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Do two rounds of major revision lead to a better chance of getting the paper accepted?
I submitted a paper to a prominent journal in my field. The reviewers all indicated that the paper would make a positive contrition to the field in the first round of review and asked me to make a major revision. I revised the manuscript according to their review and all reviewers indicated that they like my revision. However, one of the reviewers kept raising new issues and asked me to undertake another round of "major revision." Personally, I really feel that the new issues are not too difficult to address. However, I am wondering whether it is fair to keep raising new  (major) issues in each round of review. And, what is my chance of getting the paper accepted in the scenario described above (two rounds of major revision)? Thanks very much for your insight.

I think of requests for revision as falling into three basic categories, sorted in order of importance:

New technical results (e.g., additional experiments, more theorems)
Large-scale text improvement (e.g., reorganizing text, dealing with pervasive language issues)
Localized text improvement (e.g., improving explanations, adding references)

Of these, only a request for new results should be of concern as a possible road to rejection: for the other two, if you want the paper published, if one cares to one can typically always put in sufficient work to address reviewer comments.  It may be hard, unpleasant, and unrewarding (depending on the particulars), but this is an area where any request for revision almost always has a clear path to publication, and of a stronger paper than you started with.
Requests for new technical results, on the other hand, might or might not be something that you cannot reasonable address.  If you can address them, then it's still a clear road to publication of a stronger paper.  If you can't, however, then it's a question of scope and may be worth discussing with the handling editor to see whether they are a sine qua non for publication.
In general, however, my feeling about requests for revision, even major revision, is that they're generally good news.  Once a paper hits at least a major revision, it's highly likely to be eventually accepted if the authors just keep answering the requests for improvement, and will likely be the stronger for it.  There are exceptions (I just had one rejected by a journal for the rather unusual reason that "they only allow one revision,"), but in my experience these most frequently reflect an author who has chosen to fight the reviewers rather than to improve the paper.

Thank you so much for taking time to answer my question and the above useful information. I learned a lot.

I can see two reasons why a reasonable referee might request a second major revision after you've addressed all the issues raised in the first report.  (1) Your revision to address the original issues might have introduced new problems that now need to be addressed.  (2) Some problems in the original manuscript could not be detected until after other issues had been resolved.
As for your second question, about the chance of getting the paper accepted after the second round of revision, I cannot make any guess without a lot more information about the journal, the paper, the nature of the revisions, and perhaps the editor's mood.

I have personally reviewed a paper where I requested a second round of revisions because of issue (2). The first submission was poorly written, but promising enough that the editor overlooked this (and did not outright reject). The improved clarity of the second version allowed for a more thorough review.

Another point. Just because the editor chose "revise" doesn't mean all the reviewers recommended it to be revised. I have found from reading other reviewers' reviews (on the same paper that I am reviewing) that reviewers who clicked "reject" the first time often ask for major revisions the second time, possibly because the initial review was pointing out more "big picture issues" rather than smaller innacuracies.

Thanks for your answer to my first question. I personally found the review comments very constructive and helpful in improving the quality of the paper. The scope of the journal is related to education. 3 reviewers were involved. Two were happy with my first round of revision; the third reviewer is the one who asked me to undertake another round of (major) revision. Despite this, the third revision indicated that all his/her concerns were "fully addressed" in the first round of revision. The nature of the second round of revision only involves two clarification and justification.

The third reviewer is also the one who indicated that the paper would contribute to the field.

I review many journal and conference papers frequently. In my opinion, first round decides whether the quality and technicality of the paper is considerable or not. If yes, then reviewer provides his/her minor and major comments. In second round of review, first reviewer checks whether all his/her comments have been addressed or not. Is the paper now seems reason to accept? If not, the reviewer ask for next review, but minor (may be with mandatory changes).
I have also observed that some reviewers keep on doing this and ask you every time to revise the paper with new comments. I don't think it is a good practice. The reviewer must give his/her major concerns in first round of review. If he/she is not satisfy with the quality of the paper, justify the reason and the reject the paper.
In my understanding your paper can be accepted (high probability), but you still need to revise the paper considering reviewer's comments.

I disagree with "I don't think it is a good practice [to keep on finding new flaws]" at least during a second or 3rd round, as long as the reviewer made an effort to find them in previous rounds. In fact, I'd argue it is highly commendable to put significant time into a latter review.

In addition what others have said, I sometimes (as a reviewer) recommend major revision, with a threat to reject the paper in the second round. This is mostly with the papers, for which I believe are worthy of publication, but cannot be reviewed due to language or writing issues (mostly papers from Asia, where many papers lack proper english-speaking author). I have no patience guessing what people wanted to say, when the language is totally unreadable.
In that case, I treat the actual second round of revision as the first one, so I may request the second major revision, if necessary. If, on the other hand, authors do not fix the paper to the point where I could understand what they actually mean, I reject the paper (but always following the threat in the first round).


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What does "awaiting reviewer selection" really mean under the "minor revision" scenario?
I just submitted a revised paper to ScholarOne (minor revision). I suppose that in most cases (of minor revision), the revised manuscript will only be reviewed by the ADM or associate editor. However, I just noticed that the status of my revised manuscript is now "awaiting reviewer selection". Does this entail that the revised manuscript has to go back to the original reviewer for (final) re-review? Or, could it be that it is an automatic status message showing that the editor is now reading/evaluating my revised manuscript and that this does not necessary mean that the revised paper has to go back to the original reviewer? Thanks for your insight in advance.

A plausible guess is that the editorial software uses "awaiting reviewer selection" to mean that the manuscript has been received but has not been sent to a reviewer. If the manuscript is only going to be checked by an editor and not by an external reviewer, then, of course, it's in the situation I described --- received and not sent to a reviewer --- but the software's code for this situation --- awaiting reviewer selection --- is completely misleading.

They may genuinely have to select new reviewers, if they want to send the revision out for review. There are several journals I review for where you can opt-out of re-reviewing a revision.

@AndreasBlass "If the manuscript is only going to be checked by an editor and not by an external reviewer..." is an unknown. I've had minor revisions sent out for review, both as an author and reviewer.

Try to recollect how the statuses changed when you submitted the paper the first time.
Scenario 1: with editor/under editor evaluation >> awaiting reviewer selection >> under review
If this is how the status had changed the first time you submitted the paper, then chances are that your paper is actually being sent for a re-review.
Scenario 2: awaiting reviewer selection>> under review
If this was the way the status had changed, then it is possible that the online status tracking software uses the status "awaiting reviewer selection" to indicate that the paper is with the editor.

Thank you very much for your insight. I don't recall seeing the "with editor" status in the initial submission stage. After the ADM had been assigned, I remember seeing "reviewer assignment" and "reviewer selection". And then the status automatically changed to "under review". I assume that it is more similar to the second scenario that you noted.

After having a second thought, I am still a bit confused. If this is the 2nd scenario noted above--that ScholarOne uses the status "awaiting reviewer selection" to indicate that the paper is with the editor and will only be reviewed by the editor (after the submission of a revised manuscript)--why it does not directly indicate the status "awaiting final (EIC) decision"?

Possibly, the default status does not directly show "awaiting final decision" to give the editor the freedom to send the manuscript for a re-review if the editor feels it is required. Additionally, it might be difficult to have different settings on the tracking system for revised submissions, but I agree that the status "awaiting reviewer selection" can be misleading and there should be another status such as "with editor" to clarify this.

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As an undergraduate, how do I become aware of the big names and departments in my areas of interest if that area has no researchers at my university?
I'm looking into a variety of grad schools, but really the only places I know to look are at top 15 or so schools. Now, I know often times certain research areas within a discipline have top-tier research groups at otherwise average-ranked schools in other areas. Unforunately, I have some areas of interest that I'd like to pursue, but none of the professors in my department are active in those areas, so it's tricky to get specific info about top researchers, top departments, top journals, etc. in those areas. Is there some way I can find this information?
I'm in electrical engineering, if it matters.

none of the professors in my department are active in those areas, so
  it's tricky to get specific info about top researchers, top
  departments, top journals, etc. in those areas.

I suggest trying to talk to faculty in your department anyway; at the very least, they should be able to point you in the right direction, or where to start looking.
Even in the (very unlikely) event that the faculty at your school aren't very helpful with your direct task of identifying researchers in your areas of interest, they should be able to help you start using Google (or whatever your favorite search engine is) to identify key papers to read, and, more importantly, to track down where the research that you are interested in doing is being done.
If you have several faculty in your department to choose from, talk to the ones that are "research active": they will know how to help you perfect your search skills.

