text:
Supervisor wants my paper in another conference, but I have paid for travel for the current one
My supervisor wants the paper at another huge conference where all the funding are given and it's more valid than the current accepted one. But I have paid all my air fares and hotel fares for the current travel. Refunding is not possible it seems. Can I go to a conference and just present without publishing?
I can't waste my money by just avoiding the conference. I have to take something out of it.

@scaaahu Yes. He is a co-author. And he is a young lecturer and not financially well. And he was not willing to come to this current conference as he have to spend his own money. He told me to attend the conference alone. Now another conference has accepted the paper and funds are also given by them so he is planning to go to that one. And Now he is telling me not to publish as he is going to publish in this new conference. And he don't want any self plagiarism issues. He too worked hard for the research. But now the problem is i have invested the money. What shall I do. ?

Sorry about the deletion of my previous comment. Your problem seems to be more complex than what you said in your question. I think not only you have the travel expenses concern, but also the double submission issue. Have you withdraw the paper from the current conference?

The conference i have paid a no-show policy. If i present only it will added to IEEE digital library and proceedings.

Maybe that another conference is good one and that will also submit to IEEE and this will cause a conflict.

That supervisor' conference is after a month after my current conference. I have not withdrawn yet & if do they may actually reject my registration as well. So my airfares and hotel fares are into hell. they cant be refunded as i know. I thought of just going to the conference and meet people and come back. At-least for some knowledge & enjoyable trip.

"I thought of just going to the conference and meet people and come back. At-least for some knowledge & enjoyable trip." This sounds like your worst case scenario, and it sounds like a good idea in any case. If the paper is presented in the other conference, would you be going there with your supervisor? If yes, would you be able to present there? And would you have to pay for the trip yourself?

@T.Verron That co-author/Supervisor is a cunning fellow. He refused this first conference because he don't like paying money himself. He told me if you can pay and go then go. Now when he thinks their is free opportunity , he is trying to go there and not caring of funds i paid for this.
It seems like he will file some disputes against me in the university if i publish. I have to pay again if i am going with him. Funds are only for him through some charity

Fire your advisor.

Unethical multiple submission aside, your complaint about the non-refundable fee sounds like a sunk cost fallacy. "I already paid for this conference so it is wasteful not to go" is a common feeling, but is not necessarily in your best interest. You have already "lost" the money for the conference regardless of whether you go or not. You should base your decision of whether to go on what you might gain by going, not what you have already lost.

@ff524 If the conference is in Hawaii and having paid the tickets and hotel to go there, it would be a shame not to go. If the conference is in an unknown, mediocre place it might make sense not to go.

@Alexandros exactly. If the conference is in Hawaii, there would almost certainly be something to gain by going :) Not because otherwise the fees paid would be "wasted" - that's in the past - but because there's some actual benefit to going. (Educational, recreational, or other benefit.)

@Alexandros: Interestingly, the more unknown a place is, the more difficult it gets to find out whether it is actually mediocre after all without going there and checking for oneself ;) (And with that said, lots of well-known places are actually very mediocre, in spite of the hype created around their excellence.)

There is only one solution:

The paper has been accepted on first conference.
You paid for going there
You go there and present the paper.
Withdraw from second conference ASAP (like Monday morning after notifying your adrvisor).
Search for new advisor, because him a) advising double (or multiple) submission of the same paper and b) pay travel costs from your own pocket for first conference, shows he knows nothing about how academia works.

He is not telling me to double submissions ?
What he said was, i am going publish this research in a another conference. He said me not to publish in this conference i have paid.
Is that a good idea to attend a conference and not publish. And what reasons i can tell the conference organizers to avoid bad name for the authors

When you submitted to first conference, has he agreed to that? When your paper got accepted, and you paid the costs, has he agreed to that? If the answer is yes, then that is the end of story,

Yes he agreed. But he is now planning to publish in another conference. He has also worked around 50% in the research and he claims that he has done equal work. For me its fine. If he is publishing i will also get a publication entry. but sad thing is he doesn't care about the money i spend. He is talking self centered.

Repeat after me. a) He cannot publish in another conference if he does not withdraw from first, because this is double submission. b) He does not know if the paper will be accepted from 2nd conference c) He cannot submit on 2nd conference or withdraw from first without the consent of all co-authors (you). d) He should pay you the money for first conference, because you planned for this trip with his consent and he is the one changing his mind.

One of the big mistakes we did was. We sent our paper to multiple conferences in fond of getting at least selected in one. The conference I paid to travel has a no show policy. if i don't present the paper will auto withdrawn. He asked me to refund money or go to conference stay way from presenting. refunding is impossible at the stage and it will be a huge loss for me. And another issue is filing something against him will create some issues in my academics and results. My parents told me just visit the conference learn something and come back like a edu trip. He will backfire in my academics

@arjino We sent our paper to multiple conferences This is called multiple submission.

@scaaahu Yes :)

You should walk away ASAP from everyone suggesting submitting the same paper to multiple conferences or journals at the same time. He is either a) an idiot b) unethical or c) clueless and sooner or later he will drag you down with him.

@Alexandros AGREED he is an unethical guy. 100% True.
Lets consider this case. Lets say he has won the war and some of the higher officials have approved the second conference is the best place to present. In this case, what is the best solution to make my spent money useful. ?

No NO @Alexandros. The paper has been accepted for presentation in the second conference. That's the actual issue here. Her wanted to go there and he tell me not to publish in the first one. IN a normal case i am ok with that. Now i have paid my fares and what is the best solution. I dont to create big problem in the university regarding this and this will backfire on me

Then withdraw from first conference, he pays you the money you gave for first conference, he goes and present the paper in second conference and then you find a new advisor. If he does not give the money for first conference then you go there and have a vacation but you still have to find a new advisor.

What my well wishers told was. Go there, meet new researchers, share knowledge, listen to ideas, Do some sight seeing, Have fun, make use of the money (Social events & Banquets). And my problem is what is the best reason i can tell the first conference organizers to withdraw my paper and doesn't affect my reputation. Some valid reason. can you suggest. i dont want to talk all these issues there. it ill be headache

what is the best reason i can tell the first conference organizers to withdraw my paper — You don't need a reason; just withdraw the paper.

I think you are focusing on the wrong issue. The multiple-submission issue may have long term consequences. It would be a problem even if you could get a complete refund of your costs for attending the first conference.
Before making any decisions, I suggest carefully reviewing all paperwork you or your advisor have submitted for each conference. You may, for example, have already assigned the copyright to the paper to one of the conferences. If so, you are better off withdrawing from the other conference. If you have assigned it to both, the situation is much more difficult.
Do not make up a reason for withdrawal. Conferences that might both accept the same paper are a small world. It is likely that the organizers of the first conference will at least scan the proceedings of the second one, and see your paper there.


text:
Best ways to obtain a scholarship for a Masters in financial mathematics/ quantitative finance
I am not a UK or US citizen but I would like to get a scholarship to study in a master program in either financial mathematics or quantitative finance. My GPA is around 3.65-3.7 but I will still like to study in the best school I can.
Are there any clear guidelines on how to increase one's chances of getting a scholarship in a subject like this to attend a decent school in the UK or US?

I can't answer for the US, but it is highly unlikely that you would get any sort of funding in the UK. Unfortunately UK funding is very hard to obtain (even for British students) and is, in any case, largely restricted to EU nationals. Further any Masters level UK funding is generally awarded as a precursor to a PhD. This is known as "1+3" funding. Good luck though!

Yep even I have heard that so will not think of applying to any UK universities.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
PhD scholarship in nanoporous material; how to advertise?
I would like to advertise some PhD scholarship positions located a Sydney, Australia in the fabrication of novel nanoporous material like mesoporous silica. I am finding that it is not straightforward to advertise locally and internally. Most of the big scholarship and general job  sites are expensive to post too.
What other options exist for finding candidates?

