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Can call numbers differ between libraries?
Suppose you have two libraries that use the same classification system and have not merged their respective databases. Could it be possible that the exact same book could be assigned different call numbers if taken from one library and added to the other?
I am asking this question because I am drawing up a home-library database application, and the client would like the ability to assign call numbers (even multiple ones). I have not been able to find an answer online, and I hope that I do not have to travel to the next state over to find a library not connected to the ones around I live.
I imagine the book would most likely be assigned to the same top-tier category and most likely the same second subcategory in the respective system, but, for example, the Library of Congress system incorporates the author's name and a quasi-decimal number which fine-tunes the book's location. And it seems without any external reference the assignment of this part of the call number is made on the fly for any particular library.
So, I have a couple questions. First, the title's sake. Second, is the way I'm thinking about this correct? And if I'm wrong, why?

Many libraries have now outsourced the cataloging problem- they get Library of Congress records in MARC format and then simply use that number in their system.  However, libraries that still catalog their own books can come up with different classifications for the same book and thus different numbers.

Normally, when already available, Library of Congress classifications are usually found after the title page, and should thus be constant across different libraries. For publishers.
In any case, this should be a fairly easy hypothesis to test (at least to a certain degree). Most university library catalogues are on-line and freely available. You could sample a cross-section of titles from different subjects and see what happens: my suspicion after a few cursory checks of my own is that call numbers do vary somewhat, but primarily at the "secondary level" (in identifying the author, rather than the subject).

One would expect LC numbers to be invariant. However... an uncatalogued book with a title something like "Classical Problems in Mongolism" arrived at a certain university library, and it was given a number appropriate to Classical Mongolian. The library declined to correct the error, holding that "at least it is catalogued".

A call number is meant to be a unique identifier for a particular book (or other work); that is, a particular physical object, typically found on a shelf somewhere. These identifiers are often structured, containing encoded information about the subject, author, publication date, etc. If a library has multiple copies of the same text, then they will typically have different call numbers - say, via a suffix "(copy 1)", "(copy 2)", etc. They are different physical objects. They are tracked separately: one copy was purchased, and another was donated; one is on loan and another is having its spine repaired; and so forth.
It is devoutly to be wished that different libraries, following the same standard, will assign their identifiers in the same way. Reality being what it is, we can't guarantee that this will always happen, even if it is the common case. However, your question is about something different: when a book is moved from one library to another, what happens to the call number? There are two things going on here:

Assigning a new number. Since you have a new physical object, it needs an identifying number. The multiple copy example above shows one instance where the least-significant part of the call number would have to change. Ideally, other changes would not be needed in order to make the number conform to the new library's system. So the question is: how much do you trust the old library to get it right? If the answer is anything less than 100% then there should be some way to assign a new number.
Keeping track of the old number. Even after renumbering, it might be useful to record the book's former call number. Provenance information is generally felt to be a Good Thing to have - certainly, in the case of items with any value, or which are externally indexed. (For example, bibliographies of the works contained in a particular library will often include the shelfmarks.) This may not be a concern for your database, or it might not have to be part of the main database system - perhaps "how I obtained this book" information could be retained elsewhere.

If you are dealing with MARC, then you can look up how it handles coding of former locations, multiple call numbers, and so on, as there are standard ways of recording this information.

(1/2) "a unique identifier for a particular book" - I'd disagree with this. There are libraries that assign unique-per-item call numbers, but this is rare; most commonly it's a classification number, and it's usually seen as acceptable to have a dozen different titles all classified at, say, 551.352 SMI - the reader can easily see which one they want now you've got them to this location. Suffixes help to provide order but they aren't required to be unique.

(2/2) For unique-item tracking you'd usually assign an item number, which is usually stored as a barcode inside the cover (or an RFID tag) rather than a human-readable call number on the cover/spine. These will be unique, hopefully within the entire system not just the one site, and provide tracking ability on a per-item basis for recording acquisition, repairs, etc.

A bit late to answer the OPs question, but for the record... the answer is "usually they will be the same, but there is no requirement and there are often good reasons to vary".
Factors which may cause a different number to be used by different libraries:

Different classification systems. Usually, different branches of a given library will use the same classification system, but this is not guaranteed, especially when different institutions have merged.
Different versions of the classification system. Classification systems are frequently revised, and not all libraries update their existing shelfmarks when an updated edition is issued. This paper discusses the example of the "eugenics" subject, which has been assigned to 18(!) different locations in Dewey at various times.
Different local focus. If individual libraries have a specialised focus, they may choose to classify books in a different way. For example, I used to deal with a small departmental library focused on classical studies. A book on, say, the military of the Roman Empire would be shelved under 937 as a particular subset of ancient history in the main library, but the second copy in the specialist library would be shelved under 355 as a book on military history - this was the most convenient approach for that particular site.
Different local practice. There are a number of aspects of the classification system that are effectively optional. For example, a smaller library may decide to use shortened numbers rather than the longer, more "correct", ones. "Cutter codes" (the quasi-decimal bit based on author name) are often assigned in an idiosyncratic way, and some libraries will use a local or arbitrary system for these. Fiction/literature also causes problems, as using the "pure" classification system for this is relatively rare outside large libraries; many will use a much simpler system, and it is very likely this will be inconsistent between individual libraries.

I'm really late here, but I just ran into this issue.  In particular, I've found a book that is regularly given one of two LOC numbers that differ in the second letter.
I noticed the book Innovations in nondestructive testing of concrete in my library with a call number starting with TK7874.  This was strange to me, since those call numbers are mostly about microelectronics and VLSI design.  I asked a librarian, and the best we could come up with was that there's some electronic testing discussed in the book (which wasn't that satisfying to me, since there were no other concrete testing books nearby, and the electronics didn't seem related to VLSI).
However, if you go through the different libraries that have that book in the link (click on "book" under "Held formats"), many of them have that same TK7874 number, but many of them instead have a TA440 number.  That range includes many other books on concrete testing.
I'm inclined to think that the TA440 number is the the "right" one (not that I know anything about concrete), but it's interesting to me that this isn't just an issue with a single library.  Perhaps they all copied each others' databases, or perhaps there really is some reason for classifying this book either way.
In short, I'm not sure if this should happen, but it certainly does, and occasionally at a fairly high level in the call number.

Innovations in nondestructive testing of concrete is usually assigned the main subject heading Concrete--Testing (from the controlled vocabulary of Library of Congress Subject Headings, page C-588), which is assigned the Library of Congress Classification TA440, under Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General) /  Materials of engineering and construction. / Mechanics of materials.

TK7874 would fall under Electrical Engineering. Electronics. Nuclear engineering / Electronics, which seems to be completely incorrect. I did find it under TA680 and TA683 at other libraries, which are for Structural Engineering, which is another reasonable choice.

I took @aeismail suggestion literally and tried to find an older geodesy textbook. C.F. Baeschlin's Lehrbuch der Geodäsie that was published in 1948. I checked MELVYL, the University of California's system, which is now connected with WorldCat. They listed all copies as QB283.B2 for the Libary of Congress (LC) system, but had other identifiers including an OCLC number. I then checked Ohio State's library catalog which listed their copies as QB283.B33. Both systems do have the same OCLC number.


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Is it a good idea to leave a PhD program for another one in a better school after two years?
I am finishing my second year as a PhD student in computer science and I have an opportunity to go to a much higher ranked school. Is it a good idea to just leave my current program to the future school? Or is it a better to wait and hope to get a good admission for post doc? How much the school prestige for PhD affects the future academic career?
My research is moving okay and I am done with all my coursework in the first year. It is not convenient to abandon all my work and just start over. But I want to know if it is worth moving to a better program for potential greater good.

A very relevant question (not sure if it should be considered a duplicate though): If I abandon my PhD program, will it prevent me from continuing elsewhere?

How are the conditions of the change? Just starting fresh in the new place, or with a transfer of credits?

I suppose I can transfer the credits. But I need to do a fresh start on a new research topic with a new advisor.
@Davidmh

I would argue it heavily depends on advisor. Are you not just moving to a "better" program but to an advisor who is well-positioned to help you get you the kind of job you want after you finish? If you move to a "better" program but one that does not match you to someone whose interests you share and who has a good track record of placements, it's hard to say whether it's a good move. Don't move for prestige alone; move only if it is likely to have a tangible impact on your career success.

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What to do when a professor is too busy to guide my research?
I am currently a Graduate student.
I had the opportunity to do some research as undergraduate for which the professor seemed very busy. I tried my best to "bother" him as much as possible with emails of when to meet up, questions and guidance for my research. The research didn't go far as you can expect from an undergraduate without any guidance (the type of guidance like a weekly meeting or reading material or direction for the research) I ended up asking a recommendation letter from him in which he butchered me and destroyed all my chances of getting in almost any college. This was after he happily agreed to write me a recommendation letter and was so happy to write all positive words. After I shared with him that I got accepted into a college. He later went on to explain that I "wasn't involved enough". I felt at one point that I was starting to harass him by sending emails every 2 days and stopping by his office hours uninvited. If anything I would expect the opposite kind of complain. That made me feel bitter and do some self-criticism, and be more persistent in the future.
Problem is that I am in a new college (as a graduate student) and facing the same issue. The professor I am doing research with doesn't meet with me, doesn't respond to my emails. And the research hasn't even properly started yet. I am highly-motivated and can take self-initiative but without direction I don't know what to do or focus in. I feel again that I might be repeating the same mistake... so I really don't know what I can do better or if there is a misunderstanding from my part. I have send a chain of 5 emails that went without a response over the course of the last 2 weeks.

