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"But in the other course this was different!" - How to react on this if the other professor did not follow the rules?
The situation
I'm a PhD student and serve as an assistant to several courses. Now, the students were complaining that some rules of our course are not good for them - there are some restriction what has to be achieved in order to participate in the final exam, e.g.

they need a certain amount of credits in their homework,
everybody who has failed that course in the years before, have the get the credits for their homework again.

You have freedom in chosing the threshold, but the rules are written in the examination regulations (I'm also a member of the that examination committee) that is not the problem.
There are some professors in my department who don't follow that rules; or (even) worse come up with some funny new rules contradicting the rules (like (you don't have to read this to answer the question)  If you have 50% of the credits until the third to last week of the semester, you are able to participate in the final exam. If you pass, you pass. If you fail, you are only allowed to participate in the repetition of the final exam if you have 50% of your credits in the last week of the semester).
The problem
Apart from them violating the rules, the problem is now that students come to my course and say: "Hey, professor XX did not have the rules last year. Why do you have them? That is so unfair! And you can have it, too! Because, nobody complained last year! Cmon, we will not tell anyone!".
As soon as I hear something like that, I complain. The problem is then: No student would tell someone things like that (exept in the mentioned case when they try to convince me to do it that way, too); the professors are sometimes not informed, but also sometimes aware of that und don't write anything on their course homepage. So nobody can find out. If you find out (probably at the end of the semester), it is too late and if you want to declare that course as not following the rules, you are only damaging the students of that course.
I was talking to the responsible persons in my department; they see the problem, but they don't want to have fights within the department and they don't to establish automatic announcements from the professors what the rules for their course are.
The question
What can I do against it? The atmosphere in my course was very bad because of that. I could go to the head of the faculty or the university who will end all that, but then I fair to be an abandoned person in my department. Also, I want not to damage students and declare their passed exams as illegal.

if you want to declare that course as not following the rules, you are only damaging the students of that course — [citation needed]

@JeffE This is my opinion if you want to take away a passed exam from the due to the professor not following the rules. Some of them might not be aware of the exact rules or think that if a professor sets up own rules, he have talked to someone before.

It would be incredibly unethical for the department administration to change a student's existing grade in a course because someone else pointed out that the course didn't follow department policy. But even if they did, it wouldn't be the declaration that hurt the students.

Somewhat unrelated, but I don't believe I've ever taken a course where previous grades in the course affected your qualifications for taking the final exam. Is this just a matter of courses in university systems where a student's final grade is determined solely by the final exam but homework is still required as part of the course?

@JAB I'd never even heard of this before.  It's bizarre; usually at that level students don't need handholding to make them do the homework - and a lot of us decided not to do the homework in one or two classes because we were confident about our ability to pass the final and were completely okay with the lower score for the class

@JAB This is very common (at least) in Germany that you have to do 50% of homework grades to go to the exam, but only the grade in the exam counts for your final grade in your study.

My undergraduate experience was the reverse. I don't think the person in charge of the course even recorded who had completed homework. Homework (and the grading thereof) was purely intended as feedback to help students judge our command of the material. If we didn't do it then our class tutor would be annoyed because we're lazy, but that's none of the examiners' business. Tell your students to come to Oxford, they can do no work for a year then get kicked out for failing the exams, but they won't be stopped from taking them ;-)

This is a standard problem in places where a mentality of unwritten rules has become standard (you know, the places that have "rules" and actual rules). If this becomes ingrained in the university culture (both in the student body and the faculty), nobody can really tell anymore what is a an actual rule and what isn't (and, really, the answer will be different for each teacher). For this reason I prefer a relatively strict no exceptions policy in my courses. I understand the downsides of this model (see for instance also here: How do I appropriately penalize late projects?), but at least everybody knows where he stands in such a model.
I understand that you are not in a position to change university culture, so you need to play the hand you are dealt. I see two main ways to go forward:

Become more lenient yourself. If a number of senior professors deems it fit to not enforce the official rules or implement weaker rules, then maybe the official rules are in fact perceived too strict. In that case, maybe the answer is just to run with the herd and allow for more exceptions etc. yourself. Of course the preferred solution in that case would be to change to official rules, but it is well conceivable that this is not feasible for one reason or another.
Announce very, very clearly at the beginning of the semester that in your case the rules will be the rules, no matter how things were in previous years or with other teachers. Follow through on your claim, and build up a reputation as being a strict guy. Note that being strict is not the same as being an unpopular / bad teacher. I have continuously followed this strategy in my teaching, and still receive good to excellent teaching evaluations.

Of course, if you follow the second strategy, some complaining, accusing and guilt-tripping  will happen. It is your task as a teacher to be able to distinguish between warranted complains (and react to them) and more manipulative ones (that are to be ignored). These examples you give quite clearly fall into the second category. What you need to do is find a number of polite standard answers to these statements, and then forget them. Examples:

Hey, professor XX did not have the rules last year. Why do you have them? That is so unfair!

Answer: sorry, but it is impossible to change anything in a course if I am forced to always do things exactly like the were done in previous years. I am trying to be more strict this year because I have seen that unclear rules are also not beneficial for many students, as nobody really knows anymore what the actual rules are.

Cmon, we will not tell anyone!

Answer: while I appreciate that, I am afraid that I do not want to make an exception here. Making an exception for you is unfair towards the other students that did not get this exception.
Some other minor comments:

I could go to the head of the faculty or the university who will end all that

I am unsure if that is even true. In all places that I have been to, it would be very unlikely that a head of faculty micro-manages how professors do their teaching.

Also, I want not to damage students and declare their passed exams as illegal.

This is understandable and correct. If you truely think that students were under the impression that a certain rule or exception would apply to them, I would let them pass as part of a transition period. If you think that they were aware that they should actually fail, but simply try to come up with a reason why this is not the case, then be strict and let them fail. Note that this is the reason why announcing your strict rules enforcement as clearly as possible is key. In your situation, being strict is only fair if you give your students advance warning, as the seem to be trained by your university that, by and large, teachers are lenient.

+1. I am fascinated by the parallels between laying down rules in higher education and in raising children.

@StephanKolassa The methods of establishing a society environment is similar in many societies: rules, awards, punishments. Only the specific ways differ: You won't deny a grad student access to TV because he didn't bring his homework...

@tohecz Indeed. I propose to read Paul Chance - Learning and Behavior (http://books.google.ch/books/about/Learning_and_Behavior_Active_Learning_Ed.html?id=SWy3uoXJw_4C&redir_esc=y) if one is interested in the underlying fundamental biological principles of learning. I read it some time ago as part of studying animal training, and it was quite interesting how widely the same principles apply.

@Stephan It's not just academia: I became a much better project manager since I became a dad. It's amazing how many people think like children. Or at least, respond in the same way children do.

One thing to note about being a "strict guy", if the course is a low credit elective, expect a big drop-off in numbers. Students won't want to have a course that's not worth very much bothering them with strict rules, they'll just pick something easier.

@crazymoomin You say that like it's a bad thing. I actively want all the students who are not really interested to go somewhere else.

@xLeitix Well... depending on how interesting your subject matter is, you might get it pulled. It's a risk.

I was about to recommend talking to the responsible person in your department, and then saw you did that.  They handled the situation atrociously; as a PhD student, this sort of department conflict shouldn't be put on your shoulders.  You don't have the freedom to deviate from policy as easily as a professor (for instance, you're more vulnerable if the school suddenly gets serious about it).
It's not clear to me if you've asked this, but a good question to ask the responsible person is a flat out: "What should I do?"  It's not your responsibility to fix the department's mess.  It's that person's job to give you an unequivocal answer about what you should do, and then back you up on it: either tell you to follow the rules, and that any student complaints should be directed their way, or tell you to break the rules and agree to cover you if there's fallout.
If I couldn't get a clear "go ahead and break the rules, if anyone's upset you can say I told you to" then I would go ahead and follow the rules, tell students you simply have no power over the issue, and that the person in charge is the responsible department official.  If they don't want to deal with fixing the problem, it's certainly their job to field complaints about the result.  That's very much my response, though, which includes a preference for following rules and insufficient regard for whether I'm annoying people who aren't following the rules.  It may not actually be the best advice for your career.

From the way the OP asked the question, I was assuming that the OP has much more responsibility / freedom than you seem to assume. It is not uncommon in Germany that PhD students have significant responsibility and freedom in their teaching.

@xLeitix: I don't think my answer is inconsistent with that.  A PhD student is always going to have less freedom to deviate from the written rules than a professor, and is always entitled to be protected from bearing the brunt of the vagaries of department politics.

@Henry: Well, you do a tiny bit: You write "It's not your responsibility to fix the department's mess.", whereas the PhD students could be seen as what mainly forms the department. Unless the professor (maybe along with one or two postdocs) is ruling like a king (such professors do exist, as well), tackling problems is generally a community effort by all employees of the department, and bringing up such issues and at least suggesting solutions is first and foremost the responsibility of PhD students who usually have the most direct contact to students and the most direct view on ...