To supplement any useful tidbits that come out of discussions with faculty at your school, let me also add:
As an undergraduate student, you may not have had a chance to start reading papers in your areas of interest; that's OK. If that is the case, then you can start looking for papers by searching some key words related to your interests on Google Scholar, for example.
From there, you can get an idea of who the lead researchers in your subfield are, and which researchers are citing certain papers you find interesting. Keep track of the author names: read the affiliation information in the paper or use Google to figure out where these folks are.
You can also try searching the web for research groups that are doing the kinds of research you find interesting. For example, if you are in the states (where institutions are on the .edu domain), you could do a Google search for
"high-speed PLL design" research site:edu

and you would obviously change the "high-speed PLL design" search term to something that interests you.
Using variants of the above Google search strategy, I have found a lot of research groups (and their PIs, postdocs, etc.) that are doing the kinds of research that I've wanted to come up to speed on.

Another useful approach is to find out what the top conferences/journals are in the field, and see which names pop up over and over in those.

@ff524 I agree!

If you have reasonably defined areas of interest, you are following the publications in the area (particularly important are conferences, and even personal blogs; it usually takes years for some work to appear in print). Look up the authors of the papers that are close to your interest, and you are done.
One advise: A friend of mine told me he was thrilled to start his PhD thesis with a first-line star in the field. Trouble was that he saw his advisor twice in a year or so, once when discussing the thesis idea and again casually meeting in an aisle. As a superstar, the professor was elsewhere (or just too busy) all the time. He ended up moving elsewhere, and dodn't regret doing hand-to-hand work with a second-tier researcher. Not all superstars are like that, but you do need some support and guidance from your advisor or the research group.

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Found an error in a paper that I already presented at a student engineering conference; what should I do now?
I completed my undergraduate (in engineering) earlier this year and I am working in a company now.
My senior design project involved me developing a different and cost-effective method for something. So I decided to document everything in a research paper.
I ended up submitting the paper to a national level student engineering conference. The paper was accepted. I presented it. And in fact ended up getting the award for the 2nd best paper.
However I was going over my paper the other day and I found out a mistake in my algorithm. My concept (discussed in the paper) and actual code are both correct. But since I didn't put the code in the paper and just the algorithm I made an error in converting my code to the algorithm for the paper.
The error can be easily corrected however the algorithm in its current state will cause the device to not work properly. The paper also discusses 2 other algorithms for 2 other tasks; both of them are correct but everything is interdependent.
The paper hasn't been published (and can't be found online) but it is printed in the conference proceedings. I am also ashamed to have won the 2nd prize with an error in my paper.
My question is, how do I approach this?

Related: I discovered a mistake in my own published workshop paper, how do I handle errata?. I think this question is not a duplicate, though, because this paper is only available in printed proceedings.

I have removed the second question from the post.

Please consider asking it in its own post, I'm very interested in the answers :)

For a paper published in a journal you would go for errata if the mistake is minor and does not invalidate the conclusions of the paper, or for retraction if the mistake invalidates the conclusions. In your case I would contact the organizers of the conference and ask what you should do.
You may feel ashamed about making a mistake that goes into publication (I talk from experience) but acknowledging it and trying to fix it is laudable (not everyone does it), is the ethical alternative and it will give you some peace of mind afterwards.

You're doing the right thing. I would contact the conference organizer to explain the situation. They will appreciate your honesty, and unless the award depended on the exact result rather than the innovation (and your presentation skills) then I suspect that the award would not be revoked. Still, even if it is revoked, you've shown a commitment to accuracy and honesty, which in the long run is more important than some award. Re: the MS, you might mention the correction in the cover letter. Then if the editor and reviewers saw your conference paper, they will be aware of the correction.


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How to peer-review a conference "Symposium"
I have to do a review of a "symposium" that will take place in a major conference in the business / management field. The document I recieved for review consists of:

Abstract + Overview of the symposium
Proposed format of the symposium
Relevance to divisions
5 Article summaries, each about 4-5 pages long

I couldn't find any specific information how to do a peer review of a symposium and I only reviewed regular articles before.
My questions is: how should I review this symposium document? Do I need a separate review for each article summary? Do I need to comment on the information prior to the article summaries, i.e. overview of symposium etc.?

I found the following guiding questions for reviewing symposia:

Does the proposal reflect the overall level of quality an audience
would expect when attending a symposium?
Would the proposed session be of interest to a sufficient number of Division members and other Academy members?
Does the proposal offer sufficient innovation and contribution to warrant program space?

This may be a bit late, but I'm a early-stage scholar in a management field that reviews similar proposals for our major conference. Here is how I approach reviewing symposiums (in no particular order):
1- I review them holistically (i.e. as one document), because that is how the final decision is made (accept or reject the entire proposed symposium). To answer your question, you don't need a separate review for each paper and for the introduction. Just write one review of the proposed symposium.
2- I structure my reviews similarly to how I review papers (summarize main points, strengths, areas for improvement, overall recommendation). I also treat them the same in terms of norms (conversational, developmental, includes what the proposed symposium does well, etc.)
3- I also keep in mind that conference papers are qualitatively different than published papers --- and are supposed to in our field! Conferences are where we get feedback on our ideas, get new ideas from conversations and presentations, and, above all, for everyone to learn :-) In short, I'm much more generous and err toward inclusion and look for the golden nugget of a great idea that needs to learn how to shine to guide me in terms of acceptance.
4- My advisor gave me these guiding questions as well to use in my review and these helped me out a great deal:
Does the symposium look interesting?  Are the arguments clear?  Do the presentations fit together well? Do you think there would be an audience for them?  Do the presenters look like they have a good idea of what they are going to say rather than just fluff?  Are the proposed presenters well-published people with something to say?
Hope this helps!


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What goes in a student success statement for a faculty application?
One of my faculty position applications requires me to write a student success statement. I'm unsure what such a document should contain. Is this similar to a teaching statement?

I'm assuming this is for a faculty application?

Yes. (Updated the question)

Presumably what your ex-students are doing now (however, I fail to see how this would be valid for entry-level professor positions).

I would recommend e-mailing a contact in the department and asking them. I expect that the answer would be "It's just a teaching statement", although it could be different.
Another thing you might do is search the university's website for "Student Success" and try to get a sense of what particularly the university means by this buzzword. Keep in mind that this requirement was possibly imposed by higher administration, and the people reading and evaluating your application might or might not have high regard for the intent behind it.
Edit: (too late for OP, but perhaps still of interest) From what I can tell, when universities talk about "student success" they are usually talking about efforts to make sure that students don't fall through the cracks. So in a "student success statement" you might talk about how you've gone out of your way to help students who are struggling.

This would be a (vague) request for some sort of documentation of your students' meeting some (ill-specified?) goals either within your course itself or in subsequent coursework... With "success" being defined in who-knows-what way. Most people would have no serious way to "prove" that they'd "benefited their students",... even while, perhaps, being asked to prove that.
It is never clear to what extent such unlikedly-to-be-truly-documentable claims play a role in hiring and such. Higher [sic] administrators obviously will love such concepts, because they make good PR, while are so vague that they could be used as excuses for fairly capricious acts.
E.g., it may well be that the hiring department is simply required by the central administration to request such a thing, even while fully realizing the dubiousness of its sense. Would not be at all surprising.


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Which is considered more valuable for faculty job applications, teaching experience or participation in conferences?
As a PhD student from top university, I have the opportunity of having a minor called "teaching minor". For me, I am personally mostly interested in mathematical application into material science while I am very interested in getting tenured faculty positions.
Actually, I am more interested in going to a lot of conference and trying to advertise or publicize the result of my research and I am worried that committed teaching during the teaching minor program would render me less experience in conference or slows down my research progress....
Any suggestion on my situation? Shall I pursue the teaching minor, or minor in mathematics as it is my research and personal interest? Or shall I do exhaust myself trying to do both?

I would need a few clarifications to answer that. (1) what has your choice of a minor (and do you even have that at graduate level?) to do with whether you go to more conferences or teach more? (2) when you say "go to more conferences", do you mean that you would produce more high-quality research and publish it at those conferences, or really just "go" there without paper for networking?

(3) Are you more interested in research universities or more teaching-oriented faculties? I am assuming the former, but it would help to make this clear.

@XLeitix:  Depending on research area, one needn't necessarily produce more research in order to attend more conferences.  When conference talks are not considered publications, it's perfectly acceptable to give talks on the same research at several different conferences.

@TaraB I know. That's why I think the OP should clarify what he means (do more research, or just go to more conferences). The former is clearly helpful for your research track record, the latter may be only marginally helpful.

Yes, but the way you phrased it was rooted in computer science conference culture.  In mathematics, we go to conferences and present the same research multiple times to help publicise it (which I wouldn't consider quite the same thing as networking).

My situation is like this: I have algorithms constructed and programmed for material scientist and I want to attend more conference to publicize my algorithm... I am not sure whether too much teaching would inhibit my progress... Or could I substitute teaching with conference talks? Thank you:)

Where do you want to work? Research universities want people who do research, publish, go to conferences,  and can tolerably teach, in that order.
Small liberal arts colleges want people who can teach and who do enough research to keep up with the field.
These are rough generalizations. There's no right answer here.

