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Can I get a PhD for developing educational software?
I am a senior at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. After asking another question on this website, I have decided to become a professor of practice. To do this, I will pursue a Ph.D.
A Ph.D. project that I have already started in my free time this summer is developing an application and website that would help with calculus education. The application has

A computer algebra system which solves the calculus problems
A system which shows the work that the computer algebra system performs
A system which gives hints for the user
A system which allows the reader to type in each line of their work for the system to check for correctness and possibly identify the reason the answer is incorrect. This would include a system which would allow the user to draw graphs with their mouse for curve sketching problems.
A website where the application would be available for free use.
If there is still time left, typed notes and maybe even video lectures to correspond with the application.

I already have done 3,014 lines for the computer algebra system over the summer and I would love to make this my research project. I think that this would make an awesome research project because I would do it even if I didn't get a Ph.D. (I originally was considering making a level with the website as an alternative to the Ph.D.)
However, I worried that it would not be eligible as a Ph.D. project because I'm creating something rather than discovering a new theorem, numerical algorithm, or mathematical model. This made me even consider not getting a Ph.D. as my previous experience with research in numerical analysis was not enjoyable.

Do you plan to do any evaluation of whether it works in terms of students understanding calculus better than with a control such as a textbook or conventional class?

Complete side note: Is there a specific reason you are developing your own computer algebra system instead of using an existing one? As far as I can tell, this does not seem to be your main focus and it is certainly quite a lot of work.

Have you done a literature review on what similar approaches have been attempted before and how your proposed approach would be different from all of that? Novelty is IMHO the main distinguishing factor why many interesting practical projects are great for a lower level thesis but not suitable for PhD level research.

Agree with the other comments and answers -- but at WPI you should talk with Neil Heffernan, he might be able to help you turn your idea into a more concrete PhD / research project.

See Is development research?

Imho, 3k lines is not a lot of code, so don't use that as a motivation for your phd (which would be far more work). Personally, I have more than once written something of that magnitude and just walked away from it with no particular emotion.

Yes I do plan on checking whether it is more effective now that you pointed it out.

The reason I want to develop my own computer algebra system is that in order for the computer to show work in the way that I want it to, I would have to insert those lines of code into the computer algebra system. I also want it to be able to generate a list of steps for the problem so that the user can answer those steps to go through the problem without me having to actually construct the steps manually.

I am definitely going to email Neil Heffernan today. Thanks for telling me about him.

I think that this is development research. I read the question you linked and I now know that I need to focus on showing that the product worked and explained why it worked from a more theoretical approach.

The burning question is what field do you intend to pursue a PhD in? If the field is computer science or software engineering, then forgeit it. If the field is Education, then perhaps, but the software would not be the major part of that PhD - rather, the focus there would be on the approach to education taken by your software, assuming it was novel, and with the idea that this approach to teaching calculus would be more effective than traditional methods. For this you would need to find subjects and run studies to prove your method was superior.  What field do you expect your PhD to be in?

The actual advice: Find an adviser, etc. But I'd like to nitpick on computer algebra part. I happen to have a PhD for developing parallelisation approaches for computer algebra algorithms. Developing a somewhat capable computer algebra system is a multiple man-years effort, probably in hundreds of man-years, if you want it to be general enough. A core can be done-ish during a PhD, but barely anything else. My point: there are a many existing computer algebra systems. Some are open-source. The trend few years ago went into combinations of systems. Look at SAGE, Magma, GAP, GiNaC, etc.

Also, for the current programming languages frontier going into the direction of theorem proving (and, actually, dependent types), look into Idris, Agda, Coq.

There are many, many companies and nonprofits developing educational software. If developing educational software is what you want to do, getting a job with one of them will pay much more than grad school (location dependent) and provide good experience. In the longer term, you could incorporate your ideas into an existing product or start your own company/nonprofit/open source project.

Dr. David Joyner at Georgia Tech focuses on tech in education. It's not my focus so I can't provide much more detail, just another place to look if you're interested in a PhD.

@user112276: wow. Good luck.

Generally speaking, you need to do more than develop software (any software) to get a PhD. Even creating a new Operating System isn't quite "enough". But the reason is subtle. An many people base their doctoral degrees on software they develop.
The issue is that, in most cases, people will, like myself, have the belief that you get a doctorate by advancing knowledge. To advance knowledge, a computer science student might write some nice piece of software, but then must show/prove/demonstrate that the software does, in fact, advance the state of the art. You have to show that the software represents a genuine advance in knowledge. That it embodies some advanced concept, not just cool coding.
I was once an external examiner in such a situation. A student in a fine German university built and utilized a certain very sweet system for allowing students to interact remotely with each other and with their professor on projects and assignments. It manages all sorts of communication, permitting effective group work for students not co-located. The university focuses on distance education.
But the doctorate was given, not for the software itself, but for the student's analysis of it and proof that it was effective and showed some new ways of thinking about group work and how it could be effectively done an managed. It was that demonstration that was the essence of the degree, though it was based on the software he built.
However, I can't guarantee that every such software-based degree has the same sort of requirements. In a lot of ways what your advisor will accept is what is actually required. But, I think that this philosophy of "advancing knowledge" rather than just "building cool stuff" is pretty fundamental and widely shared.

Alternatively, the process of developing the software might be the focus of the dissertation, especially in more of a "software engineering" track.

@chrylis: If that process advances the state of the art, yes.  Otherwise, still yes...but it should be a master's dissertation, rather than a PhD dissertation.

A colleague of mine got a PhD for developing a CRUD application for biologists to enter the results of their experiments. But that was back in the 80s where stuff like that actually was revolutionary.

This might be a good research topic for a Ph.D. in mathematics education, which is a thing that you can get a Ph. D. in (see for example this list of schools offering that degrees).  However, it would not be a good topic for a Ph. D. in mathematics.

Even for a mathematics education degree the main components of a thesis would usually be not the software system itself but the methodology (and the theoretical/experimental backing of that methodology!) of the particular education elements that the system supports.

@Peteris right, and you could do this even if you didn't develop the system yourself. A rigorous evidence-based investigation into the effectiveness of a pedagogy or pedagogical tool someone else developed (but hasn't shown to be actually effective) is real research.

Might also work for Comp. Sci. ?

@WGroleau I would be skeptical about this project fitting the Ph.D. in Computational Science (if that's what you are talking about) or Computer Science. Both those disciplines would tend to have similar criteria as for the Ph.D. in mathematics, as opposed to Ph.D. in math education.

@peteris Fully agree

I haven’t been in a post-grad environment in a school that has Comp. Sci. but I have heard of Ph.D.s  doing a software project instead of a dissertation.

Perhaps an Ed.D. program would be more amenable to having educational software development be the major (though definitely not sole) component of the thesis.

@WGroleau I'm a computer scientist. I've never heard of anybody doing a software project instead of a dissertation.

Well, I’ve heard of it more than once.  My degree was Comp. Sci. also, but that school had no post-grad programs.  Wish I could be more specific, but I’ve been retired for five years and it was long before I retired that these projects came to my attention.  Of course, it’s possible that my memory has distorted.  But probably not.

I think you need to do some reading up on the path towards getting a PhD. In general, an idea that you have on your own based on knowledge you acquired during your undergraduate studies is extremely unlikely to be suitable as a thesis topic. Rather, to get a PhD you’d need to apply and get accepted to a PhD program, take classes, and find an advisor who would help you develop a research topic to work on. The advisor has to be familiar with the area you’re working on. So in order to work on a research topic related to computer algebra you’d need to be in a department where there are people interested in this area.
As for your specific idea, as someone who works a lot with symbolic math software (which I’ve used as an aid when teaching calculus among other things) I do like it a lot. Computer algebra is actually an active research topic and I know of students who did their PhD developing algorithms for computer algebra software. However, if your project consists simply of implementing known algorithms, it sounds more like you’re doing software development rather than math research. That’s not what PhD research is about (although it may be a great idea for a commercial product or open source project). But as I said, the general area is certainly one that may be suitable as a research topic, once you are in the right environment where you have access to an adviser knowledgeable in the area and other relevant resources. Good luck!

