text:
Is it a good idea to ask for details regarding an interview for a faculty position?
I applied for some faculty position in September 2021, and four days ago,  I received an email mentioning that

We have now started with the recruitment process and are pleased to
inform you that your application has been shortlisted.
Please let us know if you are still interested in order for us to
arrange an interview for you scheduled on XX-XX-XXXX [five days later].

I replied confirming that I still interested and will be available for the interview as scheduled.
However, no specific details were given for me regarding the interview, like how long it will last or whether I'm supposed to give a talk or not.
My interview is scheduled online.
Should I ask for the above details or just prepare for either case?
Is it also going to make a negative impression on my side if I ask such questions?

I think it is ok to ask what format it will take - just don't send multiple nagging emails. The best prep you can do is revisit all the info you have on the department/ institute, look at the student focused pages (what do they promise, who do they aim to attract) and look at some sample interview questions (best to get a friend to ask them for practice).
Be prepared for:

Tell us about your career to date (positive, achievement focused, not
too long)
Why are you interested in coming to X? How could you add to
our curriculum? What is your teaching philosophy ? How does your
research compliment what we do here at X?

Since you originally said that the interview is "tomorrow", it is probably too late to get any useful information, but I suspect that if they wanted a talk, other than a general chat about your research, then they would have made that clear. "Surprise" isn't a useful evaluation tool for potential faculty.
Given a longer time frame, say a week or so, it would be appropriate to ask if anything in particular is expected.
But, a discussion of research and teaching philosophy will likely occur. They will probably be looking at how you present yourself. They might even want you to meet a student (or a few).
But a formal talk would have been mentioned, so that they could, for example, advertise it locally.

It is going to be online actually, I forgot to mention this.

You still might have a few slides ready that you can share to support what you say, especially for questions about your research. Be careful not to exaggerate, though. But some things are easier to grasp when visualized.


text:
How to get access to university's library online resources as an independent researcher
I've recently found a place in industry and left academia after working there for more than 12 years.
I benefitted while in academia the free online access to online journals and research publications provided through my University's library. Now I have the only affiliation with my university as alumni and that's it.
What I am terribly missing now is that university's library online resources that are absent in my current industry job.
I checked with my university's library whether they provide any kind of paid/unpaid access to alumni, and they answered in 'No' due to the publishers requirements. My current industrial employer does not have membership of many of the top publishing platforms for instance IEEE, Nature etc. (paid memberships).
So, I tried to look around and checked with various public libraries, but they do not have the memberships of the publishers in which I have an interest in.
My question to you folks is: what you might suggest in these circumstances of mine that I get access to online paid research work? (Taking individual IEEE membership might be an option, but that is way expensive and still it would be providing me an access solely to this specific publisher. I can not buy individual memberships of many of the publishers). I am willing to pay though for membership of any library if they provide me wide access to paid online work. (I am U.S. based, BTW)
Any leads or workarounds would be quite beneficial for me.
Thank you in advance.

@Anyon That answer is quite helpful. Thank you for bringing it forward.

I run into a similar problem when I left the US to go to Uruguay. I survived with an IEEE and ACM membership and asking sometimes friends to make copies of articles we needed for joined research.
I am not sure what to make of your statement that you cannot afford an IEEE membership. If you went from academia to industry, you should have gotten more salary and be able to afford one (as well as an ACM membership if you are in computing.)
The other question I have is why you need to get this access for yourself. If your need is job related, you need to talk to your supervisor.
If you want to stay up in your field, you should really get an IEEE membership and start using the resources they give you.
Unfortunately, editors like Springer and Elsevier are really expensive. Even IEEE has this weird idea that a single article is worth $30.00 or so just for scanning whether the article has anything useful in it. This will slowly change as authors that want to be cited will more likely choose open access or just host their articles on their own websites where Google Scholar will find them. You can of course try to contact authors for a courtesy e-copy, but in my experience, finding an author's actual address is quite difficult. So, for the time being, you are stuck.

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text:
How do I speak with my professor about my mental health?
I'm an undergraduate in my junior year, and I've been having an especially bad month when it comes to my mental health and academic performance. Two weeks ago, I discovered that I had two midterms, one major project, and an 6-8 page essay due on the same day. I explained my workload to the professor who assigned the essay, and he was kind enough to give me an indefinite extension on the essay (as in, I could "turn it in whenever it was ready", although I assumed that 1-2 weeks was what he would prefer). Since I was granted that extension, I've completely flunked the major project and received C's on the two midterms, all of which I prepared extensively for once I didn't have to worry about the essay. The professor has started hinting that he'd like essays he gave extensions on (he gave extensions to about half the class, since a good 2/3 of our university got the flu around then) to be turned in soon, since he's expecting to receive more essays from another class he's teaching, and doesn't want to be overwhelmed by grading.
It's been two weeks since he gave me the extension. I've spent nearly all of those two weeks attempting to write the essay and then completely breaking down. I start thinking about how kind he was to give me an extension in the first place, and how, by not turning it in by now I'm taking advantage of his kindness, and how my reputation among my department's professors will be ruined. I think about how this essay has to be perfect, since I've completely failed my assignments for every other class, and I have to get this one thing right. I wrote 4 pages of the essay and then deleted them all. I wrote 3 pages of the same paragraph with slightly different wording each time in an attempt to get it perfect. My outline (for this 6-8 page paper!) is 7 pages long. But I have no paper, and I have other major midterms coming up that really just compound my panic over this.
So my question is: how do I talk about this issue with the professor? I want him to know that I'm not trying to take advantage of him or slack off, and that I do actually know the material (as my ridiculously detailed outline shows), but I feel like walking into his office hours and telling him about how my nightly panic attacks are keeping me from writing this essay is...inappropriate? Should I mention my mental health issues at all, or will that seem like some sort of weak excuse?

While the marked duplicate is about an exam, not an assignment, I believe the answers apply equally to your situation. Best of luck with your studies.

Nothing's been diagnosed (I've made an appointment with my university's counseling center, but they can't see me until next month), but I'm pretty certain it's anxiety. I'd also like to be clear and say that I'm not trying to go to my professor and say "I have a documented mental illness, so you have to give me more time"; I'm trying to figure out if mentioning my recent problems with my mental health is appropriate when I speak to him about what actions we should take next regarding my grade in this class/on this essay

If you believe this is a mental health issue, you should treat it as such. Your professor is not trained in dealing with mental health issues, your ADA office is. Talk to them and let them help you figure out the next step. They can help you communicate with your professors. (They can also tell you what documentation you'll need from the counseling center, which will be useful not just for this issue, but for future issues that may arise that may require extra accommodations.)

I voted to reopen because in the related question, the student was already diagnosed and in therapy.  On the other hand, technically, this question is not kosher because the student is an undergrad.  However, the problem as described could just as well be for a grad student.

You can see a medical doctor about your mental health problem, and you can go right away. // You will feel a whole lot better after you talk to someone about what's going on. Try calling your local Suicide and Crisis Service.  You need not be feeling suicidal to call. // Please find a supportive friend to accompany you to any meetings you have with professors and administrators about your difficulties. // You may want to consider withdrawing from a class. It can be beneficial to cut your losses and salvage part of your semester. // Although it might be hard, please, talk to your parents.

If your school has a Dean of Students' office, they will also be helpful in getting you to the right resources.

@aparente001: I know this is two years later than your comment, but - perhaps you should phrase that last comment without the words "you need to be suicidal"; there are at least three very bad ways that could be misconstrued.

@einpoklum - Not sure how it might be misconstrued, but I'm happy to rephrase that part.  I meant that "Suicide and Crisis" lines are often not restricted to people who are considering taking their own life.  Is that clearer?

@aparente001: Yes.

I wrote 3 pages of the same paragraph with slightly different wording each time in an attempt to get it perfect. — Don’t skip the initial vomit pass. Shitty first drafts are a life-saver!