Are you trying to recruit international applicants? I.e., is this question more about where in the world to find students interested in your discipline? or about how to advertise to students in Australia?

I'm in a different field but I often see these advertised through relevant societies (through their email list and often also on their website)

thank you very much for your comments. relevant societies is a good idea. i am hoping to attract local Australian and overseas students. the best response we have had so far is from the free websites http://scholarship-positions.com and the free chinese website emuch.net/bbs/ but you have to get help from somebody who speaks Mandarin to set it up. tom

Are there discussion boards, social media accounts, or email lists for societies or interest groups that are directly/indirectly part of your field? Can you email the links to other researchers (the ones you cite or who cite you)? Perhaps there are researchers who are particularly adept at their internet presence (websites, social media accounts etc) who would be willing to share the information.
In my field, there are numerous opportunities for free advertising on all of the above-mentioned areas. Most faculty I know of are happy to share opportunities like that for students, since they recognize funded opportunities are increasingly rare.

Sponsor your post in facebook & show this advertisement only to those who have interest about that particular topic.

Posting to social media is free, but only useful if you make the effort to identify and connect with people that might be connected to good candidates. Likewise, you could post to professional and academic mailing lists related to nanotechnology.  Finally, you could send direct emails to the Department Chairs for relevant departments in Australia (Materials, Chemical Engineering, Chemistry, Industrial Engineering, or what ever fits).

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


text:
How generous should I be with citations?
I am wondering if it is a bad thing to cite a paper in a scientific publication for a trivial or irrelevant reason.
The specific instance I have in mind is the usage of certain terminology. I basically want to make a point along the lines:
"We define a set to be flabby if it obeys conditions X, following the convention in [Smith]. We note that other authors (e.g. [Jones]) also require flabby sets to satisfy a condition Y".
Now, it is clear that if you use some definition (which is not very classical), it should be attributed, or at least a reference should be given to some reasonably good introduction to the topic. In this case, the reference the paper of Smith does the job just fine. But what about Jones? The only reason for citing him is that he happens to be using a different convention than I. On the other hand, I cannot convincingly make the point I want to make without some reference; and I'm concerned that I might be confusing the reader if I don't make this point. It could be that Jones gets an extra epsilon of recognision because of one more citation to his paper, which I personally don't mind at all. But it is maybe slightly weird that I cite a paper which I am not, strictly speaking, using.
I suppose this particular case is not really that important. What I am would really like to know - although that's perhaps too vague for SE - is whether it is generally OK to cite papers just because it is convenient for me, without worrying about whether I actually use the results of that paper in my work.
(If relevant, my field is pure mathematics.)

I agree with the answers that you should include a reference for the convention that you don't use, but I would add that you should find a reasonably well-known source for that convention, for example a standard textbook.  If the convention in question is used in well-known sources but [Jones] is some obscure paper, then your choosing it as your reference will look like an attempt to give Jones an undeserved citation.

I love sheaf theory and the nomenclature thereof.

@AndreasBlass If you turn this into an answer, I will vote it up.

Even things that you aren't directly using may be quite relevant for establishing context.
The only thing that ever keeps me from being generous with citations is page limits.  Otherwise, any citation that fits well with the flow of the scientific narrative and helps place your work in the context of related work is good for everybody involved, and I see not reason not to err on the side of inclusion.

Thanks! Erring on the side of inclusion was in fact my first instinct - just wanted to confirm it's not a bad practice to do it.

Exactly. Context. Explanation. There are larger purposes to writing than any competition for "novelty" or "impact factor". Clear, helpful writing that doesn't play games is excellent.

-1. No reason not to err on the side of inclusion? What about readers who just want to understand the paper without having to look up too much irrelevant material in addition? As a reader, do you really find bloated bibliographies helpful?

jakebeal is right on, both that you should include the citation, and why.  I want to respond to something you said:

But it is maybe slightly weird that I cite a paper which I am not, strictly speaking, using.

because it's part of a recurring misconception about how citations should be used.  Papers shouldn't be the bare minimum necessary to claim priority on whatever's being done in them; they're supposed to be written to help other people understand what we've done.  There's nothing wrong or unprofessional about including content which "merely" makes the paper easier to understand.  What you're describing is squarely in that category: pointing out the alternate convention helps some readers avoid confusion, and providing a citation both supports that this is an alternate convention and gives some hint where in the literature the alternate convention is found.

Yes, good: claiming priority ought not be the deciding feature. :)

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I thought that citations should be kept to a minimum: really, I didn't want to burden the reader with references to trivial or generally known stuff.
Along the years, however, from discussions with colleagues and from received paper reviews (e.g., countless please provide references for the notation/equation you employed on p. X), I've grown convinced that what I once thought trivial or generally known is not really so: after all, even people working in the same field can have different backgrounds (e.g., physicists and engineers don't speak the same language).
Thus, today I think that one should provide as many references as possible: to better explain the context, to provide extended information on notations and background theory, and to outline existing differences in notation and terminology (as in your case).
So, be generous: you'll never know who your reader actually is, and providing more references won't hurt.

Answering to your particular case: Your citing Jones is only confusing to the extent that it invites the question of why you prefer Smith's definition to Jones'. If you can explain this preference (briefly), you defend your approach against potential criticism and, doing so, have a better reason for citing Jones in the first place.

I don't think this is really an issue in mathematics. When there are multiple definitions of a term, the choice is usually a matter of convenience, more than anything else. For example, the natural numbers may or may not include zero. It would be silly to use the definition N={0, 1, 2, ...} and then write N{0} all the time if you mostly needed to exclude zero.

that makes sense. the issue then is field-specific. in political science, i couldn't go ahead and use a non-conventional definition of say, advocacy coalitions, without justifying this decision.

Still, a few words explaining preferences about conventions would be helpful to the reader, surely!?!

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


text:
Have American universities cut back on H1-B visa sponsorship of new international faculty and F-1 student visa sponsorship for PhD students?
Concerning industry, I've read that Google and Amazon have cut back significantly on its H1-B visa sponsorship of new candidates (though it's unclear what the renewal rate is for currently sponsored employees.)
Is the same sort of thing happening in academia?  Are American universities cutting back its H1-B sponsorship of new, international faculty candidates and student visa programs for its international PhD applicants?

I don't think those are really comparable.  An H1-B visa requires a lot of work on the part of the company, and legal fees that are commonly in the thousands of dollars.  Students get an F-1 visa, and all the university has to do is fill out one form and send it to the student.  The rest of the visa application process, including fees, is up to the student and costs the university nothing.

If a department is considering foreign applicants from the 7 "ban" countries or even from other majority Muslim countries (such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt), they might well wonder whether those students would be able to get F-1 visas to come to the US this fall.  It's certainly a potential issue for departments to consider.  I doubt that you'll be able to get an authoritative answer here, but it's something that might well be covered by news outlets like "The Chronicle Of Higher Education" in the coming months.

With respect to faculty hiring, departments might be less willing to hire faculty from the affected countries and other Muslim majority countries for fear that those faculty couldn't get H-1B visas and permanent residency.  Again, it would be challenging to document any effect, but I'd expect to see this covered by news organizations.

The current ban was stopped by court,
we are waiting if supreme  court of USA will take complaint from Trump administration but that will likely not happen because of the composition of a court.
Regarding American universities, occupations that are related to academia (post-doctoral fellow, research fellow, etc.). You can check referenced link and put desired profession name in search menu and compare rates of awarding H1B by the universities.
Conclusion is honestly that university never awarded so much H1B in a first place, and it is a noticeable trend of declining H1B sponsored by academic institutions ( institutes, universities, hospitals... etc..)
website myvisajobs.com give you opportunity to search and compare different occupation and employees.