I want to work in research universities and focus on research as my first priority... If I have zero teaching experience, but good research results (say 10+ papers and 100+ citations). Does that harm? Thank you:)

No, we'd use your job talk as a proxy for your teaching. If you can give a good job talk, that'd more than make up for a teaching minor certificate.

I see, thank you very much. So I think the conclusion is that I shall push all myself to get better research results then?

Yes, but you cannot assume that just because you want to work in a research university that 1) there will be a job opening the year you are on the market and 2) that there aren't even more qualified candidates than yourself. You should leave yourself open to the contingency of teaching at a non-research university. These things are difficult to predict, and it's your life and career in the balance.


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How can we add a missing article in Google Scholar?
We are using OJS 3 and all of our articles are in Google Scholar, except one we published in 2020. How can we add it, is there any solution?
We have removed that article one time from the system due to major changes and then published it again after a few days. So what is the solution now to add in Google Scholar?

We seem to routinely get questions on Google Scholar, particularly since how it actually works is opaque and there is no help available from them. But, we are not Google and have no insight into how it works...

You can't manually add papers to the Google scholar index if that's what your asking, e.g., see https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/143962/19607

Since you removed the paper once and added it again, it may take several weeks for the Google crawler bot to re-crawl your newly added article. If you are using OJS, I believe it is by default allows Google bots to index articles in Google scholars.
A similar situation happened for me once, and it took almost a year for the article to appear in Scholar.

Thank you for your reply, Yes we are using ojs and that article removed once and published again. But now almost completed one year and still not in google scholar why ? oTHers our articles are okay in google scholar.

@AhsanNazir Unfortunetly, the algorithm behind Google Scholar is a mystery! I don't know if it helps, but I suggest you submit your sitemap to Google via Webmasters tool. If you are using OJS, sitemap can be found in http(s)://yourdomain.com/index.php/ABC/sitemap. It usually shouldn't take more than a couple of months. Maybe it pushes the Google Scholar crawler bot to re-crawl the papers. There is also a "Google Scholar Inclusion Request" form, where you can manually send your journal's page to Google, but I'm not sure if it works or not: https://support.google.com/scholar/troubleshooter/23941

Thanks dear, we cannot add manually ? all details with PDF like other papers ?

@AhsanNazir Unfortunately you can't add links/pdfs when you are adding paper manually in Google Scholar.

You mean we just need to wait for that otherwise no solution for this, Thanks dear.

@AhsanNazir Try adding sitemap using Google webmasters tools. Maybe it helps. Other than that I’m afraid there is not much you can do than waiting.

Sir are you using OJS too ? we have some issue can you help. Like if email send from our system to the author. In email details showing that email send via sr33...hosting.eu. So we want to replace this address with our journal. How we can ?

@AhsanNazir You should ask this in an OJS forum.

Go to your Google Scholar profile and click the + icon in the heading at the top of the list of your publications.  Click "Add article manually" and you'll get a popup where you can fill in the details.

Thanks but in mannual we cannot add PDF and all details ? can you help in this ?

The article has to have been published somewhere.

The article already published in 2020. But only not appear on google scholar, any solution

It the article has been published, just enter the details in the popup.

thanks can you share me link where to add details in popup.

You need to create a Google scholar profile.  Have you done that?  Once you've done that, go to your profile and you'll see the list of your pubs they know about.  The + button to open the popup will be in the heading at the top of the list.

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Publishing single author paper while doing a postdoc under a supervisor
I am doing my second postdoc under someone who is well known in the field. I did some extensive calculations and got very good results in my grad school on a topic out of curiosity. My PhD advisor was okay with it but never wanted to publish a paper out of those results as they were not his expertise.
Now when I was in my first postdoc position I had written up the entire work and asked my PhD advisor whether I should put him as a co-author. He declined to be a part of it and advised me to publish it on my own. In the meantime I moved to another position and now my advisor is a big name in my field.
I am currently in a big dilemma. Do I need his permission to publish it as a single author (as I have use the institution's affiliation) or should I just go ahead and submit it? Because my fear is that if I let him know about this paper he will certainly slow it down by being a part of it and as a postdoc I need more publications. He is not in a mood to help me out with more publications while I have already given him tons of good results. Please help!

Can you submit with your previous affiliation? (Ask your PhD advisor first, but given that most of the work was performed there, it would make sense to give them credit. Maybe with a footnote you are at another institution now).

"while I have already given him tons of good results"--rather strange attitude as for a scientist.

If you work in a 'conflict of interest' field, you definitely need to mention all your sponsoring authorities, from all the time you were working on the project, and you need to notify them before naming them. This is not the same as authorship, and is listed separately

In my view, the tradition in academia is that it's normal to do some work on past projects in each new position. It's simply unreasonable to expect academic work to fit neatly within the academic calendar or progression. There is no reason to expect your PhD work to be completely wrapped up at the moment you start a post doc; no reason to expect your post doc work to be completely wrapped up the moment you start a second post doc; no reason to expect your second post doc work to be completely wrapped up the moment you start a tenure-track position. You can extend the same principle to work done under various grants.
Your new advisor doesn't have an authorship role in this work, and your old advisor doesn't want to be an author; this leaves you as the sole person deserving authorship, so you should be the only author.
I think it would be a good professional courtesy to let your current advisor know you are working on finishing a project from your time as a PhD student. In my view it would be unreasonable for them to be upset unless this work is some form of crankery. However, no one can predict with certainty the mind of another and not all people are reasonable. You'll have to use your own judgment.
It would, however, be reasonable for them to expect that you continue to make progress on your new work while working on this old project; it's also reasonable for them to expect that, in the future, once you leave for a new position you'll put some time in to wrapping things up for them as well.
There are many questions here about what your affiliation should be for that publication; my view is that you should list both your old and new affiliations, since part of the work will have been done while you were at each.

Ethically, you have no need to include anyone but yourself, given the situation. Yes, you can certainly do this on your own. It isn't even a question of etiquette. It is your work, it is your paper.
But, no on can say whether it will cause you grief if you do this. If your current advisor is unethical as well as being well known then it might. But if they are honest, then they know that they have no claim to authorship here.
You could acknowledge them, perhaps, for providing you a position in which you could complete the work, but nothing more is owed.
The only caveat would be if you have signed away to all of your IP while you hold this position. That can happen at some industrial positions and some variations appear at some places in academia. In which case, you would need the permission of the institution to publish.

So should I let him know that I am going to submit this work and whether he is okay with it? I have already done a first author paper with him and wrapping up two other projects. The only thing I am bothered about is his letter of recommendations to get a faculty position.

That requires your judgement of him and how he would react. I don't have a way to know. It shouldn't be necessary, but it is impossible to judge from a distance. But "good relations" are a plus, as you know.

Thank you so much

@Rahul: Irrespective of authorship, your supervisor is (usually) also your boss, so it’s a good idea to inform him of what you are doing with your work time (or even free time, when it is work-like stuff) as soon as possible. This can be as little as: “I would use some gaps between other works [time when my code is compiling; whatever your field has] to wrap up some project from my previous postdoc.” This way, he is not surprised when you suddenly publish a paper and has the opportunity to voice any potential objections as early as possible.

It's a serious question in research ethics. I highly recommend reading the book "A new approach to research ethics," they cover this whole topic in chapter 3, "Publishing - Authorship."
In that book, they are referring to a very well-known guideline for authors, known as "Vancouver Guidelines", created by the editors of ICMJE. This guideline recommends that authorship be based on the following 4 criteria(quoting):

Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work;
AND

Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND

Final approval of the version to be published; AND

Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the
work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Note that, according to these rules, a co-author needs to meet ALL aforementioned criteria. Therefore, being a supervisor doesn't assert co-authorship by default. From an ethical perspective, your PhD advisor probably didn't felt she/he contributed enough and therefore did the absolutely right thing to let you publish without her/his name as co-author.
Regarding having your new advisor in your papers, I suggest following the Vancouver guidelines as much as possible. However, I understand in the vast majority of scenarios, especially in countries/universities/departments/groups promoting publish or perish cultures, the aforementioned guidelines are probably just too cute to be taken seriously for obvious reasons. If you are conducting research in such a culture, you will probably be under constant pressure to have gift/guest authors in your papers all the time. To resist such unethical pressure or not, is a personal choice.

Have you ever talked to your current advisor? What can you loose showing him your current draft? You can inform him that you are going to publish results you created before arriving with his group. Or you could ask him for comments or advise where to publish. This might turn out just nicely for you.
Ethically, he cannot force you to include him as a co-author. If he has something essential to contribute, you can ask him to write a follow-up paper together to save you time and getting your work published. If he threatens you, you know at least what could have happenden if you published without notifying him. Depending on the severity, you just might add him as a second author, report him to your institution, or even look for another adviser.
I am not sure that being the sole author is worth all the hassle. Whatever he does, you can still go ahead and publish the paper.