How do I approach the professor and what do I say?
Is there a limit to the emails or office visits? Do professors take this as genuine interest or am I being exhausting them?
Is this a way for a professor to kindly stop research or any ongoing projects?
What am I doing wrong?!

Does this professor advise other students? Can you ask them for suggestions?

Talk to other faculty (and their students). This professor is not your only potential advisor.

I don't know if all the background you provide (recommendation letter etc.) isn't distracting from the actual question.

If this kind of thing happened once, then I might chalk it up to chance (not everyone is friendly or professional).  But if it happens twice, then I think it is more likely that you are either not reading the situation correctly or are behaving in an unprofessional or at least strange way (and probably don't even realize it).  But it is basically impossible for strangers on the internet to figure out what precisely is going on.  After all, we've never met you, seen how you interact with people, etc.
The only real solution is to speak with people you trust (friends, mentors, etc) who actually are eyewitnesses to what is happening and ask them for their take on it.  Even more importantly, trust them if they tell you ways that you need to change.

I tried my best to "bother" him as much as possible with emails

This will not be appreciated. Professors tend to be very busy, with tons of duties to juggle and overflowing e-mail inboxes. Generally, we wish we could handle everything that comes our way promptly -- but this tends to be difficult. Emailing is okay, but back off somewhat.
For a humorous take on this from a busy professor's point of view, I highly recommend Scott Aaronson's The Email Event Horizon.

without direction I don't know what to do

Get used to it, as a researcher you're quickly going to have to learn to find your own direction.
Do something. Read books or papers related to your research area. Attend seminars and colloquiua. (And ask questions after the talk!) Talk to your peers. Pose problems and attempt to answer them. And so on.
Good luck!

+1 Do something (constructive). Try to get out of the mindset of being a student (waiting for reading and homework to be assigned).

Some people like to be communicated via emails, some people prefer you popping up on their office. I recommend asking your professor directly how does he prefer to get your questions next time you see him, or go to his office for a quick question. For all we know, maybe your new professor is just bad keeping up with emails.
You should also ask his other students how to best deal with him. For example, if I have several small questions for my supervisor, it is better to send them in a few separate emails, or he may only respond the first and forget about the rest. Other people may prefer a single, conglomerate email instead of a flurry of small ones. Personally, when I supervise students, I don't think I have a preference, but I am sure they have noticed which pattern gets them better answers, even if I am not aware of it, hence why is important to ask other students.
I agree with Andy Putman that since it happened twice, there is likely something on your side of communication, but the simplest explanation (and easiest to fix) is that you are just using the wrong format for them.

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Is the Encyclopedia for Life Support Systems (EOLSS) a legitimate source?
While looking for some biochemistry references, I stumbled across a PDF from a chapter in the Encyclopedia for Life Support Systems (EOLSS). Wikipedia claims that this literature is "crowdsourced", yet "relies on strict standards of peer review and can be referred to for academic purposes as well." However, the only citations on the Wikipedia page are to the EOLSS site itself.
The PDFs appear to be pretty high quality in terms the way the information is presented--I would say that look to be on par with textbook chapters. Yet the EOLSS website itself is sketchy as hell, and looks like it was pulled straight out of 1995 (complete with flash banners and a spectrum of colors/fonts for the bodies of text).
Does anybody have any experience with EOLSS? Or any reliable sources that give it legitimacy for academic citations?

I can't answer specifically since I'm not in this field, but generally in academic research, one tries to avoid citing secondary sources such as encyclopedias.  What you really want are the primary sources, the original researchers reporting on the work they did.  The encyclopedia entry isn't that, but hopefully will contain references to primary sources - cite them.

It appears to be a completely earnest and legitimate effort, and I at least recognize a few names that appear to be involved. It also appears to be pretty old in Internet Time, dating from around 2002.  This makes me think that it's basically an idealistic but largely abandoned project, which would certainly account for its design.  It's also huge and almost certainly poorly curated, which means that there's no reason to think its quality will be uniform.
As such, I would recommend against using leaning on it strongly for any assertion, just because it's hard to tell what you've really got ahold of when you're reading it.  If you find something in it useful, look for the other review papers that the authors will likely have written or have cited, and work from there instead; cite it if you found it useful, but make sure that anything important has another source as well.


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What is the difference between an explanation and an interpretation?
Can someone please clarify for me if there is a difference between an explanation and an interpretation in scientific discourse?
Whenever I am writing up results, I am careful to distinguish observations (which I associate with results) and interpretations (which I associate with discussion), because results are describing your data, where discussion is interpreting the data (which I always thought of as coming up with explanations for the results). However, I got into a discussion today with another scientist about the meaning the word explanation when they asked me add explanations into the results section of our paper (I thought they should go into the discussion).
I am particularly interested in the differences between these terms in the natural sciences (my area), but welcome comparison of the terminology between the fields of math, natural science, and social science in order to help clarify their definitions.
Concisely, here is how I view the terminology:
Observation ≡ Result
Interpretation ≡ Discussion ≡ Explanation
Is this misguided? And if so, can someone please clarify?

I'm tempted to say this might be a better fit for the English language SE, but it's also sufficiently on-topic here I think. That being said, this might just be a semantics argument. I would automatically associate both observation and interpretation with results, as the simple act of graphing/presenting data involves interpreting it somehow.

I think the question is on-topic, because I interpret the question to be less about the particular terms "explanation" and "interpretation" and more about what the colleague meant when suggesting "adding explanations" to the results section. Maybe OP could edit the title slightly to emphasize this part of the body of the question, because the body tells me that semantics is not the real point of issue here.

I always had the feeling that interpretation is more flexible when it comes to explaining results, so it can be more personal, biased. Thus, we say "this is your interpretation of what happened". We could use explanation instead, but it seems a little bit odd and explanation seems to be (or should be) more objective.

I think I understand what your colleague is suggesting, and I think an example might help, so let me try:
I grabbed a (roughly) random article from the most recent copy of Nature by Govero, et al.
A bolded "explanation" in the Results section:

At day 7, we observed high levels of viral RNA in all male reproductive tract tissues (Extended Data Fig. 4a). At day 13, we observed ZIKV RNA in germ and Sertoli cells in Rag1−/− mice, and this was associated with a decrease in TRA98+ germ cells and Lin28a+ spermatogonia and breakdown of the BTB. However, interstitial Leydig cells remained in ZIKV-infected Rag1−/− mice even though the architecture of the seminiferous tubules was altered (Extended Data Fig. 4c–d). Thus, damage to the testis appears to be mediated both by ZIKV infection and adaptive immune responses.

Versus an "interpretation":

Our experiments with mouse-adapted ZIKV-Dakar show that infection causes testicular and epididymal damage in mice that can progress to reductions in key sex hormones, destruction of germ and somatic cells in the testis, and loss of mature sperm and fertility. Sertoli cells may be a key target for ZIKV in the testis, resulting in cell dysfunction, detachment from the basement membrane and dissolution of the BTB. Infiltrating inflammatory cells may amplify destruction of the testicular architecture.

So, in some ways there is a bit of overlap, and I don't know if "explanation" vs. "interpretation" are the best words used to differentiate them. I'm also not holding up this article as some optimal way of presenting things: opinions will no doubt vary. My personal opinion is that some contextualization is necessary in the results of all but the most straightforward papers. I think "explanation" is especially needed when you are discussing the control experiments you did, and it's a matter of personal style the order in which you present this, either: "In order to make sure XXXX wasn't a problem, we did YYYY" or "When we tested YYYY, we found ZZZZ, therefore XXXX did not contribute to our previous finding MMMM."
Essentially, in the results section, they didn't only state what exactly they found (i.e., virus levels and counts of cells), but they also explained what those result means in the context of what they are studying. In the discussion, they go further, interpreting the results in the context of other discoveries in the field and future directions for study.