Having fairly recently completed a PhD where the main anchor was the creation of a piece of software, you will find the software alone will not be enough of a contributing factor to be awarded a PhD. (That said, you may be successful in your defence of originality and contribution with software alone, but it's very subjective and country specific. I highly doubt it, though).
What I found was while the development of the software did form several chapters, the methodological approaches I adopted and enhanced were unique enough to form an original contribution. Here are some suggestions for those looking to create software for their PhD can do:

Adopt solid software engineering principles and follow rigorous methodologies. Can you perhaps extend this methodology and propose a new one for your domain, thus making an original contribution? Can you then defend your proposed methodology?
Your software is, arguably, an original contribution but is very unlikely to pass any form of defence if you just code dump. It will be a tremendous help and go some was to successfully arguing and defending your methodology.
Does the creation of your software pose any research questions on the periphery, so to speak? You mention this is educational software, so you can research the pedagogy of using software as an educational tool. What has the literature previously shown us and what does your approach contribute to this body of knowledge?

> software alone will not be enough of a contributing factor --
I agree with your for the majority of cases. Mostly, it's either the novel design decisions, incorporated in the software (i.e., the algorithms) or the result of computation (data too hard to obtain elsewise).

I literally just had a class that touched on this subject today as a part of the Introduction to Research unit I'm taking as a part of my Master's Degree.
Basically, the goal of research is the creation of new knowledge. If you're not creating new knowledge, you're not doing research, you're doing development. So, the question you have to ask yourself is this: once you take all of the artefacts like data sets or software programs that you've created away, what is left? What is the new knowledge you've created?
Have you created a new process for solving a particular problem, or discovered a method for improving an existing process for solving it? Have you uncovered some facet of how a complex system functions? Have you discovered new insights on how humans interact with systems, or how systems interact with the world around us?

I have a Ph.D. in Computer Science from an Ivy League school. Throughout my Ph.D. program, I focused very heavily on developing educational software like you are proposing. I succeeded, but there were some big challenges on the path.
First, the most important thing to my success is that I was able to find a Ph.D. advisor who really believed in what I was doing. I can't stress enough that this was key and it didn't happen through walking into an office and just asking someone who seemed like a fit to advise me. I failed with three other professors before one became interested in my work and willing to guide me, back me up, and help me find funding.
Second, for the first few years of my program, when I would show off my latest work, I was plagued by the repeat question, "That's really great, but where is the research?" As other answers are stating, creating a great piece of educational software isn't really research worthy of a dissertation. I didn't have a good answer for that question. It didn't matter that my software was being used at several schools and was really helping students. I had to change my mindset. I identified some parts of my software where even though I had a solution that was good enough for my use, a more general solution would be applicable to other problems that I wasn't working on. I expanded on those parts. I connected with people working on those other problems, and built up a solution that was novel and useful. It was also full of hard math which I suspect satisfied some unwritten standards of my department.
In the end, I had something to show which was a research problem worthy of a Ph.D. and I used my educational software as a way of demonstrating that research. I was able to bring a professor (not in my department) who was using my software onto my committee. I was able to answer the question "where is the research?" at the start of my defense. I believe having such a strong application of my research really helped me through my defense, but the application alone certainly would not have been enough.

"Where is the research?" - These questions are nonsense and are an indication of the state of decay in academic research. Old people having the power of interpretation in their hands, forcing young people to align with their fixed set of opinions.

@image A PhD is a research degree. If something is presented as being part of a PhD, it is entirely reasonable to ask in what sense it is research. If the answer is obvious to the student, then it's an easy question to answer and won't take much of their time; if the answer isn't obvious to them, that's an indication of a serious problem with the programme of work. If you believe you're being oppressed by old people in universities, go start your own university with your own ideas about what a degree should be. And convince people that it's worthwhile.

@DavidRicherby IMHO that is one of the reasons why we need to increase the prestige of advanced non-PhD degrees. There are people who just build awesome stuff, have an extremely high level of understanding of an established body of knowledge, teach known concepts really really well, etc., that just aren't a good fit for a research degree but IMHO deserve to be recognized as experts.

There are at least a few places where you can work on educational tech / research.  Neil at WPI runs the Learning Sciences and Technology program, and is a great place to start. (I was a grad student of his.)  There's folks / programs at CMU, Stanford, and U Penn that I can think of.  You'll need to do more than just code the system, tho.
One of the points of getting a PhD in this field is to learn how to test your design.  It's great to have come up with a design / program, but how do you make sure that it actually delivers on the promise to improve learning?  That's what an LS&T degree will help you learn to test. It will also let you know what other systems are out there.
Given that you're at WPI, whether you want to stay in the same school for grad work, or go elsewhere is a big decision.  Neil is an awesome guy, loves to talk about LS&T and will be very happy to talk to you about his program and/or the pluses / minuses of staying / going.  He also knows (and is known by) people in all of the programs I've mentioned.
Good luck!

A suitable Ph.D. program could be to develop a machine learning system that can assess the weaknesses of the student and can come up with effective exercises to train the student. You would then need to write algorithms that can simulate weak students who are prone to make errors in certain areas. You then let a suitable machine learning system interact with such algorithms using a computer algebra system. When the system is sufficiently well trained to be able to recognize the weak points of the simulated student, you can apply the system to real students to fine tune it.
Since such a project would involve novel applications of machine learning methods, it would lead to quite a few peer reviewed publications making the work good enough to earn you a Ph.D The requirement is that a Ph.D. thesis must be based on original research, many universities demand that it be based completely based on peer reviewed articles of which the Ph.D candidate was the major contribution.

No I don't think that's enough. You need to prove that every single point you make is valid. Just to be able to prove that "a machine learning system that can assess the weaknesses of a student" is full of rabbit holes.

"a Ph.D. thesis must be completely based on peer reviewed articles": entirely false.

This answer could be improved a bit, but in some ways is one of the best answers to OP's concrete question. Most of what they are trying to do is old hat, but there are interesting AI problems in making a system which can give directed hints and exercises based on the computer forming a model of the strengths and weaknesses of a particular student. This might be the most promising avenue for OP to explore. They would of course need to first do a literature search and see what has already been done in that area (since it is likely that others have already looked at the problem).

@Bzazz That depends on the standards that the university is using. Some use an even more rigorous standard that says that at least one of the papers must be single-authored by the Ph.D. candidate.

@DavidRicherby I've modified the text to make that clear.

While you most likely won’t get away with no research in addition to producing the software there might be situations where the focus can be less on research.
You need to find a thesis supervisor who is willing to accept your work and can guide you towards the degree of practical outcome vs. research your thesis needs to contain.
And while this is not „pure science“ if the supervisor and institute have a financial interest or expect prestige you would be surprised how flexible academic principles suddenly get.

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Paper Authorship / Commercial?
When my co-founder and I were creating our project (with a scientific background), we always listed our universities as our affiliation, or we listed ourselves as the Co-Founders of the project with an e-mail. For the last two years or so, my co-founder has worked at a technology company in the UK, while I am still on my PhD in the US.
Now, if we author a paper, is it okay to list my university and his work affiliation (the company)? Formally, this would be correct. However, he does not work on our stuff during work hours but only in his freetime and at home.
If we do list the two affiliations (university me, company him), does it imply that the paper has a commercial touch? His employer is okay with it.
Would this setup complicate creating a startup from now on?

Given that your friend's employer gave the OK, see especially this answer.

I may be misreading the question but I think it's a slightly different situation; in the linked question the co-author was at the company all along, whereas in this case the project started while the co-author was at the university. Suggested answer: if the bulk of the work was conducted while he was at the university normally you would give his university affiliation plus "current address: [company address]". Depending on the project (and the university), the university could be unhappy with an implied transfer of IP to a company for work done during university employment.