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


text:
Can a postdoc change his/her supervisor in Sweden?
In Sweden, a PhD student can change its supervisor according to the higher education rules and regulations. They actually have quite a lot of rights during their studies. I wanted to know if this is also the case for a Postdoc working at a Swedish university?
Note that this question is purely about the legal aspects of the matter.

What do the rules and regulations say?

For PhD, chapter 6 - section 28 of the higher education rules have clearly mentioned that a PhD student can change the supervisor. But I couldn't find anything for postodcs: https://www.uhr.se/en/start/laws-and-regulations/Laws-and-regulations/The-Higher-Education-Ordinance/#chapter6

Exercising such a right will most likely burn bridges with the involved PI. Therefore, regardless of whether such right exists, it's almost always better to find an informal solution.

@lighthousekeeper Thanks for your answer but I'm not following you. My question is specifically about whether such a right even exists in the first place or not.

@linker I'm wondering if it's a good question to ask. I'm a postdoc in Sweden myself, and I can't think of a situation where it would be a good idea to exercise or point to this right. But I'm also on a position funded by my supervisor. Does the postdoc in this question have their own funding? Then the situation might be different (and depend of the rules of the funder.)

@lighthousekeeper I believe it’s very important for a postdoc (or an employee in general) to be aware of his/her rights, specially in case of serious conflicts. My question is referring to common type of postdocs who don’t have their own funding and hired by the university. If you are a postdoc in sweeen, do you know what would happen if you get into an unresolvable conflict with your supervisor over a matter related to your research? e.g. in case your supervisor prevents OR force you to submit your paper to a conference. Is he/she “the boss” and you should do whatever he/she asks you to do?

@linker In that case, I would be looking for other post-doc opportunities as soon as possible. Switching to a different supervisor at the same university seems a poor solution, since my funding would still come from the original supervisor, and I can't see how this would not lead to major tensions at the department.

@lighthousekeeper You may be right and that's probably a good suggestion but it's not an answer to the question: is it even possible to change the supervisor or not?

@linker Possible yes: if all involved parties agree, then there would be nothing in the way. But I don't know the answer to the question if you also have a right to change the advisor.

Just to add a few things to posdef's great answer. I think it's worth mentioning that a PhD and a postdoc position are very different in terms of work dynamics with the "supervisor", and trying to compare the two is a bit questionable:

The primary purpose of a PhD student position is to provide the student with specialized research training under the supervision of the PhD advisor. Of course the PhD student carries out research work, but they are not considered autonomous in this work that's why they are supposed to work under the direction of the PhD supervisor. As a student whose academic success strongly depends on their supervision, they are entitled to specific protections.
For all means and purposes, a postdoc position is a work contract: the employee carries out a job for a Principal Investigator (PI). The role of the PI in this work relationship shares some similarities with the role of a PhD supervisor but it is significantly different:

The postdoc is supposed to be autonomous in their work and as such is normally entitled to greater academic freedom than a PhD student. Ideally, in a healthy postdoc-PI relationship the two work practically like collaborators (as opposed to student/professor). For example the discussion about whether or not to submit a paper that both co-author should be made by mutual agreement, because the postdoc is able to make their own academic choices.
Ultimately the PI is usually the one who controls the funding, and the institution cannot force the PI to give away their funding. As a consequence there's no general mechanism to "change PI", since the institution doesn't have any alternative source of funding to pay the postdoc. This is a major difference with a PhD position, where the funding is usually allocated to the PhD student themselves.

A PhD candidate position has a dual primary purpose - conducting actual useful research (usually - useful to the supervisor's own research agenda), and the training of the candidate as a researcher. The post-doc position has a little of the latter and a lot more of the former.

@einpoklum whether a PhD student is more on the student side or the researcher side of the spectrum is largely a matter of opinion. I'm a strong supporter of recognizing PhD students as productive researchers, but sadly the only constant in their status across countries is the student part. Also in my experience it's very rare that a PI would provide a postdoc with any kind of training (even the opposite sometimes: the PI counting on the postdoc to keep them up to date with the field).

I partly disagree. Or rather, such opinion is an effect rather than a cause. To re-establish Ph.D. candidates' status as proper, though junior, research staff members - to change that opinion you mentioned - they have to struggle and organize, while university management try to suppress their consciousness in this respect.

(I'm faculty at Chalmers University of Technology, a well-known private university in Gothenburg, Sweden)
The pragmatic question (whether it's a good idea to change supervisors mid-flight) is covered well by posdef, I'll focus on the legal angle here.
As you mention, PhD students have quite some rights in Sweden, but this is mostly because they are in a special type of employment largely governed by Swedish university law. This is not the case for postdocs - postdocs aren't students and they are not faculty (for which the law also knows some special privileges). Fundamentally, postdocs are just "employees", similar to research engineers, secretaries, or university accountants, and hence their tasks, rights, and privileges are exactly what the university has defined in their job profile. At Chalmers, I am not aware that there is any formalized "right" to be assigned a different supervisor. I suspect the situation in other universities is similar, but you may want to check your own contract first.
That said, and to echo the other answers a little, changing your supervisor is hard. Really hard. Even as a PhD student, when the law is on your side. Funding is a huge issue, but so is the fact that faculty tends to be sceptical of taking on students/employees where one of their colleagues has already made bad experiences. As always, there are exceptions, but in general you should figure out which faculty would take you on and take over your funding before talking publicly about changing supervisors. It's better to have a normal working relation with a supervisor that is not ideal, than to have an advisor who has been assigned by the department because nobody else took you on.

Thanks for your great answer. Can a supervisor fire a postdoc in Sweden just because he/she is not listening to the supervisor’s merely scientific advice? (e.g. When the supervisor says not to send a paper to a specific venue or vice verse)

@linker Getting fired on the spot is not a realistic concern in Sweden, and certainly not because your supervisor (who will often not even be your formal manager) said so. That said, "I won't get fired" is a very low bar - there are plenty of ways to have a miserable postdoc experience without actually losing your job.

Postdoc is a time-limited form of employment whereas the other jobs that you mention are staffed by permanent employees. It is difficult to terminate either type of contract, but time-limited contracts are especially hard to terminate.

@linker Is the supervisor a co-author on the work? If so, "When the supervisor says not to send a paper to a specific venue" and yet a post doc sends a paper to that venue, it is really a form of academic misconduct by submitting work without approval of the coauthors, and potentially quite a bit more serious than other types of conflict.

@BryanKrause You've mentioned a brilliant point. Thank you!

@xLeitix Very true. Is it fair to say a postdoc has the right to carry out the research the way he/she thinks is suitable (of course within the scope of the project and with respects to the goals and job description) even if the supervisor thinks it's not the way to go? In other words, does the postdoc "obliged" to follow "all scientific advices" from the supervisor, or the postdoc can make some decision on him- or herself?

@linker That depends a lot on the supervisor. I have always believed that a postdoc should get and need little operative oversight, but I have learned that not everybody sees it that way. In practice, assume that the institution or your work contract will not protect you effectively from an overbearing supervisor, as long as they are not engaged in discriminatory or unethical conduct "I want my postdoc to do exactly what I say" is neither of these things (if they tell you to work every Saturday that would be a different story).

This likely also depends on the funding source. If the funding is from/for a very specific subject, I assume that the postdoc will have to work on project-related topics. Who has to judge this is a different topic.

TLDR: It will depend very heavily on the funding situation.
A reasonable guess as to why there is a clear remark about the PhD students and not about the postdocs is that how postdocs are employed varies significantly.
Without having any proof, I would guess that you can't change your mentor however you like if s/he is paying you. Because why would you have that right, it is that person's own funding. In that situation your best bet (besides trying to find a resolution) is to quit and apply for a new position. Or better yet, apply for new positions and quit when you find one.
If you are bringing your own money, then you would have more flexibility, although it would still be an unpleasant move if you just bail out and start working down the aisle or the next floor.
That being said, you can in general not be forced to submit an article you are not happy with. Because you can always get it pulled (or your name removed) if you are not OK with it's content. That creates bad rep for the group and the paper in question, so I would be willing to guess that it's not really a common situation. More likely, you and the PI has differences of opinion as to why the paper should (or should not) be submitted, and if that's the case it's generally a better idea to try to understand each other rather than fight it.
You can however be forced not to submit a manuscript, or prevented from going to a conference, and I would say it happens relatively often. Usually not it harsh terms, but also that sometimes. That is part of the employment, that would happen anywhere and it's important to try and find constructive solutions. The comment by @lighthouse_keeper is on point, if you try to go down that route, you are burning bridges and you are the small fish in this particular case.