Disclaimer: Opinion
First, I believe your description in what goes into Results and Discussion aligns with general writing guidelines for scientific writing. However, time to time there are also some articles that clearly violated this "rule" but still reads surprisingly well.
Now, back to your words: "Explain" usually indicates making something more understandable and apparent. While "Interpret" may not necessarily fulfill that function. One way to best gauge what your peers meant would probably be asking them to identify the phrase that "explains" something in the Results section in a sample article, or ask them to write you a couple examples.
Time to time, to "explain" may just mean coaching people how to read a plot, pointing out what is the focus in a table, providing a neutral statement on the direction and magnitude of a statistics, etc. They don't necessarily serve to interpret or provide any qualitative comment, but more to orient readers so that they can glean the most useful information efficiently.
Now, if your peers actually meant "to convey higher-level idea on why or why not a certain finding behaves in a certain way," then I'd vote for putting that in the Discussion section as well.
However, as I said, there are examples written by authors who relaxed this categorization and still managed to keep the paper very clear. I'd consider that skillful rather than rule-defying. But for less experienced writers, my recommendation will be to learn the craft the way as it was suggested by consulting the proper style and writing guides in your field. And later, start to also consider use of space, types of audience, questions that the audience might have when they read up to this line, etc. and adjust accordingly. Is it worthy to mildly break a rule by adding half a line of interpretative statement in the Results section so that the readers can read on without suspense hanging over them? I'd say maybe.
Generally (really, really opinion here), I would rather not to be too dogmatic when discussing scientific writing style with others. Keep an open mind but do know your own field's general "rules." Communicate with them, experiment a bit, it's all fine.
(Yet, one thing that I probably will never mess with is APA style... APA style fandom is strong and I'll steer away from upsetting them.)


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In what countries/programs is a graduate student bonus common?
I just learned from this question My professor skipped me on Christmas bonus payment that in some cultures/degree-programs, PhD students get bonuses.
I had never heard of this. However, I'm most familiar only with natural science PhD programs in the US.
What countries/cultures and programs are bonuses common?
How big do these bonuses tend to be compared to salary? (if there's a rule of thumb, or commonly the result of a collective bargaining agreement as stated in one of the comments to the above question)

This is the same question I had when I saw that question indeed.

Remember that getting 13 low salaries in a year is not better than getting 12 good salaries.

Also, it would be useful if you included something about the "bonus" being (or not being) tied to performance into the question.

@Szabolcs but better than 12 low salaries.

For some information on "fake" bonuses that are performance-independent, pre-negotiated and included in annual compensation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteenth_salary

Note that grad students are often given some sort of "job" as a teacher's aid or some such, sometimes just as a formality, and these positions typically involve some small stipend.

I do not know how common it is but I remember Germany Ph.D students get Christmas bonus. See this link.
When I was doing my doctorate in USA, I remember my colleague from Germany asking my research advisor for a Christmas bonus. He laughed, then figured out it was customary in Germany and then gave him a tie.

To be clear, this is not a "bonus" in the traditional sense. It's not tied to your performance. Everyone employed in public service simply received 50% of their monthly salary as an additional payment at the end of the year.

@Maeher's comment implies something I believe to be true for Germany though uncommon elsewhere - that PhD students are (i) employees, and (ii) of the state.  Certainly while UK postgrads may be funded by the state, they're not employed, or paid a normal salary - they're paid an annual stipend which is different, untaxed for example.

My comment only relates to the specific "bonus" mentioned in the answer. (i) The vast majority of PhD students in Germany are employed (at least part time) either at a university or research institute. (ii) There are virtually no private universities that can grant doctoral degrees. (iii) Employees of public universities and research institutes fall under one of three collective bargaining agreements. (iv) Those collective bargaining agreements require an additional payment of between 47% and 60% of the average monthly salary for Juli,August and September with the November salary.

of course not the ones getting a scholarship.

@Maeher since its not tied to the performance, why not just increase each months salary by 5% and avoid the "bonus"?

@JonathanReez Reasons (that I don't understand but nonetheless exist), (historical) tax reasons (some countries tax or taxed holiday bonus differently), forced financial planning (so people have money to pay year-end expenses like taxes), economic stimulus for holiday seasons (so people spend more for holidays), make people feel good etc. Half of the world has some kind of 13th month (or even 14th) arrangement customarily or sometimes even legally mandated.

@JonathanReez I'm not aware of any good reason. "Weihnachtsgeld" (literally "Christmas money") was very commonly negotiated for in the past, though it's not as common anymore. Why I don't know. There are no tax reasons afaik. Maybe it was just simpler to get employers to agree to that. It is slightly cheaper for them, because only people employed in November get anything.

@Maeher created a follow-up question

In Belgium, there is the concept of a "13th month", also called the "end of year bonus". It is not a performance bonus, but simply a standard part of the remuneration agreement between employer and employee, typically determined by collective labor agreements (negotiated by unions, employer representatives and the government).
In my experience, PhD students also benefitted from this arrangement. It typically is about a month's worth of salary.

The same concept exists in France and is common in industry jobs. I am not sure it applies to university-funded PhD students though.

In Switzerland, 13th salary is also common. However, the contract usually specifies the total annual compensation to be paid in 13 installments so nothing is really "bonus".

@UJM this definitely does not apply to phd students in France. The only exception I might think of, and I'm not even sure it is the case, is for industry/private funded phds (a.k.a. CIFRE).

During my PhD in Belgium (with FNRS Fellowship) I had a bonus like that, but it was usually considered as a"vacation bonus" and paid at the end of May.

@ArnaudD. What you are talking about is actually a different bonus. In May/June, one gets a "vacation bonus" (pécule de vacances/vakantiegeld), and in December one gets an "end of your bonus" (prime de fin d'année/eindejaarspremie). As a PhD student at a Flemish university, I received both bonuses.

The Netherlands also, or at least in the early 90's when I was a post-doc there.

In the Czech Republic you do not get bonuses to your scholarship (stipend). It is for everyone and increases with you getting some exams or getting to the second year.
However, if the PhD student is actually employed (in a regular type of contract, not a one-off task), they can receive any bonus that other employees get. It is quite common. I would not expect some of the employees to be skipped just because they happen to be students.
This is a real bonus – it is only available if the department has the money. It does not come automatically and there is no entitlement to it.

In Czech, what is the difference between being employed and not for a PhD student?  In the US, at least in STEM, most PhD students with support are something like half-time employees, either as research or teaching assistants.

@Kimball As a PhD student you are getting a stipend for four years. That is not a salary and there are no taxes. The stipend used to be extremely small 10 years ago, but got a little bit better. In addition to that, you can be employed, if there is particular project that pays it or if the department has money for another person and you are deemed valuable, Then you receive normal salary for your work. It can only be part-time, you won't get a full-time contract from the uni. Some students work elsewhere sometimes with full contracts (Academy od Science, Met office, private companies).

My dear fellow Czech, Czechia, please :-)

In Spain, the most common way of getting paid in a job (unrelated to PhD/Academia) is in 14 yearly salaries. People get double paid in June/July (as traditionally people go on holidays the full August, so they like the extra money to pay for the holidays) and in December (for Christmas present/food/prep).
This is not a bonus really, your yearly salary is divided by 14 instead of 12 to compute the monthly one.

In the Netherlands, PhD are university employees and receive an end-of-year bonus (8,3% in December) + an extra holiday allowance (8% in May), so effectively 14 yearly salaries, as per the collective labour agreement for Dutch universities.

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Is it standard that universities in some countries don't give affiliated students/faculty email addresses?
All my experience in academia in western countries is that if you're an enrolled student or affiliated faculty, you get an email address from that university. Are there countries where this is not common practice? And if so, is there a good reason for not providing one?

Yikes... To think of all the free and discounted software I'd miss out on without an alum email address... Though of course the savings are probably still short of the ancillary fees for services I never used...

@LukeSawczak What free and discounted software do you get with an alum email address (I am curious)? Most such offers I have seen were only applicable for the period when one was a student.

@GoodDeeds The ones the university signs up for and links to the account did indeed end within a year of graduating. But there are many that say "enter a university-affiliated email address" and you get it free or discounted; so far I've had almost no issues with my alum email (which shares the TLD with the student email) being recognized. e.g. the entire JetBrains suite free, the academic discount for Finale and Creative Cloud, and discounted access to Otter.ai's AI voice transcription service. I had cheap Amazon Prime too for a while, but they have a max number of years you can benefit. >:(

Many universities, especially private universities, in  India do not provide an email address to its students. This is due to the cost of maintaining email server, ensuring confidentiality etc. Even in top universities in India such as the IITs, where everyone is provided with an email address, the email server is suspect and fails.
While I was teaching a graduate class, I circulated a sheet in which they were supposed to write down their email address. I would then make a group and circulate any class related notes or ideas. I noticed that 90% of the students gave gmail or yahoo address and not the institute email address. When I inquired further, I was told they never had an institutional email address at their undergraduate university and are not accustomed to it.
Many faculty in Indian universities also do not use official email address due to reliability problems. You can notice this from noticing their publications. The address of the corresponding author refers to an university while the email address is generally yahoo/gmail.

No, it's not standard.
It's the same as with all institutions everywhere - if you are employed by that institution, you get an email address that makes it clear you are affiliated with that institution. This means you can send emails that immediately identify you as a member of that institution. Once you leave the institution, you will also lose access to that email (or you will get another different email address), which again makes it clear that you are no longer a member of that institution. This has obvious advantages such as making it harder to spoof others.
This applies for not just universities, but also companies big and small.

Some universities do let you keep an email address as an alumni perk, but I don't think it's that common.

My email as pro staff will exist in perpetuity as a forwarding email

This is a very strong assertion, and to make it one needs to know that such a policy exists in every country, and it is not at all clear why it should be so. It is certainly plausible that universities in some countries do not have the resources or inclination to maintain or rent email servers, or that they do not use online media as the primary mode of communication. This is an example from this site, though it of course does not necessarily mean that institutional emails are non-standard in that country.