(Can't currently post this as an answer since the question has been marked as a duplicate; will fix this if it's reopened...)

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Does it have any value getting a PhD in engineering after 45?
I am talking about academia and research.
Suppose, a person doesn't have either professional or academic credentials or experiences. Suddenly he decides to study engineering because he wants to change his stagnation both financially and socially. So, he enrolls in BSc in an engineering program at the age of 40. He completes his BSc at the age of 44, completes his MSc at the age of 45-47, and then completes his Ph.D. in engineering at the age of 49-55.

Does this Ph.D. degree have any material value for this person?

There are multiple factors to think about.
Firstly, this person never had any corporate and academia related job experience. It is hard to believe that he would be able to get along with these work environments. It is generally hard to mould someone's brain and personality at the age of 40+. So, I believe that he will find hard-times finding a job.
Secondly, most people are forced to retire at the age of 65-68. If he starts his job at 49-55, he has only 16-13 years of his life left for earning money. The amount he earns with his Ph.D. is highly unlikely to compensate for the earnings he sacrificed while getting his degrees.
So, my view would be: this person is not gaining much with his Ph.D.
What do you think?

For me, there was immense value in the intellectual challenge.

Many (most?) countries have laws against age discrimination, so this person should not be at a disadvantage when applying for jobs in academia.

@astronat De facto, the laws do not change much in countries with age discrimination. But Anglo-Saxon countries are in my experience pretty good at not being age-discriminatory.

The amount he earns with his PhD is highly unlikely to compensate for the earnings he sacrificed while getting his degrees.

Is money the only motivation? If so, you may want to consider options between "remain a taxi driver" and "do a PhD." You may want to post on Workplace.SE for help finding the level of education that will maximize your lifetime earnings.
I would suggest, though, that there are important factors other than prestige and money. Specifically, passion for the subject matter. So, I would suggest that you should take a few CS classes before planning out the rest of your life.

It is hard to believe that he would be able to get along with these work environments. It is generally hard to mould someone's brain and personality

I suspect you will have to overcome these challenges when earning your degrees. By the time you have a permanent position, you  will be familiar with the culture.

taxi driver is actually a loser with or without a PhD.

Taxi drivers perform a useful service; I would certainly not call them losers. That said, you are 40 years old and therefore (hopefully) less than halfway through your life; it is too early to give up on yourself.

Isn't there lack of PhDs in CS?

@SSimon, there is nothing called "lack". No one is going to hire you unless you have proper skills.

@user366312 are you saying that some PhD don't give you any skills

You can answer this with salary survey data.  Based on the data, it would be reasonable to assume a CS academic would earn $95,000/year a few years after their PhD.  This would rapidly make up for any lost earnings from not driving a taxi during a PhD, so we can determine that the answer is yes without figuring out the taxi driver's earnings or the PhD stipend.

While I can see the point of this answer, do not do a PhD for (only and if any) the monetary gain, you will regret it. Do it if you love the research subject and want to contribute to society that way.

@DimP, when a taxi driver decides to do a Ph.D. at the age of 40, he doesn't do it for the society for sure.

@user366312 Why not? When I did my PhD, one of the other cohort students (44 years old) decided to pursue a PhD for that exact reason, due to stagnation in his job as a technician. Also (is it right to assume you are talking about the US?), I know of a few European countries where you could end up earning quite a bit more as a taxi driver rather than a PhD holder.

@DimP: In my country, it was (maybe 20 years ago) not uncommon to do a phd just to be in a better position socially. I know some people who did this (mainly politicians) who do not regret it

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How do I understand which doctoral school in a university I should apply to when my research topic is relevant to multiple of them?
Suppose a university has three doctoral schools:

Doctoral School of Exact & Natural Sciences
Interdisciplinary doctoral school

Say, I have a research topic that relates to both computer science and biology. Then, logically, my research topic can be relevant to any of the above doctoral schools.
How do I understand which doctoral school I should apply to for the best chance of acceptance?

I'm very confused. You say you have found your advisor already. In this case, wouldn't you apply to the department where your advisor works? Or the one he tells you to apply to? Second, what part of the world are you in? Normally one gets a PhD in a subject like chemistry or CS; "doctoral school for natural science" is not really a thing (at least in my part of the world).

@cag51, sorry for the mistake. The Doctoral School of CS&Math has been merged to the Doctoral School of Exact & Natural Sciences in 2020.

There are good answers below, please accept one. The point is quite simple: the school is typically not chosen by you, but by your supervisor. Suppervisors are attached to schools. If your supervisor is attached to multiple schools, discuss with him. If he is not associated with any school, reach out also to other supervisors.

You don't give enough information here to make a choice and you will have to gather more. In fact it might by any of them, or none.
You will need to find an advisor who is interested enough in what you want to do to take you on. They could be in any of the there schools. You need to look at the faculty and what they actually do. Only then can you make a choice.
Alternatively you will need to drop your proposed project for now and do something else for a degree before you take it up again. But knowing what the faculty does in those three schools will, again, give you information that can keep you close enough that you learn the appropriate research process to combine CS and biology.
The advisor is key for almost everyone. It is hard to be successful in grad school without a supportive advisor. Some do it, but it is much harder.

I have found my advisor already. He is from chemistry and works on protein, but I don't have any chemical background.

You need to work it out with him. I wonder if there is enough overlap of interest to make this a fruitful pairing. You probably don't want a chem degree, in any case. He might advise you on schools, depending on his own associations.

Talk to your adviser about which journals / conferences they expect you to publish in. That may have a factor in the decision. For example my advisor strongly believes that by doing a PhD in the Department of Computing means I must publish my research in reputable computer science journals, not engineering journals despite my topic overlap. Note: other faculty disagree, I've also been told that a PhD is faculty agnostic and I can publish where I want - but going against your advisors advice is probably not the best option.

@DavidWaterworth www.mdpi.com/journal/biomolecules

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How can I cite something which doesn't have any related research-paper published?
Suppose, I want to cite a framework written in Python (in my case it is: Keras) that doesn't have any related research paper published.
I saw other papers used in-line URLs, URLs in the citation,

Falbel D, Allaire JJ, and Chollet F. R interface to ‘Keras’. https://keras.rstudio.com/index.html

and even arXiv. Others used the so-called Hands-on books which are not academic at all. Others wrote something like the following:

(6) Chollet, F.et al. Keras; 2015.

The above is actually referring to the framework itself, not any research paper or URL.
I guess, none of these are recognized by the ISI Web of Science.
ISI is a well-established company that provides these counts. Their results really matter. But they count neither arXive nor URLs.
How can I cite it so that my paper is not excluded from the ISI Web of Science citation counting system?

But why would you care whether Web of Science recognizes the citation or not? Are you citing Keras for the benefit of Web of Science, or for the benefit of your readers? If the latter, I'd just add the URL to the github page and live happily.

@Anyon, the benefit of myself.

Your most recent edit confuses me. Is the situation 1) You're writing a paper that will hopefully get published in a journal indexed by WoS, and your paper cites a framework or software that does not have an associated research paper, so you worry the creators of that framework won't get enough credit? Or is it 2) you are authoring such a framework yourself and want the full citation credit for it? In the latter case, as things stand currently, the best approach is probably to publish an accompanying software paper.

@Anyon, Case #1.

This exact question is addressed in their FAQ. As of the time of this answer, their suggestion is:

Please cite Keras in your publications if it helps your research. Here is an example BibTeX entry:
@misc{chollet2015keras,
 title={Keras},
 author={Chollet, Fran\c{c}ois and others},
 year={2015},
 howpublished={\url{https://keras.io}},
}

Alternative citation methods are listed on the github issues page.