EDIT following OPs comment:
Re: the role of a postdoc
When a group leader gets funding, it's typically from a grant (exceptions exist but lets put that aside for the moment). Grants are written for specific subjects with usually well-defined tasks and goals. In the context of these tasks and goals, one or more postdoc positions might be opened.
So when you are a postdoc, you are taking on a role in that lab that fits their goals and targets, with the implicit assumption that whats good for the lab is also good for you. In other words, it's implied that carrying out your research project there is beneficial for both parties, meaning you choose to do your post-doctoral research there. If that is not the case then obviously it's not a good situation.
Within the context of that project and academic code of conduct, the group leader does have the privilege to direct the project as s/he sees fit. If your disagreements are fundamentally scientific (i.e. not related to bullying, fraud or something similar, which would typically violate the university's code of conduct) I don't see how you'd argue for a valid reason to change to another group, while keeping your current position.
Re: the comparison to a PhD student position
In comparison to a postdoc position, the university and the faculty is an active stakeholder when a PhD position is announced. In Sweden, most (all except a couple) universities are government institutions. So by being a fully employed PhD student you are a state employee, besides being a student. In this case the university (and by extension the state) has accepted you to a degree of higher education. If your supervisor cannot teach you well, for one reason or another, you are entitled (within reason) to ask for a change.
As you see there are some fundamental differences in what the employment is, what is being offered. I would not necessarily say that your rights are more limited, essentially it's not really a "right" to be able to change your manager. Your rights as it pertains to social security, healthcare, insurance, paid holidays, paid parental/sick leave etc apply regardless if you are PhD student or postdoc, as long as you are actually employed and not on a stipend.

Thanks. Based on your answer, a postdoc's right in Sweden is much more limited than a PhD who has an explicit right to change their supervisor for whatever reason, right? Let's assume the postdoc is employed on a KKS funded project led by the supervisor. Based on your answer, the postdoc has no right to change the supervisor and if the supervisor prevented him/her to submit a paper to a conference OR forced the postdoc to do specific set of tasks then the postdoc has no other choice but to obey "the boss", right? In other words, a PhD has much more rights comparing to a postdoc. Is that right?

@linker well, yes and no... I will try to update the answer with more info

Thank you so much for the update. My question is a purely about the legal aspects of the conflict. Therefore one last question: can a supervisor “legally force” a potdoc to do or not to do a merely scientific work/task/stuff whatsoever? In other words, can a supervisor fire a postdoc because he/she didn’t listen to the supervisor’s merely scientific advices?

@linker - if you aren't listening to 'merely scientific advices' from your PhD advisor, post-doc advisor, or manager (non-university) you are going to be in trouble in essentially all technical positions.

@linker well, a postdoc would often be hired in a particular project to do a specific research direction and achieve specific project goals (e.g. publications fitting particular criteria). If they're refusing to do that and want to research something else, well, then they're refusing to do their main (only?) job duty and that should be sufficient grounds for firing, and using that budget to hire another researcher for this task.

@JonCuster One point of doing a PhD and a post-doc is to develop scientific independence, which includes the ability to take and defend an own stance when discussing scientific work. If I had implemented every suggestion that popped up in a conversation with my advisor, I would still be on my PhD project, and not have completed it four years ago.

@linker nobody is forcing you to do anything, it's not slavery after all. The question is rather whether or not you are refusing to fulfill your end of the bargain, that is to carry out the research. Ask yourself this question, if you were in any other job, would you be able to flat out refuse what your manager tells you to do (or not do) within the boundaries of your work/contract? That's why I keep going back to more peaceful resolution of the conflict

@posdef Thanks for your answer. If the post-foc "refuse to carry out the research" then, of course, he/she will be fired! No dispute on this case! But on a "merely scientific conflict between the postdoc and the supervisor" can the postdoc have the right to refuse the supervisor's opinion or he/she is obliged to do whatever the supervisor asks him/her to do? As lighthouse mentioned, one point of doing postdoc is to develop scientific independece...

@Peteris I'm not sure whether what you are saying is true in Sweden or not. But it's most probably true in US/Australia/etc.

@lighthousekeeper - of course one doesn’t do every little thing - you discuss and refine ideas. But the tone of that comment suggests something quite different, more a total disregard and distaste for their input. Becoming independent is not the same thing as denigrating your advisor’s ideas.

A non-Sweden-specific answer:
A post-doctoral researcher is not a student. (That is, except in the sense that all researchers are "students" of the subjects they study.)
Thus, what you're asking is:

Can a post-doctoral researcher working under the supervision of another, senior researcher switch "bosses"?

I believe this clarifies things somewhat, and would lead me to answer (again, generally and not Sweden-specifically):

In the less-likely case of the employee being directly engaged by the workplace, with enough autonomy and an individually-defined work agenda - then it may be possible to switch "seats" to another research group, but it would depend on inter-university regulations and politics for approval.
In the more-likely case of the researcher position itself being associated with a certain group or a certain single researcher - it is probably impossible to make this switch; but it may be technically possible to quit one post-doctoral position and start another with another group.

Although I'd agree with "A post-doctoral researcher is not a student" in the strictest sense, in many cases a post-doctoral researcher is also not just an employee. In the US, for example (and coming from a biomedical science perspective), post-docs are considered employees-in-training, and as such, there are certain responsibilities that an institution has to post-docs that they do not have to other types of employees.

@BryanKrause I think this is a particularly american view. Our PDRAs in the UK, and it would appear in Sweden and I believe Germany (where even PhD students are employees) are regarded, at least for official purposes as "just employees" and are covered by exactly the same rules and expectations as technicians, admin assistants etc. Individual PIs might (and perhaps should) treat them differently, but "the system" doesn't".

@BryanKrause To add to what Ian said, in my country a postdoc is usually tied to a specific task within one or more projects, and the renewal of the contract from year to year is subject to the approval of the supervisor. So, for instance, in case of strong conflict with a postdoc, I'd simply let them go at the end of the year.

@BryanKrause: I agree that there is often an aspect of training for post-doctoral researchers, but - this is part of being "just" an employee. If I finish a Ph.D. and take some industry position, I am likely going to spend a good deal of time getting trained and taught things (relevant to my workplace), at least during my first year and possibly later.


text:
IEEE conference chair asked to take down the arXiv version of the paper within 24 hours
Recently, an article by one of my colleagues had been accepted at an IEEE conference, and about a week ago, he presented it on the main track. He published a preprint of this paper (without final changes) in arXiv with the following copyright note in the PDF footer, which according to IEEE rules and regulations it looks like permitted to have it on arXiv:

Copyright © 20xx IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted.
Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any
current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this
material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new
collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or
reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works by
sending a request to pubs-permissions@ieee.org.

Also, according to this answer and also this one, "IEEE policy permits authors to post their articles to the preprint repository arXiv."
Now about an hour ago, he received an email from the conference chair as follows:

IEEE crosscheck shows that the paper has been published at arxiv. This violates IEEE rules. Asked
for confirmation within 24 hours to take down the paper from the web.
If no confirmation is received, it is considered that the paper will
be excluded from publication and submitted to IEEE Xplore

This sounds very strange to me. Did my colleague violate the IEEE rules and regulations in the first place by putting the paper in arXiv? Or did conference chairs perhaps miss the copyright notice (or the fact that the preprint is actually the original version of the paper) in the preprint version?
In your opinion, what would be the correct next move for my colleague in this case?
Update 1: The paper had not been reviewed under a double-blind review procedure.
Update 2: My colleague replied to the general chair with a complete explanation on how publishing a preprint in arXiv (with necessary copyright notes) is absolutely permitted based on IEEE rules and regulations. Unfortuently, the chair still believes it’s against the IEEE rules and regulations. He responded:

Thanks for the clarification. Make sure your paper have withdrawn by arXiv.

Update 3: ArXiv rejected my colleague's request for withdrawing the paper! ArXiv replied:

Please note that having a paper under review or newly published is not
a sufficient reason for withdrawal, as previous version(s) will still
be available to users.
arXiv is an electronic repository for research papers, and announced
papers are meant to be available in perpetuity. The license applied by
the submitter to the work cannot be revoked.
As a result, you request has been denied.

My colleague is now waiting for IEEE's response (contacted authors [at] ieee.org) to see what they can do to fix this issue.
Final update and status:
My colleague notified IEEE and they directly contacted the conference chair and asked them to publish the article in IEEE Xplore. The conference chair then sent another email to my colleague after this, something like "After receiving further clarification from IEEE, we will submit your paper to IEEE Xplore." In short: all done! Thank you @jakebeal and others for all your updates, concern, and time

Seems to me like the conference chair is being evil...

Take it up with IEEE.