... what is generally going on across lectures and courses organized by different professors from the perspective of those actually present in class. I agree the decision may in theory lastly be with the professor, and even if the respective professors would not want to make that decision themselves for some reason, a consultation with them is probably adviseable.

@O.R.Mapper: I didn't say PhD students don't have a role in fixing department problems.  I said the responsibility for successfully getting a department level problem fixed does not fall on a single graduate student.  We're talking about a situation where the PhD student carried out his responsibility--notifying the relevant official--and that official insisted on doing nothing about the situation.

"they don't want to have fights within the department" -- there's your answer. The department would prefer to have inconsistency between different courses/years, than enforce consistency.
Don't put it that way to the students, but acknowledge the truth to yourself, which is that there are better things for course assistants to do with their time, than worry about what other professors than "yours" do when they run this or other courses.
Maybe it isn't fair, but it's not exactly the assistant's job to make it fair or to decide whether a particular department or professor is applying the rules properly. You can (and have) raised the issue and got a decision. Since you know that there's a problem with students not knowing the rules, you can choose to make them clear to the students you see regardless of whether professors are required to announce them.
Make sure that when you're assisting one of the "bad" professors, you are clear what rules you should be passing on to the students in that class -- the exam regulations or whatever this professor has invented.
Now, as well as being an assistant, you're on the examinations committee. Oh ho ho ho. Well I never. Wellity well. With your other hat on, the shoe is on the other foot. That's where you make your case that a rogue department and/or rogue professors are disrespecting the exam regulations. As a committee you can consider whether the breaches are so serious as to overrule the department's desire not to have fights, and fight them :-)
The committee is also best placed to make a plausible recommendation how its rules should be enforced by policy.

The atmosphere in my course was very bad because of that.

The question is: should you really care about this?
Of course it is nothing nice to deal with, but I think there's something really wrong with your students if they constantly produced bad atmosphere just because you enforced the university rules. They will face uneven or even clearly unfair conditions during the course of their entire live, so at some stage they must accept this.  They should recognise your authority in establishing the rules. You won't teach them this if you will finally relax the rules or influence other courses.
I don't say you shouldn't care about the student feelings, but I think it's more important to teach them respect and some kind of immunity.


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Where do you place the link to open data in a manuscript?
Assume you are writing a manuscript and you have uploaded your raw data to a relevant hosting site (e.g., The Dataverse Network, FigShare, etc.). Where in the manuscript should you indicate a link to this?
This question was posted on twitter and one suggestion was to include a link in the author notes and the results.

I am sure there are many ways to do this, but I have recently started to end the paper with a specific (unnumbered) section Further Material (or something like this). For an example, you can check this preprint of mine.
Before, I primarily gave a link to the online material as a footnote somewhere in the Experiments section, or wherever else it made sense from the text flow. However, it happened to me more than once that a careless reviewer overlooked these footnotes, and complained that the data has not been made public.
Some journals will also allow you to upload accompanying material to their website. However, at least in my field this is so unusual that I would be afraid that potential readers will not even look for the material on the publisher's website.

Some journals ask for a standardised data section - see, for example, the start of this recent PLOS paper. Some (eg JGR) recommend putting it in with acknowledgements. Many more (eg Marine Biology) are somewhat vague but suggest in-text citation of the dataset. It'd be worth checking what's standard for the journal(s) you're planning to submit to.
If there's no guidance at all, then putting in a short section at the end on accessing data is perfectly reasonable - it stands out, as xLeitix says, and it is easy enough to move it around elsewhere if requested. And if you have a DOI for the data citation, use it - it'll help credit the data if reused in future.
Edit: here's an excellent and detailed example of how to do in-text citation of data, from the American Meteorological Society. They explicitly deprecate the acknowledgements approach (though suggest both can be used in parallel if desired).

In epidemiology and other medical research it is extremely common to both describe the data set in question, and to discuss what software package was used to do the analysis, both of them in the Methods section of a paper.
As such, the most logical place is to link to open data is at the end of this description.
For example:

These data sets do not include patient-level information, but rather laboratory confirmed, suspected or probable cases of the disease, which is thought to represent the best available estimate of the current state of the epidemic. A curated version of this data is available at https://github.com/username/horribledisease.

I think this makes sense, although my preference is to use the doi from an archiving service (e.g., FigShare, which itself may have a link to a curated version on github) as the link as I worry about linkrot with things like github or standard web addresses.

@JeromyAnglim I've also done that for static sites. In this particular case, the Github repository was of interest partially because it was being curated during an epidemic.

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Why are researchers at some think tanks titled professor?
Within my own discipline one of the best examples of this may be at the Santa Fe Institute, but I've seen this other places as well. Quite simply, why are researchers at some think tanks titled "professor" when they don't have a university affiliation?

Because there are no laws against it?

There are many PhD holders who work in the industry but have significant contributions either through publications, service, committee work etc. I guess it is a matter of prestige?

@PeterShor ...in the US.

The word "professor" is most often used by universities, but the content of the word more generally refers to a person whose job is some mixture of higher-level education and research.
Thus, while it is unusual for a place like the Santa Fe Institute to call some of their employees professors, I would judge it to be a reasonable description of their work given that the institute is well-respected in the academic world as both an educational and research institution.
Most other industry or "think tank" organizations do not have a similar mission and it would thus be less appropriate for them to give such a title to their staff.

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How do you call the small numbers close to coauthors in an article?
In a scientific paper, how do you call the small numbers or symbols close to coauthor names that link to their institutions or e-mail addresses, etc.?
Do you call them "calls"....? I don't think "superindexes" is the right word here.
What is the standard term for these symbols, in this concrete context?

The document "How to use the IEEEtran LaTeX class", by M. Shell, who is the developer of that LaTeX class, calls them author affiliation symbols (p. 3, first column).
Nothing fancy.

I've never heard of a collective noun for the superscript symbols referring to notes. So I think you just call them that: superscript symbols referring to the notes.

I've seen 'footnote symbol' and 'note reference mark' in various guides over the years. My old AIP Style Guide does not refer specifically to them (oddly enough).

I've seen them be called "llamadas a notas" (note call) in Spanish, but it seems to be an anglicism from  programming, function call.

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Should students be shown the grading rubric?
I teach a practical class which is assessed by a lab report. I grade the lab reports based on a rubric. The rubric has 6 sections (abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion, conclusions) with a number of items that I generally expect to see in each section. Historically, about 95% of the lab reports can be accurately graded based on the rubric while the remaining 5% of the lab reports go in unique, often very good, directions and therefore do not tick many of the boxes on the rubric. I am considering showing the students the grading rubric in advance of writing the reports this year with the hope that this will key them into what is important so that they can better demonstrate their understanding of the key issues. Is there any research that looks at the benefits and consequences of showing students a grading rubric in advance?

I have only seen rubrics which are distributed with assignment briefs. The rubrics, however, do not provide a step-by-step. That is, no student would read a rubric and know what they should write (just how they should write it). For example, 70%+ (UK) requires work to be free from spelling and grammar errors (as one simple example). I would not include anything in the rubric which would limit their creativity.

Probably not the case here, but in many situations releasing a detailed rubric can be self-defeating; often a large part of an assignment is researching the subject matter and deciding what best to focus on.

I should be clearer than I was above. Rubrics should not include any task-specific information (which means rubrics should be able to be reused across subjects).

But isn't it more fun to play "Hide-the-ball" with the students, and then arbitrarily punish those who did the worst job of reading your mind? +1 for raising the issue.

@AaronHall - not sure how to take your comment, so I'll simply say that having unstated requirements and rewarding "successful" mindreading stands a fair chance of demotivating the majority of (students/workers/whatever). IMO the general lab report outline must be clearly stated if students will be graded on their adherence to it.

Sarcasm doesn't communicate well via text. Seems like a lot of professors do want to hide their grading criteria. If not because they're playing "hide the ball," then because they're afraid to have their students question grades or just unwilling to provide and then have to use objective grading criteria. Here, at least StrongBad is doing the work. I've gladly used rubrics from the departments I worked for, carefully scored each dimension on every paper, and dutifully assigned the grade, and I was relieved that the system took the burden away. And I was open about the rubric with students.

Being open and clear about your grading policy is a large part of what makes the grades you assign meaningful. In that respect, it is generally helpful to share the rubric with your students if you work from one. At minimum, a good grading system should meet three criteria:

it should accurately reflect differences in student performance
it should be clear to students so they can chart their own progress
it should be fair

Sharing your rubric directly enhances the second criterion, and presents a context for evaluating the other two. You might also consider using some of your lecture time to go over examples of what an excellent lab report should look like and then discuss the rubric with your students. This would give you an opportunity to point out that lab reports should cover key points, but good lab reports don't necessarily follow a rigid cookie-cutter format.

Since you asked about sources on sharing rubrics with students:
The authors of Introduction to rubrics, mention discussing the grading rubric with students and even include a chapter on constructing/tailoring rubrics directly with student feedback.

