the GPA calculation for cutoff purposes? How might they be weighted? What can I do to emphasise them?
A few more specifics for my case if the question is too general: I did my bachelor's in Math and graduated in 2012. I am interested in a Machine Learning-focused Masters in the US, UK, or Canada.

I was an international student and did not have amazing bachelor GPA. But I got accepted master degree in NY, plus without TOEFL which was requirement.
How?
I met department chair once. So, probably the department chairman liked my works and it was a good enough first impression on him.
Conclusion:
Show your works to department chair. Proof that your bachelor GPA is just some numbers on the paper.
Good luck

Thanks for the answer Bugra. By works, do you mean research? How did you arrange the meeting, through a connection or a cold call?

Pleasure. I emailed. I understand your concern. But don't worry. Because it's just a human. Just email or call or go to a seminar etc. Talk about your situation. Show your interest via research or any other work. Give some specific information and make the person believes your interest.


text:
Is hiding publications in CV a good idea?
Here's my story:
I study computer science. When I started my master's degree, I had good research ideas and I wanted to publish them immideately (I now realize being in a hurry is the worst thing I did myself in my educational life).
My thesis advisor is a perfectionist. His philosophy is all or nothing. Therefore, he ignored my immature works and told me to get ready for my thesis only. He said that my thesis topic is one of the hottest topics in area and possible contributions to that topic would be huge improvement in my academic career.
But again, I was dissatisfied. So, with the ratification of my advisor, I published two conference papers with another professor. One is in ICCAE '12 and the other one is in ICKD '13. Those are not so good conferences, but still they are not in Beall's List.
Now, me and my advisor are writing a paper to submit a top conference.
Here's my question: Those publications are not a bit of scientific publications. They are barely at a level of senior project. When I'm applying to PhD, should I put those two publications in my CV or not? The acceptance notification of the conference is due to July. Until then, is it better to have no publications or two bad publications in my CV?

Actually, the latter conference (ICKD) is published by (or at least associated with) IACSIT http://www.iacsit.org/, which is found on Beall's list. Also, even if a publisher is not on this particular list, it does not mean that they are not "shady" or "predatory". Having said this, I personally think that for someone aspiring to be a PhD student any publications (or large student projects) would count for, not against, you.

@amlrg Bad, bad news. This means not to put them I think.

Related, and possibly duplicates, http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9181/for-undergraduates-is-publishing-weak-research-better-than-not-publishing?lq=1 and http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/13728/low-quality-paper-or-no-paper-which-is-better-for-an-undergraduate-in-phd-admi?lq=1

@StrongBad to clarify, I'm not asking about whether making a publication or not. I need to know if I should put them in my CV or not. I also saw that topic but it seemed both questions have different concerns. Thank you for noticing.

A low-on-the-totem-pole academic submitted his work to low-on-the-totem-pole organizations. Where's the problem with starting at the bottom and working your way up? We're scientists - we should be able to look at a piece of work and judge it on the merits in the work, not on where the work resides.

@corsiKa +1. I suddenly came across it. I am feeling positive. I can understand cagirici's situation.

In most fields, expectations of publications are very small when applying for a PhD position. What the committee will be looking at is your writing. In most cases, they will have only the thesis to study but in your case, you will also have a few publications, including the one for the "good" conference. The benefit of all of these is that they show you have been active and pursued publishing your results. That the first publications may not be strong will not surprise most, after all one of the main goals of a PhD is to provide the background to be an independent researcher and publish.
You may be in a dilemma if your papers are of disputable quality since avoiding to list them may, if found out, look like you are trying to hide them; regardless of your original intent.
To take this a step further: I think that adding comments on papers you think can reflect negatively on yourself can turn a negative to a positive. The reason is that you can show that you have progressed in your thinking to a point where you can be self-critical. This means that the comments you make have to be insightful and not just a list of excuses, in fact avoid excuses at all costs and provide good arguments showing your new insights.
So, think about how you can use your experiences (good or bad) in a positive way to show your capacity as a budding scientist. We all make mistakes, but not all learn from them.

"We all make mistakes, but not all learn from them." "I think that adding comments on papers you think can reflect negatively on yourself can turn a negative to a positive" wow. I never thought that would be a professor's POV. Thank you so much.