@Buffy Thanks, can you please elaborate? Do you mean they are wrong? If so, do you mean to send an email or call IEEE according to this page? https://www.ieee.org/about/ethics/complaint-procedures.html

Only IEEE can respond to your need. Contact them. There is at least a misunderstanding.

@MichelGokanKhan Did you publish the paper on arxiv after it had already been accepted for publication? The purpose of publishing a preprint arxiv is to solicit comments prior to submission.

@John_Krampf  The version that my colleague published in the arxiv is the original manuscript before applying any comments given by the reviewers. Of course it is not the camera ready version.

@MichelGokanKhan It doesn't matter when it was written, it matters when it was put on arxiv. As you've stated, you didn't put the "preprint" on arxiv until after the article had been accepted for publication.

@John_Krampf I might be wrong, but according to IEEE rules and regulation, it DOES matter which version you put on the arXiv, but not when. It is clearly mentioned that "This [preprints in arxiv] does not count as a prior publication. If copyright to the paper was transferred to IEEE through the completion of an IEEE Copyright Form before the preprint is posted, IEEE must be credited as the copyright holder with the following statement [the one mentioned in the question] included on the initial screen displaying IEEE-copyrighted material". What matters is the copyright text, I believe.

@John_Krampf  When the article is published on the IEEE Xplore, the posted version on arXiv should be updated with a full citation to the IEEE publication, including DOI. No other changes may be made. I'm pretty sure the general chair never checked for such details and only relied on IEEE CrossCheck results, as others also mentioned.

@John_Krampf As it turns out, arXiv has very specific guidance on versions and how to handle these interactions with IEEE: https://arxiv.org/help/submit_pdf It's beside the point for CrossCheck, though.

Are you sure this is a reputable conference? Having an incompetent conference chair and 500(!!!) people claimed to be on the PC seems suspicious to me.

@Arno It is for sure an IEEE conference as I can see their previous years' articles in IEEE Xplore.

Being in IEEE doesn't necessarily mean "worth publishing in", it just means "not a scam."  A conference may still be atrocious and just not quite bad enough to be kicked to the curb by IEEE.

@jakebeal Yes, that's what I meant. Frankly, it's more like a "scum" venue than a "scam" one!

@Arno IEEE used to be one of the more reputable circles, but I've heard stories they're tarnishing their own reputation lately (say, past decade or so).

@Mast Eh, it's just that they're very large and serving a lot of different needs. If they were being stricter gatekeepers, then we would instead be hearing complaints about how IEEE is full of elitist jerks.

@jakebeal Naturally :-)

Are there any news worth reporting? @MichelGokanKhan

@StephanZ. See the comments under jakebeal's answer.

Thanks, @GoodDeeds. An update of the original post would probably be rather useful for further reference. I guess other people will be in a similar situation at some point.

@StephanZ. Question updated with the final result!

I think that what you're seeing here is a conference chair who doesn't understand what arXiv is and is blindly applying the self-plagiarism policy.
The IEEE's current official FAQ on author rights has a question dedicated to arXiv that explicitly states that arXiv publication is permitted.  Thus, there is no concern on that account.
The IEEE CrossCheck system, however, does not filter arXiv out of its web-crawling.  Thus, if you've posted something to arXiv, CrossCheck will dutifully report that it has found a high similarity match to text found on arXiv. And this is where I think that things have gone wrong.

What CrossCheck actually does is report materials that should be examined to see whether they are (self-)plagiarism or not.
People who use CrossCheck sloppily, however, often don't bother with examining, and just assume that match = plagiarism.

Thus, I think your colleague is dealing with somebody who hasn't bothered to understand what CrossCheck found and is just reaching for a knee-jerk reject.  I notice as well that the email you quote doesn't say how, exactly, the rules are being violated.
From this comes my recommendation for how to proceed. I would recommend writing back to the conference chair to ask for clarification, while pointing at the IEEE FAQ, something like:

My apologies, but I am confused. The IEEE author rights FAQ explicitly allows for posting of preprints on arXiv, so I don't think that can be the violation of IEEE rules that you are referring to. I don't think this can be a self-plagiarism issue since arXiv isn't a peer-reviewed publication. Does this conference have a different policy, and if so, can you please point me to which aspect my preprint is violating?

Hopefully, this will either lead the conference chair to understand that they have made a mistake or else point you to the actual issue that they have.  If they're a martinet or a fool, however, they may still just demand the thing gets taken down, in which case you can attempt to do the arXiv withdrawal process, making sure to point the blame at the conference in the comments field.
Update based on responses from conference chair and arXiv:
The uninformative and inflexible response from the conference chair does not affect my advice: I believe it simply means you are going down the "martinet or fool" path.
Since arXiv has (appropriately) refused to take the publication down, there is now no path left but confrontation with the program chair. IEEE might be able to help in time, but you're dealing with a large and often slow-moving organization there, so if there isn't a response from IEEE within a day or so, it's going to have to be dealing with the conference instead.
Here, it may be useful to involve other people besides just the program chair. Most well-established conferences have some sort of steering committee or similar that is specifically designed to help ensure consistent behavior despite the year-to-year change in organizers. Writing to them to ask for help with dealing with the failure of the specific chair that your colleague is dealing with may be useful.

Thanks, @jakebeak for your thoughtful answer. I entirely agree with you. My colleague did exactly the same and we are waiting for an answer. I will update this question with their response as soon as he gets one.

@MichelGokanKhan Eh I think the question is kind of "complete" as it is. The additional information of how the chair responded to you is not going to help clarify what you're asking. With that in mind, if it were me, I would not update the question with that info. It might be useful to leave in a comment here on the answer, though; depending on the nature of the response, I could imagine that jakebeal may want to update the answer with additional detail.

@DavidZ You are right. Sure, I’ll add their response in the comments sections.

@DavidZ: But comments are disposable and can get deleted at any time. I think it's actually much better to put post-updates in the question itself. (That's a standard on other SE sites that I visit.)

@DanielR.Collins Well yes, that's kind of the point. I was implying (and am now explicitly stating) that the post-update probably doesn't need to be part of this Q&A thread at all. The question being asked does not change depending on what response Michel's colleague gets. The answer probably wouldn't change either, but I see how it could, e.g. if the response points out that there is in fact an IEEE rule against this stuff. Also, I'm not sure what other SE sites you're talking about where adding post-updates into the question is supposedly a standard, but ultimately it doesn't matter.

Okay, so far, even though my colleague withdraws the arXiv version, it looks like they decided not to reply. So we don't know whether it'll be indexed or not. I suggested to my colleague wait one more day and then contact IEEE by EOD, as @MassimoOrtolano pointed out in his answer.

@DavidZ Strongly disagree that it doesn't matter — updating with the outcome provides a different kind of validation to the answer that votes and accepts do not. Answers to such questions are typically advice based on the answerers' past experiences, but who often haven't personally faced a closely similar situation before. In that case updates help record what actually worked in the specific case, even if anecdotal. (continued)

@DavidZ (continued) There are often "answers" in the low quality post queue where new users ask what the outcome of a situation was, which (rightfully) get deleted, but ultimately do not help those visitors (who can't even comment) in any way. And in some cases, an update provides information useful for others in a stressful situation or is just nice to read.

@GoodDeeds I guess I can only strongly disagree with your disagreement. I don't dispute that updating with the outcome can help validate an answer, I'm just arguing that the question is not the place for that update. I think it makes sense for the update to heavily influence the decision of which answer to accept.

@jakebeal Thanks for the updated answer. ArXiv rejected my colleague's request for withdrawing the paper! They replied "Please note that having a paper under review or newly published is not a sufficient reason for withdrawal, as previous version(s) will still be available to users. arXiv is an electronic repository for research papers, and announced papers are meant to be available in perpetuity. The license applied by the submitter to the work cannot be revoked. As a result, you request has been denied". My colleague is now waiting for IEEE response to see what they can do to fix this issue.

@MichelGokanKhan Updated again; there may be other options than just IEEE, since IEEE may be slow.

@jakebeal Thanks. I think that's actually a good suggestion, thanks for that. I'll share it with my colleague to see what can be done. I will keep this question updated.

@jakebeal Looks like there is no steering committee in this particular conference! They enlisted a [superisingly large] TPC list though (~500 members!) ... not sure they can be of any help!

@MichelGokanKhan The TPC is definitely not helpful: they are just there to review. But there should be more than just the one program chair, there should be more people involved in the organizing. Frankly, this conference itself is starting to sound a bit dubious, though if it's IEEE it's at least not a scam...

My colleague notified IEEE and they directly contacted the conference chair and asked them to publish the article in IEEE Xplore. The conference chair then sent another email to my colleague after this, something like "After receiving further clarification from IEEE, we will submit your paper to IEEE Xplore." In short: all done! Thank you @jakebeal for all your updates, concern, and time!