[Stevens, et al.] "... because we discuss the rubric and thereby the grading
  criteria in class, the student has a much better idea of what these
  details mean ..."

However, you may be interested in this paper which examines the learning outcomes for different peer groups when they're given details about assessment criteria. Evidence for their conclusions is based on a very limited number of samples, so the usual cautions apply, but they found that simply sharing explicit grading criteria was not sufficient to positively influence learning, while making time for the students to work more intensively with the rubric did yield benefits.

[Rust, et al.] "... it is being engaged with the process of marking as well as seeing
  examples of other work that significantly contributes to the students’
  subsequent improvement in performance."

+1 for sources. The latter seems to imply students benefit from the rubric actually being part of the pedagogy, instead of just metadata.

Sharing a good rubric with your students can be a helpful way to let them understand what is expected of them.  There is a down side in that the rubric then provides a basis for students to complain that you've graded a paper unfairly.  Don't release the rubric unless you're really willing to give credit according to the rubric even if a paper has obvious flaws in areas not covered by the rubric.

I agree with the other posters.  If you are having problems with rubrics, instead of keeping them secret, fix the rubric.  For example, if you get some lab reports that are unique, but do not follow the directions, then put something in the rubric that allows you to reward creativity.

I agree that having a good rubric is the best solution to this problem- the difficulty (and the author of the question mentions this) is in writing a rubric that really covers the wide range of possible correct and incorrect student responses to the assignment.  In my experience, rubrics work reasonably well for things like term papers but not as well for the kinds of problem sets and exam problems that are common in undergraduate engineering and science courses.

If you are worried that releasing a rubric will cause students to think you are unfair, it sure sounds like either your rubric is a poor description of the way you are actually grading and should be fixed or that you are actually are being arbitrary and unfair.

As an example, of this, I once gave an exam question that required the exam taker to consider a mathematical proposition and either prove it or provide a counterexample to show that the proposition was false.  The student answered with both a (incorrect) proof and a valid counterexample.  My rubric didn't account for that possibility- it would have given the student partial credit for whatever part of the proof was OK, and it would have given full credit for the counterexample.

@BrianBorchers: I agree. Never underestimate a student's ability to come up with an answer beyond the scope of your rubric.

Part of "obvious flaws not covered by rubric" - if parts of the rubric is not scored according to the difficulty of the task. (I was (am?) a lazy student, and could, in some cases, purposely leave out or just barely mention targeted parts in the rubric and be happy with my B grade.

There are disadvantages to distributing the rubric. Most importantly: it encourages sensible students to game the rubric rather than understanding and answering the question. I do not think this concentration on grading rather than learning is a good thing. Against this you must set the benefits of transparency and the ability of students to engage with their assessment.
You seem to think that the very good unique answers are a problem to be discouraged – I disagree; I think they’re a good thing. The difficulty for you is in grading them – and it seems you are sticking to your rubric in the face of good answers. This is a mistake. The rubric should be used as a guide to help you give consistent grades, not to limit the range of answers you will accept. When faced with a high-quality answer that does not fall neatly into your pre-written rubric, your response should be to try and grade that submission without the rubric not reduce the marks you award.

Write careful and comprehensive rubrics and distribute them with your assignments. What better way to tell students what you expect from the assignment than by telling them exactly how you are going to evaluate it?
If there are unique and interesting directions that you want to allow assignments to go but that you think your current rubric precludes, rewrite your rubric so that it's flexible enough to allow these papers to be assessed highly. A great rubric is clear enough that an instructor can communicate clearly what is expected in a way that is transparent, fair, and clear, but not so overconstrained that it leads students to formulaic box-checking. It's a tricky balance but worth striving for.

I wanted to continue the trend of substituting my opinion for the research you requested:
Any impact the sharing of the rubric itself has on student outcomes is secondary to the impact the transparency of sharing the rubric will have on you, your pedagogy, and the course itself. Even a controlled study of a large standardized course taught in many sections, half of which do/don't receive rubrics, is going to be blind to the cumulative benefits of transparency:

being forced to clarify your expectations to yourself (i.e., extract them from your intuition) well enough create a rubric you're confident leaving in the hands of your students
being encouraged to evaluate how well your pedagogical practices actually prepare students to meet these explicit expectations
being forced to face problems with your expectations (as the distance between the grade you intuitively want to give a student and the grade the rubric suggests they deserve)
being forced to renegotiate your rubric as students challenge it

In short, your ability to consistently apply your public rubric in ways that satisfy both you and your students is a good proxy for evaluating your own course design.
Beyond this, I'd also like to add to the "student benefits" concern: one of the overarching goals of education is to teach people how to do "good" work on their own. Learning to self-evaluate is a big part of consistently performing good work without supervision; learning the qualities of good work is a big part of learning to self-evaluate, along with feedback mechanisms that consistently communicate the importance/validity of these qualities.

Ha eight years later and this opening line is still making people laugh. Good point that no one is actually posting research.

In my training to be a public school teacher mostly from principals, assistant principals and other expert teachers, the expectation is we show the rubric when we give the original assignment.
In a related example, my college tutoring student with a long test has likely spent too much time on less critical questions because the professor did not explain the weight given to each question.  Even when he got his test back he and I are unsure how much weight is being given to each question.  This is inappropriate on the professor's part.
It is only fair to students that they know ahead of time what is important to the professor communicated through a rubric or advance knowledge of the grading scheme.

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How inclusive should my CV's publications be?
I'm in the process of transitioning from industry to academia. Over the years I've been minor contributor to a number of publications and conference presentations and published once as an undergraduate in the school's peer-reviewed journal. This work was in a number of different fields that are different than the direction I'm going. Should all of this appear on my CV, or should I limit it to work done since going back to graduate school?

I've been minor contributor to a number of publications — I don't understand what "minor contributor" means.  If you are an author, you must list them in your CV.  If you were not an author, you must not list them in your CV.

@JeffE I mean that I've worked on some projects that had tens or hundreds of contributes so the citations are usually "et al." For example, something like this article.

Then yes, you're an author, and so yes, you should list them.

Typically, your C.V. is expected to contain a fairly complete accounting of your life's scientific work (unless you are so advanced in your career that you can do a "selected publications" CV that just lists your greatest hits).
As such, it is generally best to list every publication on which you are listed as an author, no matter when it may have been published.

Generally speaking the publications listed in a CV greatly evaluates your suitability for a particular scientific job. So it is always good to highlight the job related publications in the CV, no matter where and when it was published or who contributed less. Addition to this, list all other publications to increase the strength of your CV.


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How to present apparent gap in employment CV, due to visiting research position that wasn’t formally employment?
In between two postdocs, I spent four months as a fully-funded participant of a research “special programme”.  In practise, this was much like my other postdoc positions: it was full time work on the same sort of research, at a comparably prestigious academic institution, and the “stipend for living expenses” was in the ballpark of a postdoc salary.  However, it was not formally an employed position, from an administrative/legal point of view.
How should I describe this, if at all, in the “Employment” section of my CV?  The application I’m currently making prescribes the CV format fairly strictly; so I can certainly list this under the “research visits” in a later section, but I’m not sure what to do in the “employment” section. Listing this as employment doesn’t quite feel appropriate (since it wasn’t, formally); omitting it entirely gives an unexplained gap in my employment history (which, according to conventional wisdom, looks bad); presumably the right thing to do is to not include it in the main list, but add a short note explaining the gap; but I can’t find a good concise phrasing to describe this situation.
(In the past, I’ve avoided this issue by listing my employment history like “2012–14: Postdoc, University A.  2014–17: Postdoc, University B.”  But this particular application specifies that employment dates must include months, so I can’t sweep it under the rug again.)

I would say nobody cares if you got money and how much, only that you worked. Are the people there happy to recommend do? Did they see you as a "normal" worker? Do you have a "title" there?

Also, you got a stipend! Does it have a "good name"? You could mention that you worked there under this stipend.

Put it on your CV. Many positions are not technically ‘employment’ to avoid paying benefits. But a supported 4 month stint sounds a lot like a postdoc or visiting scientist gig, entirely normal for early career folks.


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Listing industry related honors and awards on a CV
I'm in the process of getting my PhD as part of a transition from industry to academia. During my time in industry I received a number of awards that I've typically listed in one form or another on my résumé. What is the protocol for listing these on the academic CV? Should they just be put in a generic "Honors and Awards" section, or broken out by industry, academic, etc?
Since it may be relevant, the awards loosely breakdown as follows:

Awarded within the department
Nominated by department, awarded by higher level management
Annual award from the highest level of a multi-national organization

These were also a combination of individual and team awards as well.

I would go with the "Honors and Awards" section where you put all awards, from industry and academia.