There are two problems with this answer.  First, although the total number of H-1B visas and green cards issued to researchers and faculty in the US may be small in comparison with the total number issued in all industries in the US the relevant question is what fraction of persons employed in those kinds of positions are getting H-1B visas.   Second, the link above points to statistics on one very narrow job classification- academics end up classified under many different categories.

"Are American universities cutting back its H1-B sponsorship of new, international faculty candidates " this was the question, I provided really nice link where you can check institution, possition and number of places granted by years. @BrianBorchers


text:
Drawing Lines when Giving Ideas to Undergraduate Students
I teach quite a few 'unprepared' students and I find they struggle with finding source material on which to base their reports. Basically, they need to read a lot and apply theories to different companies.
Where should I draw the line when giving them advice? I certainly do not do any searching or reading/filtering for them but if they choose a company and need to report on it, is it acceptable to give them some ideas about famous events at that company which might have happened a decade ago (or more but would still be acceptable for the purposes of the report)? Or, should I require them to do search, even for old events, and if they can't, then they can't and fail?

The purpose of teaching, which includes both your lectures, later guidance on their projects and also includes evaluation, is for them to learn new skills. So, the question you should ask yourself is: what skills do I want them to learn, and how do I achieve that best?
Typically, it seems to me that (if you have enough time for it), it is very important to teach them not only to read, filter and digest information, but also to search for it (Information Age and all). So, you might want to make “searching for relevant information” a required skill. But that doesn't mean you should help them acquire it. In fact, you probably should:

advertise it as an important part of what they are expected to learn
help them learn it, i.e. show them how it's done
evaluate them based on their performance

However… even if you do all that, it still doesn't mean you can't help them if they miss something. After all, if you are teaching them how to best look for information, they might realize it's a good idea to come to the expert they know in that particular field… you, their teacher. So, maybe they will come asking

here are the relevant events I found about X in the archives… do you think I missed something?

or even:

I see a spike in the data around the fall of 1974, and I have searched but couldn't find any event possibly related to that company, do you know of anything that might explain it?

in which cases you might want to answer them, if it seems they did their due diligence.

+1: Good answer, I especially like the 3-point approach to teaching: 1) clarify expectations, 2) give examples/demonstrate, and 3) evaluate.

The goal of education ultimately needs to be to teach people how to learn on their own; a graduate student who receives a PhD but can't become proficient in a field they haven't been active in as a graduate student has not been properly equipped for the real-world challenges of being a researcher.

I think the problem most students are facing is too much information on the net.
For example, if your assignment for them is to figure out the Impact of 2008 financial crisis to GM.
If they google for "2008 financial crisis GM", they would get about 4,030,000 results.
The first one on the list is, Scholarly articles for financial crisis 2008 GM. If you click on that, you get 300,200 results. Do you expect them to read through all of them? I don't believe so.
I believe most undergrad student today do know how to search. But, they may have trouble with filtering them out because of the large volume of info they get on Internet.
In order to help them, you need to figure out how much time it would take them to find the info you want them to find, assuming they would do the search themselves.
In other words, you need to do the homework first. Pretend you know nothing about the subject. Search on the net. Find the info yourself. If you can do it in a reasonable time, then you can expect them to do it.
Using the example above, I cannot find the document you want me to find in a reasonable time frame unless you tell me specificly what you are after.
The line you want really depends on the assignment and student's willingness to learn. I don't think typing keywords is a problem, how to choose keywords and what to do after the search are what's troubling them.


text:
Value of light-to-none peer reviewed pay-to-publish articles
I have been approached by an international student about doing a PhD with me. As an MSc student in his home country he has published 3 articles in pay-to-publish venues, that are known to have little peer-review process, with his supervisor as second/senior author. These articles are not particularly good and likely would not have been publishable in more traditional venues.
I am struggling with how to evaluate these articles and the candidate. Should I simple ignore the place/type of publication and evaluate the work on its own? Can articles in pay-to-publish places really be fairly evaluated? I am worried that changing his behavior will be difficult. I don't want to accept a student whose goal is to publish things in pay-to-publish places.

From your description, it sounds like the problem is more likely to have been the MSc supervior than the student.  As evidenced by some of the questions we've seen here, it's very hard for people new to academia to figure out which venues are reputable on their own---and the advice we give usually includes talking to someone in academia.  If the supervisor's name is on the publication, that presumably means the supervisor encouraged publication in these venues.
Especially if it's a journal which does a small amount of peer review, I wouldn't assume, without further evidence, that the student has any idea that the papers weren't fully peer reviewed.  If the supervisor isn't active in the international research community, I'm not sure I'd even assume the supervisor knows that.

+1 because the advisor is more to account for the venue than the student at MSc level. Furthermore, if a PhD candidate were involved in any publications (editing process) it's a plus for doing a PhD. The OP should try to find out what the role of the candidate was in individual publications. If he did a lot of the editing, that could be a big plus reglardless of the venue.

I second Pedro's answer, but I note that it's not actually clear from your description whether the journals they published in had peer-review. Note that some well established peer-reviewed journals charge publication fees to the authors. One example of relatively high-profile journal following that policy is Physical Review Letters (flat publication fee of $690 per article).
Now, if the articles in question were not peer-reviewed, then you should treat them as any non peer-reviewed publication: book chapters, arxiv papers, blog posts, etc. Read them, see what they're worth. (Well, you'd do the same thing for peer-reviewed articles.) In addition, it probably depends on your field, but at least in mine being a MSc student without peer-reviewed publications is not a hanging offense :)

The journals are known for having a lite touch peer review process. Essentially you name the reviewers and get to chose which of their comments to deal with. I edited the question to clarify this. In my field you also do not need publications to get into a PhD program.

My problem is I think I am treating them less then a non peer-review publication. There are reasons to publish book chapters (e.g., to be able to attend a conference) and arxiv papers are free and little extra work

(Just to be pedantic:  Many book chapters are as rigorously reviewed as journal articles.  It all depends on the book.)

@F'x PRL, as well as all the APS journal except the new PRX journal which is explicitly open-access (gold version of OA) do not imposes any author to pay something to publish. You can nevertheless transfer any articles to some creative commons if you pay for that. There is also a "free to read" politics the APS is using pragmatically. You also have to pay if you want preprint of your paper. This is nevertheless an outdated practise, since no more people send preprint by mail since arXiv exists :-)

@Oaoa PRL has a publication charge (“To help defray editorial and production expenses, authors of published Letters are expected to pay a publication charge of $690”)… they don't enforce it strictly, though

@F'x Sorry then, I thought your answer said the APS charges authors in a systematic way. I wanted to temper a bit.

I have one addendum to the great answers by F'x Pedro, and Henry.
If you believe the work is good and your lingering concern is about that the student has some miscalibrated idea of what publishing should entail, talk to them about it.
If she/he is a Masters student, she/he probably isn't particularly set in their ways in terms of how they want to publish. A conversation with them — about this anything else that is worrying you — is a very sensible thing before you agree to spending the next n years working with them.

That is indeed a tough question.
What would raise the most red flags for me is the fact that he does not have any articles in regular peer-reviewed journals. This raises, again in my opinion, the question if the candidate has simply bought himself/herself a publication list.
The student's academic merits should definitely be judged based on the content of the articles themselves, irrespective of where they were published, no question about that.
What would worry me, though, is this student's views on research, publishing, and the academic process in general...

Someone who is just applying for a PhD in my field doesn't really need publications, so most people wouldn't buy a publication list. It is your last point that is really my issue. I am not sure what it says about his views on research and if I would be able to easily change those views.


text:
Requesting a copy of the PhD thesis from an author?
I think that many unpublished theses are available in libraries etc and reading relevant theses is a normal part of research and does not involve asking the author's permission. But suppose a humanities PhD student has seen a thesis title (2008, so presumably in electronic format), that is relevant to their PhD subject and they want to read the thesis but unlike most theses it is not available in the student's libraries or online etc, probably due to the author's geographical location. The author is now a lecturer with a page on the university website. Should the student just email the author and say "Hello I am a PhD student in your field, can I please see your thesis?" Is this a big deal? Are there any do's or don'ts in making this request?
Thank you...