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Can a student propose a different programming language for the assignment or Lab?
Suppose, someone is taking a course that requires a programming language to be known by the student.
Suppose, the course is Optimization. The teacher proposes MATLAB/Octave to be the programming language of choice. However, the student that we are talking about doesn't know MATLAB/Octave. So, he proposes the teacher allow him to use another programming language, say, Python.
What should the teacher do in this case? Should he allow the student to use Python, or should he tell the student to stick to MATLAB/Octave?
Explain why.

Are you the teacher or the student in this scenario?

Can you just ask the question without all the hypotheticals? What's wrong with "I'm taking Optimization and my prof wants me to use MATLAB/Octave ..."

@elrond, Student.

@AzorAhai-him-, Coz, this incident took place 6 years ago.

So, "I took optimization and my prof wanted me to ..."

First, do not ask it here, ask your teacher.
It depends on what the aims of the course are. If it is part of the aims to teach MATLAB (for example, because later courses will build on this knowledge), then the answer you will get is a "no, sorry" - if you are lucky you even get the reason why not. However, if the programming language is irrelevant for the course requirements, it is possible you will get permission to use something else.
As a teacher, I did allow my students to hand in their assignments using different software but I warned them that, if they get stuck, I will not be able to help them. I had a few students who chose this option, they all asked it individually.
And a final point: also consider that it could be beneficial for you to learn a new skill.

... and if the professor says no, don't just use Python anyway. Speaking from long, sad experience.

That's up to the professor. Maybe the professor knows that a lot of the work to be done for this course is well supported by existing Matlab packages but that there are no good Python packages. Or the other way around and the professor wants students to implement things from scratch, rather than just use black box methods.
It's also possible that the professor just doesn't know any other programming language and wants to be able to give thorough feedback on student submissions.
You can certainly propose using a different programming language. Whether or not the professor allows you to do so, who knows.

Many novice programmers regard 'their' language with religious-like fervour. They gather/communicate with fellow enthusiasts, they evangelise to those who use other languages, they read books and journals with 'Python' (or whatever) in the title: it becomes an important part of their self-identity.  They support their chosen language just as some support their chosen football team.
They have to grow out of this phase.  For a 'python progammer' to write a MATLAB program is not a betrayal, an act of apostasy. A programmer needs to know several languages, so they can adapt to different problems and different situations.
Being a student is supposed to be about learning new stuff, not sticking with the comfort of what you know. This student should seize the opportunity to learn a second programming language.


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How to cope with older age as a phd student?
In 2015, I enrolled in an MSc in Computer Security program with the aim of getting a Ph.D. However, I dropped out of that program as I didn't like it. Then I enrolled in a MSc Machine Learning program in 2016 but again dropped out of that program because it was too hard for me, apparently because my proficiency in statistics was not sufficient. So, my Ph.D. dream was shattered by the end of 2016.
After much struggle, I was able to draw the attention of a research professor in bioinformatics because: (1) even though I dropped out of two programs, I did a lot of self-study out of curiosity and sheer interest; and (2) I have outstanding computer programming skills from my Bachelor's years.
This research professor has offered me two scholarships: one is from the National Science Council and another from the faculty; we published two papers; and finally, I have been accepted for a Ph.D. position this year. Therefore, everything is looking great for me.
I was even able to forget my previous two failures in the form of dropouts. This memory is giving me no pain anymore.
However, I have become old. My age is 41 years and 7 months. To put things in perspective, my classmates have already become professors.
Also, I am unemployed and surviving on scholarship money. Although my professor has taken me on many research projects, they are not a steady source of income; they are like bursts of money. My wife and only child are being taken care of by my parents. I have also been suffering from depression.
At this age and reality, a PhD does not seem to be a success anymore, although it has been my lifelong dream to have a PhD.
What should I do about this?

Have you consulted a mental health professional with this issue?

Probably you need to self-reflect on the main reasons why you failed before.  If you have already published two papers, then that suggests to me you are ready.  In many research areas, there are many pathways to make contributions.  For example, in my discipline, one either does theoretical or system research.    Lastly, one of the main skills you need to learn is how to learn.  As a researcher, we are faced with unknowns all the time, and there is a constant need to learn a new tool, be it statistics or a new programming language.

I think talking with a therapist is likely to be the most helpful thing for you here

When I saw the title of your question, I was expecting someone much older.  Forty-one is not especially old for a PhD candidate, and if you can complete your degree in the standard time you will not be especially old for a PhD graduate.  You can find data on US PhD graduates in the Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED), including the median time to completion across different fields.  Although the most recent SED Report does not report the average age of PhD graduates, it does report the median completion times, and fortunately programs in computing tend to take less time than in other fields.
It appears from your question that your disappointment stems from an idea that holding a PhD at a reasonably young age makes a person a success, and failure to have achieved this by that time renders you unsuccessful.  It also appears that you are allowing comparisons to other younger graduates to get you down, which again suggests an unhealthy preoccupation with questioning your status relative to others.  I don't think that's a particularly fruitful way to look at a PhD candidature.  Rather than looking at it through the lens of status (or whatever that is) I recommend you look at it in practical terms.  Completion of a PhD in a computing field will give you solid research skills in that field, sufficient to do independent research as a scholar in the field.  Assuming you can graduate by, say, forty-five, you will have over two decades of professional life (maybe even three) to apply the benefits of that training.
As to the practical problem of supporting a wife and child with only small bursts of money, that is a problem, but it is temporary, and it doesn't sound like such a terrible circumstance to me.  The big upside of the circumstance you describe is that it allows quality time between your child and his/her grandparents; you might look back on that later and be glad that your child/parents had that time.  In any case, the earnings of PhD graduates in computing fields are quite good, so you should expect to have a reasonable salary bump once you graduate your PhD and move into the profession.  At that time you should be able to financially support your wife and child without parental assistance, and you'll have plenty of time to repay everyone involved for the support they're giving now.

What should I do about this?

So long as you're still interested in research, I recommend you forget about all the downsides and focus on making the most of your PhD program and graduating successfully.  Put aside concerns about your age, status, money, etc., and be glad that you have a supportive family who can enjoy each other's company while you work to complete your program.  This can be a great time in your life if you let yourself enjoy the intellectual challenge you're presently undertaking, enjoy the benefits of the closeness of your extended family, and appreciate the time that is granted to you to do this.  Enjoy your research work and your family and put your concerns about money, etc., on hold.  Most importantly, ignore issues of "status" and just focus on your own self-development, at whatever pace that is achievable.
It's not clear from your post whether your depression is a response to dwelling on adverse circumstances (and vastly overestimating them) or if it is something more serious.  Whatever you do, don't allow these kinds of circumstances to push you into depression, leading to an adverse impact on your work progress and family life.  Depression often begets failure, which begets further depression.  Contrarily, cheerfulness and stoicism often beget success, which begets further cheerfulness.  As a first step, I would suggest you try looking at your circumstances in a more objective manner and examine all the success you have had and all the great things you've achieved (and read some Epictetus to put your problems into perspective) and see if this alleviates your depression.

It looks like you have the curiosity and enthusiasm to start ambitious projects, but you also tend to get easily bored or discouraged. It would probably be good for you to understand why this happens and how to be more persistent in your efforts. This is quite important if you start a PhD: it's a long and challenging process, so practically everybody doing a PhD faces obstacles and discouragement at times.
I don't know you so I don't know if this is your case, but I observed that perfectionism is a common cause of giving up in academia: people who are perfectionist have great hopes about what they want to achieve and how they imagine it, then they face the mundane difficulties and the imperfect nature of the research process and get deeply disappointed, sometimes to the point of dropping their goal. In case you feel familiar with this, it's important to manage your expectations and accept that nobody is perfect. Don't hesitate to seek professional psychological advice, it can help you achieve your goals.