I would recommend that you add to your C.V. any awards that are relevant to your potential and performance as a researcher.
For example, one of my colleagues was recently given an internal "Entrepreneurial Award" for developing a significant line of business around research that he has been leading.  Even though this sounds kind of "businessy," it would be a good award to list on a C.V. because it is actually about his abilities as a researcher.  On the other hand, another person at the company was given an award for their flexibility in handling scheduling challenges of National Guard employees, and I would not recommend listing that on a C.V., since it is not relevant to scientific ability.
Finally, it's a good idea to add a short explanation on your C.V. for any awards that are not obvious from their title: e.g., "Best paper at Conference X" needs no explanation, but something like "Entrepreneurial Award" or "Hertz Foundation Fellow" should have a few words saying what that means, for those who aren't familiar. (See this answer for more on explanations)


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How does the experience of working at a "top" university differ from working at an average one?
Being a professor at the top university in your field must be a very different experience from being a professor at a top 20 university, which must be a very different experience from working at a top 100, 500, etc. university.
But how do these jobs differ? What are the qualitative differences between working at universities in different tiers? I'm less interested in pay and benefits -- more interested in the day to day experience.

At a 'top' university you typically attract stronger students, and I imagine they are more fun to work with. But maybe it is just the wishful thinking of a student that we make a qualitative difference in the day-to-day experience of profs.

One of the most obvious would be teaching load...

Several factors make a large difference; ranking is just one (and more often an effect than a cause).  The biggest will be whether you're at a research school or a SLAC.

Probably the biggest difference is the quality of students, but that drops off faster than one thinks, and levels out quickly.

(Since I've only been faculty in one department, my answer involves a bit of extrapolation...)

Quality of students — It is much easier for top departments to attract the strongest students to their PhD programs, so the average quality of students tends to be higher.  Faculty at top schools can spend less time bringing their PhD students up to speed and more time interacting with them as mature colleagues.  This has a big impact on the productivity, research quality, and enjoyment of the faculty.  (Of course, the strongest students are not all concentrated in the top few departments.)
Quality of faculty — Similarly, it is much easier for top departments to attract the top faculty in their respective subfields, so the average quality of faculty tends to be higher.  Again, this has a big impact on productivity, research quality, and quality of life.  (Again, the strongest researchers are not all concentrated in the top few departments.)
Rock star culture — See my previous answer about the benefits of being a PhD student in a top department.  The same comments apply to faculty in top departments. Of course everyone publishes in the top conferences and journals.  Of course every assistant professor gets a CAREER award.  Of course everyone has a few best paper awards.  Of course everyone sends their PhD students to academic positions in top departments.  Of course the faculty got another umpty-dozen-million dollars in grant money this year.  That's not exceptional at top places; that's just normal business.  That assumption of excellence is both incredibly powerful and incredibly stressful, just as it is for students.  Impostor Syndrome is rampant.
Center of the world — Top departments are more likely to attract the best researchers to visit, either as informal collaborators or as formally invited speakers.  This opens up many more avenues for collaboration.
Administrative support — Because top departments are well-funded, they tend to have more administrative resources.  For example, my business office (paid entirely by "indirect costs" from grants) takes care of all the financial and administrative details in my grant proposals, letting me concentrate entirely on the 15-page narrative.

My guess is that with research universities the ranking is not going to matter much in terms of the overall experience. At all research universities you teach, do research, and do service. The relative amounts vary, but I don't think it is strongly correlated with ranking within research universities. The quality of the students and colleagues and the available resources will have some affect on the experience, but in my opinion the personal work environment is much more important to the experience.


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Is there a reference managing software that shows/extracts content of highlights?
I'm mostly using Mendeley, but after reading lots of ebooks with the Kindle app, I've noticed that I really like the feature that shows me the content of all highlights and the ability to jump to the relevant section.
Is there any software for reference/paper organization, reading and note taking like Mendeley which has this feature?
As an example, for those who don't know this feature from e.g. Kindle, if the text above was part of a paper and the bold part was my highlight, I want to have a list that shows:

I really like the feature that shows me the content of all highlights
the ability to jump to the relevant section

and clicking on one of them should bring me to the respective section of the paper.
Any pointer much appreciated!

Zotero with the Zotfile addon will do this. It's slightly rough around the edges, but it works.

Citavi has the mentioned functionality.
There are (at least?) four types of highlighting: Direct quotation (what you are describing - in blue), indirect quotation (pink), summary (green) and comment (not shown, same as in standard PDF viewers). All of them can navigate to their original location when clicking on the link-icon:

I downloaded one of the apparently most popular papers of 2017 and marked three random parts. The titles copy (part of) your marked text per default, but you can change it if you want.
I think it's free for up to 100 references. But if your school has some sort of partnership program, you might be able to get a full license.
I switched from Mendeley to Citavi a few years ago. It was a little confusing at the beginning as I was expecting it to be "like Mendeley, but better", so I even used both parallel for some time. There are still a lot of functions I have no idea about, but documentation seems very thorough. At my school, there are even courses on how to use it.

Thank you very much!
Unfortunately, my university seems to be one of the view that do not have a license. Purchasing my own for professional use would be 280 CHF. Private use is 149 CHF. Prices in Dollar are probably similar (1 CHF ~ 1USD).
Tempted to try the free version, but afraid I will like it too much. Its a steep price...

Also, Citavi for Mac is still in Beta and from a glance at their user forumit's still very buggy: https://support.citavi.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=16

I completely agree, it's quite expensive. Even for students it's still 120€, which just for the commenting function is probably not worth it. Have you checked Zotero? It's free, but I'm not sure if it has exactly the functionality you want.

I havent but apart from that feature Im OK with Mendeley for now. A work around is to copy all commented (gets marked too then) and paste the text into comment with e.g. quotation marks.
Thanks again for the recommendation! I will definitely give it a try, since I'm soon moving away from the Mac anyway.

Im not marking your answer as 'solved' yet, since Im still hoping for more recommendations, but I will eventually. You can ping me if I forget about it.

Zotero, combined with the addon Zotfile, will do this. Both are free and open source, which has the significant advantage that you know your extensive reference list, compiled over many years, will not suddenly be held to ransom where you must pay a subscription!

In the screenshot, the PDF annotations (highlights and notes) are extracted by right-clicking on the PDF and selecting "extract annotations". Those annotations have the underlined link after each of them - clicking that will open the PDF at the right place.
It's a little rough around the edges at times, but it works well.

Thanks a lot. This does indeed look like what I want. Unfortunately it seems like storage for online sync is quite limited and I would have to pay for that, while Mendeley it is free at my Uni... Oh well.

Aye - Mendeley is funded by a giant publishing corporation, while Zotero actually has to cover its own costs

Sure. Is there any advantage of using their cloud function over having a shared folder (e.g. Dropbox) with the pdfs and bibtex file in it?

@user1323995 only that if you use Dropbox and then accidentally open it from two computers at once, well, I don't know what would happen. I suspect it would have the potential to be Bad.
You don't have to use Zotero's storage - it'll happily sync using any WebDAV space, if you have access to any. Google throws up https://www.whoishostingthis.com/compare/webdav/. I've never looked into what this would cost, as I can afford $20-60/year and like to support them. YMMV.


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Request for startup package details at interview stage
I have an upcoming interview/campus visit for an assistant professor TT position with a US R1 university in the sciences. They have asked that I bring a details about my desired startup package to the campus visit. I have never heard of anyone being asked for details about their startup package prior to an offer being made.
This seems to have two effects. First, to some extent my startup package depends on what is already available in the department and the interests of the department. Second, it seems it potentially changes the negotiations. With an offer in hand, you can ask for more in your startup package, since they may not give you what you want, but they won't take the offer away. If I ask for too much in my startup package before having an offer, they may not even make an offer.
I guess I have three questions. First, is it common for US universities to ask for details about the desired startup package prior to making an offer? Second, how does this change what I should include in my startup package request? Third, can I ignore this request and only give them a general outline of what I need to do my research?

FYI. I got the same request. To give a startup cost estimate before the formal offer is made. (US R1, science).

It's very unusual: I've never heard of this happening before. Since they're asking about the startup package (and not salary, which is less elastic at a university) that changes things slightly though.
You might be able to get away (at a first approximation) with a list of things you need (without specifying a price tag). Typical elements of a startup package include summer salary, support for students early on, space for offices/labs, and equipment. All of these can be specified without particular price tags: i.e you need support for X students for Y years, lab space to support this kind of machine, or these many students, and so on.
If you're pressed to put a price tag (which would be also unusual), then you'll have to have some number ready for things that you can price (equipment for example, for which you could add a generous inflation factor). For other things you can ask them ! (how much does a student cost, what is typical lab space, and so on). Again, the goal is to provide as little information as possible while satisfying the unusual requirement.
In addition, if you're asked to put a price, you should preface with "while it's a little unusual to ask this now, and while I can't be certain what things will cost once I'm in a position to purchase them", and ask first whether there's some flexibility in these numbers.

I just went through a faculty interview, and before I met the faculty dean (who controls the department's finances), the head of the search committee told me it would be good to at least tentatively negotiate the startup package with him. So while this may be unusual, the OP isn't the only one who's encountered it.