It is not unheard of for undergraduate and MSc students to publish in "predatory" journals and conferences. I have a related question from the other side of the table: Value of light-to-none peer reviewed pay-to-publish articles
that is asking about how to evaluate students with these types of publications. I think the answers are pretty clear that there really isn't a problem with students who have previously published in low quality places or low quality work. It is possible that multiple low quality publications might cause a potential adviser to have concerns about future goals and your understanding of the system, but these can likely be easily addressed in your cover letter.
The question of whether undergrads should publish weak research has also been addressed: For undergraduates, is publishing "weak" research better than not publishing? and the general consensus seems to be that between having no publications or a low quality publication, having a low quality publication is generally no worse.
To then get to the heart of your question given someone has some low quality publications should he attempt to deceive a potential supervisor by "hiding" the publications, the answer seems to be pretty clear: NO. There is little downside and potential upside of including the low quality publications on your CV. A potential supervisor thinking that an applicant is attempting to deceive the supervisor has a clear and huge downside.

@cagirici StrongBad has pretty much summed up what triggered my original comment: "A potential supervisor thinking that an applicant is attempting to deceive the supervisor has a clear and huge downside."

@xLeitix At the time I published papers, I wasn't working on my thesis yet.

@cagirici Not sure what you mean. With "supervisor", the new advisor that you are applying to is meant, not your old master's thesis advisor.

Supervisor is my advisor. I never changed my advisor. I just went to him and declared that I want to be his MSc student. He accepted. But we started working on my thesis two months after my second publication.


text:
approximate time for indexing a conference proceeding
Maybe some of you could help me with this matter based on your experiences. I presented an article for an IEEE congress which was held in March of this year, and accordingly, to their webpage, the proceedings will be indexed on IEEE Xplore. I have checked that previous versions of this congress, for example, the one held in 2018, was indexed in Scopus. We are on August, and still, the proceedings do not appear on IEEE Xplore either in Scopus. Is it normal to take that long time for the articles to get indexed? By the way, we sent the final versions already ready to be put on the conference proceedings, so there was no need for a new review for style.
Also, I got an article accepted from a journal which is also indexed in Scopus, which has a monthly basis. For what I saw on the website of this journal, which is Q3 or Q4, from the 30 articles published, only two are appearing actually in Scopus. The articles from July are completed; why is that? Did maybe Scopus decided not to put the other articles?
Bottom line, should I contact the editors?
It might sound like particular cases, but I was not able to find any information about the time-lapse from presentation or publication to appear on Scopus or other sites like IEEE.
Thanks

Yes it is possible for a significant amount of time to elapse between the conference and appearance of articles on IEEE Xplore. For example, here is a link to one of my papers which appeared in the proceedings of an IEEE conference that was held in September 2016, and it was added to IEEE Xplore in the end of February 2017.
Note that you can actually see both the Date of Conference and Date Added to IEEE Xplore on that page as well, right below the abstract. So you could also look up some articles from previous editions of the specific congress that you went to, and see how much time it took for that congress in previous years (but of course it doesn't have to be the same this year).


text:
multiple authors format for saving space
I am submitting the final version for an ACM sponsored conference and I am dubious about what would be the correct format to include multiple authors (with multiple I mean more than tree). The ACM template has the following author heading:

in which I need to add another author, but If I do that in a new line (apart that the Word template moves horrible to the left side) then I will be out of the limits of pages that the conference established.
I would like to know, and maybe it sounds like a silly question if I can do the following:

The four authors belong to the same institution, and the only thing that changes is the email. Any help?
Thanks

This is a great question for the program committee chair.

(ACM asks for telephone numbers now? Dear lord.)

@JeffE, that surprised me too. I might object to that, actually.

@buffy you can always give the main department number

@StrongBad - I would have suggested giving the number of the payphone downstairs by the elevator, but sadly those don’t exist anymore...

Give them the number of the ACM president.

The conference chair might tell you otherwise, but you could probably do it. I've even seen (with ACM conferences) putting both emails on one line as
(author1, author2)@institution.edu
But that assumes the email addresses are easy to associate with a person's name.
But there is no particular reason not to submit it with your best effort as to layout. Maybe it gets edited after review in any case.
But also note that most people in CS expect that the author listing will be alphabetical. But the "true" meaning of that is "the order doesn't matter and we all built this together." So, it might not be a problem.

most people in CS expect that the author listing will be alphabetical — Only in the more theoretical areas of CS.  More experimental/engineering areas of CS use author ordering as a signal.

@JeffE, yes, I keep forgetting that it isn't uniform. OTOH, in my work which isn't especially theoretical we just do alphabetical. Software process (agile...), pedagogy, ...