Glad that it worked out!

"martinet or fool"?

@LukeSawczak Indeed. Did you have a question about that statement?

@jakebeal I have no idea what it means, didn't turn up anything on Google, so I'm curious to learn

@LukeSawczak Well, a martinet is a person who is excessively strict in their interpretation of rules and their demands that others follow those rules. Thus, one likely reason for the issue might be that the conference chair was acting like a martinet. The other might be that they are being incompetent, i.e., acting like a fool. There's no colloquial phrase, just two (slightly unusual) descriptors.

@jakebeal Thanks -- didn't even occur to me to decompose the expression into its parts!

That specific conference might have a stricter policy than that of IEEE (I don't know to what extent IEEE sponsorship implies adherence to certain policies). I'd thus do the following, in order:

Check what the specific conference website has to say about this, and if this contrast with the general IEEE policy.
Take down the arXiv submission, as requested, so that the article can be reviewed or accepted by the conference without further ado (this avoids damaging the submission while possibly fighting policies). Soon afterward, contact the conference chair communicating the action and asking for an explanation in view of the IEEE policies (without being confrontational, though).
If the conference chair's explanation does not arrive or is not satisfactory, contact IEEE to see if there is anything irregular according to their policies and agreements with the conference organizers.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.


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Is it considered self-plagiarism if I submit a part of my own paper as another 2-page demo paper for demonstration purposes?
Recently I submitted an IEEE conference paper about an open-source machine learning project/framework related to mobile networks. Now, I also want to demonstrate its features at another IEEE conference using a 2-page demo paper.
Considering the original paper is still in reviewing process, is it ethical to submit a related demonstration paper with the same approach to another conference. I mean from self-plagiarism aspects, can I use the same title and experiment results in demo paper as well just for showcasing purposes? If not, how can I also reference the original paper considering it is not published/accepted yet!

As long as the demo paper is not peer-reviewed and not published in any kind of proceedings, this should not count as self-plagiarism because it does not count as a proper publication. I would put it more in the same section as giving a talk about your results.
You should however check the regulations of the conference you originally submitted to. The author guidelines normally have section about dual submissions that clearly define if, for example, an arxiv submission is allowed and what you should or should not do to maintain your anonymity.
If the conference allows to publish a preprint on arxiv, you can upload it there and cite it in your demo paper.

of course there should be a peer-reviewing process for an IEEE 2-page demo paper that is going to be indexed in IEEE Xplore, right?

Peer review (as far as I know) does not include judgement purely by the program chairs which happens for certain papers and only to filter out low quality / out of topic submissions, but it of course depends on the conference and type

What if there is a strict peer reviewing process? Is it still okay ?

You will need to ask the organizers of the first conference about that @MichelGokan


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My professor seems to be using another professors course work and making mistakes because of the disconnect. Are my emails too much?
I'm 27, and currently in my first year and first semester at a community college, fully online. The professor in one of my classes has, on multiple occasions, made mistakes in regards to grading or feedback, and each time I have emailed him about it. Twice he has made right on the issues, but I don't get the vibe that he is happy about it. I believe the problem is that he is using material from a different professor, and his expectations do not align with the instructions from the other professor. He will mark down for doing something the wrong way, while the material itself states to do it that way. Or mark down for not doing some specific "stated instructions", when those instructions are nowhere to be found. There just seems to be a complete disconnect between him and his own assignments, obviously because they are not his (they have a different professor's name on them). It just happened again on an important assignment, and I sent a relatively long email asking for clarification. It's only a small difference in the grade, but at this point it's the principle more than anything. He has yet to respond and I'm over thinking myself a bit. I feel like im the crazy one, even though I scoured the hell out of all the instructions before sending.
In this email I responded directly to his feedback and mentioned not seeing those instructions anywhere, stated my reasoning for doing what I did (or didn't do), and ask for clarification. I did my best to give him the benefit of the doubt and stay on neutral footing, but I feel like my frustrations might be starting to show in the email. It's still professionally written and calm, but I can feel my tone of irritation within it. More so, I really just dont like getting on people's bad side, especially my professor, and Im worried these emails will do just that.
Am I crazy? Does this happen a lot? Do professors copy other professors assignments? Am i sending too many emails? I really don't want to be that guy, pissing off my professors throughout my college career...

Sounds like a lazy instructor. Not so unusual, unfortunately; many (not all) community college instructors do not have a permanent position and get paid only a few thousand dollars per course, and so they may have to teach many courses just to get by, which often results in rather poor teaching quality. Since you are still in your first semester, you may want to find out whether such poor quality is normal for your institution, and if so, consider other institutions.
In any case: if you have questions or concerns about grading, it is altogether reasonable to ask about them. It's true that some instructors may respond poorly to this, but that is not on you.

I sent a relatively long email...it's the principle more than anything.

I would tread carefully here. Many students think they could do a better job teaching than the instructor, and in some cases they are right. But sending lengthy e-mails to argue about negligible points and make unsolicited suggestions for improvements may not a productive use of your time, and it will certainly alienate the instructors. Instead, I recommend sending extremely short, clear e-mails. For example: "Dear professor: I noticed that I lost 10% because I didn't follow the 'stated instructions'. Could you clarify where those instructions were? I spent considerable time looking for them and could not find them. Thanks, -Name." Anyone who would be annoyed by a concise, reasonable request like this is themselves unreasonable.

Thank you for the response. That sounds like a good plan, sticking to shorter emails. I said long, but it was nothing crazy, about 250 words. I didn't try to teach for him or correct him, nor make any suggestions. Essentially, the email can be boiled down into two paragraphs each with this format: " I noticed so and so markdown.  I did this because ___ reason/the instructions said ___.  Was I incorrect? I may have missed something. Thank you. "
Tried to remain respectful and give the benefit of the doubt, but It was done in a rather long winded/detailed way. Trying to cover all my bases

Almost like you, I got into college very late in my life... I started in a community college and made it all the way to a top Ph.D. program. I came with a baggage of industry experience where adults dealt with adults. In college, however, most of the time it is one adult (instructor) and a bunch of young minds (students) who most of the time silently accept any kind of treatment and style of teaching.
Once, I was in class with another dude who was even older than me. I could see him often clash with an instructor. Often the dude was completely right and most of his clashes resulted in improved policies and a better learning experience for everyone in the class. Older students, especially those who pay from their own pocket and not with their parents' money tend to voice concerns more often because they look at school from a very different and mature perspective. I also have to emphasize that the dude was also an experienced student! He was a 3rd-year undergrad with GPA of 4+. So whenever he got involved in a polite argument he knew the rules of the game.
It is clear that you do care about your success. However, it is only your first semester. This means you still don't know all the rules of the game and still figuring out what constitutes a good assignment or well-written argument. It is possible you are overcomplicating things and just annoying your instructor. Give yourself some time and try to avoid arguing with instructors.
Also, try to understand how your peers are dealing with this issue. Do they get their work right despite instructional inconsistencies? Or do they suffer from the same problem? If your answer is "yes" to the latter, then it is not your problem anymore. It is the instructor's problem. Leave it be and just try to keep up with other hard-working students.
Regarding reused lecture notes:
This is unfortunately very common and I dealt with that in my grad school (at a university not community college!). While it does signal some level of laziness it is also an attempt to not do the same work twice. Often lecture notes by well-established professors get reused by younger professors. There are many reasons for that.

I can only be certain on two occasions that his error affected the rest of the class. On the first, he essentially told me that I didn't read instructions properly and half the class didn't as well, then proceeded to quietly fix the grade later on. On another occasion he admitted the mistake and made a statement. They are again pretty minor mistakes, but I feel compelled to say something each time, especially if they are for points. Don't think I could bring myself to ignore them and just keep my head down, and this is bound to keep happening throughout the semester. Thanks for responding!


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Is it okay to digitize/modify figures "reproduced from reference" in a thesis?
I am a student starting preparations for a masters thesis in a U.S. research university (on a physics/materials science topic).  I have seen digital versions of past MS theses and PhD dissertations from my university, and many use figures from textbooks and/or journal articles with a line "reproduced from reference[##]" and the reference given in their bibliography.  I believe that they're counting on "fair use" rather than actually contacting the original copyright holders according to the ideas given from this MIT page and this Ac.SE page.  When reproduced this way all the figures I have seen are copied exactly as from the original document (or as close to exactly as a print-screen button will get you), but pixelation issues (from enlarging raster images) as well as inconsistent plot styles can make this appear rather sloppy, hence my more specific question:

Would digitizing a figure rather than photocopying it still constitute "fair use"?

By digitizing I mean converting a raster-image plot to x,y data and then using software to make a vector-image from that data.
Assume the data is being reproduced faithfully (i.e. data points are not being altered to sway the interpretation of the data one way or another.)
Assume the phrase "reproduced from reference[##]" is still used, or even a more descriptive phrase such as "reproduced from reference[##] and digitized for clarity".