I've also never seen this at universities in the US (or elsewhere in the world) but I've seen it a lot in industry. I'm guessing someone came in to 'shake things up' or they hired a consultant and are trying things differently this time. Therefore, I will answer with respect to industry which I'm guessing will actually be applicable in the end.
It is a common negotiation technique to get 'the other guy' to make the first offer with the belief this puts him in a weaker position. This seems to be what they are doing and as you stated in your question, when they make the first offer you are indeed in a stronger position.
In your last question, could you ignore their request and simply not give them a number, tread lightly on this point. Some hiring people will become angry when you don't follow the rules and will count it as one reason not to make you an offer at all (or lower your offer because you are unable to follow simple instructions).
As far as how to actually handle the negotiations, like any negotiations, it is MUCH better if you are negotiating from a stance of understanding how you can work together to benefit each other. That is, don't get locked into a 'the more I get, the less you keep' train of thought. The goal is to be creative and find a way that you can actually ADD value to the equation and then divide that new value between the both of you...leading to the win-win settlement.
The problem is if you must make some kind of an offer blind and you have no personal rapport developed with your counterpart, it is very difficult to go down the win-win path. At that point, I would see if you can find a way to change the situation and start building some kind of relationship (even a telephone call can make a huge difference with regards to finding a genuine win-win solution).
If you are stuck and you cannot have any any meaningful conversation before you give a number, then the best I can say is to make a serious statement about what you would like but make it in terms of ranges (say between $100 and $120 [replace with reasonable numbers for you] per month depending on the rest of the details). By offering a range you have retained some flexibility but allowed them what they demanded: Something.
As you might guess, they may lock in on the lower number. However, you have not committed to that lower number firmly because of 'the rest of the details' you included.
Congratulations and good luck!

Something to keep in mind: The reason that startup packages are typically negotiated at a later stage is because they are not a major factor in determining whether to take someone for a tenure-track position. I think that in your case, even though you are asked for this during the first interview, it will still not be a major factor.
This means that unless your startup package requests are extremely unusual or the university is unusually poor, this will probably not affect the outcome. So I would not worry about this aspect too much.


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How to list workshop presentations on a CV when circumstances change?
This might be a bit of an unusual situation. I was accepted to a workshop as a solo authored abstract, but a situation arose in which I was unable to attend. However, the organizer allowed for my colleague and myself to combine our presentations since we work on similar research. What would be the best way to list this on my CV? Just list the final presentation, e.g.,

Colleague and Myself. "Joint presentation on cool research subject."
  NSF Workshop, 2019.

or should I list the original abstract which appeared the proceedings, e.g.,

Myself. "Cool research project." presented by Colleague as part of
  Colleague and  Myself. "Joint presentation on cool research subject."
  NSF Workshop, 2019.

I recommend option 1, followed by a parenthetical:
Colleague and Myself. "Joint presentation on cool research subject." NSF Workshop, 2019. (abstracted as: Myself, Cool research Topic)
The joint presentation is the real presentation.  Not the abstract.  Consider that you would not list an abstract for a meeting where you bailed entirely.  (Well I hope you would not consider abstracts for papers/presentations not done at all to be worthy of listing.  Otherwise, send out 50 abstracts--woot!)

I think the second option is better since the abstract appeared in the proceedings. Otherwise, the first would probably be best. People searching will likely be looking for the abstract as accepted and published.


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Removing an author from a future publication
I published a conference abstract with a undergraduate student of mine as a co-author. The work was presented as a poster and the conference doesn't publish proceedings/papers. I am now planning on publishing an extended version and want to drop her as a co-author. Can I do this?
Prior to the student starting the project we discussed authorship and agreed that it was unlikely that she would contribute enough to warrant authorship on anything that came out of the study since the experiment was conceived and implemented by me and I designed the statistical analysis. At the time of the conference, the student had collected approximately 1/4 of the data on the poster and did a fair amount of the statistical analysis, but her contribution was essentially just turning the crank. Given the effort she put in, I did not think it was out of place to have her as a co-author on the poster, but nor did I think it was required. I wrote the abstract and poster and asked her if she wanted to be an author and if so for any input on the abstract and poster.
Since then, I have collected a second independent data set and come up with a completely new analysis. I now feel her contribution (1/8 of the total data set and helping with a partial preliminary analysis) does not warrant authorship and I think it would be better to acknowledge her work in the acknowledgements then to add her as an author. I would discuss this with her, but she is out of the field and I cannot contact her easily. Can I drop her for the list of authors?

It's best to ask her first, but I think you are justified in dropping her name from the future paper.  If you do, you might want to include her name in the acknowledgments or cite the poster with her as co-author.

I think acknowledgements is a minimum requirement, at least.

What do you gain by dropping her as an author? In this case it seems like it is indeed a gray area whether or not to -add- her as an author, but given that you already made the decision to do so, my inclination would be to err on the side of generosity.

This might be useful: How to handle authorship disputes: a guide for new researchers.  (I don't mean to imply that you are a "new" researcher. :)

Most authorship questions are a gray area: she did contribute to the paper, but was it a significant intellectual contribution (which is one usual criterion), with emphasis of both significant and intellectual (or scientific)? That's for you and her to decide, taking into account the customs of your field.
From her point of view, I can see two reasons why she might be consider a rightful co-author of the paper:

If the data collection was itself part of the scientific research, i.e. if it could not have been done by an unskilled worker following instructions. If so, then her data collection was significant (and it doesn't really ).
If the conclusions drawn from the preliminary analysis were useful in tuning your final analysis, i.e. if her work helped design a better analysis method.

Though by your description it seems like she may not pass the threshold, it is true that having her as a co-author on an earlier publication (conference abstract) gives her a stronger case than otherwise. If her contribution was deemed important enough for authorship at first, and you now publish work that includes this contribution, why shouldn't she be an author? I don't think that authorship “dilutes” because other larger contributions were added…

In conclusion: you maybe have good reasons not to make her a co-author, but if she feels like fighting it, she does have valid enough arguments that it could get messy. I'd advise discussing it openly with her, but being ready to have her as co-author if she feels strongly about it.

One problem with discussing this is that there's a power dynamic here: the undergraduate versus the (relatively) senior researcher. With colleagues, such discussion would make sense, but with someone in such a position I don't think they'd feel comfortable enough to have an open discussion.

I generally agree with the answer by F'x, but there is an additional point: You wrote in your question that

she is out of the field and I cannot contact her easily

I think that you shouldn't put her on the list of authors without her approval, for which you obviously need to contact her. Many journals that I know have the explicit policy that all authors need to approve the final manuscript.
If you don't have any affordable means to reach her, one way out could be to cite the conference abstract / poster where she is a coauthor, even if it is not a formal research publication. Thus, you make clear that her contribution was only to the results presented earlier. In addition, you could explain the particular contribution in the acknowledgments.

The rule-to-go is the question "has she contributed to the new paper?" Next issue is to ask the actual contributee, if she wants to be on the authors' list – this was all mentioned in the answers above.
Bu-uuuut. I see a bad flag raised here. It is a follow-up work on something you worked together with her. How much of that work transitioned into the current one? Has she contributed to those parts?
I would say, if you answer the above questions positively, she should be mentioned in the authors' list. But, please, do as the first paragraph states.

The Hardy-Littlewood rules of collaboration, while formulated for a mathematical collaboration between peers, are a useful guide to a harmonious collaboration here. Specifically, the fourth axiom:

...it was quite indifferent if one of them had not contributed the
  least bit to the contents of a paper under their common name . . .

Gift authorship (putting down names of people who took little or no part in the research) is considered unethical by many committees on publication ethics.  (See the link in my comment above for an example.)

I agree with Joel: Hardy-Littlewood rules made sense in a specific context, but applied today in other fields those rules would likely violate authorship standards as set forth by journal policies… (we already discussed it here)

If the OP had a particular journal in mind with specific policies, then I suspect this issue would be moot. I took the view that the question was being asked more generally.

@Suresh an overwhelming majority of journals nowadays follow COPE policies, even if they don't have specific journal policies... Which is why, generally, this would be considered gift authorship by today's standards

How is extending a conference paper to a journal paper and including the authors of the earlier paper in any way a gift?  Occasionally as a reviewer I have seen a name drop from a paper that is presented as an earlier version and it's actually a red flag to me.
I personally would err on the side of generosity, assuming I could still reach the person involved.


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What should one do if they've discovered a "breakthrough" but lack academia credentials?
Let's assume someone has a very thorough knowledge of a particular field of science but they have absolutely no formal education in this background.
This individual one day realizes a very novel approach to solving a somewhat complex problem.  After developing independent tests and coming up with rock-solid evidence that her method is groundbreaking, and consistently produces test results that would be impossible without a legitimate solution, what can she do with her research to both share the information with the world and retain some form of credit for the discovery?
In other words, how can one be both a hobbyist contributing to a field of scientific study and yet also retain the respect they deserve for their work if it is of great use and benefit?
To be clear, this isn't about having one's name appear in a Science Journal without the necessary credentials.  I think it's respectable to maintain certain sets of rules and standards for journalistic publications.  However, it also isn't fair for such a person to have to divulge this information to someone who is "qualified" and have them receive all or most of the credit for someone elses work, just because that other person hasn't earned a piece of paper.
How can hobbyist both share, and maintain, the recognition they deserve if they make a legitimate scientific breakthrough?