The first thing to do is to check whether a version of the thesis has been published in some other form (for example, as a book).

@Anonymous Mathematician it does not show up in author searches (Amazon etc) and on the the author's university page it is listed as a thesis but not as a published book.

I was pleasantly surprised recently to learn how many "unpublished" PhD dissertations in math are available through MathSciNet http://www.ams.org/mathscinet/.  This is a service of the American Math Society.  It does require a subscription, but most major universities (at least in the US) subscribe.  One thing I like about getting theses this way is that the authors must choose to "opt out" rather than "opt in", so I've found pretty good coverage.  (I realize the original question was about humanities, but I think this information could be useful to others.)

Asking for thesis or other publications is an accepted behaviour in academia. Sometimes people are even willing to share the raw data that went in their publication.

A PhD thesis is usually a published work, and is normally archived in a university's library. Almost all dissertations are available via reprints. So you could ask your own library how to order a copy of the thesis.
Alternatively, as you suggest, you can contact the author directly. As Anonymous Mathematician suggests in his comment, you can ask for a copy of the thesis, but you should definitely explain why you're interested in the thesis. However, it may be possible—and even more so for a humanities thesis—that the author is currently preparing it for publication, and may therefore be reluctant to share it via electronic means. However, it is just as likely that they're willing to share it.

I don't think it is a big deal, unless as discussed in other answers they have reasons not to respond, however "Hello I am a PhD student in your field, can I please see your thesis?" is maximising your chances of not getting a response. Remember you are asking for a favour from a busy stranger you need to give him a reason to treat you as worth responding to. Write a polite, well-subjected, but not too long e-mail, e.g.

Subject: Request for a copy of your PhD thesis
Dear Dr. X,
I am writing to you today to request an electronic copy of your thesis
  - "Boring yet strangely intriguing title".
My name is Bill Bloggs, I am a PhD student at the university of stuff
  and things. I have seen your thesis referenced by XX and I was
  wondering whether you would be willing to send an electronic copy of
  your thesis to me so that I can read it as it seems relevant to my own
  work in blah and bimble.
Thank you for your time,
Yours sincerely,
Bill Bloggs.

Thanks to all for your replies. Just to update you - I wrote a nice email to the author's two different addresses. I know for sure the email sent to the correct addresses but I got no reply - which is maybe a bit rude! But luckily the holder library scanned the paper version for me - expensive but at least I got it...

If you are worried about contacting the author directly, the ProQuest Database might be a place to start if the person whose dissertation you are looking for has already graduated and submitted to the final copy the their university, which appears to be the case in the scenario you mentioned.
In most countries once the dissertation is submitted to the university it comes into the public sphere (still copyrighted but its existence and content can no longer be thought of as private) so there should be no problem with contacting either the author or the Library of his or her PhD institution and requesting a copy politely.

In my field in the social sciences, scholars are divided into "article people" and "book people," depending on the nature of their projects (and of course, many people work on both, but there are differences in preferences and focus).
Oversimplifying a bit, article people tend to write their dissertations on something like a 3-paper model, where they combine published or publishable articles, and add on a front and back end. The book people simply write, for their dissertations, something that looks like a book.
The issue that the "book people" have, is that it generally takes longer to actually turn the dissertation into published book through a contract with a proper academic or university press. (and in my field, unlike what some of the previous posters said, a dissertation is NOT considered "published," it is considered an "unpublished dissertation manuscript" and should be cited as such.).
Because these book projects take much longer to complete (often will take a whole 4-5 years more), many PhDs working on books request a "dissertation embargo" with their school library so that their dissertations will not be made public immediately.
If you are having a hard time, finding a recent dissertation, this embargo might be the reason. You can of course email and ask the author, but some are worried about getting "poached" and other issues regards to dissertations that are being developed into proper books.


text:
Writing letters of recommendation for more than one student to the same department
Suppose multiple students have asked me for letters of recommendation to the same graduate department in the US. Am I expected to explicitly compare the students to one another? Am I supposed to do this in both letters (assuming they haven't been submitted yet)? Do I need to explicitly state a preference for one over the other, or can I just get away with listing relative strengths and weaknesses (for instance, "X is stronger academically, but Y has more research experience and is a stronger programmer")?

I am confused. By saying "X is stronger academically, but Y has more research experience and is a stronger programmer", you seem to be doing comparison already.

What I mean is: do I need to say "I would take candidate X over candidate Y" or not?

do I need to say "I would take candidate X over candidate Y" or not?: I'm not sure what "need" means in this context, but I don't think there's any reason to feel obligated to make such a comparison.  It would probably help the stronger of the students a little to do so , and likely sink the weaker of them.  You'll have to decide how you feel about that: if you only think one of them has a chance of admission, maybe it's not so bad.  If you're genuinely unsure who you think is stronger, you can opt for a more Solomonic formulation.  Listing relative strengths and weaknesses is reasonable.

Don't make it a recommendation for student A and a condemnation for student B though!

@user14449 Again, you can do whatever you want.  I think you only want to say "X is better than Y" if you think Y has absolutely no chance already, but it's normal for people to write (in a letter for X) "You may have also seen the application from Y, another student from our department..." and then list what you see as the strong and weak points of each candidate.

Since each individual student is asking for a letter of recommendation it would be appropriate to approach each letter as an individual task and not implicitly cross-reference between the letters by making comparisons. Direct comparisons between the specific students should not be made. It is after all the person or committee admitting the students to the program that will make decisions who may fit the best and their criteria may not be the same as yours. It is, however, reasonable to make implicit comparisons such as ranking each in relative terms to, say, all students you have encountered or some other frame of reference. This way each student is compared to a group and not each other. This is what one commonly does anyway.
I can imagine that you may get a request for more details by the person/committee if there is a difficulty in separating students. You could if you are willing, add a comment to the fact that you are willing to answer any questions that may arise during the process regarding the student in question.

While writing recommendation letters, you can write about each applicant's strengths.
You do not need to compare them to each other, but you can say whether you consider them in to 10%, 20% etc (some schools explicitly ask for this information).
More than one student can be in the top 10%, for example. If you have a good formula to calculate this, you should just follow that. It will make your letters easy and consistent.

While I agree the students are competing they can still both get in! Especially if we are only talking two students applying to a cohort. Schools will remember students from particular institutions, and more quality students is a good thing as it suggests they were better prepped for grad school.
On the flipside, I fail to see how providing potentially disparaging remarks (even if indirectly in saying I would choose A over B) provides help to the student getting the positive hand. That is, if you say A is a better student than B I don't see how this helps A against any of the other competition applying to the program besides over the B individual. Your creating a false dichotomy in doing so.
IMO the letters should really be orthogonal to one another (that is A's actions should have no bearing on B's letter) and you should focus on the individual in the recommendation.


text:
Advantages of delaying/accelerating PhD application
I'm an Australian maths undergraduate student, and our academic year ends at the beginning of December. I understand that PhDs in the USA (and elsewhere?) generally start before this time, about September. So, if I want to pursue a PhD overseas, I have a long time to kill in between my undergrad and postgrad degrees.
Consequently I've been investigating the possibility of cramming the remainder of my undergraduate degree into one fewer semester, so that I can graduate at the beginning of July (2014), just in time to start a PhD overseas.
However, this would mean I would have to send out applications in December this year, before I have actually finished my degree. I am particularly concerned because in Australia the last year of an undergraduate maths degree is an "honours" year, which comprises the main research component and the most serious coursework.
Does anyone have advice or experience?

Would I be substantially more competitive for a top university if I delayed for a year and had an honours thesis and good results from many advanced classes under my belt, compared to applying early and having only a promise of an honours thesis? Or, would it be a minor issue with good letters of recommendation?