Interesting... I'm not familiar with ACM standards, but in engineering journals I've come across exactly what may be asking for... its all in a single column, then all the (same-institution) authors simply get attributed to one university address and only the corresponding author (denoted by *) has email/address details below.
It would be most appropriate to ask the conference chair or your advisor ASAP if you can deviate from the SIG format or how they would approach your situation. Don't assume anyone will edit it upon submission, if anything, submit now and ask later :)


text:
Is this academic organization a predatory one?
I was reading about this organization that is called SAI (https://thesai.org/) which has a number of journals and conferences indexed in Scopus, but I am a little bit dubious if it should be considered a predatory one or not. I see that this organization appears in the famous or infamous Beall´s list (https://beallslist.net/), so should one avoid to publish its research in the venues organized by this organization? I have seen in Scopus that some of their papers are cited from other conferences hosted by ACM, IEEE or from journals from Springer. Bottomline, does anybody has any experience with his association or with the journals or conferences that they organize?
Thanks

Have you ever read any papers published in a SAI journal or conference?  Have you ever cited any papers published in a SAI journal or conference?

I have read some articles published in the FTC conference organized by SAI and there were just normal articles, about the citing not yet, because I am just starting to know their work.

This is hard to say. I lack any first-hand experiences, so I need to rely on vague cues. There are some good signs for them not being predatory, though, such as the following:

Their Twitter account shows that they have a relatively large following with a high degree of community engagement, being tagged by influential researchers and institutions such as the Physics Magazine (of the American Physical Society) etc. This indicates that they are taken seriously within a larger scholarly community. (However, their main account @theSAIorg seems to be inactive.)

Most of their editorial board members seem to know how to publish well.

They deposit metadata at CrossRef, according to a search for the publisher "Science and Information Organization" in CrossRef's Title List. (But then again, according to the discussion here, there are notorious predatory publishers that do the same.)

Their articles seem well-cited. Google Metrics shows a h5-median of 59 for this journal, for example.

Researchers affiliated at some reputational institutions publish in their journals. Just look at the left-hand side list titled "Top Institutions" at Microsoft Academic, such as for this journal (IJACSA) (e.g. showing the Max Planck Society) or for this journal (IJARAI) (e.g. showing the MIT).

At the same time, there are some puzzling circumstances, which makes me skeptical of my initial judgement. Such as the following:

They are not indexed at the DOAJ, even though their journals are all Open Access.
There are "< 10" peer review reports validated by Publons for their main journal, which could mean anything from 1 review to 9. And that is quite a low number for a journal that has published so many articles over multiple years.
Likewise, there are no peer review reports documented at SciRev.

Thus, my conclusion is: I am not sure...

Good assessment. Two concerns, though: 1. predatory journals sometimes list well-known researchers as editorial board members without having their consent (so one should, at least, also check whether some of the researchers list the membership on their own websites); 2. citation counts can be artificially boosted.

https://thinkchecksubmit.org/


text:
reviews of a submitted paper after payment
I have submitted an article to a CS conference that its proceedings are indexed by Springer in its series entitled Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, the link is:
https://www.springer.com/series/11156
The problem is that I have gotten an acceptance letter from this conference, but they tell me that for getting the reviews I should pay the registration fee first. One colleague told me that the organizers from this conference usually they do that. So, I would like to know if this kind of behavior is normal in some conferences, because when I have submitted to other venues the policy was that they send an acceptance or rejection letter, but with the comments made by the reviewers. By the way the conference has been indexed by Scopus in the last two years and it does not appear in the list of predatory journals.
Any help would be useful.
Thanks

Mostly, getting a paper accepted at a CS conference implies that at least one author will actually attend. I'm surprised they are playing hard-ball with the reviews, but your attendance (and payment of necessary fees) is expected.


text:
collaboration in phd project from an undergrad student
Actually I am making my PhD studies that is in the field of Computer Science and its algorithms related. There is one part in which for proving my ideas I have to program a web related extensive set of tests, but currently I really do not have time to program it. I have met a friend that is following an undergraduate degree in CS and he has been working in web development and programming for almost two years.
The question is if it would be ethical to tell him to program some parts that I need for make the testing. I was thinking to include him as a co-author in some papers that I am planning to do based on my current research, because I consider is the right thing to do. Would that be fair?
Thanks