@BryanKrause, I think universities should let graduated students keep email addresses forever. Alumni are a valuable asset and making it easy for them to stay in contact with each other and with the university is a positive thing.

@GoodDeeds on the contrary, the question asks for whether it is standard, not whether it is literally the case everywhere. So it is certainly plausible that universities in some countries do not have the resources or inclination to maintain or rent email servers, or that they do not use online media as the primary mode of communication - but it would be nonstandard.

@Allure I agree that it would be nonstandard with respect to western countries, but my interpretation of the question was whether there are countries within which it is standard to not have such addresses. So within those countries, if they exist, it would be non-standard to have them instead.

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


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How would you decide to publish (or not) in F1000Research or other journals with alternative peer-review methods?
As pointed out by altmetrics, “Peer-review has served scholarship well, but is beginning to show its age. It is slow, encourages conventionality, and fails to hold reviewers accountable.”
Not all publications are created equal. Neither are the statuses of their authors. However, senior authors in life sciences rarely publish in isolation, so some junior researcher’s neck is always on the line (one of the many catch 22’s in academic publishing, and one I hadn’t really thought about much before).
I realize this makes the question somewhat subjective, and I hope that a variety of answers can be supplied - but if your answer is similar to an existing one, perhaps a comment will serve - thank you!
Here is some more background on my question:
An excellent article by Zen Faulkes, which doesn’t mention F1000Research but does mention Proceedings of Peerage of Science , suggests that the post-publication peer-review is unstandardized. It seems that F1000Research is trying to standardize the process within their journal, rather than relying on altmetrics. I think this is a reasonable approach: as a scientist whose job is partly to network with others, you can very likely get interested parties to review your paper (if not, then try one of the many journals supporting the traditional review method). Additionally, this publisher-centric peer review will probably attract more serious reviews; who wants to post a review on some random social networking site that few people will likely read?
If someone has strong negative feelings about your paper, then they can say so. Of course, there is a lack of anonymity on F1000Research. Oh dear, now we need to be polite (Faulkes also discusses this). I know it is a very difficult thing to be polite sometimes after multiple grants or papers have been rejected, but perhaps this is a step in the right direction.
Perhaps more importantly, the reviewers may have to defend their assertions without the editor making a summary decision about whether or not the authors can reasonably address the reviewers concerns. I think this form of review removes much more bias than it introduces by keeping the conversation open. And I don’t think this means the review process will go on indefinitely; the authors no longer need satisfy every whim of the reviewers, but only those they deem important enough so that their colleagues will respect the merit and credibility of the study.
Turning to other forms of review: I also think it is unlikely that any single review model with always be best for all people and all publications.
For instance, one type of review process that would necessarily need to be pre-publication peer review is the double blind scheme, where neither reviewers nor authors are given any direct evidence of the other party’s identity. It seems that this would not only make things more fair, but also open up the reviewer pool to highly cited authors whose input is no doubt frequently valued but difficult to obtain in the traditional peer review process. Unfortunately it does not seem to be at all prevalent in the sciences, and I know of no journals supporting it.

How would I decide?
Funding, Readership and Tenure.

Does the journal cost money to submit to, and if so, do I have any funding for said submission? Is there a means of waiving that fee if I don't have funding?
Is the journal read by the people I want to read my paper? This I'd gauge by talking to my colleagues - for example, if no one in (hypothetically) infection control reads F1000Research, then I'm not publishing there, because the point of my paper is to be read and advance the field, and it can't do that if it isn't where relevant eyes will see it, whether or not the journal gets an ideological checkmark.
Similar to readership, when this journal is looked at by a promotion committee etc., will it matter?

The latter two are, in my mind, not yet settled, and that makes me a little hesitant - bold ideological stands are for people who aren't on the job market. Beyond that, I think the primary problem with post-pub peer review is that I'm not convinced it will be at all uniformly distributed. My suspicion is that a few prominent papers will be heavily reviewed, and then the rest will have either middling, or no reviews beyond what is mandated by the journal. I'm also not convinced it's a terribly fair system - it's relatively easy to attack a post-doc or doctoral student's work, while you might hesitate to do so for Important Person In Your Field, and similarly, said Important Person may be able to be fairly rude with impunity, especially if the journals aren't terribly well known.
For what it's worth, several major journals in my field are double-blinded. I have no idea who the authors are, there are actually instructions to remove clearly identifiable information (change "Brigham-Women's Hospital" to "A major regional hospital in the Northeast United States", etc.) in the manuscript, and the reviews are anonymous unless signed.

Thanks, good point about the risk of reviewing important field members, though the truly important ones will mostly go for Big Journals for the foreseeable future. I'd be interested in knowing more about the double-blind journals you know about, but that seems off topic, so I asked here: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21330/what-journals-have-a-double-blinded-review-process-in-the-sciences

Subjectively, I'd say that there are two main criteria on deciding where (and if) to publish some piece of research.
1. Does that publication "count"?
There tend to be specific criteria set by funding agencies, promotion committees or other organizations that separate 'proper' publications from worthless ones. Clearly, there must be some criteria, as the world is full of places that would publish anything, and counting everything equally is a worse option than most completely arbitrary criteria. For some areas the split might be journals vs conferences/etc; for some places the criteria might be [lack of] peer review; for my purposes the criteria is indexing in Web of science or SCOPUS.
2. Would that publication be read by the people I want?
When academic goals involve 'advertising' a particular approach and influencing the subfield, it doesn't matter how if it's reviewed (if at all), but it matters on how well it reaches the target audience. For that purposes the best option might be, say, a short talk at some seminar which is well attended by the relevant group; which could have more impact than an article at a prestigious journal, and has the benefit of being quicker than the traditional review process.
Depending on ones particular goals, either of those goals may strongly dominate the other; however, if none of them are well met, it makes no sense to publish (at that venue) at all.
For me, it seems that any new or alternative approach is very unlikely to be useful for publishing. Alternative approaches by definition don't match the classic, estabilished ways of publishing (goal #1); and any new publication, unless estabilished by scientists in my particular narrow research area for their own needs, is unlikely to reach them (goal #2) better as any other venue , even the trivial option on simply putting it up on your own or organization webpage.

I'm aware of blacklisted journals, though I do not have any lists handy. I wasn't really aware of there being an obvious demarcation of white-listed journals, but I guess anything in the grey area (e.g. search committee hasn't heard of it) probably gets blacklisted. My thought about (2) is that, if you are in a narrow research area, presumably it isn't hard to get word out to such a group, no matter where it was published (especially with the help of social media - though older fields may not use social media as much).


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Justification that 'good exposition' is uniquely defined
What evidence is there that changes to exposition that improve clarity for one reader will necessarily improve clarity for another reader?
The context I'm thinking of here particularly is referee comments (although the answer will probably apply more broadly). In various places I've read that if a referee says something is unclear then they are automatically right, because at least one reader has had trouble understanding. It seems to me that this assumes that 'the clearest description' will be the same for all readers. It is not clear to me why it is fair to rule out the possibility that the text simply doesn't align with the referee's preferred viewpoint.

It depends on the change! In the standard case, a clarification is a parenthetical explanation, which has no chance to make things less clear to anyone. When the changes are more sweeping (such as shuffling around sections or changing notations), it's more likely that some readers will be hurt.

This is a false dilemma. Good exposition is not uniquely defined.
Yet, if a referee claims they don't understand what you write, chances are that they are right. Add some clarifications. This doesn't mean necessarily rewriting everything with the referee's favorite approach: maybe just a remark tailored to people with their background. ("If you're used to seeing concept X defined in this other way, note that this is equivalent because...") If there is a wrong approach that you wish to refute, do it, in the paper or in the response letter.
Good exposition doesn't mean the referee's preferred viewpoint, but it doesn't mean your preferred viewpoint either.


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How to cite from a book with more authors?
Some books start each chapter with a short inspirational quote from some famous person e.g.

Chapter 1.
"I think, therefore I am"
-René Descartes

I would like to do the same and I found the perfect quote, but the book it is from has three authors. What should I write on the bottom of the quote?

How about: "-X, Y and Z in their book ABC"

But what if Y and Z have nothing to do with that particular sentence? Is it ok anyway? Did you see an example of such a citation?

Ambrose Bierce in his "The Devil's Dictionary" jokes about Descartes quotation by saying I think that I think, therefore I think that I am!

Remember the guiding principle of maximum ease in following a reference. If you don't know which author, cite primarily to the book.

From "Book title", by x,y, and z

In fact, even if there is only one author, it is good to cite the book.


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What is the difference between volume editors and series editors?
I am filling out a "Consent to Publish" form and I need to fill out the Volume Editor(s) field. I tried to find out who these editors are, but all I found was the series editors and the main editor.
For example for the Lecture Notes In Computer Science there are 12 series editors. I doubt that I should list all 12 of them. Are the volume editors a subset of series editors, or are these two concepts unrelated?