Some departments/universities allow you to start at times other than the Fall semester. I started in the Spring semester (January).

Austin, I was led to believe this was not the case (in America, at least). Is this only a possibility with smaller universities? Is the application deadline the same?

@Matt: Every department is different.  Some have spring admissions; others don't.  Moreover, the distinction is independent of other splits like large/small or public/private or top-10/other.  You just have to check each department individually.

If you do not have a master's degree, it will be very difficult for you to get a PhD position in most European universities—the UK is an exception to this. You would need to enroll in a master's program and complete that before you are hired as a research assistant for a PhD.

The academic year does start around September in the USA and I think most European countries.  At least in Europe, this doesn't necessarily mean that you would have to start your PhD in September.  For example, I did my PhD in the UK and started in June.
Note that your 'competitors' won't have finished their degree yet either when they are applying.  They will be slightly further along, having already started their final year, but not significantly so, I think.
Is cramming the rest of your undergraduate degree into one semester less at all a realistic option?
I do think you are likely to get stronger letters of recommendation once you are in your final year, because you will have been doing more advanced work and will probably have closer contacts with faculty.
I don't think that having some time between your honours year and your PhD is necessarily a bad idea.  My husband started his PhD only two weeks after finishing his MSc, and he really could have done with more of a break.  I had almost a year between my MSc and PhD, but I spent six months of that doing research.
One of my friends from Australia managed to get part-time teaching work at his undergraduate university until he went to the UK for his PhD.  Or if money isn't too much of an issue, you could take the opportunity to go travelling.
EDIT:  I'd just like to add, along the lines of Dave Clarke's comment, that you should bear in mind that your honours year will likely be a lot more challenging than previous years, and so 'accelerating' this year might turn out to be a bad idea.  I certainly worked harder in my fourth year of university (honours in New Zealand, so quite a similar system to Australia) than I have in any year since.

Thanks Tara, I hadn't considered that my competitors also would not have finished their degree. In my case it's possible to finish early because I took some extra courses earlier in my degree.
I understand the situation in Europe is a little different to the USA -- in the US a PhD combines coursework and research components, whereas in Europe I believe I must study an separate master's degree first? I expect such a degree would be less flexible for starting time, because coursework would operate on a yearly schedule?

+1 for "I don't think that having some time between your honours year and your PhD is necessarily a bad idea."

In the UK you needn't necessarily do a master's degree before your PhD.  My friend from Australia went straight into his PhD from honours and did well (this was in maths).  Most UK students (at least in maths, I can't say for sure for other subjects) have no research experience before starting their PhD, so if you do some research in your honours year, you will be fairly well prepared.  And even if you do have to do coursework, it's quite likely that second-semester entry would be possible.

I would not accelerate things, to avoid getting worse grades that you want.
If you find that you have a half year of free time, fill this usefully either by working (earn some cash, gain some experience), travelling (spend some cash, gain some experience) or by doing research (perhaps a professor will even pay you to do something useful for 6 months, or maybe you can get a 6 month RA position).
Getting good scores will obviously help you. Working or travelling ... well, you'll thank yourself later. And research experience will help your application (and CV).

+1 The risk of getting worse grades by accelerating the final year is definitely worth taking into account!  And as for the rest, I definitely agree.  It can be really hard to find time for non-work travelling later on.


text:
How to decide whether a statement requires citing a reliable source
When writing a paper, I usually face the problem of deciding whether a sentence is cite-able or not. Let's say I am writing about optimization of an algorithm. And I used Java to implement it. So, in the introduction, I would say something like "Java is a class based object oriented language..."  This information is available in many java books and online tutorials. Does the ubiquity of the sentence make it un-citeable? Or do I cite that fact. I have read many prominent papers that simply use that sentence without quoting a source.
Or do we only cite numerical facts that go like "Java is x times slower/faster than c++". I once read an article that says "when writing a paper, you should cite every sentence that you happen to read some where." But this is unrealistic; and we might have almost as many citations as the number of sentences in the paper.
Is there any rule that dictates on what is quotable or not?

I suggest you change the question to say, "How to decide whether a statement requires citing a reliable source."

It ultimately depends on the community you are submitting to, but Wikipedia has a rule that says "cite if >50% likely to be challenged" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:LIKELY which could serve as a heuristic for you. It's unlikely your first example would be challenged whereas the second one would be highly likely in my opinion.

Yes, there are rules on what requires citation.
Generally, publicly-known information (widely known, common knowledge, etc.) does not need to be cited. Your sentence about Java being class-based would fall under this category.
Information which is based on someone else's work (analysis, research, pictures, etc.), whether quoted or paraphrased, should always be cited. Your sentence about Java being x time slower/faster than C++ would fall under this category.
If you are unsure, cite it to be safe.

Wikipedia has specific rules about what is "likely to be challenged" which could be an interesting heuristic to keep in mind: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:LIKELY

Also you have to consider how important is the truth of that statement for your results. "C++ is a high level language" may be challenged (depends if you compare it to Assembly or Python), but doesn't affect the results of your computation.

These are not rules but the way I think about it:

if the information is basic introductory text book material, you may not need to cite it.
If the information can be found in advanced text books (not intro-level), cite a book that you are familiar with and that supports that statement.
If the informaiton is only found in research papers obviously those are what you reference.

If yu are uncertain, you simply quote a higher level: uncertain if it goes into (1.) then do (2.) etc. It is worse to miss referencing than providing a citation/reference "too much". In the worst case someone might suggest removing the refence/citation.

It depends of the audience at which is aimed the article.
In theory, in a scientific document you must explicitly list the basis for all your assumptions, and defend them. If the correctness of the thesis described in your article depends on fact $A$, then you either prove $A$ or give a reference to someone who proved $A$. In practice scientific reports skip some references assumed to be common (e.g. definition and properties of the logarithm): it used to be important to save printing space (not so true now with electronic proceedings), it stays important to keep the article uncluttered. Given the reasons for skipping some references, there cannot be any absolute rule about which ones to skip: the decision depends of the audience you are aiming at, and in particular of your evaluation of the knowledge in common between you and them: put references when they are necessary to your audience (and do not clutter your article when they are not).
For instance, your sentence about Java being class-based would be unwelcome (in addition of unnecessary) in an article aimed at researchers in computer science, because this fact is supposed to be well known (and agreed upon). But it might be welcome in an article aimed at students (in computer science or not), or researchers in other fields than computer science (e.g. biologists). On the other hand, the fact that Java is slower than C++ might evolve in time (e.g. java compilers getting better), or be argued against (different type of applications):  you should always give a reference for this kind of statement if you did not argue or prove it yourself.
Hope it helps!

+1 for explaining the "audience" thing. That might explain the inconsistencies I see in well written famous papers. I have seen the same fact cited in some of the papers, presented without citation in the others.


text:
How much is too much when defining and explaining terms in depth in a dissertation?
When writing a dissertation for a PhD in computer science, where the research is interdisciplinary, is it OK to define and include in depth explanation for an extraordinarily large amount of terminology in the preliminaries and background?
Currently, in my preliminaries and background section, which follows the introduction, I have 50 definitions but will have more, many of which are trivial or common knowledge to some readers. Each definition comprises a substantially long paragraph. My reasoning and upfront explanation is that I hope to make the dissertation more accessible, friendly to non-English first language readers, and that the interdisciplinary content requires more definitions and explanations than usual to make the dissertation understandable to those in my field.

"dissertation more accessible, friendly to non-English first language readers" unless anyone on your committee doesn't speak English as a first language, don't worry, because no one else will read it

@AzorAhai-him- Do you think the committee will feel obligated to read those sections? I don't want to burden them, but still like to make the dissertation a good resource for anyone who possibly might decide to read it later on, and tell the full story without expecting too many prerequisites.

Maybe you could move a lot of these definitions into a "symbol/notation appendix" and a "glossary appendix"?