That's probably a question best asked of your PhD adviser -- if you want your friend to become a co-author, your adviser will have to know about that friend's contributions anyway.
In any case, if your friend contributes significantly to the work, it's not a question of "being nice" when you think about making him a co-author: he contributed intellectually to the work, so he needs to be a co-author.
Whether that is "fair" is a different question and depends on what your friend hopes to get out of it. If he's interested in getting publications, then he may consider it fair. If he is only interested in graduating and then getting a job in industry, he may not be interested in publications and might consider money to be a better way to compensate him for the work.


text:
how to increase the chances for a professor to participate in a conference?
In my current place of work, we are organizing a conference, and we would like it to have continuity over time. Because we are a young career in CS and this is our first congress we are having troubles to find keynote speakers and professors that would like to be in charge of the different tracks of the conference. Our university has agreed that they will pay the charges of the speakers related to plane tickets and accommodation if it applies. I would like to start sending invitations, and the question is what to put on them to increase the possibility of having a positive answer from them?
Thanks

If you really cover the expenses, you should be able to attract people. If you also offer to arrange the flights, and hotels, and thus reduce the hassle of your invitees, this is an additional plus.

Target potential speakers known by academics at your university and get an academic that knows the potential speaker to invite them. The academic will know how to phrase the invitation to increase the possibility of acceptance.


text:
issue with easychair for tracking communications with authors
I have a problem when using easychair that after searching on the web, I was not able to find an answer to it.
The thing is that after we sent a review and a notification to the authors, about the state of their papers (accepted or rejected), we as the PC did not receive any notification about the decision we have sent. I mean on our email account that is linked to easychair. Is there any way to get the emails that we have sent to the authors? I mean any option on easychair.
Thanks

Have you contacted easychair? That would seem logical...

yes, and no response at all

@SolarMike EasyChair does not provide support unless the conference buys an executive license.


text:
Can bad students be good scientists?
I recently moved from an undeveloped country to Europe, and I am currently a PhD student.
In my hometown, the education system is very bad, and almost everyone with some patience can get any degree. However, things do not work like this in Europe.
I have always been a bad student, and I suck at exams (both written and oral). Although I am capable of presenting my own work in an understandable fashion, when it comes to study on some topic -- that is not very related to my field of study, and learn that topic thoroughly, I fail.
Unlike the education system in my country, here, the tolerance for mediocre mistakes is close to zero. And I do make mistakes very often given limited time to evaluate my own statements/claims/proofs. My exam paper is always a mess compared to my technical reports. Because I get to write the report over on over again with an access to every term, definition, and counterexample.
Back in my country, I was the one-eyed king in the land of blind. Extraordinary researcher, and very good student. Here, everyone has both eyes with eagle vision. My research skills obviously do not shine, and if you consider my studentship, I am just a dead duck.
I do love to conduct research, and not only looking at its butt when it walks by. However, I am pretty doubtful if I can be a good scientist given my current achievements in the courses I take.
Should I go with the philosophy

a fault confessed is half

or should I go with

finish what you have started

based on your experiences?

I don't have time for a proper response and I'm not sure whether this question is really suited for this site, but, in my experience, yes, they can. Grades are frequently poor predictors of future academic performances because these are affected by many different factors. However, many students who have a weak background fail to become good scientists because they are not able to change their approach to learning, and instead of filling the gaps, these continue to increase.

Can bad students be good scientists? — I'd like to think so, yes.

If "bad student" means "bad at school," independent of intelligence, creativity, talent, or ability to learn on your own, then yes. Doing well at "school" is a very different set of skills than doing research.

@JeffE But you're an exceptional human being. An answer or comment based on your own experiences, which are totally different than mine, would not be objective.

Close voters, I do understand where you're coming from, but please keep in mind that this question is not "what should I do" but rather "should one who is bad at exams quit PhD while it's not too late?"

If bad student is defined as a student who obtains below-average grade in all the courses, then yes (s)he is creative and can be a good scientist.

Just a comment... since you are asking this question you care about your performance and future aspirations. Many European universities have student help/skills centres that might be able to help you with some of your study issues. If you haven't tried them, give it a shot. They won't solve everything, but they could help out.

Yes and no. The group of "bad" students is pretty heterogeneous. We need to know whether your are talking about abilities or performance measures, and which ability or measure in particular.