It seems odd that you should provide such information. I would at least have expected the journal (equiv) to have provided that information to you in some way.

@PeterJansson: This is fairly common with Springer's LNCS series. Usually the volume editors take care of collecting the copyright forms for Springer (so you are not communicating with the publisher but with random academics who are not that experienced with this particular process). Sometimes the volume editors remember to tell the authors what to write there, but not always. Of course you can ask the conference organisers, but I do not see much point in doing that. I just write something that is close enough. These are just copyright transfer forms; the data won't be visible anywhere anyway.

I guess this is a paper in conference proceedings that are published in the LNCS series?
Usually volume editors = programme committee chairs (or at least the PC chairs are a subset of volume editors).
Just put the names of the PC chairs; it is close enough. The series editors are something completely different (related to the entire LNCS series, not this particular volume).

You should ask the person who sent you this form (PC chair?) what to write there. Springer does advise them to send the form pre-filled. Volume editors are people preparing proceedings for the publications - but essentially, it is up to the conference organizers who will be listed there (e.g., whether to include BIG-SHOT-WHO-IS-EMERITUS-PCCHAIR and/or POOR-PHD-STUDENT-WHO-PROOFREAD-EVERY-PAPER). Thus, it is not easy for you as an author to guess...
P.S. Or may be you googled for LncS copyright form?;)
P.P.S. Series editors supervise the series - i.e., they approve the proposals for publication in the series. They should not be listed in the copyright form


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How to deal with violence in the classroom (UK)?
After the recent death of 61 year old Spanish teacher Anne Maguire in Leeds today, what is the best way to deal with violence in schools in the UK as it happens?
Most schools in the UK do not have a lockdown / violence procedure as it is very rare.
However can we deal with this as it happens effectively in the UK?

Also, I recommend this book about the terrorist incident in Beslan, Russian in 2004 in the school and it has lessons for (American) schools that can also be applied to the UK (keep in mind the incident was in Russia and thus is broadly applicable in a global context).

As tragic as this situation is, it's unclear whether this question is on-topic here.  Violence-prevention policies at secondary schools are likely to be very different than similar policies at universities.

I'm sorry, I didn't realise that this was just regarding universities. My apologies.

I agree to be perfectly honest with you Ben.

The question as asked is off-topic: it is not about academia. Please rephrase the question to apply to universities, rather than secondary schools.

@DavidRicherby the recent stabbing happened in a secondary schools, but violence in the classroom is a problem faced in academia.

@StrongBad Yes. That's why I said that "the question as asked is off-topic" and suggested rephrasing the question to make it explicitly about academia!

The best solution to violence is, generally speaking, prevention.  As have been pointed out, school shootings are rather rare occurrences.  I will herein detail a number of steps for an educational institution to work to lower crime rates.
1. Educate your students and teachers.
The inclusion of this point may seem trivial, but there are simple steps individuals can take that will protect them from crime.  Most noticeably is the importance of not being alone - a single person is a much easier target for crime than someone in a group.  Sticking to brightly lit, well-traveled areas will also decrease the likelihood of being targeted.  There are many more tips on a number of websites.
2. Invest in infrastructure.
A clean, open, well-lit space is much less likely to be the site of crime.  Janitorial and groundskeeping staff are especially important to this effort.  Paving common walking paths will encourage more people to use them, benefiting them of safety in numbers.  Trim trees and install outdoor lights.  If a casual observer can notice something is wrong, it's less likely for a crime to be committed there.
3. Invest in direct security.
Have security cameras installed so as to cover major public spaces.  Make their presence visible, but not obtrusively so.  The presence of cameras both act as a deterrent and can help after a crime.  Note on visibility: A potential criminal will look for cameras, so simple visibility is all that is necessary; Obtrusive cameras will make users feel their privacy is violated.
Get either local police or a security service to routinely make circuits of campus.  "Complete" coverage should mean that anyone standing in a public space should see police/security once every 15-30 minutes, even if they just drive slowly by.  If an effort is made by officers to be helpful and not oppressive, this can even become an attractive feature to potential students and teachers.
4. Purely reactive measures.
While the steps above are either preventative or act as a deterrent, there are a few more measures that can be taken with a focus to respond to crimes after they happen.
Security call boxes can help a victim alert police or security to a crime and secure emergency services if necessary.  Even in the age of cell phones, it is probable that a victim does not have other means to alert security.  Dialing on a cell phone might be difficult, or their phone may have been stolen or lost in a scuffle.
Have a therapist on staff and give security training to facilitate an air of reassurance - this is especially important when dealing with victims of rape or sexual assault.  There is much more information on this in security circles.  Having this training will also make others more comfortable with the idea of going to security with their problems by assuaging their fears of a security investigation disturbing their life.

Ultimately, there must be an effort to both make the campus physically safer and to make the local culture more resistant to crime.  These measures are not only focused on making crime harder but also making crime less accepted as "a reality of the community".  Criminals ultimately pick on the lowest hanging fruit, and we have the possibility to move it out of reach.

Emergency notification systems
It's important to have systems in place which enable timely (read: not help up in red tape) warnings of immediate and pressing danger.
Following the 2007 incident in which more than 30 people were killed by a student gunman at Virginia Tech, officials at VT were criticized for a perceived failure to warn students in a timely manner:

When an emergency occurs at Virginia Tech, its emergency plan dictates that a Policy Group consisting of senior administrators (at that time not including the chief of campus police) be convened by the president to oversee the university’s response. On the morning of April 16, the Policy Group, anxious to avoid a panicked reaction, acted slowly to alert the campus to a dangerous situation. In the emergency message it sent out almost two hours after the first shootings at West Ambler Johnston Hall, the group said there had been a shooting but did not state explicitly that two people had been killed and that the killer had not been apprehended.

(Source)
In the aftermath of this incident, many universities indicated that they were taking steps to improve their emergency notification systems, including:

Implementing a system with the ability to broadcast notifications to students by text message or personal email address
Creating a written protocol for determining when to issue a broadcast emergency alert

Of course, these systems are far more likely to be used for non-violent but immediate, pressing dangers such as a fire, earthquake affecting structural integrity, etc.  Regardless of the nature of the emergency, it's important to have these systems in place.


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What could count toward financial requirements for UK student visa applications?
Most people who apply for grad studies outside their country of residence are relying on scholarships for their tuition and funding for their cost of living through being research or teaching assistants at the universities to which they are applying.

Do scholarships count toward the financial requirements of UK student visa applications?
Do expected salaries from research or teaching assistantships count?

If expected salaries from assistantships don't count in the UK, how else might potential students be funded?
The only things that come to mind are:

Staying with relatives in the country
Being that rich (through parents' money?)
Loans for the first year

Which of those could count toward the financial requirements?

You can only count things that are guaranteed, and can prove you have been awarded. If you have been given a scholarship, you can count that. You can't count expected salaries. Universities are experienced at sponsoring student visas. You should address questions about this to the university's international office or equivalent, rather than your PI, who may know very little.

@MJeffryes Thank you. How do international students then fund their stay in the UK aside from scholarships?

I'm not an expert, but I believe you will essentially need a scholarship which fulfils the financial requirements. I do not really recognise the situation you describe "scholarships for their tuition and funding for their cost of living through being research or teaching assistants" as being something that happens in UK universities. Funded PhD positions which are open to international applicants will always fulfil the legal requirements to obtain a visa. Bear in mind that such positions are somewhat rare (depending on your field) and are very competitive.

I'm talking here about PhD positions incidentally. For a taught masters programme you will need the cash on hand before you start your course as far as I am aware.

See http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/67038/how-does-funding-at-uk-universities-work/67058#67058 and http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/66687/why-is-discrimination-based-on-citizenship-allowed-in-phd-funding-in-the-uk/66689#66689

UKVI visa application guidance will be the first port of call to find this type of information. The host higher education institution you have been accepted to might also be able to help.

This can be found on the current guidance document issued by UKVI for student visas. The guidance explains the money can be yours or your parents and should be:

cash funds in the bank (this includes savings accounts and current accounts even when notice must be given); or
a loan letter (the loan must be provided by your national government, state or regional government, or by a government sponsored student loan company or be part of an academic or educational loans scheme); or
official financial or government sponsorship available to you.

It continues stating:

Other accounts or financial instruments such as shares, bonds, overdrafts, credit cards and pension funds are not acceptable, regardless of notice period.

Of course, you should really make sure to look at the latest guidance document in full.


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Why are some non-thesis MS or MA programs just called M?
I heard of some master's degrees that are just M instead of MS or MA like Master of Mathematics or Master of Psychology. Apparently, this is due to it being non-thesis.
However, I met people who choose non-thesis in MS or MA programs that have a choice between thesis and non-thesis. Their IDs say MS or MA. Is this because the program has a choice for thesis?

I've never heard of this.  Can you give some examples?

Anyway, it's certainly not a universal convention.  The department where I went to grad school offers three masters degrees, none of which have a thesis as an option.  Two of them are called M.A. and the other is called M.S.

@NateEldredge Thanks. I've heard of a program in a school that is called M not MS because it doesn't technically have a thesis. The program does have a research project that is sort of like a thesis. Are you saying you've never heard of a masteral program that is called neither MS nor MA?