Please make your dissertation welcoming to those not in your specialty and to those who do not share your language fully.
I often read dissertations when I am trying to get to know a new subject.  I know many people read my dissertation, as it picked up lots of citations over the past few decades.  I have no idea why people say only a  few people will read your dissertation.  That seems insulting.  I have read a few undergraduate dissertations to find some formulas spelled out.  More commonly, I read masters dissertations, and many more PhD dissertations, mostly those in fields that were not where I got my graduate training.
The exception is if you are in a harsh field where being nice to your readers is seen as a sign of weakness.  Even then, you might be brave and buck the trend.  Most importantly, do listen to your advisor.  Don't spend forever writing this.  Often the longer version takes no more time as you need not decide what to cut out, but at some point you need to pick a style and power through.  Your committee can tell you to add detail or take out detail.
My advisor taught me that a good mathematician writes a "full-proof" version of every paper that nails down every detail, and then edits that down to make the published version.  He wanted my dissertation to be the full-proof version of a few papers.  Later, one is to only publish the short and efficient versions, but had the full version on a shelf to pull down if someone questioned you on a point.
If your dissertation is structured correctly, your committee can skip over sections that give background that they know well.  Your advisor will get stuck reading it all.  One does get paid for this, however.

In case the OP is interested in specific examples, among the many theses (Masters and Ph.D.) I've cited just in Stack Exchange groups alone are these Masters theses: De Moivre's Theorem and On the Development of Descriptive Set Theory and On Volterra Spaces and Continuous Nowhere Differentiable Functions.

Generally in order to be reader-friendly, it is more advisable to explain too much than too little. If you explain not enough, some parts of your thesis may be incomprehensible, which devalues them. If you explain too much, people still can understand your stuff, even if they may lose a bit of time. For sure "explaining too much" is not a reason to fail your PhD (unless there is something like a word count limit and an excessive account of basics stops you from explaining you own work properly).
The only problem I see is that there may be the odd expert reader who is annoyed about having to read so much they already know (they may even believe everybody who reads the thesis will know this-or-that, whether that's true or not), and this may give them a certain negative feeling when going on reading. This however should not normally be a problem; the quality of your original work is what it is, and explaining too much doesn't affect the readers'  ability to see this quality. This is what you should be assessed on, so I believe it can't hurt, even though personally I'd for sure ask your supervisor and maybe others for feedback about that stuff; even if it won't make your thesis fall, if being nice to your main readers means explaining a bit less, I'd recommend to be nice.

Definitely err on the side of too much explanation in a thesis, for many reasons. As for "the odd expert reader who is annoyed about having to read so much they already know", I read "odd" as referring to the collection of expert readers and not to the larger collection of readers, since I assume most any expert can easily skip over basic material -- if not, then the "expert" is probably not all that expert in my opinion. Also, if there really does seem to be too much basic "filler material", I suspect most anyone would assume that possibly the student's supervisor asked for it to be included.

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


text:
How to handle ego clashes within an academic department
I am a new assistant professor in my department. While all faculty members have been welcoming so far to me, I find there are two or three distinct groups or coteries within the department. The coteries are distinct and comprise set of people who wouldn't mingle with people from another coterie. It is a bit awkward for me because there are even senior professors in different sets, and I want to be affable with everyone in my department.
How do I handle this sense of discomfort? Should I talk with the Chair? But the sectoring is pretty well-known and prevalent for a long time and there is little the Chair can do about it (or so I think!)
How do academic departments handle this situation of clash of egos usually? I am sure mine is not the only place where this clash is seen.

This sounds like every single department I know.

@Suresh - Maybe the OP would like to know how you deal with it - the way Pedro suggested?

Pedro's answer is very complete. I don't have much more to add.

The best advice anyone can give you, in my opinion, is: Don't get involved.
You're entering a new environment and it's in your best interests to just get along with everybody, as you already suggest you are trying.
If the issue pops up in any discussions, just avoid it. The last thing you want to do is get caught-up in a territorial dispute of which you probably don't want to know the origins, and that serves no purpose to anybody, least of all to you.
I would only advise discussing things with the Chair if these divisions start negatively affecting your work, and only discuss it in terms of how it affects your work. As you've pointed out yourself, chances are he/she can't do anything about it, or worse, he/she may be involved.
Things like this can happen even in the best departments, and the best thing that can happen in such a case is that new staff bridge whatever divide may be there by ignoring it completely.

Thanks Pedro, but however hard I may try, I am cornered into a situation where I have to choose one over another. I fear getting alienated by both groups, thus seriously scuppering all chances of my tenure.

Can you be more specific about the situation where you have to make your choice (while of course protecting the identities of everyone involved) in your question?

@Irwin: It's pretty much ubiquitous: right from department talks to seminars to invited lectures - if one group does all the organising, the other fails to turn up and vice-versa. And the divide extends ad infinitum.

@Assistant_Professor: In such a specific case, I'd show up at the seminars and lectures of both. If they have timing conflicts, then you could try asking both sides to move them, emphasizing that you really want to be able attend both seminars/lectures. This is, of course, assuming you're interested in both. Just pretend you never noticed there was a division. No matter how awkward it feels, it will be less awkward, or dangerous, than having to take sides.

With respect to coteries there is no difference between a university department and any workplace, corporate board, political party, sporting team, primary school playground, etc...
Coteries are just a fact of life everywhere one goes...
At some point in time you will start collaborating with people in your department on research in which you have a shared interest.  Hence, by default you will eventually drift into one of the coteries, otherwise you'll be a loner in the department...
So, you'll have to eventually choose one of them, and to be a successful academic the correct choice should be based on shared research interests.

I would prefer to be loner than involving in some sort of war.

that's a false dichotomy.


text:
What exactly is an embargo for a journal?
I was trying to access this article and was told this journal is "embargoed" for more than a year. This is the first time I have seen the term embargo used in an academic setting.
This answer talks a bit about the idea of journal embargoes. Wikipedia has more information but I do not find it helpful at all.
As I read (on Wikipedia), it seems embargoes in journals are for future stories (and not for everything ever published). The article that I am seeking is from two years ago.
This question implies that embargoes deal with the relationship between publisher and author, which does not make sense in the context of my request.
This answer implies that embargoes are about limiting access electronically, but, again, it seems I can buy the article for $40 so clearly it is available electronically.
So, what exactly is an embargo (in this context)? Does it really mean that I simply have no access to this through my university account? It looks like it is available to the general public (if you pay) but not to those of us with access through university subscriptions.

I don't see any mention of an embargo on that page (using Ctrl+F to search for the word). Can you give some more context?

I can download it using my university subscription - its likely that it is embargoed ONLY w.r.t your university account. Voting to close since issue seems to local to a particular subscription account...

@ff524 I Googled "Taylor & Francis embargo" and found the article  http://editorresources.taylorandfrancisgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Guidance-on-HEFCE-OA-policy-August-2014.pdf. In there, it says "Taylor & Francis-published journals have embargo periods of 12 months for S&T and 18 months for SSAH.". I am wondering if that's what the OP was talking about.

@scaaahu I don't think so - that document is referring to when T&F allows an author to publish a postprint of an article in e.g. an institutional repository. It's not about the version of the article posted on T&F's website that may be downloaded by anyone with an institutional subscription.

@ff524 I was told by my librarian (who is normally excellent but currently unavailable) about the embargo. I have no link I can provide but the wording implied it was not just my account which is impacted.

So far as I know, your understanding of the typical use of "embargo" for journals is correct: it is when a journal wants to be the "first to press" with its article, and so places a gag order on the authors and their institutions so that they don't go talking to the press first.
There is another place where journals also often want to be "first to press," however, and I suspect that this is what "embargo" refers to in this case. It is often the case that a journal makes its content available through multiple routes: immediately through the publisher for a premium, and with time-lag through larger accumulations, such as PubMed or ScienceDirect.
Thus, I think that what is probably going on here is that your institution does not judge this journal important enough to subscribe to directly, but gets it as part of a time-lagged "package deal."  You should check with your librarian how long the time-lag is, and then decide whether it's worth waiting or if you want to ask a colleague to help you get around the paywall...