Actually, though it might seem odd to you, I'd suggest that the best solution is to celebrate your current success and just let the past be the past.
There is nothing wrong with leaving a program that you learn you dislike. You want to organize your life so that it is pleasant overall.
There is nothing wrong with leaving a program that you find, too late, that you are unprepared for and don't want to live in eternal catch-up mode.
You have found a successful and enjoyable path. Yay. Exploit that.
Lots of people have "stumbles" in their past. Not everyone successfully moves past them as you seem to have done. You are both lucky and persistent, not being defeated by setbacks.
There are, however, some hints of imposter syndrome in your post. You might explore that, and you might want to talk to a professional about it.

I can give you some points that could be helpful:

Don't look back and think about the past, especially overthinking about the two past failures, actually they are the stepping stones towards the success. I heard about many people that didn't know what to do in this life, and they tried many things to find their passions, and hit many walls but they didn't stopped, they continued until the problem was resolved.

The science study and research does not have age limit. I saw one time at the university, an aged man that got a medical diploma studying computer science with young students, and guess what ! he finished and got his CS diploma. So, if someone could make a balance between all his duties, he can manage well his life.

The most important point is to believe in your capabilities and understand what you want/like to do.

When it comes to financial side, I think that you could find many opportunities for part-time jobs since you are in computer science field (e.g, consulting, freelancing, etc)

Finally, I see your experience as an inspiring example, so good luck


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Is there any difference in weight in the case of 3-years and a 4-years Ph.D.s?
Suppose two candidates are applying for the same position with more or less similar research backgrounds and topics.
One has a 3-year Ph.D. degree (say, from Swansea University, Wales, UK); the other has a 4-years Ph.D. degree (say, from UW, Warsaw, Poland).
For the sake of argument, if all other factors (e.g., number of publications, the reputation of the P.I., etc.) are ignored, is there any difference between a 3-years and a 4-years Ph.D. in the case of a research career? I.e., does the person with a 4-years Ph.D. hold more weight as a candidate?

Does a three year offer mean you have a maximum of three years of support?  Or does it mean you must complete the degree in three years no matter what is going on with financial support?  In general, more money is a good thing.  Of course I turned down four years of guaranteed support to take an offer with only one year guaranteed.   There are so many other factors to consider.

a) can you stop writing coz?
b) all other factors are the same are not epxlicitly given, so we cannot know. Which department are the two positions? what are the teaching duties? what are the salaries? what are the travel funds available?

@user366312 - I will second eliminating ’coz’ - if you want a PhD it is time to start communicating professionally.

One argument against finishing the PhD too quickly: https://gravityandlevity.wordpress.com/2019/03/25/what-it-means-and-doesnt-mean-to-get-a-job-in-physics/

@Anyon from your link "what I did wrong: I didn’t prioritize my career over my wife’s career". Cringe. So many lines describing how "making it to tenure does not mean other paths are wrong" and then such a blow full of (silly) regret. Academia brings out the worst from people.

The name recognition of the program and the strength of the thesis are more important than the time they take to complete in two very different university systems. Even in Europe, education is sufficiently different among countries (and sometimes among the states of the country) that comparisons are not easy. If the four year degree means more in actual skills, than the program recognition would be higher, assuming that the program is well known. (If the Liechtenstein Ph.D. were seven years and only given for outstanding achievement, this doctorate would not be well enough known to make a difference.) For hiring, you can assume that the thesis and the publications will be scrutinized. If the hiring is for a commercial settings, they often have their own testing procedures, so that the doctorate title only gets an applicant into the pool of applicants.

Given just what you say, there is no difference, because a full analysis of each candidate will depend on many things as well as these.
But, a 3 and 4 year degree might start with different preconditions, leading to a shorter or longer time for completion. Too many variables. And there is even more reason for skepticism if the programs are in different countries. The education systems can vary widely between countries with some topics deemed essential taught earlier and others later in different countries. In particular, a program might require more than research as is true in the US (qualifying exams, for example).
And, the quality of the research is more important than the counts.
"All other factors the same" is pretty much impossible. We aren't machines. Institutional "fit" is even something considered by evaluators.
Trying to reduce faculty evaluation to an algorithm is probably a losing proposition. People contribute in different ways, some of them incapable of such comparison.
Twelve quality publications is pretty impressive, and may be unattainable early on in some fields.
However, beware of any program that puts a maximum time to completion with no options for extension. Research can take longer than anyone predicts at its start. Maximum time to completion is different from a fixed number of years of funding, however.

Evaluate the programs on other criteria than the length. A six year doctorate in US is fine, though it will start with a bachelors. But beware of any program that forces a maximum time to completion. Research can take longer than anyone estimates.

I've no quibble with the bulk of this answer, except for the "beware of any program that puts a maximum time to completion". All programs in the UK, and as far as I'm aware, all programs in most European countries enforce a maximum time to completion, with few extensions except in genuinely exceptional circumstances. Like, so exceptional, that I've only seen 2 or 3 extensions beyond 4 years in my department in my entire career.

@IanSudbery, I actually know about the limitation, and it worries me. Does it imply that some significant number of students leave with no degree? Does it restrict the sort of research that a student "dares" to undertake? Asking questions about the unknown (i.e. research) is difficult to time-box. How do you/they make it work?

No, almost all students graduate (at least in the UK, I don't know about other European countries). It does limit the research questions a student can address (but then most research grants are 3 years as well, so getting used to what can be done in a limited time is good training), but its worth noting that theses are examined with the knowledge of how much time has been available. At least in the UK, research in a thesis doesn't need to be absolutely complete, or entirely positive findings. Its also worth noting there is little or no coursework in European PhDs.

In fact, in the UK, if a departments on-time completion rate (% students graduate within 4 years) falls below 80%, then the department will no long receive funding to have PhD students.

As long as you finish "on time" (which depends on country and discipline), no one cares how long you spent in a program. What matters is your publication record, your letters, and your research program. And in some cases, your teaching experience. So the factors you have excluded are exactly the ones that matter. The only possible exception I can think of might be the case of an unusually young candidate, who might be considered to be more hireable when they're a year older.

If you're asking me about duration, exactly what I said above. If you're asking me about which background is more employable in protein analysis, I don't have the expertise to answer.

If all other factors are the same, then 4 years is better than 3 years, because you can always be quicker than the planned time, so you have safety about knowing you will have money and support for 4 years, but you can be quick and finish the PhD in 3 years.
Because if 3 and 4 years have the same factors, it means that the same PhD can be done in 3 or in 4 years.
I hope your PhD is not in logic or any related topic, though.

Silly question.
Is a four year PhD with 20 publications more valuable than a  4 year PhD with only one publication? If the publication of the latter is groundbreaking and the publications of the former are so and so. Guess who will have the better offers ...


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Is doing a Habilitation a financially viable decision?
I know that a PhD is necessary to enter academia which means you can find a better job and get salary.
But, how about doing a Habilitation in Germany? Does it have any positive impact on the career or financial situation as an international student?
For instance, say someone is barely employed. So, he is supposed to get an "actual" job after the completion of his PhD. But, can he postpone getting the job until he completes his Habilitation? What would be the financial implication?

See this : https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/44372/72855 or this : https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/126921/72855

For instance, say someone is barely employed. So, he is supposed to get an "actual" job after the completion of his PhD. – What do you mean by “supposed” and “‘actual’ job”? PhD positions are usually actual jobs and postdoc positions even more so. What are the alternatives you have to consider: academia vs. industry vs. unemployment? How much money do you need to make in what time span due to what reason? Please [edit] your question to clarify.

@Wrzlprmft, PhD positions are not always paid in Germany.

@user366312: Let us continue this discussion in chat.