A number of the things you mentioned you've been thinking about the situation, i.e. you're taking advantage of the teacher's kindness, how your reputation will be ruined etc possibly fall under the category of unhelpful thinking styles or cognitive distortions which are common misguided ways in which people think that often leads to an unhelpful outcome. People with depression and anxiety can be particularly bad at thinking in these misguided ways.
I would recommend seeing a professional mental health expert like a GP or Psychologist as soon as possible and not waiting one month for the councillor. There are lots of tools that professionals can teach to help manage stressful situations like these. Seeing a professional doesn't imply that there is anything wrong with you either. From your post, it seems like you're having a natural reaction to an incredibly high workload and that you haven't gone completely 'off the rails' so to speak. Seeing a professional can help prevent things from getting any worse.
In the meantime, I think the action you should take becomes clearer if you acknowledge that your previous thoughts might be the result of unhelpful thinking patterns. For example: You don't actually know that your reputation is going to be ruined. That impression is most likely the result of some assumptions about someone's reactions. In truth, there are a number of possible outcomes and it is futile to worry about the one possible negative outcome as if that outcome is certain.
I think that the best thing for you to do is to sit down and write out everything you need to do, how long roughly it will take to do and when you are going to do it. If you really need an extension, go and ask the teacher for one and explain the situation and the action you are taking to fix it.
You might find worksheets such as these useful to reduce anxiety levels about the perceived consequences of actions.

I agree with all of @NickTimSpurry's suggestions, but here are some more thoughts:
Don't overestimate the magnitude of kindness in the extension. Suppose you have a fence in your yard that needs repainting and you've arranged for some handyman to come do it. But - it's an area of the yard that you're not using and don't expect to use for months. So if you tell him "you can come paint the fence whenever you like" - you're being marginally kind; it's not as though it will hurt you in any way if he does it in a month from now. Also, you said most of the class got an extension; that means the timing was problematic to begin with.
A talk with the Professor doesn't have to be a "Help I'm having an emotional crisis" talk. While it's probable that breaking down while writing the paper has underlying issues you need to work out, it also is what it is - a problem writing a paper - so you can schedule a talk with your Professor telling him that you're having trouble with the paper and would like his help. In such a meeting you could bring up your ideas for the structure, and the gist of what you've done so far; and ask him concrete questions about any dilemma you may have had w.r.t. the actual content. But you also mention that writing the paper has been a very difficult experience for you emotionally / psychologically, that you feel frustrated and compelled to start over, and as time passes you're experiencing guilt for not having completed it yet.
If you frame your situation this way, it's now: 1. Part of a wider conversation 2. Not putting the Professor in a position of having to solve your psychological problem - but rather of giving advice through the angle of the paper 3. A bit detached, as though you're telling him about the experiences of some third party writing the paper, and that might be easier for him to process and for you to say out loud.
So even though you might not be able to communicate/share the full depth of what you feel, the partial sharing is safer (in terms of how he might react) and already in itself useful emotionally for you. And this I say from experience with anxiety/depression myself.

As a fellow full_time student in undergrad (one of the top universities in the world, to give you a reference of stress), I very much sympathize with your situation.
My official point:
Speaking about mental health to your professors and maintaining open dialogue can help strengthen the discourse surrounding mental health on campuses and let the professor know of your situation. During particular times of the year and especially when it turns into exam season, I will not disagree that what you feel is valid and true to yourself. I would also suggest you reach out to your student academic success centre (what I call it at my university) and see if you can book an appointment with their wellness counsellor, or if your program has a student association, let them know about your situation and see if they can bring it up to the Faculty or a particular professor (if you don't want to approach the professor yourself ). There are always people to help as long as you seek them out. Connect with friends and perhaps any clubs you're involved in and try to take a breather, even for a minute or two, look away from your computer or paper, and take in the moment. Social connection helps to reduce anxiety. I don't think I need citations to corroborate this. You can find more of these little tips if you check in with your school's student unions, student associations, clubs, study groups/hubs, etc. or other related places on campus. No matter how hard we are struggling in the moment, we can always pull through. For now, I wish you success and wellness through all your academic endeavours!

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text:
Non-mathematician thesis advisor
I'm a second year graduate school mathematics student. Due to my university regulation, I didn't have a thesis advisor yet. During my first year of grad school, I passed Qualification exam. So this year soon, I have to choose a professor as my thesis advisor(Tutor, guide). I attended some several course only related to pure mathematics such as PDE(Partial differential equation), Numerical mathematics analysis, Mathematical statistics, Real analysis, and Abstract algebra.
As you all know, choosing an thesis advisor is the crucial time in my mathematics life. But it is (generally) hard to decide what the field which professor I choose. But in the first year, I have some professor in mind from their lecture.
One professor, his major is Stochastic PDE(SPDE) which is pure mathematics. The other person is majoring in climate change specialized in El nino(ENSO) and la Nina who is a joint professor from School of Environmental Science and Engineering(JA). I went to both professor, SPDE twice, JA once. And I noticed that two professor are joining their work(co-working) these days, and are very close.
I got some comments from them :

First joint professor said(in short) : Welcome. But I'm almost
unaware of mathematics. So I can't help you in math field. If you
want you can work jointly with SPDE professor.
Second, SPDE professor said : Welcome. But you'd better go to JA. If
you really want, I can accept you. (After I asked I need his help on
studying mathematics if I choose JA) I don't know I can help you. The area is
different so that the basic language is different.

In this point, I have two questions.

Are there some cases that a math student choose a non-mathematician thesis advisor? My final goal is to be a professor. Then is there any drawback?
Any suggestion for me? I'm a little nervous. If I choose JA, it must be a big challenge for me. I haven't learnt 'Climate theory'.

Thanks in advance.

It seems to me that some language problems make your post a little unclear: for instance, in your last comment you wrote "until end of February," but I'm guessing you meant "by the end of February."  I'm sympathetic to that, but I wonder whether there may also be communication problems between you and your advisors (or do you speak in your native language with them)?  Also I notice you avoided saying thesis advisor: are you writing a thesis?  Are you a master's student or a PhD student?  Anyway, as @Morgan said, neither 1. nor 2. sounds like a good fit: time to move on to the rest?

Anyway, just to weigh in on your precise question: there must have been a math student who had (only) a non-mathematician as her primary advisor and for whom the arrangement worked out well, but as a general rule this seems like a very bad idea.

@PeteL.Clark Thanks for comment. It must be thesis advisor. I'm a Ph.d student. Right. It should be by. And the professors and I spoke my native language. Why do you think two professors are not a good fit?

@kayak Well, both of them seem unable and unwilling to advise you

@sgf I made their answer brief. I felt they welcome me.

@Buzz Hi. I really want to hear your story. If okay, please answer to my questions.

@kayak: As others have said, it seems that neither wants to advise you.  But to be honest, I don't feel that I understand your situation clearly.  For instance, you characterize the two professors as being collaborators, but the way they describe each other's fields makes it sound like they have almost no common ground.  Also you don't say that you are especially interested in the mathematics of climate theory, and you took courses in several other topics.  So why not approach these other professors and find one who is enthusiastic to work with you?

First, you need to read some climate theory papers to see what sort of math is involved.  Then, if you still want to work with the climate theorist, you may need to declare an applied math concentration, or switch to an applied math field.  Please note that the questions you posed here can be posed to your department's director of graduate studies too, and s/he will be in a better position to advise you.  (My advisor's home department was not the same as mine (applied math), but he did have some kind of no-salary joint appointment in applied math.  Note, there are rules about outside advisors.

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text:
Do conference abstracts by other groups preclude publication?
N.B. This question is about physics (if you want it really specific: applied physics, adjacent to chemistry). This means that (a) abstracts are typically very short compared to a full paper (around 1-2 pages including references and not more than one figure) and (b) peer review is rather weak (typically all done by members of the technical program committee, with very high acceptance and revisions often either optional or non-existent). I am aware that this might look very different in other fields (e.g. CS).
Does a such a conference abstract establish a "claim" to an idea? More specifically, if another competing group, who are working on fleshing out the same idea independently, submits a full journal paper, would the idea not be considered novel anymore?
Some thoughts on why I personally find some of the implications of the latter case (conference abstract implies claim to the idea) a bit strange:
(a) It appears to me that it would then be very easy to "put a towel" on ideas by doing minimal work and getting out an abstract at some conference (the presentation is unlikely to be public, so really only the abstract is seen by most people) - at which point it becomes "your" idea, no matter who is already working on it or when/if you plan to deliver a full paper. This also seems to favour groups which can actually afford to send people to conferences (which are almost always cost travel + registration), which of course can be an issue in some places.
(b) When there is some overlap between the authors of the conference abstract and the full paper it suddenly becomes completely fine - so basically, to get past the novelty issues the group with the full paper could ask some author(s) of the conference abstract to be an author on the journal paper (no matter what they had actually done apart from having the same idea). Seems to encourage odd authorship practices.
(c) Ideas that were abandoned by the group authoring the abstract for whatever reason (even just mundane ones such as running out of money) may never be published as full papers. After all, it becomes somewhat unattractive (at least career-wise) to work on something which the reviewers/editors of a journal would not consider novel.
And in the former case (conference abstract does not mean you claim the idea): How (if at all) should the conference abstract be mentioned/referenced in a full paper (also as own conference abstracts are not normally referenced again in a full paper)?  If it should be referenced, should one somehow point out that the reference is indeed not to a full paper but something that is ongoing/unfinished work?