Thanks. I did not know there were levels of subscription. Still, could it be that an article is published and 28 months later (now - Feb 2013), it is still unavailable for some subscribers to a journal? That seems an exceptionally long time.

That should be 23 months (today - Feb 2013).

@earthling Entirely possible.  I just looked up that journal through my own institutional access, and saw it's in a bundle with an 18-month lag. A 24-month lag would not be so different.  There may also be other contract-driven problems: talk to your librarian, who should be able to tell you what's actually going on.

It turns out this is exactly what is happening. My school simply has cheaper package which includes a delay. Checking a friend's account at another school (which is willing to pay more for their subscription) has full access to the article without the delay.

@earthling Glad that turned out to clear up the mystery!

Some journals have adopted a model for open-access whereby the published version is pay-to-view for a fixed period (e.g. the first year) and becomes freely available after that embargo period.
However, in this particular case, as other people (including me) have no trouble in accessing that particular article, it looks like your institution has restricted access, either to that article or that journal.

I understand your point but my university does subscribe to this journal. At any rate, could it be the embargo period is > 23 months (which is the time between Feb 2013 and today)?

@earthling something else is going on in this case: I can see that article just fine, through my university. I'd guess your institution has restricted access.

Embargo is often use when an academic journal authorizes the publication of its articles (usually author-versions rather than publisher-formated version) in an open repository, but only some time after publication in the journal. So, during the embargo, only paid subscriptions give access to the article, while after the embargo one can also access the article or at least a version of it on some repository (assuming that the author took advantage of this possibility, or that the publisher does it itself which is rarer).
This is much discussed when talking about green open-access (i.e. open access via author deposit on open repositories), but it may not apply to the case you describe.

Within this context it sounds like your library doesn't subscribe to this journal directly and none of the databases they subscribe to includes the current year.  Journal publishers can make deals with the database publishers so that one database vendor has priority access by creating a one year embargo to a journal such that only that vendor can publish the current year, but often will offer a subscription to a set of years that has a one year delay to other database providers.  The library typically pays for access to print serials, databases that host print serials, and various library consortia that provide access to interlibrary loaning services but it seems that none of these options provides access to the current year.  The issue is not that the electronic access doesn't exist, but that your institution doesn't have any subscriptions or consortia connections with the vendor that made the deal.

*correction: databases that host electronic serials


text:
Are automated online quizzes effective for formative feedback to students
I would like to increase my use of formative feedback (feedback showing students whether they understand material correctly without impacting their grades) and would like to integrate it with online quizzes.
I'm wondering if this has been found to be effective.
My goal is to make it simple and automated. While I could write one myself (school generally does not pay for things like this), I would prefer to avoid building it (or paying). What I'm really looking for is something like forms in Google docs but would also somehow automatically and instantly score the answer (limiting student answers to multiple choice) and displaying the results to the student as soon as the submit button is pressed.
So, this is a compound question: Does using online auto-scoring quizzes help students (I believe it will) through formative feedback and is there a way to get Google forms to give immediate results?

My lecturers often do this too, could you use Survey  monkey?

@C_B How can Survey Monkey help me here? I'm not aware of using them for instant-feedback quizzes.

What learning management system does your school use for posting info or student grades? Common ones are Blackboard, Moodle, Canvas, Edmodo, Desire2Learn, Sakai.

@Adrienne Our learning management system is a very old one: email. This is a very low tech university. So far, all of the technology I use I've written myself...but I've got too many other things to do.

Does online quizzing help?
Yes. Some references are listed below. Auto-graded quizzes with no points will help motivated students self-regulate their learning.
Of course, those students are the ones most likely to succeed. If you assign some small points then students who are more likely to postpone studying will develop better habits.
Can Google Forms give instant results?
Well, quick and easy results, but not instant results, using scripts. The K12 education world is more nimble with free LMS options. Many teachers use the script "Flubaroo" to grade the form answers within Sheets, and then the script "Autocrat" to automatically send emails. I'll let you google for the latest blog posts and youtube videos on these scripts.
As best I can tell, you may need to manually trigger the process after each quiz ends. But perhaps that's a good excuse to check student answers and see how they are doing?
_
References:
Bälter, O., Enström, E., & Klingenberg, B. (2013). The effect of short formative diagnostic web quizzes with minimal feedback. Computers & Education, 60(1), 234-242.
Kenis, R. M. (2011). Effects of Scheduled, Unrecorded Quizzes on Students' Self-regulated Learning.
Olson, B. L., & McDonald, J. L. (2004). Influence of online formative assessment upon student learning in biomedical science courses. Journal of Dental Education, 68(6), 656-659.

Kenis' master thesis gave me some great ideas. As for auto-grade, I think Flabaroo does that now (that feature is in beta) but I actually will take your advice and use this an an opportunity to keep track of how students are performing (but not counting performance on these quizzes towards their final grade).

If your school uses any sort of online learning platform (like Moodle), they often (and I know Moodle specifically) do this.

There is no virtual learning environment, unfortunately. I am familiar with Moodle and their quiz functionality (works fine for this) but there is no Moodle (nor a server on which to install it).


text:
Is it a bad idea to point out flaws/weaknesses of your model in your paper?
In a modeling paper I am writing, I know that there are some limitations.
Is it a bad idea to point out the limitations? Am I just giving the reviewers more straw for them to reject my paper?

definitely clearly point out what domain(s) your model is most valid in and what domain(s) your model is least valid and why.  if your model is meant to help someone get a grip on some complex interaction, that only helps when these someones apply the model to where it is meant to be applied.  it reduces the efficacy of the model when it gets applied to contexts where it is already known to be flawed.

To add to what the others say: If I think the authors haven't considered an obvious issue I'll assume it's because the work is low quality and the authors are incompetent.  I'll give my report accordingly.  If an obvious issue exists and I don't agree with the authors' discussion of why it's not significant, I'll question it, but I won't assume the authors are incompetent.  If I ever thought the authors knew about an issue and are hiding it...  every paper of theirs I ever referee from then on would receive a very, very close investigation with no margin for error.

Sophisticated readers will always remember that "all models are wrong, but some are useful". If you have no description of the shortcomings then your sophisticated readers may assume you weren't astute enough to recognize them and judge your paper accordingly.

Do not write with the goal of 'getting the paper published' - it doesn't serve the fundamental purpose of writing papers which is to disseminate knowledge and document it for posterity's sake. This is what ails academia today in fact, people hiding facts, even skewing results, or simply churning out tripe that follows the money trail, but teaching us nothing new. It would be refreshing to see something honest and original, submitted out there for a change. Do not fear the rejection.

@robertbristow-johnson: The definitely in your comment is a bit confusing since the question was whether it is a bad idea to point out the limitations. I assume you meant one definitely should point out the limitations, is that right?

@MichaelGeary, yes.  i am saying that, assuming the author knows where his/her model is valid and where the model is less valid, that the value of the published work is increased by clearly describing the "domains of validity" (or whatever term you wanna give it).  leaving it out decreases the value of the published paper.

Science is not about getting papers published; it's about writing papers that move a field forward. So don't let worries about reviewers prevent you from adding content that you feel should be there. Indeed, modeling papers that hide their limitations are much less effective at advancing a field than those that clearly explain them.
Good reviewers recognize this and often look in the Discussion for a clear exposition of the model's limitations as well as its strengths. That said, to be worth anything a model must make useful contributions despite these limitations, and it's your job to explain how your model does that.