You have to distinguish things here:

A Habilitation is a qualification level (not quite like an academic
degree but you can think that it is sort of a grand PhD with additional teaching). This does not mean
that you have to be employed but in most cases you will be because
otherwise it is going to be a bit difficult to finance your life for the time it takes (normally 4-8 years)
A Habilitation used to be the formal qualification level to become
Associate Professor and Full Professor. The position of an Assistant
Professor (German "Universitätsassistent") was usually the time when you worked on obtaining the
Habilitation. Today most job advertisements do not ask for a
Habiliation anymore. Instead it states something like "Habilitation
or equivalent qualification". This allows hiring of international professors.
In daily university life a Habilitation might still be of
significant advantage. You (sadly) still hear phrases like "This guys does not even have a Habilitation - what does he even want". Also nobody will questions your ability to supervise students if you have the Habilitation (you can also without but it definitly still helps)
In non-academic jobs as in industry you will certainly not need a
Habilitation. It might rather be a disadvantage as you will be seen
as overqualified.

Your question is a bit unclear (see @Wrzlprmft's comment) and I hope to resolve the confusion. Practically doing a habilitation is very similar to a PhD in Germany. You are hired by a professor and conduct/manage research projects (and you often have the duty to teach).
The difference is you are expected to work very autonomously, acquire funding as PI, supervise PhD students and develop your own research ideas. The professor/university more or less borrow you infrastructure (offices/devices).
The implication is, if you have managed to write and defend a habilitation thesis after some years, you are over-qualified for much more jobs in comparison to "only" having a PhD.
Giving a general answer, how this pays off in industry/academia depends more on the current demand in your field of research. But it's crucial to anticipate that if you don't get tenure as a professor with habilitation (and there is a high likelihood it distinct branches), there are nearly no other positions in the German academic system where your habilitation is an advantage (rather disadvantage).
In industry you are then seen as someone who wants to develop his own ideas, manage projects, be autonomous and is maybe hard to integrate in a bigger team as small wheel number #.
The questions here is not to ask what is the hypothetical virtual better pay-off. The question is which kind of person you are. Many people are just not suited to lead, supervise and manage teams (under strong competition) and even when attaining such a position will not be successfully in it long-term. If you are only looking for the bigger pay off and you are an autonomous person, industry is anyway the way to go (at least in Germany where professors cannot have a salary of several hundred thousands)

@user366312 if you only target academia, then my argumentation concerning which type of person you are applies in my opinion even more. Someone with a habilitation is unlikely to be hired for a non-professor position at a german university, because such positions are of very different type concerning the personality ("Akademischer Rat", responsible for bigger experimental device,...) in comparison to a leader/manager. You cannot postpone a job offer of a university for several years the habilitation will need...

there are nearly no other positions in the German academic system where your habilitation is an advantage (rather disadvantage) – Not to forget that there are nearly no other permanent positions (that do not require a habilitation or equivalent) in Germany at all.

@Wrzlprmft correct, unfortunately :-) In France, UK, US there are much more permanent teaching positions to my knowledge. There is a reason Germany produces more PhD's than most other countries, as these temporary positions keep up the academic operation without the existing associate/assistant professors in other countries.

Just to clarify from your answer, are you saying that having a habilitation is viewed as a positive in industry? Is there industry jobs in Germany that actually require or at least prefer a habilitation holder? I always assumed that habilitation belongs exclusively to the academic world, and that industry circles don't even know of the title (as in: why should they if it does not apply to industry and does not award you a formal degree).

@penelope the last paragraph is meant to make a decision between habilitation and industry, habilitation for industry jobs (due to time needed, over-qualification) is even more worse in industry. I'm not aware of any jobs requiring/recommending it, the title Priv.-Doz. which comes with succesful habilitation is only shown in academic circles, unlike PhD/Dr. or Prof.

This part: In industry you are then seen as someone who wants to develop his own ideas, manage projects, be autonomous makes it sound like it is at least partially desirable in industry (you also said "hard to integrate" which would be a negative). It could be useful to elaborate your answer a bit (i.e. explicitly include your last comment do me or similar) to make it clear.

@penelope I don't care about the votes and another nicely formatted answer is accepted :-) The problem is a habilitation lasts many years which one can barely catch up in comparision to PhD's which moved straight to industry...

I thought the point was to have informative, clear and high-quality answers which will help future users in similar situations, and in case there are multiple answers, to provide different perspectives (like me; while I did not ask this question I am genuinely interested in the answer). For me, the upvotes are just a consequence of that. And I figured clear expression would be particularly valued on Academia.SE, a platform for scientists who have to clearly and unambiguously express their ideas in writing as a matter of course.

@penelope sure, but there is less point in reformatting my answer as lordy copy/pasted the some statemens into a nicer format, which funnily doesn't answer any of the financial aspects, but was accepted, so I don't have any incentive to put here further time in. The voting is a bit chaotic on this site and often follows more conciseness/format than insight imho...


text:
Doing research toward a Ph.D. degree versus doing research for commercial purposes
What is the difference between doing research toward a Ph.D. degree and doing research for developing a new product or technology for commercial purposes?
Can those two purposes of research proceed together hand in hand from the beginning of the research?

you're gonna have to name a field

@AzorAhai-him-, electrical engineering.

Depends on who you want owning your research.

(computer science perspective here)
Research in grad school differs from industrial research in a few key ways. First, research in academia can be more abstract - you can focus on fundamental research and not feel pressured to produce, say, a working prototype or a product.
Second, the type of research you can conduct is dictated by company needs: if your company is interested in deep learning then you're gonna work on that even if you're really interested in graph theory.
Third, since companies have an incentive to provide products, you may be under more pressure to produce within tighter timeframes.
Finally, often enough companies limit your capacity to publish results due to confidentiality/company interests. Companies won't like it if you publish results on a new method for competitors to use (you may not publish anything for years if you sign an NDA), or publish things that present the company in a negative light (Timnit Gebru's ousting from Google is a notable recent example of such a conflict).
There are of course exceptions. Some industrial research divisions offer more academic freedom, but even then you are expected to contribute to the company's bottom line (which is not unreasonable in my opinion).
That said, companies have a clear advantage when it comes to access to resources. Generally speaking, academia simply cannot compete with the resources and datasets that tech giants such as Google/Amazon/Facebook/Intel/IBM have at their disposal (I don't know enough about other fields, e.g. how the NIH compares to big Pharmaceutical companies).

+1, though the "clear advantage" you note in your last paragraph depends heavily on the company. If your employer is research-focused, yes. If your employer only has a few researchers and does not quite grasp what they need to work, you may face a bit of an uphill battle for resources.


text:
Do schools/universities in EU prefer to appoint PhD graduates as teachers from their own student pools?
As far as I understand, EU schools have high regards for PhDs from anglosphere, especially from USA and UK.
But, what about schools in EU itself?
Suppose,  an International student,
(1) has a bachelor, Masters, and PhD from a same school "X" in an EU country "A".
 (2) has a bachelor, Masters, and PhD from various schools "X", "Y", and "Z" in different EU countries: "A", "B", "C".
Does (2) make any difference if he has an intention of doing job in a school "X" as a teacher?
Do schools/universities in EU prefer to appoint PhD graduates from their own student pools?

Keep in mind language requirements in the EU: international stusents in my university are not allowed to teach because they don't have a good enough command of the local language.

I think as a general rule, people prefer to bring in outsiders, just to broaden the base of ideas. My perspective is US, not EU, but it seems pretty universal to me. However, what they really want is the best available candidate.

@Thomas, what if the PhD graduate has a CEFR C1 proficiency?

@user366312: Yes, if they speak well enough, they could teacg, of course. ("Allowed" was too strong, better would be "there do at the time not teach international students".

My point is that language requirements are in my university the only requirement for teaching for phd students.

@Thomas, is it possible for you to reveal your university's name?

I should not (as they have no oppurtunity to defend themselves here). It is however, hard for me to imagine it being different in any EU country where education is not given in English.