I feel like this is still in the spirit of fair use, but still unsure whether the whole digitization process might change the legality beyond the scope of the "four-factor test" from the MIT link.

Related: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19845/using-ieee-citation-style-how-should-i-cite-a-figure-that-was-based-on-one-in

Probably, but just recall that fair use is a defense in court against being sued not a blanket permission. It's always easier to ask the publisher for permission. I don't think that tracing over a scan of the figure changes the fair use analysis at all, but you should really ask your attorney. You should always reference the source of your images whether you are tracing over it or using the scan.

I hadn't thought to use the word "trace" in this context, but that's actually a really great description. +1


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Advertising a symposium
A group of PhD students and young researchers (where I belong) is preparing a symposium, a single day meeting, for other young researchers, PhD, master and students.
I don't have any previous experience with advertising this kind of events and I haven't received other advertisement, to an event similar to this one, than a place and a date with a link for more info. However, this was from a better known organization (and I get to know this organization through a friend) and our organization is not well known so I doubt this way would work to attract new people.
Which is the best way to increase registrations to the symposium? What information would you like to know before going for a registration or looking for more information?
Some important information I thought to include in a leaflet/ad:

Place, dates, duration (done)
Where to register and how much does it cost (done)
Key speakers (At the moment we don't have confirmation of all the invited speakers)
Sponsors and support (done)
...

There's a similar question question for a similar event, but I am in charge of advertising.

It may sound cynical, but indicating that refreshments will be available will go a long way toward increasing attendance. There will be refreshments, right?

Yes there is free food :D!

Beyond what has already been said, here are a few things that I have tried that seemed to work (in the United States), with the caveat that past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results:

Advertise some sort of networking event if possible. This can be a nice draw for students who want to get to know other students at local universities, PhD students who will soon be on the job market who want to get more exposure to more senior faculty members, and Master's students who will soon be applying to PhD programs and may want advice on the application process.
Email administrators in relevant departments about your symposium. At least at my university, there are graduate program coordinators for nearly every department, and they can send email advertisements to their students. This can complement print advertising.
If possible, include a URL to a tentative schedule of the symposium, including who will be speaking and what their talk titles are. Personally, I like to know that there is at least one talk during the symposium that I may find relevant or interesting. Plus, this is another place to indicate that refreshments will be available.

Some suggestions for improving participation:

Recruit two to three faculty members to serve on a panel to judge presentations. The top three (or four or five) presentations receive prizes. Include this on the flyer.
Every participant gets a certificate of participation.
Announce a recognized name as a keynote speaker, if possible. Not a big deal, if it's not possible.

Then, mail the flyer to the graduate program directors (of the relevant departments) at the nearby universities and ask them to encourage their students to participate in the symposium. Also contact the graduate student organizations at these universities.

Maybe it is worth another question, but how does giving a certificate of participation help?  I have never used them....

I actually used them as Attachments to my CV in applications.

A simple alternative to a "certificate of participation" is creating a program that participants can refer back to as proof of their involvement. Of course, that means making sure it remains available for the (relatively) near future.


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Professor blatantly taking course material from internet (other schools)
I am TAing for a CS course. The professor I am TAing for, I took the same course with him one year ago. In that semester and this current semester I am TAing, he has been taking lecture slides and simply relabeling the headers with our school name and date. Furthermore, this may be somewhat of a lesser problem, but he is also using material that can be found online from other schools for the exams and homework.
Question is: Is this practice allowed and should I say/do anything about this?
Update: Professor blatantly just told me that it's perfectly fine to do this. I did not want to make a confrontation so I didn't oppose what he said.

I think you've got it backward, the reusing of exams easily found online is a bit more of a problem than putting your school's name on the files

I doubt anyone will care. But are you sure the website is the origin of the slides, as opposed to both your professor and the website using the same materials from a third source like a textbook?

@ASimpleAlgorithm Yes, I am sure. And it's just clearly the same. I am almost sure he did this also since he is a full-time employee at a company, and only teaching this one class on top of that. He doesn't have the time to create his own material.

@lym03 not sure you get my point when you say "clearly the same". Textbooks often literally come with free powerpoint slides for instructors to use. Of course they are the same if two different instructors use them. And if he is an adjunct as you imply, he also probably gets very little money for teaching the class. As for time, your only complaint is he is not properly citing the slides he uses. That takes negligible time. The creation/use of original teaching materials is never a requirement of a lecturer or professor (that I've ever heard).

@ASimpleAlgorithm So it's okay for him to use all material from other schools and just say that it's theirs?

@lym03 yes that's often why people place them on the internet. It's also ok for teachers to use all kinds of other copyrighted materials under "fair use", which prominently includes education purposes.

@ASimpleAlgorithm Ah, I see. I will keep this in mind when I ask him about it. Thanks!

I would worry more about the quality of instruction than the source of the materials. If it is a terrible course it doesn't matter where the materials came from. If it is a great course, don't be too fierce in your condemnation. Professors have shared ideas and materials since, I assume, Plato. I always expected (hoped) that the materials I put on the web would be useful beyond my own courses. Acknowledgement is nice, of course.

This sounds like plagiarism, and if true, would be something I'd do something about. After all, if the professor does not lead by example, it's hard to imagine students will not plagiarize either.
I'd speak to the professor first, failing which I'd speak to the head of department.

It's a bit daunting.. I'd hate to ruin my relationship with him, especially as a mentor.

@lym03 don't accuse him of plagiarism, say something like "I notice you do so-and-so, do you think that's plagiarism?"

What you describe is over the top. However, it is quite common for professors to take material from other courses or textbooks. Preparing a course from scratch is a lot of work and that work is unnecessary if there are already courses online with similar material. Usually, the professor will combine several sources and/or add in some of their own material, rather than straight copying.
The professor should acknowledge the source of the material. I often see course websites list textbooks or similar courses at other universities. Invariably, much of the course material will be sourced from those textbooks and those other courses.
However, you say that your professor is also copying exams from this other course. This is dangerous if a student figures out the source. I think this is actually the bigger problem. This may also explain why the professor may be reluctant to name the source of the material.
TL;DR: The practice is allowed to a certain extent, but it sounds like this case is possibly excessive. In your situation, I would tell the professor that you found similar exams online and are worried that the students will find them too, but I would avoid making any accusation of plagiarism.

Actually, it is quite common for professors to share their materials explicitly.

@Buffy So you are saying I should leave it be?

@lym03, actually, more like "tread carefully". It may not be as it seems.


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Academic dean (interim graduate program director) not responding to e-mails
This question goes along with this post here:
E-mails being ignored by university
Interestingly, my situation is also at a college institution in California. However, rather than note that it might be a problem with America, I want to ask a specific question. The academic dean of my Graduate department program very consistently does not answer any e-mails from students. 5-6 of my colleagues have tried e-mailing her over the past year and a half of our program. In order to reach her, I have had to go directly to her office (attempting this 3 times to finally speak with her). I just e-mailed her again recently, and am not receiving any response again.
Major note: She is also the interim director of my specific graduate program
Question: Can I as a student in the program say or do anything about this? As busy as an academic dean may be, it doesn't seem acceptable in my opinion.

What sorts of things are you asking from the dean? Is there someone else you can ask?

Many deans don't consider it part of their job to respond to student (or faculty!) questions or complaints. However, as an exception, your university may employ someone as a Dean of Students. I recommend contacting them, and trying to arrange a meeting with them (or someone on their staff).
Although they probably can't help you with your specific questions, they might be able to help you navigate your own university's bureaucracy. They might be able to suggest to whom you should address your more specific questions, and offer advice for how to go about doing it.
Good luck!

Depending on the size of the institution, the dean herself may answer none of her correspondence directly no matter whether by email or formal letter. Deans usually have office staff to filter all communication and sort it by priority. Deans spend an inordinate amount of time in meetings at all levels, both on and off campus. If you sent an email to a vice president of some relatively large company you would get the same result. Multiplying your attempts only makes the problem of scale worse. Your repeated attempts are received as just noise.
A dean at a large place may not even be able to field email from faculty directly, much less from students. You can enquire from the office of the dean what is the best way to obtain answers and to meet your needs, but don't expect that personal contact is likely or even possible.
You can complain, of course, but it would probably need to be to the dean or to one of her superiors. But they have the same sort of office procedures.
In general, however, I'd suggest that you direct questions to the lowest office in the organization for which it makes sense. Usually that is the department office, perhaps even a secretary there. But perhaps even an individual faculty member is more appropriate unless your issues are about misconduct at some lower level that really requires upper-level action.
I went to a college with about 2000 students and never corresponded with the dean. I went to a graduate institution with 40,000 students and never even knew who the dean was.