Oh, you mean a degree whose name is something like "Master of Mathematics" without using the word "science" or "art".  I don't think people just use the single initial M for such degrees, do they?  (Graduates of that program don't put "John Doe, M." on their business cards, do they?)  In general, I don't expect that one can infer from the name of the degree details like whether a thesis was required or not.

@NateEldredge They do! Not sure about the business cards though. It's so weird. Their IDs say MoM or example M PSY or M POS (political science). Well thanks anyway. I guess I'll start a bounty sometime in the future

Notations on school ID cards are usually idiosyncratic to the instutition and don't necessarily have any universally standardized meaning.

@NateEldredge Ah so this may be another academia varies generally thing? Idk at our university it was not stated specifically to the university. I just assumed it was general since I was told that it was a "naming convention" to drop the S from MS if there is no thesis.

I have an MS and I never had to write a thesis. The only non MS/MA I've heard of is where the subject is actually appended instead of the general Science/Arts tag.

@Compass What do you mean by "where the subject is actually appended instead of the general Science/Arts tag" ?

@Jack John Doe, Master's in Physiology. The "Science/Arts" is assumed but not included.

In general the formal name of a degree is a very bad guide to the contents of the degree; the name of the degree is heavily influenced by local history and traditions (some extreme examples: a Master of Arts degree from Oxford is automatically awarded 21 terms after matriculation to anyone with an Oxford BA; the degree that qualifies one to practice medicine in the USA is a Doctor of Medicine, while in the UK it's typically a combined Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery; a Bachelor of Philosophy degree at Oxford is a two-year philosophy degree aimed at those with a first degree).
In the UK there are increasingly degrees called 'integrated masters' (or sometimes 'undergraduate masters') whose names fit the pattern you mention. These are generally four-year degrees, generally in fields like mathematics, science and engineering, which one enters without a previous degree and which aim to leave students in a position to embark on doctoral study. See this example from Manchester Metropolitan University. Individual degrees may or may not include a mandatory or optional thesis requirement.

Thanks dbmag9. So you agree with Nate?

Your question contains two slightly different issues; this is an answer only to the more superficial part, about the abbreviations.  Hopefully it can help clear up the confusion this part is causing, and allow more focus on the more substantial issue, about the content of the degrees.
The degrees you describe as “just an M”, like MMath or MPhys are not usually thought of that way, hence the confusion in comments.  MMath is short for “Master of Mathematics”, just like MA is short for “Masters of Arts”.  Neither is “just an M” — they’re both an M of something.  The difference in the abbreviations is because for historical reasons, Master of Arts and Master of Sciences are used for degrees in a wide range of subjects, and so are very common, and have shorter abbreviations; where as Masters of other subjects have to provide a bit more of the subject name in order to be intelligible.
So the other half of your question can be rephrased as: what typically are the differences between programmes called MA, and programmes called Masters in Subject — e.g. between an MA programme in a mathematics department, and an MMath programme?

Thanks Pretty Little Liars. :P So the answer to the other half is 'there are none' ?


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Authorship of PI and/or other advisor on independent work?
I'm a graduate student in a biological sciences lab. About 6 months ago I started an after-hours (does such a thing exist?) project with a fellow graduate student in a different lab doing computational physics. We principally work on the weekends and late at night, and I like to think that the time we use would otherwise have been spent playing video games, drinking, etc (not doing lab work), but who really knows?
Our collaboration has been extraordinarily fruitful and we have one paper ~90% written, and a follow up ~50% written. Both are highly theoretical, and have no direct relation to our respective theses work. Also, both our PIs know and are supportive of us pursuing this project, and neither has so much as even hinted at wanting authorship. And neither is an expert (or even an amateur..) in physics.
1) Should we include our PIs? They could potentially contribute to editing and big picture, but are not able to even assess the validity of what we've accomplished. As an "experienced" graduate student I know they shouldn't be authors, but they are also making it possible for us spend our time thinking, and they've supported our endeavor at least in spirit.
2) Suppose our PIs are not included. We're just two graduate students. Is it even possible to get a fair review with neither of us having the requisite degrees? How do we pay for publication ($1000-5000)? I'm interested in the "meta" discussion as much, or more, than the ethical discussion. For example, there is a third faculty member in this area who we've had some discussion of the science with, and who is a computational physicist. Should we include him on the manuscript as a signature of credibility? Should he be last author or a middle author, if so? If there are any physicists perusing, I'd be particularly interested in your thoughts, as my experience in publishing has been solely in the biomedical journals so far.
Thanks for considering my dilemma.

Just a question about "How do we pay for publication": is there no decent journal in the relevant field that does not charges anything to publish? This would sounds surprising to me.

Although these questions have been discussed before on this site, I think this is a slightly different case.
If you indeed work on this project outside of work hours and do not use university resources in any way, than this project is essentially a "hobby". In this case I would make an effort actually NOT to involve your advisors in any way, the same way you would not involve them in a manuscript you prepared about antique toys in your spare time. I think it would be good to keep a clear separation between work and non-work. Even in terms of technicalities like intellectual property this makes a big difference - if this research is associated with work, the university will usually own it, not you.
However, if you need actual relevant advice on the paper from an expert, I would ask an actual relevant expert rather than your advisors. Then, depending on his contribution and on the field, he may be added as an author or acknowledged.
Regarding publication fees, you could first try to look for a journal where the fee is not that high. Also, many journals are able to give a seriously discount or even waive charges for a good reason. You can ask prior to submission and explain the situation.

I've upped both answers, but awarding to this one. Both answers agree on the premises that the PIs should not be included. I appreciated the more measured recommendation here that we should consult an expert in this area and include him/her if their contribution is meaningful or substantial.

There have been a number of discussions on this site about authorship, and looking at the authorship tag will reveal them.
Ultimately, the conclusion of all those discussions has been that conventions on authorship are field-dependent and define "contribution" in different ways for different areas. In your case, it sounds like your advisors have both encouraged you to work together and have not requested authorship. Since the usual response to questions like yours would be 'ask your advisor', it sounds like they've answered, by saying that you don't need to include them. But I'd check with them anyway.
The remaining part of your question deals with purely tactical considerations: to whit,

Can augmenting the author list increase chances of the paper being accepted for publication ?

I think the consensus on this site, and in general, is that misrepresenting or exaggerating contributions for any reason would be considered quite unethical (where again contributions must be evaluated in a field-specific manner).
The work must stand or fall on its own merit, and be reviewed accordingly. It might be rare in your community for graduate students to author papers without PIs, but there's always a first time (and in my community it's quite common).
On the more mundane issue of paying for publication (I assume you're thinking of one of the open access journals that charge such an amount), that's a discussion for you to have with your advisor(s) before submission. They might suggest alternate journals, or even be willing to pay the fees (again, the equivalent would be a PI in my field paying for a student to attend a conference and present a paper not co-authored by the PI: this is also quite common)

I believe "you don't need to include them" is inaccurate - nothing in the original post indicates any contribution from the PIs that would make it ethical to include them as authors, even if they wanted it.

Right. I didn't want to rehash a discussion over contributions though since in some communities "I paid your salary" is a justification for authorship.

@Suresh: Or, for the sake of completeness, as this question makes it particularly clear the essential part of the research was done outside of "work hours" (thus the salary might be irrelevant), "I let you use the infrastructure" (e.g. file-sharing server) or "I paid the submission fee".

This is not one of those cases where "the PI wrote the grant that pays your salary" applies.

I especially appreciate the remark "It might be rare in your community for graduate students to author papers without PIs, but there's always a first". If I remember, I will post a "resolution" when we get reviews back, i.e., did we get a fair review?


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What's the generally accepted way to cite a generated report?
I am working on a paper that includes numerous graphs that were generated by an analytics system. These graphs are uniquely generated based on specific criteria I provided, but I did not collect the underlying data.
How do I cite the source of these graphs? There is no person (besides me) that is clearly responsible for these specific graphs--but I also need to explain the source of the data, and the tool used to generate the graphs, to provide credibility (and testability, for anyone that wants to investigate my claims). Given the criteria I use, they could replicate my research.
I'm sure this is a common situation and there's an accepted convention for this. I'm using Chicago style citations.

The specific data in question is related to real estate sales, but my question could just as easily apply to census data, or any other sufficiently large data set that a researcher would use an analytics tool to query for specific subsets of data.

I also need to explain the source of the data, and the tool used to generate the graphs, to provide credibility (and testability, for anyone that wants to investigate my claims). Given the criteria I use, they could replicate my research.

You do all these things in the methods section of your paper. This is not "citation" per se, it's part of your methodology. There may be a relevant work or manual or provider of the data to also cite. Sometimes providers of data are explicit about this, e.g. "please cite such and such as the source for these data", other times you can use other publications to follow their format, or just ask the person/organization responsible for the data what they prefer.
For commercially available resources, you often just list the source material the way you would a piece of equipment or reagent: specify the item with enough detail that someone else could purchase it (a product ID or name, perhaps), name the company and location (city and country; state or province as well if appropriate), and include any other important IDs like a lot number or date. This doesn't go as a reference but directly in the text like sodium chloride (reagent grade, Sigma Aldrich, St Louis, MO, USA) or Microsoft Word (Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA, USA).
For the specifically generated images, you also need to make sure you have been licensed to use them in the way you plan to use them, and have freedom to grant a publisher certain rights to them as well. All that depends on the terms of the software you're using.