Each EU country has quite a different academic culture. Some are perceived as being quite insular, with a lot of hiring from within; some are considered "impenetrable" by outsiders; some are quite the opposite and offer significant perks to try to attract top notch scholars from outside. Each system has its quirks and it is impossible to talk about the differences without knowing which country you are speaking about here I'm afraid.
Speaking personally, I know that the Dutch university that I am about to move to has hired people in the same department as I will be in with degrees and research backgrounds in several other EU countries, but you can't really extrapolate that information out beyond the Netherlands.


text:
How to know if my research problem is interesting or not?
I have completed my masters in mathematics. I want to pursue PhD in mathematics. I want to frame a research question and write papers in my field.
But some  questions are bothering me:

How does one know that a research problem is interesting and after solving it, one will be able to publish in a good journal?
I know the famous journals in my field. But after reading them, how will I decide myself which problem will be beneficial to solve?
Also I have seen there are lots of unsolved problems given at the end of a paper in a journal.
If I don't understand or find any interesting problem should I try to solve the problems given at the end of a paper?
Does it mean the problems stated at the end of a paper are interesting that's why they are stated as problems?

Related: How to choose a good research problem?

Just few thoughts. Try to look at retrospect from already solved  problems, which generated more enthusiasm by the community (e.g., larger number of citations). If you domain is applied math, then probably think of the problems that might have larger potential applicability (e.g., number theory in cryptography).

Just so you know, being interesting is neither necessary nor sufficient for publishing in a good journal. They are correlated, yes, but if your goal is one or the other, you don't have to optimize for both (especially starting out).

These questions are best answered by a more experienced person than yourself, in particular your advisor. It is why you have an advisor in the first place. But let me be a bit more specific to your (many) questions.
First, you don't know what you will learn when starting research. That is why it is research and not just writing stuff down. A problem may turn out to be difficult or easy. It may turn out to have an interesting solution or just a run-of-the-mill grind-out-the-result solution. But you don't know until you do it. I think that is true in any field, but is so in mathematics, certainly.
For the second bullet, all problems are valuable to solve. Even if the solution is just to conclude the answer is trivial. You learn from solving them, and that is one of the main benefits of doing math in the first place.
Usually, if a problem is listed as unsolved in a recent paper it is probably worth pursuing. But such questions generate interest, so look, also, for more recent results. That doesn't mean that it isn't also valuable to solve the problems yourself, as suggested in the previous paragraph.
If a paper has been published in a reputable journal, it has been reviewed by other mathematicians. Presumably they agree that the problems stated at the end have at least some interest. But, solving them also increases your skill.
In general all mathematical questions, unless trivial, are interesting to at least some mathematicians. It can be a very small number, of course as some of the silos in math research are very narrow and deep. But if they are interesting to you, especially as a student, they are interesting by definition.
But get a doctoral advisor and explore some of these things with him or her.


text:
What can I do if I submitted a paper believing a journal to be free for authors, and after acceptance I'm asked to pay a fee?
Reading about a journal A, I understood that authors can submit papers free of charge to this journal. I have submitted a paper and received a letter of acceptence with a bill. The editor said that I have to pay print charges in order to publish my paper.
What should I do?
Can I withdraw my paper?

PhD students would normally have journal fees covered by their institution. I don't think there's any need to formally withdraw the paper - just notify the editor that you were unaware there was a charge and you're declining to pay.

The link does not say authors can submit papers free of charge. They actually are upfront about the $40/page http://www.pphmj.com/journals/jpfpta_author_information.htm

If that is the journal in question, it perhaps bears pointing out that this is not the reputable "Journal of Fixed Point Theory and Applications" published by Springer, but rather a deceptively named knock-off, the "JP Journal of Fixed Point Theory and Applications"

@Mark: which is a common ruse of predatory journals and surprise: the publisher, Pushpa Publishing House, is in the lists Stop Predatory Journals and Bealls' list.

Yes, you may tell the editor that you were unaware of the author fees, and that since you can't pay it you are going to withdraw the paper. (They may agree to waive the fees, but if they don't, you certainly have the right to withdraw your paper and submit it elsewhere.)
In the future, you should check a journal's own instructions to authors rather than (or in addition to) third-party sites, which don't always have complete or up-to-date information about the journal.

There are some sneaky journals where you do not find out about the fee until after submission.  I wonder how often authors pay anyway, and how often they decline to pay.

Only fake journals use that kind of childish deception.

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


text:
Can I withdraw an accepted paper if the fees are higher than expected because the proof is longer?
I have received the acceptance of my paper from Editor board. However, the print charges is much higher than I expected. My original manuscript contained only 12 pages but the proof (final version), which was sent to me contains 24 pages. So the print charges are doubled.
Now I want to withdraw this paper. Is it ethical/acceptable/legal?

To be clear, did the increase in length stem from an increase in the content of the paper during peer review, or from changes in the formatting by the publisher? If the latter, what information did the publisher provide about the page charges? If they were thorough, they would have provided sufficient guidelines to get a good approximation of the printing charges. If they did and you didn't read them, then it's mostly your fault at this stage; if they didn't then they were being fairly unprofessional.

Related to @E.P.'s comment, if it was from formatting, did they provide a template for you to pre-format your paper in the journal format?  (This is common for journals that take LaTeX submissions.)

The question is whether you could reasonably know that the editing process extended the length of the paper. A factor of two is drastic.
I personally would check (on the web) whether people have complained about such practices of that journal before (i.e. whether it is something they play regularly) or whether the particular structure of your manuscript is especially prone to expand.
If you are a postdoc or a PhD student, you might argue that you expected a certain charge +- some corrections, but that you cannot possibly afford a complete doubling of the cost. As mentioned in the other answer, check that this is not something you could have known before, just to make sure. Nevertheless, if you indeed did not have access to their formatting styles prior to submission, I would consider it questionable practice by the journal if does not permit you to approximately estimate the cost prior to the whole process.
Assuming you could have not reasonably estimated that the page number is going to double, I do not see a problem to ask for a waiver of the difference to the expected cost or, if that's not possible, to withdraw.

Scientific publishing has a profitability margin - it is said - which competes with one achievable by criminal activity. To be fair, this sounds like a fallacy. I also have the same number of arms as most convicted felons, but that doesn't make me a criminal. We have plenty of valid arguments against publishers, so let us not resort to invalid ones. :)

You are right: it is a polemic. However: being editor/referee/author in quite a few venues/journals, I can say that while there are journals that provide professional quality service for which the cost is justified, there are outlets (even with so-called "reputable" publishers), where virtually everything is done by unpaid honour-based scientists, and the journal still costs a lot of money. Plus dodgy/unethical practices have been ramping up lately, and even in reputable outlets. Journals' high profitability may be just honest business; or it may due to us scientists being easy chumps.

I don't object to being polemic with publishers: I am myself, and I agree completely with you. I object to using invalid arguments against them.

Point taken. Perhaps I should have said that the high profitability of certain publishers (we do not know whether this is the case here) is difficult to explain with sound and ethical procedures (in fact, cases are known where they don't), and that therefore the OP should be wary whether the journal may be attempting unsound dealings with authors.  I have never ever seen page charges doubling, so this flagged my alarms. But perhaps the OP used 10pt, single-lined text filled to tight margins and the journal has a very loose style.

I have modified my polemics at the end of my answer; thank you, Federico, for helping to moderate my response.

I thank you for contributing to this site and fulfilling my suggestion!

@CaptainEmacs Could you please reread your third and fourth paragraphs? I'm not following your negative sentences properly, or possibly, I think you are actually saying the opposite of what you intend.

I am not sure whether I addressed your question, but I clarified a possible ambiguity in paragraph 3 and slightly amended the formulation.