This could probably be a lot shorter.

Typically, not even prior full publications by another group preclude your publishing something. Chances are that you would have a different twist on the same central idea, evidence from a different system, etc.

Scooping is a horror story for undergrads. The truth is that thousands of similar papers are published, there is space for everyone.

I'm not sure that this will answer all your concerns, but note that publishing an idea doesn't give you "ownership" of it, nor does it put a block on other related or parallel research. Ideas aren't owned at all. Certain expressions can be copyrighted and devices can be patented, but that is a time-limited set of rights over the expressions or devices.
What prior publication does give you is the right to be recognized and cited for introducing the idea, though if it is presented in an abstract form without evidence that might have little value.
The question as to whether a later publication of a full paper, following an abstract and publication of another paper, is "novel" enough for publication is a judgement made in individual cases by the reviewers and editors of the publisher. It isn't a judgment that has a universal decision so can't be made here.
So, no, you don't set a marker for others with an abstract, preventing them from extending their, and your, work. To turn it around, someone else's abstract doesn't halt your work, though you may need to provide appropriate citations to what has been published. And in this case as well, the reviewers and editors need to be convinced.
If someone "scoops" you, a common occurrence, you have the option of further extending the ideas in the current state of the art adding sufficient novelty to please the reviewers. It is how academia and science, (perhaps) especially, functions.

Journal and conference publications are based on peer reviews and "peer" editors. The decision makers know their field just as well as you and possibly better. Any attempt to "game the system" by pushing out announcements in order to stake claims would probably be recognized.
Imagine yourself asked to review the paper in your description. You can look at the time and often easily tell whether the ideas in the abstract were had first by one or the other group. They also know that working independently on similar project is common. The customs of your fields dictate how this is handled. For example, in Pure Mathematics of the 20th century, both groups (more likely individuals) would get a letter asking them to submit a single paper. In an age of expanded publication avenues, parallel papers are probably more acceptable, as it is unlikely that the publications would be almost identical in scope.


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Avoiding the appearance of name dropping in fellowship applications
When describing my research experience in fellowship applications, I will write something to the extent of "I began pursuing 'item X' under 'Professor Y'." Of course, I follow up with why I found the experience meaningful, and what my role was.
However, I have received feedback from at least two different sources saying that this name dropping is frowned upon, and that if I have a panelist who hates this, that it will torpedo my application.
In my mind, the person I am working with may be relevant if a panelist knows of their work. However, at the same time, a fellowship is about me. Is there a good reason to include the names of the PI's, and if so how can that be written? Or is it truly safer to just remove the names of PI's, especially if they are someone famous (e.g. an NAE/NAS member)?

Namedropping is impolite over burgers at a picnic.  It's entirely appropriate in professional documents where you are supposed to sell yourself by proudly putting your best foot forward.  However, there might be something about the way you did it that might put a reader off.  Could you find a career placement center at your institution to look it over and help you edit it?  The sort of office that helps with reviewing people's CVs?

To be clear, this is in a fellowship (NSF GRFP) personal statement essay, rather than CV. I did use almost the exact language as stated in my question, and I do find it appropriate based on my academic upbringing. However, if even one panelists doesn't agree, I'm not sure it's worth the risk. Thus, it seems wise to be extremely cautious. I can ask a career center representative, but I'm skeptical they (especially as a non-academic with no familiarity with the fellowship) will really know more about this.

I see what you mean.  Is there a professor you could run it past?

I would view it as rather strange if a supervised research project were described without mentioning who the supervisor was.  It would sound as if there had been no supervision and you were just doing the research entirely on your own (with no controls on the quality of the research).

The term "name dropping" represents an excessive use of auxiliary authoritative figures, with no justification or substantive basis, to promote one's image.
This means that if you say that you worked closely with Figure X, and you haven't, you are name dropping. But if you did work closely with Figure X, it is not name dropping to mention him/her. That is, a name dropper is an imposter, while someone who lists relevant names with sufficient justification is not a name dropper.
Hence, the advice you got from your colleagues regarding "a panel that hates name dropping will kill your application" is probably misguided and false.


text:
How has the current governmental funding affected NSF GRFP?
As I was reading about the NSF GRFP, I came across this article detailing how the GRFP would be significantly defunded as per the governmental budget at the time.
I'm sure the landscape has changed since May. However, I haven't seen any followup articles. I also notice that within the solicitation for the GRFP, it states the following:
"The NSF expects to award 2,000 Graduate Research Fellowships per fiscal year under this program solicitation pending availability of
funds."
However, I am not aware of a way to check the funding for these awards. Can anyone confirm that the number of GRFP awards will be halved this coming cycle?

There is no final decision yet, but the following commentary from the American Institute of Physics suggests that there might not be major changes to the size of the program:

Of particular note, the Senate report does not accept the administration’s request to reduce funding for the Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP), and “instead provides the fiscal year 2017 funding level” for the program. The administration has requested to halve the number of new participants to 1,000. It is unclear if the Senate directive applies to GRFP funding allocated through the research directorates or just EHR funds.

It is worth noting that these changes would apply to the next cycle, not the current one.


text:
What are characteristics of "high quality" graduate research as viewed by a hiring committee?
When discussing the ability for a faculty candidate to find a job, SE users often say that the quality of graduate research overshadows the prestige of the school at which they received a graduate degree. As viewed by a a hiring committee, what are characteristics of "high quality" research?

Ultimately quality is a judgement call that every reader gets to make.
For example, a paper in mathematics might be considered to be "high quality" to half a dozen people worldwide who happen to be interested in the main result of the paper (or other work). Especially if the question has been open for a while. But other mathematicians may just say "meh" because that result neither interests them specifically, nor advances their own studies.
Reviewers at journals and conferences need to be able to make such judgements and, generally, they do a good job and we respect those judgments when we find published papers. But not everything that is published is of high quality.
But, some of the criteria that reviewers and others will use are as follows.
Is the solution correct? And reproducible?
Is the problem long standing? Or does it break new ground?
Does it open new areas of research?
Is it novel in some sense? Or just an easy derivation from what is already known?
Could I have done this easily? Or does it surprise me in some way?
Is the result widely helpful to either researchers or society as a whole?
Note that all of the above are judgement calls and all imply some scale with, not interesting at one end and very interesting at the other.
But I think the real intent of what you have read, is that it is more important what you do in your research than the general reputation of the place in which you do it. Reputation is based on many things, not all of which are directly relevant to the quality of research. In particular some places that seem quiet generally may be hotbeds of ideas in some niche of some field.
And note that hiring committees may rely on the judgements of others, such as the work being published. They might also rely on just the judgements of writers of letters of recommendations if those writers themselves are in a position both to know and to be honest. But they might also, in some cases, rely on their own judgement. "Well, yes, this is interesting, but not interesting to us at this time."

The UK has an official answer that might be of use. In particular, the general criteria are:

• scientific rigour and excellence, with regard to design, method, execution and analysis
  • significant addition to knowledge and to the conceptual framework of the field
  • actual significance of the research
  • the scale, challenge and logistical difficulty posed by the research
  • the logical coherence of argument
  • contribution to theory-building
  • significance of work to advance knowledge, skills, understanding and
  scholarship in theory, practice, education, management and/or policy
  • applicability and significance to the relevant service users and research users
  • potential applicability for policy in, for example, health, healthcare, public
  health, food security, animal health or welfare.