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What points should be included in SOP if the target program is industry focused and not researched focused?
I'm applying for MS in US, and for every university I'm making a tailored made SOP. I was applying for a program, which is industry focused and not research focused. And I am not sure what should be included in the SOP regarding that, as for research focused program we can include our research experience, and we can also check if the program fits our research interests, but what should we include for industry focused program?


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Experience with paid English grammar and style software for writing papers?
I'm looking to suggest to our institute to invest in a paid software for helping writing, along the lines of Grammarly Premium, Antidote 10 or something similar. Does anyone have any experience with any of these, in particular for writing papers in STEM? Can you comment on how valuable these are?

Check the software with this - note I have used this a long time ago and the common software failed then and tested recently it still failed so it has not progressed much : http://www.phys-astro.sonoma.edu/people/faculty/tenn/SpellingChequer.html

I'm not looking for software that magically fixes gibberish. I'm looking for software which saves time by highlighting grammar and style issues before a manuscript is passed to colleagues to proofread.


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Progression through Computer Science Path
I am currently in undergraduate studies, and currently participating in computer related studies (mainly security focused). I wish to (as an end goal) pursue a MS and PhD.
I am not sure exactly the experience in graduate level programs as far as focus. Is there a possible focus on Network Security/Infrastructure built into graduate programs or would curriculum be more of a wide range (albeit focused in the realm of computer science)?
If not is there a path which would end at a doctoral level involving information security?

''end goal'' PhD?

@New_new_newbie Yes PhD in Computer Science if I cannot find a degree (PhD) that is more focused in Network Security.

No, I meant it is taboo to call PhD, ''the end'', in academia (even if it is the end).

@New_new_newbie would it be better to say end degree? I don't plan on being like "Ok I got my degree, I will never open a book again." Impossible for this field to even float let alone swim without researching, and it would honestly be boring to just stop. At least I didn't say terminal.

@NoTime - Relax, dear. I meant it as a joke (I realize now that my sense of humor is pathetic). I was only pointing out how things are sold in the market. No offense meant. Cheers :)

This is a bit of a snarky answer to your question but... did you try Googling "PhD in Computer Science Security"? Perhaps even more useful have you looked at the offerings of your own university to see what a Masters or PhD entails?
To be a bit less snarky in PhD programs, at least, it's less about what the degree is called and more about the research and lab you become involved with. If you are interested in focusing on security, which is a broad field, in Computer Science you will often get a degree in 'Computer Science' but you will work in a lab focused on security.
With that in mind my first recommendation to you is to do some research. Find out what folks are researching at your current institution, see if you find it interesting. If you can, get involved! This is probably the best way to find out what programs exist out there for your interests.
Even beyond your local school - do some digging. I was about to do a quick Google search and find that there are a couple of schools that are considered to have the 'best'(subjectively of course) Security Information programs. You should be able to find this out as well! Start looking into other schools, see what they offer and also what their researchers are researching. See if anything seems interesting. Start reading papers. Do some research into what you want to do.
So, in short, do:

Figure out what research is happening at your school. Try to get involved.
Figure out what are the 'best' programs for the topics you are interested in. Who is the 'big name' in the field? Read those papers!
Find 1 person who you want to be when you 'grow up'. In other words find one person whose job you want to have one day. Research how they got there! See if you can build a road map to your own success based on how they got to where they are.

I like this answer. I have only really been looking local programs (and course descriptions) for each of the programs, currently I have seen more "generalized" courses (as in including InfoSec, but not as a focus). I thought perhaps I was not searching for the right degree path. I have found "Network Security" up to the masters level locally (after using the correct keywords), and I am assuming if I wish to pursue a doctoral level degree I may have to focus on CS as a whole, but specialize/work in security. It would be hard to pursue too far out of state, but this helped a lot.

PhD programs are different, fundamentally, that undergraduate and almost all Master's programs. Sure you take some course work for a PhD program but the focus is on your research. It's not about 'focusing' on CS as a whole, it's just the way PhDs work. A good CS PhD program will have a very few core classes for you to take and the rest will be decided by you/your advisor to better support your research work. Additionally instead of looking at undergrad>masters>PhD, consider going directly into a PhD program. You can almost always quit with a terminal Masters.


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Reviewer wants me to do x - Should I admit I don't have the resources to do so although I think it's a good idea?
A reviewer pointed out that I should do an additional experiment to further validate my analysis. I agree this would be a good idea and would further strengthen the manuscript. However, I think it belongs to the category "a paper can always be better" and I don't think the additional experiment is essential to my argument.
The main reason I am not doing the additional experiment is that it would require additional funding that I don't have, and cannot acquire in the time the journal wants me to submit a revised version of the article (and even if they were more flexible, it would not be a good idea to wait two years to submit a revised version).
What is my best strategy when replying to the reviewer's comments? Should I

point out that adding the additional experiment would require additional funding and that this would not be possible within a reasonable time frame?
point out that the results are meaningful even without it?

I am a bit worried that saying "yes, that's a good idea, but I don't have the means to do it right now" would trigger the reply "Well, that's too bad for you, then the article is not suitable for publication". What's the best strategy here?

When I have been faced with a situation like this in the past, the course of action that my co-authors and I found best was to get in touch with the handling editor to negotiate.
Editors are the ones who will generally make the call, and if doing the experiments will pose an high burden in the time-frame available, it's worth having a discussion before starting them.  Sometimes a reviewer has pointed out a real flaw and more experiments really are required in order to deal with it.  Other times, a reviewer is just giving "wouldn't it be nice if..." homework.  It sounds like you think it's more the latter, but the editor may disagree.  I would recommend starting with an explanation of why you think your current experiments are sufficient for a significant publication and why the new experiments should be pushed into future work instead.  The discussion with the editor is likely to end up in one of three places:

The editor agrees that the experiments aren't necessary, and you can talk about them as a direction for future work.
The editor decides your paper will be rejected, since you can't do the experiments.
The editor agrees to a "middle ground" where certain critical studies are done (it may surprise you which ones), perhaps with an extension on time to allow you time to do them, and the paper moves forward.

Talking with an editor is taking an additional risk, since your paper might get rejected quickly, but I would recommend a "fail-fast" strategy over putting in lots of time and effort that turns out to be futile because you were working on something that wouldn't be enough to satisfy the editor in any case.

It's perfectly acceptable and very common to not have the resources to carry out certain suggestions.
In the paper, list his suggestion as an item for future work, list his criticism of your results (lack of validation etc) as a limitation of your work.
Do not mention in the paper that a lack of resources kept you from following certain avenues. You can mention this to the reviewer if you want, however it is not necessary - just state that you think its a good idea, and one of the current limitations of the presented work, and you have included it in the manuscript.

What else can you do? Perhaps do a part of the experiments, add a section to the paper explaining that this would be a worthwhile extension to the reported work and why it hasn't been done.

add a section to the paper explaining that this would be a worthwhile extension to the reported work and why it hasn't been done. — I'm not sure that wasting space in a paper to explain that you don't have the funds to carry out an experiment is a good idea.

"It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing that we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material." - James Watson and Francis Crick


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US statute of Higher Education System
I'm taking for granted several fact about higher-education system in the US, such as:

Professors can move freely between universities, even ones outside US. They are in this regard like professional football players.
(Not every country wholeheartedly allows this.)
Lecturers can obtain tenure position. (Some countries are in the habit of "perpetually in 5-year contracts")
There is such a thing as liberal arts education.  (Not all
countries have this!)
An undergraduate student can take a major and a minor in their study. (Some countries prefer to have only majors)
...

My question: where can I find documents regarding all these higher education system rules and statute? Which part is governed by the government (state/federal), and which part is decentralized to the univ. management?
Links to such documents (US/UK/Australia/Can.) or Wikipedia pages would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

Not all of that is true at all schools. Many, many lecturers are non-tenure-track, and the number is rising (in fact, just about no one with the title "Lecturer" in the US is eligible for tenure review; unlike some other countries, in the US "Lecturer" generally means a non-tenure-track position, and tenure track has the word "Professor" in there somewhere). Not all schools have minors; Yale doesn't, for instance. Not all schools are designed for a liberal arts education (some are there to teach a specific trade).

One of the key things about U.S. system of higher education is that it is, for the most part, not regulated by statute.  For all of the "rules" that you explained, there are institutions that do not follow them (except the freedom to depart, which is guaranteed not by regulation, but by the lack of regulation, which creates a free market).
In theory, anybody in the US can found an institute of higher education, at any time, for any reason.  People in fact do create all sorts of new institutions all the time: some turn out very well, and some do not.  In practice, admission to the "club" of credible institutions is regulated by accreditation organizations, such as this one.  Every institution that can meet the fairly basic requirements for accreditation can set its rules as it wishes.  Public universities are typically regulated by the state that runs them (e.g., U.C. Berkeley) or the relevant federal agency (e.g., the Naval Postgraduate School), but private institutions like Harvard have a great degree of freedom in how they organize themselves.
In short: there is no document for the rules on how the system works, because the nature of the system is that there is no system, only a market loosely managed by accreditation.