You could always write it up in a less formal manner and submit it to http://arxiv.org/ so that it is documented, public, and timestamped. Getting attention to it is another problem though.

@EnergyNumbers Yes, I think that is a good question and it nearly answers my question.  Still, what steps should one take to protect themselves and share the information? Should they attempt to write a paper and submit it?  What if they are, exactly, as articulate in the field as should be acceptable for such a journal, but their science checks out?

I think writing a good paper will be pretty easy for you: very very few scientists ever attain "a very thorough knowledge of a particular field of science", yet publish, so you'll be fine.

Another possible idea: Reach out to some researchers in the field to see if they would be interested in helping you.

Related: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/18491/i-believe-i-have-solved-a-famous-open-problem-how-do-i-convince-people-in-the-f

@AustinHenley I think a combination of your responses could be the best approach-- post an informal document on ArXiv and then reach-out to the intellectual community.  Post an answer with a few more generalized comments and I'll give you the answer. I was aware of arXiv but I didn't know that it was open for general publication.

And just so this doesn't become a question, this is in no way related to P=NP, or other comp-sci voodoo. ;)

Is there a reason why you want to publish your breakthrough? You could also patent your idea and sell it. Either way you don't need academic credentials for that.

Profiteering-- I like the way you think! But seriously, if there is any merit to what I've done (I assume there is but I'm the type of person who has to test something an insane amount of time, before I share it) then I'd rather all this information be made public for general use.  Also, I think the nature of the solution is too simple to patent.  Of course, if CPU endianness can be patented, then I certainly guess I could patent what I'm doing. Hmm... There is a chance that you've just helped me pay for my children's future-education!

Several comments have suggested posting to arXiv, but this will not be possible without either an existing publication history in the particular subfield or the endorsement of a respected practitioner of that subfield.

@dmckee Im sure there are alternatives that would suffice. For example, http://vixra.org/.

@RLH the majority of the stuff that really helps us on a daily basis are, or have been, commercial products. You can surely benefit the public by selling your invention. Whether or not patenting is appropriate is not something that can be determined in this context. At any rate, good luck with your endeavor.

In all of my experience, scientific breakthroughs are never made by hobbyists.  They are sometimes -- not that rarely -- made by amateurs, but that's not the same thing at all.  Amateurs love the subject, so they are willing to spend as long as it takes to develop their ideas to fruition (or see for themselves that they do not work out as they originally thought).  Hobbyists settle for convincing (to them) evidence that they have had the essential idea of a scientific breakthrough and want recognition for this alone: they are not interested in spadework.

I see a few approaches you could take (or some combination):

Write up the idea as a white paper and submit to http://arxiv.org (or something similar). This gets the idea documented, public, timestamped, and allows people to easily cite it.
Reach out to researchers in the field to see if they would be willing to help you form a scientific paper based on your idea. Not all professors are scary!
Submit to the industry track of a research conference if you have an industry background (if not, then maybe a workshop). Some conferences elicit papers from industry that can get your idea out there, generate discussion, and allows you to get feedback. These tracks are often less competitive and very open to non-researchers. For example, Software Engineering In Practice at the International Conference on Software Engineering

ArXiv is not an open forum anymore; a history or endorsement is required.

@dmckee Do you know of an alternative website for him? Although, it seems simple enough to find an endorser.

@dmckee Maybe http://vixra.org/?

Vixra will serve to establish priority, but it could beget more resistance to being taken seriously. I don't know how seriously he should worry about that.

If the idea really is groundbreaking, it shouldn't be at all difficult to get it accepted at a conference, without needing to find special tracks for people who aren't academics.

@DavidRicherby Even a groundbreaking idea may require a formal evaluation, thorough lit review, and a write-up that follows the field's conventions. None of which is trivial for someone with no experience.

I agree with Austin Henley (comments of mine with similar sentiments appear elsewhere on this page): maybe it shouldn't be difficult, but it certainly is.  (However, as a professional researcher I am very skeptical of the distinction between a breakthrough idea and its implementation.  If you think you have the first but not the second, then you have more work to do.  If you're not willing to do that work, then....)

I guess there are quite a few scientists that have not graduated in a certain field and later prominently published in it. The best thing to do is to talk to people about it e.g. on conferences or seminars. Because in the end that is what you want: Get feedback/support/critique from other experts in the field. If you have discovered a breakthrough, writing it down in an abstract or discussion paper should be the easiest thing. Hand it in at conferences or local university faculties in order to get the chance to speak about it. If it is good, they will tell. If it aint, they will let you know. Most people I met in academia are open minded and willing to give you a chance (whether or not you have a degree in the field) if they found your abstract/paper interesting enough.


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PubMed RSS Feeds
I would like to be up to date with published articles on my research topic. I saw that pubmed allow to subscribe to a research (there is an RSS link just below the research box), so I added the RSS to my Outlook account. The problem is the new feeds seem not very frequent, and the articles are not  even recent! (I added the RSS feed in November, today I got an update with a paper published in September 2012, which by the way I had already read).
Do you subscribe to this kind of RSS? Is it a problem of Pubmed, or maybe of Outlook?

In this case, it's a PubMed issue, but it's actually an issue that most of the online aggregators and literature databases share: for some reason, which I have never managed to understand, databases update is slow.
If I take a given journal indexed in PubMed, Phys. Rev. Lett., let's see what are the most recently added articles:

You see that they are two months old (dating November 21, while I write this answer on January 25). Both the web search front-end and the RSS use the same database, which is not fast to pick up papers from some journals. Your mileage may vary, however: the most recently added PLOS One articles are dated January 16, a mere 10-days old:

I say that most databases I know have the same issue. From experience, Web of Science has the slowest update, while both PubMed and Google Scholar are better. For my field (chemistry), SciFinder has the fastest update speed.

Thank you for the reply. What puzzles me is that if I make a research today, sorting by newest added, from the website, with the same words, I get much more recent papers (like 20 papers from January 2013). That's why I was wondering if it was also an Outlook issue.

@laika look at the RSS feed in another viewer, like Google Reader or Firefox. I doubt it's an Outlook issue.

Sorry, I had to check again my exact research terms and now I see that the paper I received today is just the second newest article according to Pubmed (so it's not sooo bad as I was thinking). I'll give a look to SciFinder too!


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Time employed for writing
I am looking for any indication of how long should it take to write, let's say, a paragraph, for a non-native English speaker (with a good knowledge of English). I know that for the writing process of a paper or essay one should take in account also the time required for research and mind-mapping, which is not easily quantifiable. I am interested in some reference for the time needed to translate the mind map to a paragraph. The only time indication I found was in  http://www.scripps.edu/milligan/em-journal/pdf/Scientific_Writing.pdf (e.g Introduction: 3 days) , but the author clarifies that it is a personal opinion, and anyway it includes the mindmapping procedure. I can spend half an hour writing and editing a couple of sentences (already knowing which concept I need to express), how can I know if this time it's abnormous?
(meta: Feel free to move to personalproductivity if it's the case, I was unsure but then I thought of posting in academia because I am specifically talking about scientific writing)

Or maybe move to writing? Not sure.

It takes whatever it takes.  My MS advisor could (and I assume still can) reliably write a 15-page paper in a single long evening.  I'm lucky if I can write an entire page in one day.  We're both native English speakers.

As a teacher who has taught many non-native speakers subjects in English, I am quite confident when I say that the time will vary by the person. Some people are quite strong and write faster (and better) than some native speakers but others write very, very slowly.
To have anything meaningful, there must be some quantifiable tie back to English level (what does 'good knowledge of English' mean to you? IELTS 8?)
It seems you are interesting to know if you are performing well enough compared to some standard, but we would first need the standard (and it does look like you're trying to find the standard) and that standard must take into account more than just the information you've provided (how much experience do you have writing in general? how good is your English? what kind of writing are you doing?).

My focus is not really on my performance compared to the average, the problem is that writing takes me much time and blocks my other tasks. I've asked for some references just to respect the Q&A format of StackExchange. It's been a long time since I've taken an English certification (263/300 at CBT TOEFL), anyway the final result of my writing is not so bad :) It's reasonable that to write (or edit) a paragraph I should not plan any other activity for half a day? I think I will try to write something every day to improve my confidence, but I'd like to have realistic expectations

In my experience, writing and editing take time. However, the more you work at it, the better you will be. However, the more time you spend on it, the better the quality will be. You have to decide what quality you're willing to accept and give the time to get that quality from yourself.

That's a brilliant link - thanks. And you have a good question that worries lots of people.  I wrote an answer to a similar question on my blog at ScholarWriter.
I believe that most people would say that you are jumping to the editing task far too soon.