There are also specific criteria for each quality level for the various panels (which I have merged):

In assessing work as being four star (quality that is world-leading in terms of originality, significance and rigour), sub-panels will expect to see evidence of, or potential for, some of the following types of characteristics:
  • agenda-setting
  • research that is leading or at the forefront of the research area
  • great novelty in developing new thinking, new techniques or novel results
  • major influence on a research theme or field
  • developing new paradigms or fundamental new concepts for research
  • major changes in policy or practice
  • major influence on processes, production and management
  • major influence on user engagement
  • outstandingly novel in developing concepts, paradigms, techniques or outcomes
  • a primary or essential point of reference
  • a formative influence on the intellectual agenda
  • application of exceptionally rigorous research design and techniques of investigation and analysis
  • generation of an exceptionally significant data set or research resource.
  • a primary or essential point of reference
  • of profound influence
  • instrumental in developing new thinking, practices, paradigms, policies or audiences
  • a major expansion of the range and the depth of research and its application
  • outstandingly novel, innovative and/or creative.
In assessing work as being three star (quality that is internationally excellent in terms of originality, significance and rigour but which falls short of the highest standards of excellence), sub-panels will expect to see evidence of, or potential for, some of the following types of characteristics:
  • makes important contributions to the field at an international standard
  • contributes important knowledge, ideas and techniques which are likely to have a lasting influence, but are not necessarily leading to fundamental new concepts
  • significant changes to policies or practices
  • significant influence on processes, production and management
  • significant influence on user engagement
  • novel in developing concepts, paradigms, techniques or outcomes
  • an important point of reference
  • contributing very important knowledge, ideas and techniques which are likely to have a lasting influence on the intellectual agenda
  • application of robust and appropriate research design and techniques of investigation and analysis
  • generation of a substantial data set or research resource.
  • an important point of reference
  • of considerable influence
  • a catalyst for, or important contribution to, new thinking, practices, paradigms, policies or audiences
  • a significant expansion of the range and the depth of research and its application
  • significantly novel or innovative or creative
In assessing work as being two star (quality that is recognised internationally in terms of originality, significance and rigour), sub-panels will expect to see evidence of, or potential for, some of the following types of characteristics:
  • provides useful knowledge and influences the field
  • involves incremental advances, which might include new knowledge which conforms with existing ideas and paradigms, or model calculations using established techniques or approaches
  • influence on policy or practice
  • influence on processes, production and management
  • influence on user engagement.
  • providing important knowledge and the application of such knowledge
  • contributing to incremental and cumulative advances in knowledge
  • thorough and professional application of appropriate research design and techniques of investigation and analysis.
  • a recognised point of reference
  • of some influence
  • an incremental and cumulative advance on thinking, practices, paradigms, policies or audiences
  • a useful contribution to the range or depth of research and its application.
In assessing work as being one star (quality that is recognised nationally in terms of originality, significance and rigour), sub-panels will expect to see evidence of, or potential for, some of the following types of characteristics:
  • useful but unlikely to have more than a minor influence in the field
  • minor influence on policy or practice
  • minor influence on processes, production and management
  • minor influence on user engagement.
  • providing useful knowledge, but unlikely to have more than a minor influence
  • an identifiable contribution to understanding, but largely framed by existing paradigms or traditions of enquiry
  • competent application of appropriate research design and techniques of investigation and analysis.
  • an identifiable contribution to understanding without advancing existing paradigms of enquiry or practice
  • of minor influence.

It's published in a reputable journal or reputable book press.  "Reputable" means it has a reputation for having some quality control, as opposed to a predatory publisher.

But that often doesn't come until later.

@Buffy Maybe in your field, but in my field new faculty often have 30+ publications in reputable journals.

I'll guess yours is less the norm, though. But, certainly, it varies by field.

I generally find that, as long as the journal is reputable, that there is not a dramatic difference in paper "quality" for many papers in a higher impact journal versus a mid range journal in my area. Some of the papers in higher impact journals maybe fancier, but that doesn't make them higher quality.

Peer reviewed conference papers count as journal articles in, for example, CS.

Downvoted.  The quality of any particular research paper is at best only loosely correlated with the reputation of the publication venue.  Some papers on arXiv have stellar quality; some papers in Science are sensationalist garbage.

@JeffE I agree with you and User2341 and have clarified what I meant by "reputable."  I didn't mean impact factor.  It's true that in some communities arXiv preprints can substitute for journal publications, but that's a tiny portion of academia.

@JeffE however, this discussion is not about the objective quality of research papers but about what hiring committees look for - and I can certainly imagine many hiring committees which will really prefer candidates with some sensationalist garbage in Science, and not care about stellar papers on arXiv. It's also quite plausible that they won't read any of these papers in detail, they won't try to evaluate the merits of any particular paper, but they'll look at general metrics - the impact factors, citation rates and other external proxies, so that is what will matter for hiring.

@Peteris I'd say almost certain they won't read papers and they also might not bother to look at metrics.

Let me be more clear: Most hiring committees recognize that some papers on arXiv have stellar quality, and some papers in Science are sensationalist garbage (if they're in fields that use either arXiv or Science).


text:
Should I put an apostrophe to indicate a plural or past tenses?
Technically, plurals shouldn't be indicated with apostrophes.
However, in maths and computer science textbooks, I've often seen people write things like "if we combine the x's and y's" or "string A is the same as string B xor'd with string C".
Is that right? Should I adopt this convention when writing an academic paper, or is there a better way?

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is better suited to [english.se].

@BrianTompsett-汤莱恩 Have a look at this meta discussion: http://meta.academia.stackexchange.com/a/1553/20058 I think that this question is in a grey area and it could be on-topic on both sites. My experience with ELU.SE, though limited, is that questions related to technical usage frequently receive wrong answers from non technical users or, at least, there is a lot of noise.

Closely related questions have previously been asked at MathOverflow — http://mathoverflow.net/questions/192173/ —and English Language and Usage — http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/25277/ .  The MathOverflow one is closer to this, being also in the specific context of technical writing; however, the answers at EL&U are generally a bit better informed and sourced.

The Cambridge guide to English usage by Pam Peters has a long discussion on the usage of the apostrophe in the case of plural nouns. For what concerns your example, under the section Apostrophes, it says:

Single letter in lower case still usually mark the plural with apostrophes, as in Dot the i's and cross the t's

The purpose is that of highlighting that you have the plural of a word composed of a single letter. However, under the section Letters as words there is the following remark:

Yet even the apostrophe is unnecessary if italics are used and the plural s itself is in roman.

Though the above remark is probably meant for ordinary text, in mathematics variables are commonly typeset in italics, and I think that the above remark can be applied as well.
According to the above, I'd say that the apostrophes in your first example cannot be considered wrong, but they are actually unnecessary.
In LaTeX, I'd then write
your first example as
if we combine the $x$s and $y$s

Instead, in the past tense of your second example the apostrophe marks the elision of the letter e, and in this case it is required: xored -> xor'd.

The plural.
Pluralization with apostrophes is relatively common as you have noticed, but some authors find it distasteful and some readers find it jarring. Still, it is widespread enough not to be viewed as erroneous, so it is up to you to form your own view on the matter. One work-around is to enclose the variable in quotes, for instance,

If we combine the ‘x’s and the ‘y’s, we obtain ...

This has the disadvantage of introducing inconsistency with unpluralized variables.

Notice that there are many ‘a’s but only one b.

A second option is simply not to use the apostrophe, but if your italic type is similar to your Roman type (or if it is merely an oblique of the Roman), then it may introduce ambiguities.

Compare the many cs with the C-sum, cs.

This can also cause problems for blind users who rely on screen readers.
Alternatively, it may be preferable to rewrite the sentence entirely.

By taking each x in turn, we find that ...

The past (specifically the preterite) tense.
Historically, in English, -'d (or -'t) is how the preterite tense was spelt on all (regular) weak Germanic verbs, with the use of -ed (sometimes -èd in older works) only a relatively recent phenomenon. (It is logical, since we only pronounce the ‘d’ anyway, and using -ed leads to confusion, between words such as learned and learned.)
For instance if you read any Shakespeare, you will see he preferred to use -'d.

What's in a name? That which we call a rose
  By any other word would smell as sweet;
  So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
  Retain that dear perfection which he owes
  Without that title.

As you say, it remains relatively common in modern English where an author has taken a noun, formed it into a verb, and then rendered it into the preterite tense.

The bottleneck was where he pop'd the variable off the stack.

If we wanted to write this with -ed, we would have to spell it as popped (as poped is pronounced like pope'd). But the assembly instruction is pop, not popp, so this could lead to ambiguity or confusion.

"Taken a noun, formed it into a verb, ...": "Pop was a verb long before it was (mis?)used as a noun in connection with stacks. So I'd write "popped" in that example.