This, so much this. Address the obvious questions in the paper. A well reasoned discussions of the strengths and weaknesses of a model or an experiment is a wonderful thing.

speaking as a software dev often trying to understand an algorithm from a paper, the paper is almost completely useless without a discussion of the limitations. It makes it much harder to actually determine if the work is in any way useful.

@Mindwin Science is inherently social. As long as papers remain the primary venue for sharing results, models, etc., science is inextricably linked to the act of writing papers. It's just not about writing papers to get famous.

Personally, as both and author and a reviewer, I strongly prefer papers that are clear and honest about their limitations.  I typically see good declarations of this sort take one of several forms:

The results are limited to a specific class of cases, but those cases are quite interesting and important.
The results are limited, but they are still a major improvement over the prior state of the art.
The results are limited, but the work needed for necessary extensions to broader coverage is clear and unlikely to pose major scientific obstacles.

Clearly, if you are submitting a manuscript, you believe your work is interesting and valuable despite its known limitations.  Explicitly stating those limitations gives you a chance to make that case for value clearly and directly.
If, on the other hand, you attempt to hide your limitations, many reviewers may notice them in any case, and may hold them more harshly against you.

From my experience reading chemical literature, there is nothing more suspicious to my eyes than a paper which contains nothing but a recipe and a few successful results. That works if you are going to bake cookies, but chemical syntheses of that caliber are always a gamble.
Any really good scientific paper will discuss not only what succeeded, but also what failed, and why. There is absolutely no requirement that papers be written as if you were trying to sell something and therefore only contain positive points. The really good chemical journals (e.g. Organic Syntheses) will contain discussion of any pitfalls or possible failure points as well as discussion of potential hazards, etc. - and that's what sets them apart from other less reputable sources!
I would rather have a 15-page review that exhaustively covers the mechanism of some exotic chemical transformation - rather than a two-paragraph paper which frankly could have been written on the back of a napkin at lunchtime.

I would like to add to the other answers by looking at this issue from another perspective. Sure,if the reviewer realizes you left out certain parts on purpose, he might have a hard time trusting your honesty on other parts of the paper (making the review process more difficult).
However, even with the premise that you did not leave out these parts on purpose, failing to see and mention relatively obvious limitations of your work can give the impression of inaccuracy and oversight in your research. Naturally, this can create doubts about the accuracy of other sections of the paper.

Write about them
It is not about selling a product but adding knowledge to the community.  Especially in science, knowing its errors and limitations is a crucial part of every result you provide.
Every (good) reviewer knows that.

Pointing out the weaknesses will definitely make the paper higher quality and more useful.
It may make it either more or less likely to be published. That's definitely something to consider even if you are altruistic - the paper isn't going to help many people if it's not published. But all things considered I'd say including the caveats will make it more likely to be published.
If the reviewer realizes the limitations himself, and they are significant and worthy of mention, their omission would make the writing appear either clueless, negligent or dishonest.
If the reviewer doesn't realize them himself, their inclusion would still give the paper more credibility, make it clearer and better framed, and give the sense that you know what you're talking about; and the paper would still be worthwhile for the results it does have. Omitting the limitations could make the paper seem "too good to be true" and make the reviewer wonder what he's missing.
And there's the remote chance that the reviewer would buy into a paper that appears to have fantastic results, and reject it if he is hinted the results are a bit more mundane. Such a reviewer is probably gullible and uninformed about what makes a good paper, and it's a bad habit to assume your reviewers will be such.
So, however you look at it, mentioning the weaknesses is definitely the way to go. You shouldn't overplay it though, it is expected that you will be mostly positive about the paper and not go out of your way to discredit it. No need to write "Ultimately, the analysis in this paper is totally useless, because the model makes assumptions X, Y and Z which are completely unrealistic."

You must include all of the parameters in which your model operates including any that you don't understand or have a possible confounding effect.
This is science. To not include them is evangelism.
Including the limits and known issues of your work shows that you have thought the subject through and still consider your work to add to the topic. To NOT include limits will force reviewers to do this work for you and they will not be appreciative.
There is nothing wrong in noting the edges of your work. Science is the exploration of things we don't know. If we knew them there would not be limitations and you wouldn't be writing about them.

Finding a useful model is craft, art, and skill.  Very important, quite valuable, not science.  How and what this model fits and when it stops fitting for what reason: that's science.
You are contemplating omitting the one thing that makes your paper worthwhile as a paper.  "I thought I'd do it this and that way, and it worked." is not an academic paper but a lab report.  It provides no insight.
If you are handing in a lab report and skip the science, you may or may not get your paper accepted.  But then others will get the credit for actually working out the science, and it will be to your detriment.

High moral standards & selfless service to the greater good of humanity aside, there is still a very good selfish reason for pointing out the limitations of your work: if you do it yourself, you can then discuss it on your terms right there, whereas if reviewers find it, you couldn't. What I mean is something like "My method has such and such limitations, BUT it's still good, because

There are still many important cases where it DOES work...
... or it covers a few cases not covered by any existing methods
It may be possible to overcome some of the limitations in our future works
It looks promising because of blah-blah-blah
Etc."

In every research paper I've read (or written), there was a "Discussion/Limitations" section, composed more or less like that. If you don't write it yourself, a reviewer would kindly do that for you, although it would probably look more like "the proposed method seems to have such and such limitations, whether it's still good I have no time to research - reject."
Furthermore, unless your field is completely new and revolutionary, a typical reviewer has already read tons of papers on the subject, has probably done some research of his/her own, and knows quite well what are the typical problems and difficult cases - they expect you to know and discuss them, including inevitable failures of your approach with some of them. If they don't see such discussion in your paper, it gives them impression of you being incompetent, or dishonest, or both.


text:
Why would a senior PI need to take a part-time job at another university?
A senior professor works at one university, has his own lab and research group(s). Recently, he took another part-time job at a better university. So why do professors need to take part-time jobs? Is it because his main university started to pay half salary or is it because he needs extra funding to work together at another university? Or just because he lacks funding and seeking opportunity somewhere else?
Does this professor reserve to right to ask the new faculty to employ or joint pay his research fellow? Or this is more usual that he needs to pay his staff with his own funding.

Are you a student or a professor at the university?

I am not a professor

thank you for reviewing my question, i ask here as know few about the academic world, do you know the answer? and if this is a good question?

Most people take additional work to get more money, or get something else out of the deal that is worth money. That being said, I feel in poor taste to inquire about this professor's specific scenario.

the question may sounds stupid, but it is necessary for us students also to know the academic system. really looking forward to know the answer

Maybe you could just ask that professor yourself...  Might be enlightening.

Perhaps the prof is doing some friendly department a favor, and covering some dire circumstance.  Really, could be anything.

I remember in the 2nd meeting of one of my classes, the professor announced he had been diagnosed with cancer and was taking a medical leave.  The university hired other professors to take over his responsibilities.  It could be as simple as that.

I am a faculty member at a third-tier university.  If a first-tier university in the same city offered me a part-time job and I could fit in the time required, I'd take it so fast it would make your head spin.

Maybe he has multiple ex-wives?

A senior professor works at one university, has his own lab and research group(s). Recently, he took another part-time job at a better university. So why do professors need to take part-time jobs?

Of course there's no way to say for sure based on so little information, but I wouldn't assume it has anything to do with finances, actually. The most likely explanation is that he wanted to be associated in some way with the more prestigious university. Maybe just because it sounds impressive (either to society at large or on papers/grants), maybe because he hopes to move there fully in the future, maybe because the association might help him attract strong students or postdocs, maybe because he is collaborating with someone there or managing a joint grant, etc.

Does this professor reserve to right to ask the new faculty to employ or joint pay his research fellow?

There's no way of answering this without much more information. Some people have affiliations with other universities that consist of just a title (with no salary or research funding at all), others genuinely have part-time jobs, and some have negotiated deals involving all sorts of things. In general I wouldn't assume there's any agreement to provide joint funding for research fellows, but there might be.