Decide on your outline - are you writing a narrative, an exposition, a persuasive piece or a scientific paper - and decide what each section is for.
Do your research and add the "facts and figures" for each section getting as specific as each paragraph.
Then write.

Edit your work the following day. Don't try to "polish" and write at the same time. Equally writing is much easier if you know exactly what you are trying to convey and have the correct information in front of you.
There is one other use for writing, though - to reveal connections and insights.  As much as you know what you think when you say it, you know what it is possible to think when you write it.  Often you only realize what is your main point after you have written a paragraph or section. So you go back to the beginning to structure everything again.  Though that is a lot of extra work, in this situation you are pleased that to do work because now you are so clear about what you are trying to convey and which information it is important to include.
Hope this helps - and good luck!

Estimating the time to "write" a paragraph is hard since the paragraph isn't really done until you submit it. There can be many revisions before a paragraph is submitted, many of which have nothing to do with the paragraph itself (i.e., something else changed).
In my field conference abstracts are small (250 word), one-off, self-contained paragraphs. In my time estimates I assume that during the writing you are not collecting new data or conducting new analyses and that you understand the data and analysis that you have already completed. Obviously collecting data and understanding it can take huge amounts of time.
Grad students, both from observations and personal experience, take about 14 hours to write an abstract with it taking about 8 hours for the first draft, 4 hours to revise based on feedback from co-authors, and 2 hours to finalize after a second round of feedback. Post-docs go faster taking about 6 hours for the first draft and 2 hours to revise and finalize. They tend to only need one round of feedback. PIs go the fastest with about 4 hours to write and 15 minutes to revise based on feedback. Getting the feedback from co-authors takes times, but I don't consider that part of the writing process. There are a few people out there that can write beautiful technical prose at a rate of 500 words an hour, but they are the exception and not the rule.

These numbers seem huge to me. It may also depend on the area. For example I can imagine philosophy taking much longer to write (and read related work) than experimental science, where raw data obtained from experiments could actually be published without any abstract and be very useful and cited.


text:
Is an erratum justified for a weak result?
A few years ago I had published a mathematics journal article where for one of the results I had imposed extremely strong assumptions to ensure that given conclusion is true.  Figuratively speaking, I now realise that I have used a hydraulic press to crack a peanut.   Indeed, the same conclusion can be obtained with minimal assumptions.
Needless to say, I am deeply ashamed by this sloppiness, but I am not sure if this merits publishing an erratum.  One co-author strongly opposes publishing an erratum, saying that we should simply add a remark to a follow-up paper we are writing,  while the other couldn't care less.   As the original result isn't strictly incorrect, I'm not sure what the appropriate approach is.

If only mathematicians had a time machine so they could go back and "fix" their "sloppiness" when they realize their results hold in greater generality than they first thought....This is how math works, and it is glorious.  You prove what you need, then someone (possibly yourself) makes you look like an idiot by one-upping you with a more beautiful and elegant result that you can't for the life of you explain how you didn't think of the first time around.  So, yeah, I say go with Mac's answer: make a new paper either for it or containing it and carry on.

In my opinion, an erratum is an erratum. I mean you should use it if you really discovered a flaw in a result and you want to patch it when the patch is not evident.
In your case, in some sense you improved your previous result and this either necessitate a new paper if the improvement is substantial or just a remark in some follow-up paper.

Nice. I wanted to post the same answer. An erratum or corrigendum (plurals: errata, corrigenda) (comes from Latin: errata corrige) is a correction of a published text. The OP wants an improvement not a correction because the result is correct.

I agree. If he has found his nutcracker (not that you'd need one for a peanut) it's probably worthy of a publication in its own right. An erratum, at worst, would muddle up exactly when the new solution was found and in what context.

I agree as well. Either a remark or a short paper would be a better idea.


text:
GRE subject test- Biology or Cell/Biochemistry?
I am majoring in computer engineering and having a minor in computational biology. I'm planning to apply for a PhD in computational biology too, though I didn't take an impressive amount of biology/chemistry/biochemistry modules. Therefore, I am taking the GRE subject test to compensate for the imbalances between my EECS and bio-related portions in my transcript.
Which GRE subject test will benefit me the most in this case? Biology or Cell and Biochemistry? The main purpose for me is to prove that I have good background in the fields.
Thanks

This is a question best answered by the admissions officers at the programs to which you want to apply. They will generally have recommendations as to which test they would prefer you to take. If there's a consensus that one of the tests is preferable to the other, that's the one that you should take.
(My particular sense on this is that Cell/Biochemistry is probably closer to what is expected for people in Computational Biology than the more general Biology exam. However, I am not a bio person, so I'm not speaking from a position of authority here.)

Based on your answer, should we migrate the question to Biology SE ?

Not sure about that. I don't think a question about biology tests is on-topic on that board.


text:
Is It a Common Practice to Contact the Reviewers?
I am about to submit my article in a peer reviewed journal which requires the contacts of three potential reviewers of my work. I can think of a few names whose works I have cited in the paper (who, I think will be the best judge). Is it polite to contact them via email to check their availability (of course everybody is under time constraints) before I put their names in the journal website? I am concerned that it can be regarded as a conflict of interest or an attempt to bias their opinions. What should I do?

I was in that position once, and did contact some potential reviewers. They all said yes. I personally don't think it does any harm, but as one of the potential reviewers themselves remarked, journals rarely use these suggestions, so I don't really think it matters either way.

My strong advice is a clear NO!
There are several reasons:

The journal might contact other reviewers, not the ones you suggested.
Possible conflict of interest, even if you don't send your paper with the review request
The reviewing process is a business between the editor and the reviewer. It is specially designed to enhance the quality of the accepted papers (Blind, double blind reviews, etc). Once you contact the reviewers, any chance of a blind review goes up in smoke.
If the potential reviewer that you contact, is not selected by the journal he/she might feel offended.

So, in a word:
 NO

Great advice, +1. In addition: it's the editor's and the reviewers' job to juggle their availability. If the reviewer doesn't have the time, he can always decline, and the editor will understand. So this is definitely not something the author needs to consider.

I feel contacting the potential reviewers in the way you suggest would at least seem awkward. However, something that is common practice at least in some fields is to send your preprint before submission to people that might be interested. The list of potential reviewers tend to largely intersect the list of potentially interested people, so in some sense this is a way to contact them in advance.

However this would also be a problem for the double-blindness of the review process since the reviewers would see who the author was. Less problematic in smaller fields where everyone knows everyone else's work and the only anonymous people are the reviewers themselves, but if we're aiming for the most robust review system…

@Jangari: of course, this practice is probably only common in fields where double-blind review is not used.


text:
To senior researchers, how would you view a student you wanted to work with, but who could not?
I am a Ph.D. student and met this senior scientist in a local conference, let's call him Dr. XX. (He is working in a research institute like Bell Lab, not exactly in academia.) We took some interest in each other's work and my supervisor allowed me to work with him. We (me, Dr. XX and my supervisor) just got our paper accepted in a journal as well. I liked working with him and learnt from him.
He also raised some excellent idea about how to extend the work to another novel domain and has been pushing me to come up with some literature study and run some experiment etc. Unfortunately, my Ph.D. supervisor (who is the boss I answer to) is not exactly enthusiastic in that and pushing me in a different direction.
I have conveyed it to Dr. XX in somewhat evasive terms, telling I need some time to decide etc. but just realised it has been a few months. I am not sure how to deal with this. I love both of the topics for the later stage of my Ph.D. but how do I prioritise?
Also, I know it is a question of interpersonal dynamics, but if you were Dr. XX, how would you think of me for being evasive? For example, while applying for postdoc position, will you write a recommendation for me, with this somewhat awkward situation?

It feels like you only made it awkward by using evasive terms. I don't see why you are not telling him that you find the topic very interesting, but for the moment you will have to work on another direction with your advisor?

I agree with @olrun.  The best course here to preserve your network is just to be direct. You priority here is presumably to earn the PhD. This Dr. X will understand that. Let him know you're very interested in three topic and hope to address it once the doctoral research wraps up. He will appreciate your candor and respect your dedication.

Personally, I am much happier when somebody tells me "I can't do this because XXX" than when they disappear on me.  If they tell me they can't, then I can adjust my plans and act accordingly; if they don't tell me, then they leave me hanging and I find it quite frustrating.
I strongly advise you to make a clear decision about whether you are going to work on the project right now, and then go and clearly tell the person, through a direct video/phone link rather via email if possible.  If the decision is no, because your current supervisor is pushing you to focus on something else, then that will be quite understandable and will make no prejudice against you for most people---it is a quite typical difficulty for many people in graduate school.
As for whether they will be willing to recommend you as a postdoc: personally, if I like and respect a student, that's not going to be changed if external circumstances disrupt our work together.  If would not be as strong, of course, as if we had done more good work together that I could talk about more, but it would still be positive.  Others, of course, may vary in their opinions, and you can only find out from your associate by asking.