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Is just 'being interested in the topic' a bad reason to do a PhD?
I've got an offer to do a PhD at a great uni in the UK, in a scientific topic I find really interesting because of some courses I've taken at Master's level.
My dissertation advisor seems to think that being interested in a topic isn't strong enough as a motivation, and that I should be passionate about the topic and have a clear idea of why I want to study it and what it will lead me into.
I wouldn't say I'm passionate about this topic, but I wouldn't say I've studied anything in enough detail to be passionate about anything in particular yet. All I know is that I found this topic interesting and stimulating. People usually get passionate about things when they start doing them at a really high level, which I haven't had a chance to do yet.
Regarding what it would lead me into - I don't know exactly what I want to do in life yet, but research really appeals to me, and so does academia.
Is this reason enough to accept the offer, or should I reject it and wait until I become passionate about a particular area and know exactly what I want to do in life?

That's nonsense. Passion helps with any job, but at the end of the day, research is just that as well: a job (just a really nice one). As long as you're aware of the downsides too (e.g., less salary than industry almost certainly at equal level of qualification), and accept them, "burning passion" is a nice-to-have clishe, but no must-have.

To be a bit snarky towards your professor, I don't think that we can truly answer this question until we have some sort of passion-ometer that can distinguish degrees of caring.  How much interest is "enough" is just not quantifiable.
That said, there really does seem to be a qualitative difference in how people do in a Ph.D. based on their degree of motivation to be in the program.  There are lots of good things to do with one's life that are much more short-term rewarding than doing a Ph.D.  Thus, people who enter a Ph.D. program just because it seems like a reasonable next thing to do with their lives are likely to run into difficulty and end up exiting to one of those other nice alternatives.  People who are having trouble but do not have alternatives and feel trapped in their program (e.g., due to visa issues) are at a strong risk for harm to themselves or others, up to and including suicide or violence.
But passion for a particular topic isn't a make or break.  I think the key is whether a person finds the ongoing struggle of research rewarding.  If you find that you have a taste for that, a Ph.D. is a good idea; if you don't, it's probably a bad idea.
And it's difficult to really know until you've really engaged with some big research or engineering projects.  If you have, you probably know if you've enjoyed them enough to make a life out of it, whether you stick with a particular topic or end up shifting over time (as most active researchers do eventually, as their original topics either succeed or hit dead ends).  If you haven't ever really engaged with research before, I would recommend getting involved in some research first before making the longer commitment to a Ph.D.---although a 3-year UK Ph.D. is short and focused enough that such a preface might not be necessary.

In the end, I've been offered another place at another good (but not quite as prestigious) place, in a topic I keep up to date with and would love to learn more about, that includes a master's by research year before the PhD starts so I can get some research experience (which I don't have) before committing to the 3-year PhD, with a higher salary. Overall, I think these things all make up for the difference in prestige. Thanks for your insightful comment!


text:
What are academic conference centers doing to limit their climate impact?
This question is about what I call academic conference centers, by which I mean research centers whose purpose is to welcome international researchers for short-term thematic stays. Examples of such centers in mathematics and theoretical computer science include Dagstuhl, Oberwolfach, and the CIRM (not a complete list). These centers are specifically for academic researchers (i.e., they are not general-purpose hotels or convention centers), and typically have a scientific board who select which events to organize from a list of proposals submitted by reseachers. I'm sure similar centers exist in other fields that I'm less familiar with.
Given that international travel by plane significantly contributes to climate change, some researchers and research groups are trying to limit their plane travel, in particular short international trips. My question is: what are academic conference centers doing to mitigate the climate impact of the activities that they organize?
Specifically, CIRM is now advertising two measures intended to reduce the carbon footprint of their events:

Fortnight events, where they encourage event organizers to couple their one-week event at CIRM together with another adjacent week, e.g., for a conference, so that participants stay for two weeks instead of one.
Mirror conferences, where they encourage conference proposals intended to organize simultaneous events co-hosted between CIRM and another such center elsewhere in the world, with participants attending by traveling to the closest local hub.

Another example are centers who aim at welcoming researchers over longer periods, e.g., a semester-long sabbatical, like the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing.
I was interested whether similar initiatives existed in academic conference centers in other academic fields.

This isn't a question about academia. And there are too many instances to say anything useful here. They do what they think they should, or not.

I'm going to disagree here, Buffy, and I'm usually very liberal with close votes. Academics are typically the majority or exclusive organizers of events at the listed centers. In that way these centers' behavior and policies impact anybody who might think to host an event at them.

That is a fair point. There are a number of centers that are solely academic. I have retracted my vote.

Thanks everyone for your comments. Indeed, my question specifically asks about academic conference centers. Still, the question has been closed... I'm not sure why, or how to improve it. :(

@StephanKolassa: the examples I give are centers that exclusively cater to academic events and are run by academics to some degree. They are completely different from general-purpose convention centers.


text:
I found out my master's thesis topic has already been done (exactly), and my advisor didn't mention this when suggesting it to me - how to proceed?
I am really frustrated, I have started my research for my master thesis 6 months ago and I have to submit the final draft after 2 months.
I was interested in a specific topic and I looked for a supervisor with the same research interests.
I was looking for something related to internet security (Botnet Detection); luckily, my supervisor gave me a research plan exactly about what I wanted to do. However, a month later and after I submitted the proposal and started to read deeply about the topic; I found that exactly the same research had already done by another two PhD students and what I was supposed to do was 100% repeating what they already had done 2 years ago.
I directly contacted my supervisor explaining to him the situation. I discovered that my research plan is exactly the same (word by word, someone copied from other). Moreover, the topic itself is very specific and is not easy to build or modify on it, he said "No problem, you just repeat it and we will try to slightly modify something.", then he added "If you can not do that, it is enough to repeat it." and I just agreed (trying to be positive and avoiding problems).
Now, after I started my writing I found myself repeating the same ideas and the same experiments, the same statements and the same conclusions. Later on, I discovered that this research supposed to be done by adviser with the group who already published the work and for some reasons they excluded him.
In short, the supervisor did not mention that this work is already published and did not mention that he was team member with them.
What I shall do?
Now I feel this work is 100% not original and I will not add and contribute anything. I am not feeling happy by wasting my time doing something like that.
Shall I escalate the story to the general adviser for master's students? Should I change the topic or should I continue and defend others work claiming that this is my own work?
I am not scared of rejecting my thesis, I am totally not satisfied about what I do write now. I am doing my masters to add something to my knowledge, experience and to feel really I will be one step a head.
Note: I work in industry field and I have no experience in academic and research fields.

What's this "research plan" you say is copied - could that have come from a grant proposal your advisor was a participant in with this other group?

You say in the title that your advisor already knew that the topic had been treated before, but there's nothing in your question to back that up.

this title has been modified by someone else....

If you're not sure, you should definitely find out for certain whether or not your advisor knew before suggesting the topic to you, that the work had already been published by someone else.

Can you extend the time of your thesis defense? For instance, to register for another semester, so you will have time to think about modifying your thesis to reach something new?

Is this a "taught masters", where you take classes for 2-3 semesters and then do a final project, or is it a "research masters", where pretty much all you do is research (aside from perhaps a class or two)? If it's the former, then what you have described may not be an issue.

Have you raised your concerns with your advisor?

That's a great excuse to quit academia.

Note that there is no way anyone knows about your precise situation, except you and your advisor, so I am making some wild guesses on what actually happened.
Perhaps your advisor is hoping to have an efficient implementation of the ideas / algorithms already expressed on the past paper, with the notion that he (or you and him) may later build on your implementation to create something new. In order to create anything new, you have to compare with existing approaches and therefore you still have to implement previous methods. He has given you two options a) Try to expand the ideas of the past paper b) If you cannot do that, just creating a NEW implementation of the original paper is enough for him. This is a MSc thesis and not all MSc theses lead to publishable results. But it still seems like an important project and as such, it seems it could still turn out to be a good MSc thesis and you will have a lot to learn from it.
So, your main problem is that you think that you cannot expand the original paper to new directions. But if you want to do research this is exactly what you are going to have to do. You should find a topic that interests you ("my supervisor gave a research plan exactly about what i want to do"), study previous literature (which you should have done before choosing the topic) and then expand on previous ideas. Note that since you have worked in industry, you may as well be a better programmer than those 2 PHD students and therefore your implementation might be much more efficient than theirs. This is still a significant contribution which may eventually be published.
My advice:

Talk to your advisor and state your doubts and clarify the situation.
Implement the paper's ideas as fast and efficient as possible
Compare your implementation with the paper's results. You should at least aim for a more efficient implementation
Check related literature that cites this paper. Is this paper, still state-of-the-art? Is this paper cited by anyone? This will show if this project has been picked up by anyone. If it is not, it is reasonable that your advisor wants to build upon the previous paper to further expand it. If someone has extended it or applied it to other use-cases, your assumption that it cannot be improved is wrong and you should think what you can do to further expand it. Either way, you will have an answer about how to proceed.
Think of any other possible improvements, what else could be done better, in a more efficient way or how this idea could be used in other use-cases.