That explains a lot. Thanks! May I ask again, with that free market nature, who gives professorship to an individual? Is it the university? And, is it more or less the same situation in the UK and Australia (or western countries in general)?

@fajar Yes, the professorship is given by the university.  As for other Western countries: I personally don't know for certain; you'd do well to ask it as a new question if you want an in-depth answer.

Even freedom to depart isn't necessarily always there: I imagine that military officers who are professors at service academies can (at least in theory) have their resignation denied, and be required to stay in their posts. Otherwise, freedom to depart is (sort of) guaranteed by a law: the 13th Amendment.

@cpast Good point... I hadn't even thought of that part, but you are absolutely correct.

In some sense the freedom to depart is also guaranteed by state regulation of contract law, to prevent enforcement of a contract in which someone can never leave. The number of academics in the US who would take such a contract even if it were their only job offer on the table is probably very small, and may even be 0, but I think it's pretty generally agreed that nobody with any influence is interested in finding out for sure by permitting contracts of indefinite indentured service :-)

Much of what you've mentioned is simply customary within the US system of higher education rather than being mandated by law.
The federal government does have some involvement in higher education in the US, most importantly through the system of federal financial aid for students.  Without federal financial aid, most public and private institutions would cease operations.  The federal government also provides some funding for educational activities to universities through the Department of Education.  Historically, the federal government provided support for the establishment of universities through the land grant acts of 1862 and 1890.
An additional important influence on research universities is that the federal government (through the National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, National Institutes of Health, and other agencies) sponsors research at universities- universities must follow the rules of these agencies in applying for grants and research contracts and conducting the research.  For example, there is a "common rule" (common among the funding agencies) concerning ethical activity in research involving human subjects.
The Higher Education Act is the federal law that sets the policy of the US federal government on higher education and finacial aid in particular.   The act has been repeatedly amended with the most recent substantial changes in 2008.
At the level of the 50 states, many states provide a substantial fraction of the funding for public universities.  However, in recent years state appropriations to the universities in many states have decreased and in some cases the remaining percentage of state funding is very small- these institutions are becoming effectively independent of state funding.


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How much seen material/questions should an exam paper contain?
At University,say the lecturers hand out past papers with solutions for the students to revise from for an upcoming exam.
Is it common practise for the exam to contain a couple of the exact same questions
which are in the previous past exams?
Is it common for the exam to contain questions which the lecturer has put in the assessed worksheets throughout the semester but has already handed out the solutions to?

In the U.S., in mathematics, by 2016 (as opposed to decades back, perhaps), I think it's by far most often the case that the only real "filter/gatekeeping" for grad school is admission in the first place. There are "qualifying exams" and/or equivalent "require courses", but these are rarely used as filters; rather, they are devices to induce students to study more broadly than they might have otherwise. Yes, at some point there is the entirely-different enterprise of thesis-writing, and skills relevant to timed exams have very little to do with thesis-writing skills.
Since the qualifying exams and/or required courses are meant to encourage a bit of breadth, and to make a case for the utility and sense of that, it is reasonable to be coooperative with students in such situations, rather than be their adversary or skeptic. In particular, giving many good sample-solutions, illustrating the virtues of the ideas being discussed, is surely a good thing. Give archetypes for "expert" solutions.
Further, one might argue that in basic graduate mathematics the list of key ideas is really not so large, and part of what we should convey/sell is indeed the simplicity of things when seen from a slightly more sophisticated vantage. Therefore, I do not want to contrive clever problems that obscure the simplicity I'm trying to claim/show.

For general theoretical papers, it is customary to have a few questions repeated over the past years. Taken in a proper sense this will compel students to learn certain important concepts of the course. Also having the paper entirely different each time might make some to rule out questions as improbable questions hence not capturing the rationale behind the learning aspect of the exam.
For courses with mathematical concepts, it would be ideal to add a more intuition in the selection of questions. You may utilize the same concepts with different data for calculation for each exam.
Concretely, the question paper should encompass important concepts covered in the course. A student who has learned entirely what was taught should be able to score higher marks, and with intelligent application, score complete marks. A student who has learned a satisfactory amount of the portions should be able to at least pass.


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Lost to find a topic for my reseach!
I am really LOST. anyone can help me sharing his/her experience would be great.
I am currently a PhD student and I changed my advisor and minor 'research field' after one year of my program. This is a new research field to mine but I have the ability and confident to conduct research and go through but the big problem I've never been exposed to this field before and couldn't find a solid topic/idea to consider for my research. my advisor asks me to find a topic in my own. any tips guys!!

There is a lot of existing advice on this site; see the [tag:research-topic] tag for examples. Read these, try their suggestions, then if you find that they don't help you, come back and [edit] your question to explain what you've tried and why it didn't help.


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Is having a co-adviser a good idea in a PhD program
I'm currently doing a PhD in mathematics and have been working with my current adviser for almost a year. My adviser is at an advanced age, however, even though he still has a couple of more graduate students apart from me. My work has been going decent, but with oral qualifying examinations coming up, I'm confused if having a co-adviser may be a good idea for me. There are a couple of reasons for me to think so.
First is the fact that my adviser is at an advanced age. Secondly, while my adviser was away for a semester last year, I worked with another faculty member, who recently told me to consider if I wanted him as a co-adviser. I've not spoken about this issue with my adviser yet.
In this situation, I'm really confused about two issues. Firstly, will it be a good idea to have a co-adviser at all in my case, or should I continue having a single adviser while continuing my work with the other faculty member and keep him in my committee? Secondly, if I indeed choose to have a co-adviser, how should I bring it up with my principal adviser so that he doesn't mind? This has left me very confused recently and I'd love to hear some general advise in this situation.

The question What are the pros and cons of being co-supervised? might give some guidance.

I wonder why it is necessary to formalize an advising relationship at this time. If you are getting good advice from a second person, you are fine. If something happens to remove your principle advisor from the picture, you have a backup.
I also wonder what you mean by "advanced age". Many grad students think that 55 or so is old. I passed that milestone 20 years ago and am still kicking mentally (though you can judge that from my writings here).
But if you do think a formal relationship is advisable, you might tell your principle advisor (a) that you have been getting good advice from the other person and (b) s/he has suggested a formal relationship. Ask what they recommend. But don't bring up age - please. Such a formal relationship can be good for the other person, of course, and may be the principle reason why it was suggested.
It doesn't need to be a "touchy subject".

My university requires me to submit a form before my oral qualifying exam with the names of all faculty members on my committee. It also asks if someone mentioned there is an adviser/co-adviser or a member. So I have to declare a formal relationship now if I intend to have a co-adviser. And, of course, I won't bring up age.

There are pluses and minuses, but usually it's a net positive to have two advisors.  Two sources of advice, expertise.  Ability to play things more towards being your own boss.  Also, ability to work more with one than the other if some conflict starts to emerge.
I think you should generally have some subject matter rationale for the two advisors though.  One is old is not a good reason.  And usually older advisors are kinder/gentler/better...young ones needing tenure are the worst. If anything being towards the last advisees of a famous older advisor is slightly noteworthy.  I was the last Ph.D. student of Linus Pauling--not really, but you get the cool factor.  Don't underestimate being plugged into the network of the former advisees of the old big wheel either.
If you are doing something cross-disciplinary or cross-topic, this is best justification for the two advisors.  E.g. I'm doing comparison of circuits to fireflies and want an EE and a biologist advisor.  Or...I'm doing synthesis of compounds for fluorescence studies (want a synthesist and a laser jock).


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How do I cite one technical report from a project collection?
My group are working individually on different aspects of the same research project. We will releasing our individual papers as technical reports.
It seems to be a common courtesy when publishing a paper to include your own citation. How do you cite a technical report so that it is clear that it is part of a collection (a single project)?
I was thinking of filling in the project name in the "journal" field so it would end up something like:
Surname, N. (2015) "My Paper" in Our Project, Article 4

But that seems to be abusing the semantics of the journal field. Is there a standard way to do this?

Will the reports be placed online in any archival manner?

@jakebeal see comment to bill barth below

Some departments or institutes have their own technical report series that are published online much like a journal. If yours is like this, then you should be able to come up with a citation format that reflects it. How are your tech reports published and archived?

We are creating our own mini-website for the project under the department domain. Papers are optionally archived by the department on a publications website, but this is largely an adhoc affair (technical reports are not consistently numbered etc).

hmmm, how about "My Paper (Our Project)", Technical report, Department of Institution - cite as a generic technical report, just append the project name to the paper name?

You should look to the citation style instructions for technical reports for the venue where you plan to publish. Pretty much every style guide has a citation format for technical reports. It's best not to hijack a journal format if a tech report style is available.