You can absolutely withdraw the paper.  Predatory pricing is wrong; paying to publish is wrong. You should not be charged for producing academic content.  The readers should be willing to pay if your work is worth reading, and the review process should have made certain that it was worth reading.


text:
I would like to leave my math masters program for a PhD program. Will this reflect poorly on my PhD applications and if so how can this be mitigated?
I graduated with a bachelors gpa of 3.8+ and unfortunately got rejected from all PhD programs last cycle. I completed my entire undergraduate education in two year because some personal circumstances forced me to rush the degree.
I started a funded masters at a very poorly ranked institution thinking it could improve my PhD application and because I needed to leave home but they only have one faculty member remotely in my area of interest and do not offer the courseload I need.
I earned a 4.0 my first term at this masters but I do not feel I would benefit from continuing. On my PhD applications it is clear I did not fail out of this masters, and my statement of purpose explains that even faculty members at my school gave me PhD application advice for this cycle.
Is there anything else I can do to salvage the situation?

What country are you applying in? Some of it sounds like US and others not.

Apologies, I have only ever resided in the US and am applying to US schools.

I don't see anything wrong with applying to Ph.D. programs, especially if your current faculty are encouraging you.
That said, barring very unusual circumstances -- if your current program is fully funded and the professors are doing their best to help you, then I'd recommend you remain until you have lined up something better. Opportunities can be found at all schools, including poorly ranked ones. If you are unable to find courses or research opportunities in your favorite subject, why not branch out and try something different for the time being?
If your applications are unsuccessful this cycle, then accomplishing something impressive over the next year might help you next cycle. Good luck.


text:
Failed to achieve intended project outcome, what to put on design fair poster?
I have been working on an ultrasonic transducer technology for a while now. This project involves a very novel components that has not yet been established to work. Because of the novelty of this project, there were a lot of difficulty, and with the schools' design fair looming, our team have encountered a very delicate issue with power consumption which will require some time to find a solution.
So what the team has done is to apply a common, industry standard approach you can find anyone on the Internet. In essence, the novelty of this project is gone and has became something anyone could do.
We are a little unsure as to what we should demonstrate for the design fair. On the one hand we can show the technology working, but our poster has to reflect that it is nothing novel (in fact has been done in the year prior) and all components are off of the shelve. On the other hand we can show an incomplete project with the intended novel technique on the poster, but without anything to show for.
What should we do in this case?

progress/results so far, plus the issues still left to resolve, and maybe some hints at solutions that you're considering testing given the time & funding?

Details of exactly why what you have tried doesn't work, and suggestions as to what might?

" Future Work "

This sounds similar to the question What do I do if my results are not ready before a conference?.


text:
Is it possible to be admitted to an astrophysics graduate program with a finance background?
Does anyone know if any of the US universities (or European universities that teach classes in english) enrol students into their Masters program for Astronomy/Astrophysics without having a science background?
I am a 2nd yr graduate student about to finish my MBA in finance and info sys mngt. I work as a Business Analyst. However my dream has always been to pursue Astrophysics but was never able to, due to various circumstances. I am however at a point in my life that I feel burnt out being on this auto-pilot mode (mindlessly working a stable job to pay my bills) and wish to go back to school to study Astrophysics.
Do I have to thus start back from a Bachelors level and major in Physics in order to apply at a Masters program or are there universities that enroll candidates like me?
Any advice will be helpful - thanks in advance!

How much experience you have with astrophysics will change this answer dramatically. Normally, a computer scientist who wishes to switch to medicine is unlikely to have the biology/chemistry background to make the jump directly in. The same applies in this case from Finance to Astrophysics, which are very far apart on the knowledge spectrum.

Studying one subject is one thing and getting food on the table is another. Do you want to study Astrophysics or do you want to work as an Astrophysics scientist? Because having an MBA gives you much more chances of getting employment. On the other hand nothing stops you from studying Astrophysics on your free-time or part-time (e.g. Open University)

Please avoid abbreviations like "info sys mngt" which are not contextually obvious. I guess that stands for... information systems management?


text:
How do I politely ask a professor to contact another professor he knows to accept me as PhD student?
I sent an email to a professor for possible acceptance as a PhD student, but sometimes it takes too long to hear back.
I know another professor, that has a good knowledge (experience) with the first professor. Can I ask this second professor, in polite way, to contact the first one, and discuss with him whether to accept me as a student?
Is this possible? What should I say to the second professor?

Does the application process require a letter of recommendation? Here in the US, that is fairly common. That would be a perfect reason to ask.

@mikeazo Yes, It does. But this is another thing different. You need to contact some faculty member and get his\her agreement to take you as PhD student.This is separate part from the recommendation letter.

Are you suppose to contact the prof before or after you have already been admitted? If it is after, there is a good chance the prof has access to the admissions materials, including letter of recommendation. Another option would be, in contacting the prof, ask if they would like letters of recommendation. If they say yes, send the one from your current prof that they already know.

No before the admission, it's a part in the application form. But it seems, it is a good idea to ask if they need a litters of recommendation.

If you know the second professor well, there's no harm in hinting.
By "hinting", I mean, you're having a chat with Prof. 2, and you mention that you wrote to Prof 1 but haven't heard back.  Ask for Prof 2's advice -- for example, "Do you think I should try sending him a second email?"
If you're lucky, Prof 2 will at this point offer to speak up on your behalf with Prof 1.
If not, during this conversation you will hopefully get vibes in one direction or the other, and will know whether it would be worthwhile to make the request.
The worst that could happen would be that Prof 2 says no.
By the way, I hope you have tried re-sending your original email.  People are fallible, especially when it comes to answering email.

This exactly, the approach I followed yesterday, I told the second professor that, I applied to school XXX and facing an issue of getting potential adviser, he told me that, I know a couple of professors there, and he started by that one ( I named the 1st professor in my question), then he told me that he is a busy man, now he went to a conference he'll spend a couple of days there, and come, so you may expect to hear from him, in next few days. So, this really a good point, I couldn't know at all that professor, is on a conference, and I was thinking, about this now reply, as +ve or -ve.

Downvoted. There is absolutely nothing to be gained by being cagey.  Just ask directly.  They worst that can happen is the the second professor says no.

Let us of think of it from the point of view of the second professor.
If I were that second professor, I wouldn't bother slipping in this kind of a recommendation to my colleague, unless you possess a very high standing in my eyes, i.e. I'm familiar with your academic work and I feel that your academic profile (which includes the ability as I judged, not just where-you-did-what-from) makes too compelling a case to be turned away. But in that case, if you could impress me that much with your abilities in a fair way, I would argue to myself that you are academically sound enough to also be able to impress the other guy in a similar, fair manner. In that case, you could really make the cut yourself too, even without my recommendation. On the other hand, if I slip in that recommendation, and the other guy is stupid enough to simply take my word for it, and hire you on the basis of my word, and he/she later finds that you are not up to the mark for him/her, it is going to reflect badly on me too. So, that's another reason in favor of not doing it.
So, I think it is best not to take this route. An additional disadvantage could be, that you risk creating an image of a person who is willing to advance in his/her career on the strength of his/her connections, rather than the fair way. And this is never a good image to possess.
Hope that helps :)

The same reasons could be used for not writing official recommendation letters for any job search or grad school admission. Would you write those?

@JiK - Please note that recommendation letters for application are an official procedure, whereas what OP is intending to do is totally unofficial and behind-the-scenes. There is a difference. That being said, I have had my concerns about the rationale behind the former as well, but that's a separate personal bit. :)

authors: Евгения Матросова


text:
Using MHRA, do I need to cite a translator when referencing an online text?
My apologies in advance if this question is misplaced here. Using a reference like this (for online resourses)

Heraclitus, 'Fragments Of Heraclitus - Wikisource, The Free Online Library', En.wikisource.org, 2014 http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Fragments_of_Heraclitus#Fragment_1 [accessed 24 October 2014]

do I need to include somewhere that the translator is John Burnet? I assume so, but I cannot find anything in the style guide to indicate where I would put the translator (maybe just, "Heraclitus, translated by John Burnet, ..." ?).

One of the several reasons for citation is to give credit where credit is due.  Thus, you must cite the translator.  How to do so?  Just like you would an editor.

And also, the translator may have made/corrected a mistake from the original text that could be relevant.