Also, you have learnt a valuable lesson. What you want to do in research should correlate with what is already been done. You should study previous research very carefully and exhaustively. If you believe that previous works have already done everything to perfection (which BTW is rarely the case) then you should choose a new topic. Otherwise you are the one that should think what can be improved. I think you pretty much expected that your advisor had a new research idea waiting just for you and all you needed to do was just to implement it. But this was really an unrealistic expectation on your part.

Your answer seems to sidestep the issue that the OP's advisor may be committing some kind of academic fraud: e.g. he provided the OP with a research plan that was copied word for word from a preexisting research plan and did not mention this to the OP.  It seems to me that any good answer to this question should engage with this point (more than just admonishing the OP to check the literature more carefully: he did check the literature, which is how he found out about this).

@PeteL.Clark That is why I propose to clarify the situation with the advisor. Is there anything else anyone can do? Or do you directly suggest that he selects another advisor and a new topic?

I don't know: it's hard to argue against tying to clarify the situation.  But you give a lot of specific ("spastic"??) advice to the OP about how to carry through this project, and to me it seems totally unclear whether he should continue to work on this project and/or with this advisor.  And you seem to want view the OP as being at fault here: I also find that less than clear.  If we suspect that the advisor may have done something inappropriate, shouldn't we discuss that explicitly?

I do not say that I need something ready to implement. I can easily re do the same implementation and do or even fake some slight modification, then it will be fine. the main point is that not what i was looking for and now I have to accept less than what i hoped. plus why the adviser did that? my feeling from the few discussions with him is that he is trying to use me to carefully study their research in order to find something wrong in that paper or maybe what i notice is that he is very busy and he wants to give something almost ready so he will not spend much time with me

however, this is could be wrong, and maybe he did not know that the paper is already published. Now if I want to change the topic I have to extend my master one more semester (another 6 months). what I will do now is something I do not like which make my performance very low. thanks

For a master's thesis it is nice but not completely essential to do something original.  I'm sorry that it feels like you're rediscovering what is already known.
Now that you're in that situation, though, the best option is likely to write your results as a test of the published results or a comparison between the published results and something else.  For example, you can use different data, compare some aspect that wasn't covered before (resource usage?), write more of a review or try to get different other partial/possible solutions running to compare against.  Is the other code open source?  If not, open-source yours (assuming your advisor is okay with it).  Are there missing steps that are important?  Describe them well.
Also, although it feels like a waste of time to repeat the same stuff (and often it is), there is a benefit to thoroughly testing out and verifying what is supposedly known.  Just because something's published it isn't necessarily true or useful or accurate.  In this case from what you've said it sounds like it is--but if you believe this was useful work for someone to have done, it is also useful for it to be independently verified, which you have done.  I wish this were done more in academia, honestly.  Too much poorly-verified and over-hyped stuff gets through.  But it's hard to publish a paper saying, "I checked important result X and yep!...it was right on target."
It's harder to know what precisely to do about the academic honesty issue.  You may wish to discreetly contact whoever is in charge of administrative ethics at your school (preferably some sort of grad student ethics advisor, so they can advise you on whether this sounds like a big problem).  But if it's a problem it's a problem for your professor; I wouldn't let it derail your thesis unless absolutely necessary.

In mathematics it's often OK to have a master's thesis be expository, of course as long as it is clearly indicated that it is expository, and it is (of course) written in one's own words, well-referenced, etc. Usually in this case it's better if the expository work provides either a new proof of a known result, or a new perspective on the old result.
I'm sorry if this doesn't answer the academic honesty concerns, but is there any way you can take this spin?


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Are there universities or places within universities that cater specifically to shy people?
Are there universities that cater specifically to shy or reserved people? It seems like many universities have the usual social hierarchy set up of 'popular' student , 'overachievers' , 'sports-inclined' , 'outcasts' or 'rebels' and the very reserved who might also fit into 'outcasts'. Unfortunately nothing seems to be done about this academic social-caste system which is in regular schools and university. Though I'm primarily concerned about the socially reserved students. As young minds are very vulnerable to emotional instability it would be great if reserved students had a special university or at least a special part of a university where they could learn freely without worrying about the problems of socializing. Are there such universities that can be a haven for reserved students?

Online degree programs

I meant an actual place reserved students can go to that is part of the university so they can feel like their really participating. Online services are a great way for universities to not do much about reserved students.

Most universities in the US have counseling centers or mental health services, some even have shyness support groups.

That seems too little. And shyness is not a mental illness..

It's often under the name "social anxiety."  And also sometimes they do have workshops on these topics.

RE: Online services are a great way for universities to not do much about reserved students. I wonder if the comment made by @Ben was half tongue-in-cheek. Either way, I don't think online services are a cop-out for dealing with reserved students, and there may be some truth in the suggestion that a shy student could flourish in such an environment. Moreover, one can take a few online courses while still being enrolled in a brick-and-mortar university. I don't think the suggestion should have been rejected out of hand.

@J.R. I know some people who went to online high schools because they didn't like the social environment of their traditional high school for some reason, and they did quite well/really enjoyed it

I guess the ambiguity in this question comes from there being two possible ways to potentially improve the experience for students who avoid socialization: (1) design a program that reduces the need for socialization; (2) provide resources to help students become more comfortable with socialization.  I think most universities take approach (2), and many of the answers seem to go in that direction, but you are specifically asking about approach (1)?

If social anxiety is a mental illness then MILLIONS of people are mentally ill.

On academia.SE, undergraduate studies are out of scope, hence, I will answer for graduate programmes here.
For these (master and PhD programmes, and beyond) I am simply not buying into your premise:

usual social hierarchy set up of 'popular' student , 'overachievers' , 'sports-inclined' , 'outcasts' or 'rebels'

Frankly, any graduate programme in the sciences I know of consists primarily of what you would call slightly derogatory "the outcasts" (plus maybe the "overachievers", depending on what you mean with that). Your prototypical high school bully or football jock rarely ends up in a physics PhD programme. In that sense, most graduate programmes are in their own way a haven for such students.
Beyond that, I do not know about any program that specifically caters towards shy people. Further:

where they could learn freely without worrying about the problems of socializing

As long as we are just speaking about "regular" shyness (no clinical condition), I would argue that you would do students a disservice to not "have them worry about socializing" at all. Firstly, even shy students usually enjoy company (if it is the right amount and the right kind of company - I should know, I am also pretty introvert), and, secondly, if you are really painfully shy, learning how to deal with people is arguably a more crucial life lesson than any subject matter you will learn at university. And don't kid yourself - shyness is definitely something that you can learn to work on (again, I should know), given enough practice.

Regardless of the labelling my REAL point is about university programs specifically catering to reserved students and whether they exist.

@201044 There are lots of reserved students, you just don't see them because they're in their rooms not talking to you.

I'm a very reserved student and have seen other sad looking students sitting at the back of a University school bus isolated from a bunch of overly- talkative students at the front of the bus not noticing these other shy students. Reserved students would do a lot better in a learning environment without a lot of overly-social students buzzing around them.

@ xLeitix ; even REGULAR shyness can lead to depression.