I think most would probably agree that there are cases where someone is a poor student but has the potential to be a good scientists -- because what defines a good/poor student is mostly the ability to be effective in exams (i.e., most importantly to be able to learn and reproduce known material) whereas the skills necessary to be a good scientist are different.
That said, it is clearly the case that the two skill sets are highly correlated. There is a perception in the public eye that the best scientists are mavericks who are able to think outside the box and swim against the scientific consensus to find the things that nobody else sees. But in reality, that is probably a glorification and even those rare insights like quantum theory or the theory of relativity can only be found by those with profound and deep understanding of the existing knowledge, and the ability to synthesize knowledge into something new that those who have not paid the same level of attention to the details of the field can not.
As a consequence, what I read from your description in the question is that you may have the skills to be a good scientist, but that you lack the knowledge and maybe diligence to compete with your peers. That's not your fault, of course, but it's an insight that you may want to keep in mind when thinking about your future. Knowledge is, after all, something that you can catch up with if, for example,you are willing to take some time off from other responsibilities and focus on learning the basics at a more profound level than you had the opportunity to do in the past.

I'd be stunned if exam performance is well-correlated with the ability to acquire or apply knowledge effectively after controlling for intelligence and motivation.

Empirically, the professors I know almost all were pretty good students. So are many of the successful research scientists I know. There is at least a correlation. Whether you can explain it by other factors may be a different matter ("causation") but the correlation is there.


text:
Are there avenues/options to pursue a medical degree (with funding) after a Ph.D.?
I have a Ph.D. in Engineering and I figure a medical degree will be highly valuable to gain a better understanding in my research area (biomedical/neuroscience). However, unlike science/engineering graduate schools, medical schools do not pay your tuition and financial assistance is primarily need based, rather than merit based.
Are there avenues for an interested candidate to pursue a medical degree in the US (perhaps part-time, while working as a post-doc in a relevant field) without taking on significant amounts of debt?

I am not sure a medical degree would be optimal for you. Medical degrees are aimed to develop doctors more than researchers. Why not life sciences or specifically neuroscience? These would be focused on research.

Speaking as a graduate of an MD/PhD program:
You will not learn what you seek in medical school.

Medical school is largely worthless unless you pursue residency. Very little basic science is taught in medical school. The education is closer to word association that builds the foundation for the pattern recognition that is diagnosis. I found nearly no overlap between my medical school training and graduate training (PhD in electrophysiology, lots of electrical engineering, software development, and surgery on large and small animals). The most notable overlap was that I knew how to tie sutures for my surgery rotation.
If you pursue residency, most academic places will require you to practice medicine and do research. There are only 24 hours in the day. Seeing patients brings in more money more reliably than most research. A background in engineering suggests a surgical subspecialty. There is a reason most neurosurgeons and orthopedic surgeons consult or participate in a research group rather than run it.
Medical school is a full-time job. It is not like law school where you can attend night classes.
Attending physicians will not have an equal conversation with medical students Medicine is hierarchical. If you mark yourself as a student, you may find it difficult to have substantive scientific conversations with those above you in the medical ladder until you finish residency (at best 10 years after you start).


text:
what would be the level of novelty of an undergraduate thesis?
I would like to know what would be the level of novelty that one advisor should ask for an undergraduate student in Computer Science whom is aimed to make an Honours or Bachelor thesis?
For what I have discussed with some colleagues, it would be enough that from the chosen topic the student would feel comfortable for knowing the technique and the experimental methods that he would use. Instead to present something really original that would be in the field of a Master or PhD thesis.
What would be a set of guidelines regarding this issue?
Thanks

Speaking from my experiences with 6 universities so far, the answer is that this depends on the department. Some require that there has to be something scientifically new, even in a Bachelor thesis, whereas others consider a nice and comprehensive exposition of existing material on some well-defined topic together with an own and novel presentation to be sufficient for a Master's thesis.

Possible duplicate of What is the Measure of an "Incomplete" Undergraduate Thesis?

Requiring a new contribution to the field seems like an absurd bar to set for undergraduate students.  Not that it's impossible for an undergraduate to do so, but it shouldn't be the minimum standard you expect.
Of course it's possible that computer science is entirely different from my own field (economics), but I find it hard to believe it's that far off.  At the undergraduate level you're learning broad foundational material and techniques; at the master's level you're gaining a deep mastery of the material, possibly even focusing in a more specialized subset.  Then when completing a full PhD the student takes literally years to produce research that expands human knowledge within the field.
Requiring that a student meets PhD-like qualifications in their undergraduate work seems like it's setting them up for frustration, bad methods, or outright failure.  Maybe a truly exceptional student could do it anyway, with the limited time and resources available to them as an undergraduate, and more power to them obviously.  But that shouldn't be the requirement set for graduating.