First, congrats on being in a good position-- two directions laid out for you.  Also it looks like you have hands on supervisors.
It is usually a good idea to work on more than one problem simultaneously.  You may get stuck on one and yet still make progress on another.
Key questions (i) what is your capacity to undertake both problems? (ii) which one or both will get you a PhD?  I.e., which one is more relevant to your PhD?
I would prioritise and explore both problems if possible.  However do not sacrifice your PhD just to please the senior researcher.  He/she should understand; I.e., You do not answer to him/her.


text:
How important is the Ph.D. Thesis?
It may sound an insincere question but bear with me, please.
I am just starting to write my thesis. I got some good publications along the way, and I have a couple under review which I hope will get accepted in tier 1 journals. So the question is, does the thesis in itself add a lot of value to my Ph.D.? Or is it necessary just as part of the formalities?
Also, two related questions are

How do the thesis reviewers' expectation/judgement differ from the journal reviewers' expectation? Obviously, it is the same people usually. But when you (as a faculty) review a thesis, do you look for the same elements as when you review for a Tier I journal?
If the candidate has good publications, does that make you, in want of a better word, go somewhat easy on the thesis?

My professor is, of course, not letting me take it somewhat lightly. I understand where is he coming from since his colleagues will ultimately examine the thesis. But off the record, how critical is the thesis for my career after the defence is over?

It depends on the discipline, etc.  In physics or chemistry, it's not important.

Please note that I have not answered the sub-question about thesis reviewers vs. journal reviewers.  The answer to that question is quite complex and I think it should be cut out of this question as its own independent question.

Related: What is the point of a PhD thesis whose content already exists in published papers?

Are you talking about the results or the write-up?  For the write-up, are you allowed to do a "sandwich thesis"?

Possible duplicate of How important is the write-up of a PhD thesis for an academic career?

How important is the Ph.D. Thesis?

It depends on what you have in mind for "importance".  The intellectual content of the thesis is vitally important, since it stands for what you have accomplished in graduate school.  You should make sure it contains your best work, since early in your career you'll be judged partly on this basis.
In the long run, there is little direct value to the dissertation as a document.  (Aside from any sentimental value, laying out the historical record, and satisfying bureaucratic requirements.)  Any valuable content should be published, and the resulting publications will be the definitive source that the community will rely on in the future.  If people are still reading your thesis five years after your graduate, then that's a sign that you have not done an adequate job of publishing your work.
Opinions differ on how seriously to take the dissertation as a specialized form of academic writing.  For example, how much additional background, commentary, or literature review should it contain?  Should it be written in a different style from published papers?  This can vary between countries, fields, universities, departments, and even individual advisors.  There's no universal answer, and you'll have to investigate what fits your particular circumstances.
In particular, one fundamental question is whether your dissertation is nothing more than an account of research that has been or will be published, or whether it's an important academic exercise in which you demonstrate your perspective and thoroughness in a way that would not fit in a conventional paper.
I see the former as the default answer for mathematics in the U.S., but the latter is not completely unknown.  (There are advisors who insist that their students write far more detailed proofs in the dissertation than one would ever actually publish, to demonstrate that the student can in fact do this.)

I generally agree, though there can be some use.   For instance, there's a bunch of "little stuff" as well as more context in my thesis that did not appear in papers (which I wrote before my thesis).  While it's nothing groundbreaking, this made my thesis useful to both me and a few other people on occasion (possibly more useful than the published papers!).

The importance of a person's Ph.D. thesis per se for their further academic career varies wildly, because the thesis is just one component in a person's portfolio.  The significance of that component depends strongly on their intended direction and the contents of the rest of the portfolio.
First and foremost, remember that most people who obtain a Ph.D. do not end up becoming faculty at a top-tier research university.  If your ambition is to end up in a more teaching-centric position or in industry, then research work is mostly just evidence of one's necessary technical competence.  The primary work that such a person is hired for is almost never directly linked to their thesis: in a teaching post you may continue that research, but that is secondary to teaching; in industry you are probably going to end up working on something different, but that will exercise similar technical skills.
Even for those who do aim for a career of self-directed research (e.g., tenure track faculty), however, the thesis is only one part of the more general research portfolio.  In some fields or for some particular people, the thesis is the key point of contribution, standing above all of one's other work.  For many others, however, either the thesis is a compilation of results that have been achieved and published along the way, or the thesis is only one piece of a greater body of work.  It is often the most important because others may have the person as a secondary contributor, but across all fields it is rarely the only significant piece of work.
Moreover, the next step after a Ph.D. is typically not faculty but postdoc, and it is one's ability to "flower" and become well published as a postdoc, with more self-direction and outside of your home laboratory, that is often a much stronger determinant of faculty hiring.
Now, if you write a bad thesis, it will most certainly be a detraction.  In general, however, I would say that for most people in many fields, the Ph.D. thesis should be viewed as having an importance only equivalent to 2-4 major papers.

For many in the humanities (or at least, in my corner), the dissertation is an excellent starting point to getting one's first monograph out, or, alternatively, several articles.  That can be a huge boost to people working to get tenure, especially if you're on a 4/4 or worse load because 90% of the work is done. A weak dissertation might not be of much use at all for later publishing and thus those first few years will be even more work.


text:
How to archive an academic blog or website?
Academic blogs and websites are emerging as an important component of academic discourse.
However, I often lack confidence that the content will remain accessible in the short term (e.g., 5 years) let alone the longer term (10, 20, 50, 100 years).
An important function of journals is to archive the content and provide a stable citation system.
In particular, I'm worried about:

academics who change employment where the site is hosted by the previous employer
academics who die or lose interest in their content (e.g., domain names lapsing; site hosting fees ending)
Internet services that close down

Question:
What can an academic blogger do to ensure that their blog content remains archived and accessible in the longer term?

As a side note, I asked a similar question on OpenData.SE: http://opendata.stackexchange.com/questions/694/preservation-of-blog-posts-articles-and-essays
However, it still remains an open (and important) question.

Digital preservation is an evolving area, and the ability to preserve websites over the long-term is one of the most problematic areas. There are several reasons for this: the dynamic nature of contemporary websites (especially in a format like a blog, where content is update regularly and interactive components such as commenting), hyperlinking (which will eventually lead to broken links and broken images, which, if you point to content external to your site, is out of your control) and the instability of Web formats (websites might look better in one browser than another, much less how websites hold up over time) are just a few of the challenges in preserving websites.
There are, however, several things you can do to help preserve your website:

Backup—keep your content stored in more than one location (on your server, on your hard drive, on an external hard drive, in the cloud, etc.) and don't use an external service as your primary storage location, as they can collapse at any time (Geocities was a huge service when it was shuttered);
Keep up to date in changes in file formats and browser software—when browsers get updated to view HTML 5, 6, or whatever may replace HTML in the future, will they be backwards compatible to be able to view the blog you're authoring today, or will you need to migrate your website to a contemporary format?;
Utilize pockets of expertise on campus—archivists on many campuses have been working towards digital preservation solution and your university's archivist (especially at larger universities) may be able to provide solutions for the long-term preservation of your website; and
Consider normalizing your website to a preservation format—although creating a copy of your website as a PDF may mean losses in functionality (in terms of interactivity), it is a way to preserve the content and appearance of the site in a file format that is considered a safer bet for long-term preservation.

The Library of Congress also provides some tips on how to design preservable websites including following available web and accessibility standards, embedding metadata and maintaining stable URLs.

Taylor, N. (2012, February 6). Designing Preservable Websites, Redux.
  Retrieved May 23, 2012, from
  http://blogs.loc.gov/digitalpreservation/2012/02/designing-preservable-websites-redux/

Just wanted to suggest RSS as an archive format for blogs. Unlike pdf, the text content of RSS is readable by computers, which could be important if one wanted to republish the content at a later time...

keep up-to-date backups so that you've got copies in at least two geographical locations (e.g. one at home, one at work) of everything you want to keep.
route everything via your own personal domain: so that even when things are hosted elsewhere (current university website, pre-print archives, whatever), the URL people see and bookmark is the one on your own personal domain. That way, their bookmarks will still work when you change your affiliation away from your current university.
pick good URIs, and then stick to them.

I believe you have a number of options, which I'm stating in no particular oder:

You can use the Wayback Machine, which strives to store snapshots of web-pages across time. You can also use the more personalized archive-it service, which lets you manage your own collection, at the same time sharing it with the public - this is mostly used by institutions I think.
Alternatively, you can host your own blog on a licensed domain name, where you've prepaid the fees for enough years in advance.

Lastly, a very simple suggestion - if the content of the website is tending towards the academic quality/nature of a book, why not publish it as a short collection essays, which you can then disseminate freely over open web libraries etc?

Yep, I guess I haven't been on the net long enough to realize that nothing is infallible! Edited answer accordingly...

(a) Wayback Machine: my blog has around 200 unique pages, but only 20 pages are archived on Wayback Machine; so it appears to inadequately archive content (b) Paying ahead of time for domain and site presumably has limits (a hosting company could end; and how many years can you easily pay in advance, 10? 20?) (c) the book idea seems like a viable strategy for some content.