Looking from Europe, and mostly through the lens of podcasts from/about people involved in that, there seems to be much talk about this kind of thing in the U.S. specifically (i.e., "safe spaces" and such). This seems especially prominent in social sciences. So if you really need such a place, then you could look specifically into social sciences at unis and see if they advertise formal "safe spaces". Not all seems to be rosy though, you'd probably do well to research all aspects concerning this; and check if everybody is happy, and if the general mindset is to your liking.
That said...
For context, I studied CS in Germany, some 3-4 decades ago. Let me tell you, CS students were not what you call "popular", "sports-inclined" or "rebels", on average.
At no point did I have the feeling that there was an artificial or natural selection working in that direction; nor did I find any kind of "social caste system", hidden or otherwise.
If I really want to come up with some kind of stratification, I would pose that the only real division line I witnessed was between students that were actually interested in the topic and self-driven vs. those that were there because they heard CS was good for earning money, or who were pressured into studying it by their parents (which was unlikely in CS, but did obviously happen in other curriculums, famously business administration). The first kind used to do well without much effort, the second kind not so much.
So another idea would be to look for a field of study that generally attracts more "nerdy" people - i.e., CS, maths, physics or something like that, and stay clear of fields that are maybe not primarily picked by students out of sheer interest, but out of secondary concerns like future job prospects. Obviously the absolute best choice would be a topic that really fascinates you; and then focus on that topic instead of any social strata around you. I find it very very unlikely that you would then suffer mobbing or other social mishandling.

As young minds are very vulnerable to emotional instability it would be great if reserved students had a special university or at least a special part of a university where they could learn freely without worrying about the problems of socializing

This proposition needs some research or reference. First of all, I see no reason that an university, where everybody should be adult already, should be socially worse than the school systems preceding that. At least that was most certainly the case for me - I experienced some mild mobbing at 15-16ish, but that went away in my later highschool years when people slowly became adult and worked out their hormonal issues, and entering uni was immediately just great for a socializing environment. Nobody cared about you whatsoever, and you were free to pick whom to hang out with (or whether to hang out at all).
Secondly, I am not convinced that secluding reserved people to safe spaces does anything to help them become more robust. Again, this probably needs some research...
Thirdly, the time in uni is the final stretch in the life of most people before entering work life, where rules change completely - and any kind of social strengthening absolutely does need to happen before that. So if there were social problems at an uni, the better approach could well be to have mechanisms at hand to handle them, and grow from them, instead of avoiding them in the first place.

The closest thing I can think of, are the Honors Colleges or Honors programs that exist at some universities. Honors classes will tend to be smaller, so even though you may be asked to participate more, you'll have more support and interactions with your professors. Smaller classes may make it easier to find friends as well.
However, these groups look for not just the brightest, but the best. Normally, they will still want well-rounded students--active in their communities or in sports or other activities--not just bright social recluses.
Another solution is to go to a smaller college or university that has a strong program in the field you want to study. Again, smaller classes, closer interactions with professors, etc.
-- edit --
Some schools split incoming classes into small groups during orientation. They will meet, do activities, learn about the college...it's a great place to start finding new acquaintances who may turn out to be friends.
My undergraduate university did this (Trinity U, in Texas). My first friend there was in the that group, but the friend that really stuck was person with whom I shared a music folder in choir.

Why do we assume that shy people are the best and would go to honors schools?  I don't get the link.

Yeah, I know, no causal link. I'm just saying that the smaller "environment" of an honors college might be useful to a bright but shy or reclusive student.

What I can see from these comments there is no actual University (that is not a correspondence school) that is mainly for reserved people. And there is no actual University with one building or program that caters only to reserved students. This info. is useful. ( I didn't need all the other comments about the questions problems.)

If shyness or being reserved or social anxiety ( for whatever reason) was considered a handicap then maybe real university programs could be made for such people ,separate from the 'main' university buildings. Where such students could learn ,free of most socializing worries.

Every student that pays for university course supposedly has the right to be in a learning environment that they can handle and even enjoy. I suggest most university environments cater mainly to sociable people.

Given many Universities seem to be highly social places how DO very reserved people handle it??

Any learning environment should be positive and encouraging. It's like the Pygmallian effect ( forgive spelling) , named after that Bernard Shaw play ; if a class of students is treated as though they are 'limited' and have no potential they will probably behave in an undisciplined and disorganized manner. If they are treated as though they have great potential and are encouraged they will probably act and learn with more confidence and self-discipline.


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Can coauthors split the article publishing charge?
Is the article processing charge paid only by the corresponding author or can it be split among all coauthors, with separate bills and receipts?

There are some prior questions (IMO not duplicates) relating to splitting fees, for example Splitting publication fees among coauthors, When authors from multiple universities contribute to an article, who pays for open-access fees?

It depends on the publisher. For example, the IEEE does allow it:
https://supportcenter.ieee.org/app/answers/detail/a_id/1385/kw/payment/related/1

I don't know that any publisher disallows it.  IEEE merely provides a convenient mechanism to do it.

Even if a publisher does not disallow it, it may still not provide separate bills and receipts, as required for accounting.

Yes (at least in my experience).  I’ve done this in two ways.

The publisher (v.g the American Physical Society) or its representative has a payment website where partial payments can be done.  The software keeps track of the amounts of various institutions until the full amount is reached.  The invoice includes the names of the various parties and the amounts they paid.

One person or grant pays the entire fee and my grant reimburses this person or grant through normal institution-to-institution invoicing or bank transfer.

In all instances I’m familiar with, publishers have recognized that there may be more than one person paying the APC so option 1 is now the most common (at least with larger publisher in physics).

thanks for your input. the question asked for separate bills and receipts. this may be required for acccounting purposes.

@FelipeG.Nievinski sorry I do not understand your reply.  How is an itemized bill stating that you paid xxx not enough?  How is an invoice (with supporting documentation) from your collaborator for APC charge not enough?  Precisely because of accounting rules, all publishers I know will produce separate invoices or itemized invoices.

your option 1, invoicing directly from the publisher, is fine. it's option 2 that I find problematic. in my experience, universities would not accept an invoice not from the publisher.

@FelipeG.Nievinski well that’s not my experience.  Granted I have not done option 2 in a while but I have done it in the past, paperwork and all.

ok, I tried to undo my downvote, but it says "You last voted on this answer 4 hours ago. Your vote is now locked in unless this answer is edited"

@FelipeG.Nievinski not a big deal…if you are insistent I can make a spurious edit but it’s really not that big of a deal.  My life does not depend on 2 rep points.


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Can a PhD student write a letter of recommendation for coauthor/collaborator?
My good friend and I coauthored a paper that was accepted at a major research conference.  He works in industry and has now decided to apply for PhD programs.  He asked that I write him a letter of recommendation because I am most familiar with his academic strengths and research work.  I've been working on research level problems with him for the past 3 years.
Question: Can I write him a letter of recommendation even though I am only a PhD student?

Possible duplicate although from the other side: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/29446/is-it-a-good-idea-to-submit-a-recommendation-letter-from-a-friend-who-is-doing-p

Can you write it?
Yes.
Will it be worth much?
No.
An ideal letter of recommendation (for schools in the USA) will talk about the candidate's ability to do doctoral-level research from the vantage point of someone who has supervised students through the various stages of their career. While your letter will be better than one from their priest or their coach, it still won't count tremendously in their favor.
Unless this person's only other option is his priest or coach, I'd suggest that you decline.

Ah, you might want to put that info in your original question.

Thank you for the suggestion.  I didn't think all the details were necessary until after I started reading all the existing threads.

No worries, I modified my answer to make my locale clearer. You can edit your question to do the same.


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How do I express my disapproval of a marking boycott without damaging relationship with academics?
So as people have probably seen by now, the UK is stuck in a marking boycott, which has started to directly affect myself as a final year student.
I have not personally been affected too much yet, but have had one module's continuous assessment removed with no suggestion of replacement. There are no current plans regarding the future of the boycott by either the teachers or the administration, and it is unclear what the ultimate result and outcome will be at this time, which is very concerning for me.
I want to express my disapproval regarding the implementation of the strike as it puts students in a difficult and non-productive situation. For example, students have been told "Examination of dissertations and theses at postgraduate level, as well as vivas, are included in the action." I don't want to damage the relationships I have with my lecturers as I plan on staying in academia, but seeing these actions is making me question my desire to stay in academia.
So what is the most effective way to complain about this?

There is not likely to be an effective way to complain at this point. Once the vote has happened, and the decision is made, the union knows that the situation is bad for students - that is, in fact, the explicit goal of a work action like this. The best time to complain would have been before the vote was taken, when the union members were weighing the decision about whether the costs to students were acceptable. However, in the end the university will need to do something to handle current students. It may be uncomfortable, but you'll have to wait and see the outcome.

@OswaldVeblen I disagree. If the goal was to hurt students, the union would have gone with a teaching boycott since making up missed teaching is almost impossible and would really hurt students, while a delay in getting grades is generally not a huge issue.

I'm sure no students are happy about the strike, so disapproval can be assumed for everyone affected by it. However, the source of the disapproval will not be the same. Do you actually find fault with the teachers for realizing a strike, or the administration for not being willing to reach a negotiation point to prevent the strike? Or disapproval at both, perhaps?

As StrongBad said, the goal is not to hurt students - I am sure that the professors would be willing to share information regarding how you are doing and if you got certain questions right or wrong without disclosing any official grade. These actions question your desire to stay in academia? would you prefer ending up in academia and then having your pension removed arbitrarily and your contract re-defined, despite any protest/tenure you may have? - this is for your future benefit as well if you intend to stay in academia.

@user2813274 I doubt it. The union is advising its members that if work is marked that the university can compel you to release those marks. There advice to those who wish to participate in the boycott is to not mark the work.

It's safe to assume that nobody likes the situation.

I will assume that was a troll, but thanks for teaching me not to have so much personal info on SE... Regarding the question, I now have the answers I need but I just wanted to restate that I have no issue with the protest itself, just the way it is being carried out

Although you express a valid opinion, remember what the point of industrial action is. It is to apply sufficient pressure on the employer (in this case the government) to get them to change their stance on some matter.  What other tools do people have in the end other than to withdraw their labor?

People interested in this topic might also be interested in these union instructions on how TAs can talk to their students about a strike.

@gerrit That link is broken now.

What is the most effective way to complain about this?

Individually (if you're the only one), there is no effective way to complain about this.  Collective action has power by many individuals acting together.
Understand that nobody wants job action.  Job action, such as a marking boycott, occurs because union members consider the final offer from the employer unacceptable.  Maybe they're right!  (But maybe not).
There are two ways for this situation to end:

The employer increases their offer sufficiently for the union members to accept.
The union, either voluntarily or involuntarily, retreats, accepts the offer previously considered unacceptable, concedes defeat, and members get back to ordinary work.

Before you blame the union or their members, study the background in detail and learn why they are choosing for job action.  Maybe you will end up supporting their job action, and instead express your disapproval to the employer unwilling to meet reasonable demands.  Maybe not.  The student union may either support the employer or support the teacher's union.  Or they may be so divided that they decide not to explicitly support either.
Note that this goes beyond academia, and applies equally well to, say, the ongoing German railway strikes, or any other strike that affects a third party.

Edit 22 February 2018: Today a national university strike started in the United Kingdom.  Lecturers and other university staff are on strike.  If this industrial action continues for long, student exams will be under threat.  According to a YouGov poll, 66% of students at striking universities support the strike.  50% blame the conflict on the universities, and just 2% blame it on the union.  So this is a clear example where students overwhelmingly side with academics against the universities.  See UCU news item for details.

My university student union is backing the university. Do you have data that suggests most SUs are backing the UCU?

@StrongBad No.  I have no data (but it would be interesting to see if there are any).  I suppose it depends on the situation.  I have rephrased the answer to avoid the implication that the student union would automatically declare solidarity with the teachers union.

@StrongBad Edited to update with information on the latest strike.

@Gage I mean that as an individual, that will not have much effect, but as a collective, it might.  If a thousand people individually do something, it's no longer individual ;-)

@Gage I see what you mean.  I have rephrased the sentence to clarify what I mean by individually.

Before you can understand how to express your disapproval, you need to understand a little bit about how the UCU (the Union organizing the strike) and universities work.

I have not personally been affected too much yet, but have had one module's continuous assessment removed with no suggestion of replacement.

It is not the responsibility of those on strike to come up with the alternative. It is the responsibility of the University who is collecting your fees to deliver what it has promised.

The union in question have poorly planned this boycott and there are currently no plans to remove it. We have had no communication about who is striking and what their alternative plans are if this continues and I am very concerned about this.

The marking boycott has been in the works for months now. The universities and union initially had extended discussions, but were not able to reach a resolution. The union then suggested if an agreement could not be reached, that they would recommend a marking boycott. After additional talks failed to reach a resolution, the union brought asked its members to vote on a marking boycott. After the marking boycott was approved by the union members, a final round of discussions were held. After those discussions failed to reach a resolution the marking boycott was initiated. The union is not allowed to contact students. It is the university's responsibility to contact students and tell them what is happening and what the alternative plans are. Issues about lack of communication and alternative plans should be addressed to the University.

I want to express my disapproval with their methods as I disagree entirely with the boycott as I believe using students as pawns is never acceptable. For example they have been told "Examination of dissertations and theses at postgraduate level, as well as vivas, are included in the action." which is much too far. I don't want to damage the relationships I have with my lecturers as I plan on staying in academia, but seeing these actions is making me question my desire to stay in academia.

This is something that should be directed at the union. The union chose what they are boycotting. The union could have used a research boycott, a recruiting boycott, or a teaching boycott, but the union chose to focus on current students.
Your student union may be able to help you voice your concerns to both the university and the union. It is possible that your student union is backing either the union or university and will not pass on criticism to either. If you want to contact someone directly, the UCU is suggesting students contact the vice chancellor's office at their university. To contact the UCU you could use anyone on the UCU contacts page.

When it comes to course content, it is their responsibility to find an alternative, as feedback is necessary for progress and teaching sometimes needs to be altered based on what a class is having difficulties with, so teaching will be affected by this, not just marking.
The turnout for the vote was only 45% so how is this representative of the union members. Some staff will be forced into this when they didn't even want it. As students we have no affiliation with UCU, but surely it doesn't take a student to stand up and say that their protest is morally wrong?

@lumostar you are correct that a marking boycott will have additional affects beyond marking. The union is NOT forcing its members to participate in the boycott. I would prefer to avoid the political nature of moral judgements, but one can make arguments that the "demands" by both the UCU and universities are unreasonable.

@lumostar - aside from the fact that no-one is being forced into it, what makes you think that if the turnout had been higher, the result would have been different?

When I first saw your paragraph that said "student union," I thought, "Now there's an idea: the teachers go on a marking boycott and the students could go on a payment and study boycott!" :P  (Needless to say, I was seriously lacking context for a moment; that was quickly resolved.)

I think it's a given that everyone at the university is well aware that the students aren't happy about the implications of the boycott. Be aware that your student union may actually officially support the academic staff (example) and be calling for solidarity.
This isn't the place to discuss the politics, of course, but your best method of protest will be more wide-reaching. Personally complaining to your lecturers will be ineffectual at best. For example, I'd suggest writing an article in your student magazine, and organizing or joining a peaceful, public protest against the boycott.

Or you could express your disapproval by joining a protest for the boycott and complain to university administrators so that the boycott ends sooner.

@StrongBad Yes, I might agree - ergo at least some of the student unions are asking students to stand by the staff. But that goes completely against the grain of the question.

I agree. The traditional answer is to organize an anti-boycott protest. It is reasonably common in general for there to be marches and counter marches on most hot political topics.

The fact that some student union supports somebody shouldn't stop individuals from stating their opinion.

Consider writing a public letter/article on the topic
I agree with the suggestion in the other answers that you should look more deeply into the matter.  In particular, your view should consider the underlying dispute over employment conditions and you should form a judgment over that matter as part of your overall take on the boycott.  This might change your mind on the issue, or it might not, but at the very least it will give you proper context and a holitic understanding of the matter.
Now, assuming that you maintain your view that the boycott is a bad idea, I see no reason why you couldn't express that view and still maintain good relations with academics in your university.  Academia is a place where it ought to be possible to disagree over a subject and put forward arguments and positions in good faith.
Academics sometimes disagree over political matters ---many of which are far more consequential than a workplace boycott--- and they are used to the fact that university is a place where they will encounter views they disagree with.
In terms of "how to complain", if you have thought out your position well, and if you are sufficiently logical and articulate in your reasoning, have you thought about writing a letter/article for a newspaper, blog, etc.?  You might have the ability to put forward a useful perspective on the boycott from a class of people who are negatively affected by it, and you might be able to share some useful information that would add to the conversation on the topic.  This will require you to have a fully developed understanding of the context, but if you frame your views clearly and sensibly then they might be convincing.  You are pursuing a postgraduate education, so use that inchoate education to add value to the public conversation on the matter.