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Is a conference paper whose proceedings will be published in IEEE Xplore counted as a publication?
I presented a paper at a conference last week. The organizer website has mentioned that selected papers will be published in IEEE Xplore. Following my initial paper submission, there was a selection process after which I got a mail intimating me that my paper was selected and the list of selected papers was also put up on the website and my paper was there. After this, I was asked to edit my paper according to the IEEE format. A deadline was set for the final camera-ready submission and I made it in time for that. After this, there was no intimation of anything related to publishing and I attended the conference and presented the paper. Since I read online that it takes a while for the papers to be put up online, I assumed there must be another review by the IEEE committee but I probably have been wrong. That last deadline asking for the papers in IEEE format was the final mention of publishing. I have a couple of question regarding my situation.

Can I include my paper in my CV under publications? Does this count as an electronic publication since it's going to be on IEEE Xplore? Or should I write it under conferences? This is my one and only paper. And when the proceedings are on IEEE Xplore, will they also be available in the book format or are they just digital publications?
Since the paper isn't out yet, I heard that forthcoming/in review/in press,etc must be used on the CV. Which term should I use here since my paper will probably not count as "in press" material? Also, what format must I use in my CV to mention this paper?
I read that depending on the area, a conference paper has much value or no value at all and in some fields like Computer Science, a conference paper has good value. Is this a fact?
What are "refereed" conference proceedings? Do IEEE proceedings fall into this category?

I am sure these questions have been answered before but I couldn't find the right answers and being new to the world of publishing in academia, things are quite confusing. If this question is a duplicate, please notify me so that I can delete it.
Edit: Added a few details to make my case clearer.

"will be published in IEEE Xplore after the papers have been reviewed" Can you specify the actual wording (full sentence)? I suspect that there might be a misunderstanding here.

In computer science and engineering, some conferences are the equivalent of journal publications. See this best practices memo, which we include whenever someone from my department goes up for tenure. https://cra.org/resources/best-practice-memos/evaluating-computer-scientists-and-engineers-for-promotion-and-tenure/

"there was a selection process" — what sort of selection process? Is it (described as) "peer review"? That's the crucial question to know if this is a peer-reviewed or refereed article.

@EllenSpertus Thank you, that was an interesting read, goes to show how little I know about the research world. The comments and answers here definitely helped me learn much.

@Blaisorblade The selection was based on the evaluation of my paper by two reviewers whose comments and ranking of my paper on some criteria like novelty, relevance and the like were included with the selection mail. Is that what a "peer review" is?

@Matte yeaish, tho I’m used to “correctness” showing up. Plus, the reviewers must be in some sense “accepted as experts by the scientific community”; since you cannot check this, it’s best to confirm with the editors. Honestly, it does sound like that’s very likely the case; but by listing a paper on your CV as published, you are claiming yourself that they perform peer review.

I expanded my comment into an answer.

@Blaisorblade I see, I'll contact the organizers about it and confirm things before putting it on my CV then, thanks!

See https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/63354/will-be-recommended-for-publication-in-ieee-xplore-what-does-it-mean?rq=1

Can I include it in my CV under publications? Does this count as an electronic publication since it's going to be on IEEE Xplore? Or should I write it under conferences? This is my one and only paper.

It sounds like your paper has been accepted for publication, so yes, you can list it in your CV as a publication (assuming your research community accepts refereed conference papers as publications).
Even though you've already submitted the final camera-ready version, the proceedings has to work its way through IEEE's publication pipeline: assembling the table of contents, adding page numbers, possibly checking for compliance with formatting instructions, extracting and indexing metadata, creating cross-reference links for the bibliography, printing and shipping paper copies (if they still do that), and so on.  The conference organizers should be able to tell you when they expect the proceedings to appear.

Since the paper isn't out yet, I heard that forthcoming/in review/in press,etc must be used on the CV. Which term should I use here since my paper will probably not count as "in press" material? Also, what format must I use in my CV to mention this paper?

I would list it as either "to appear" or "in press", but the precise format doesn't really matter.  Just be clear.

I read that depending on the area, a conference paper has much value or no value at all and in some fields like Computer Science, a conference paper has good value. Is this a fact?

Yes, this is a fact.  In most (but not all!) fields of computer science, conference proceedings are the primary venue for publishing research, not journals.

What are "refereed" conference proceedings? Do IEEE proceedings fall into this category?

Refereed conferences (which are fairly typical in CS) typically have a "program" or "papers" committee, which is charged with reviewing submitted manuscripts and deciding which to accept for publication in the proceedings and presentation at the conference (either as a talk or a poster or both).  Typically, every presented paper appears in the proceedings, every paper in the proceedings is presented, and the proceedings is published (slightly) before the conference begins.  The submission itself is either a full paper or an extended abstract, typically between 6 and 12 pages long (depending on the conference), not just a single-page abstract.  The initial submission deadline is several months before the conference, to give the committee enough time to gather/write multiple reviews for each paper, choose which papers to accept, have authors revise their papers and prepare the camera-ready versions, and actually publish the proceedings.  (The publisher is only involved in the very last step.)  Conference reviews are exactly analogous to referee reports for journals, and for many conferences just as thorough and detailed.
Of course, details vary significantly from one conference to the next.  The details for your conference should have been spelled out in complete detail in the call for submissions.
Whether a given conference proceedings is refereed (and if so, how stringently) is up to the conference organizers.  You can't tell from the publisher.  Most proceedings published by IEEE are refereed, but not all.

Thanks you. I think I have been confusing with some details, I will edit my question to explain it better. Please do make any necessary changes to your answer so that I can accept it.

"..and the proceedings is published (slightly) before the conference begins". Unfortunately, that hasn't been the case with my paper, is this a matter of concern?

No, it's not a concern; it just means your conference is slightly different.  (I've published a few papers at conferences with late proceedings.)

Thanks a lot for the detailed answer, truly appreciate it. There's one thing I had added to my first question when I made the edit, "And when the proceedings are on IEEE Xplore, will they also be available in the book format or are they just digital publications?" I saw in your answer that you've said "..printing and shipping paper copies (if they still do that)", so IEEE proceedings used to be printed before but that's not the case now?

I honestly don’t know. I haven’t picked up a paper proceedings in close to a decade, but that doesn’t mean they don’t still exist.

Oh, that's ok, I'm gonna look into it, thanks!

I would be a bit hesitant to include it as a "publication" rather than as "under review". I don't know what field or conference you are referring to, but in CS, my experience is that review happens before the conference (and before acceptance) rather than after. And since in CS, conferences are a main publication venue, it would seem appropriate to include under those circumstances. You seem to be describing something different, however.
But your words "will be published...after the papers have been reviewed" makes this seem a bit tentative.
I suggest you wait before you include it as a publication unless you qualify it in some way. You don't need to omit it entirely, just be honest and clear about the actual state of the world when you send it out.

A review did take place before acceptance but I assumed that since the paper is going to take a while to be put up on IEEE Xplore, there must be another review from the IEEE side. Am I wrong? Also, if a conference paper can be written under publications, is it not mandatory to have page numbers, which is not possible with my paper since it is yet to be published?

Presumably you can update the CV as things change. Note that the conference may also publish separate proceedings. Some do, of course.

Thanks. Can you organize your answers from 1-4 and answer the remaining parts so that I can accept your answer?

@Matte, IEEE or any other organization which in charge of publishing the proceedings does not perform another round of review but checking for plagiarism. So, when your conference paper has been accepted by the conference board, you can include it into your CV as an accepted (and/or presented) conference paper.

Given that the paper apparently has not been accepted for publication yet, this is the correct answer. An alternative wording for the current status would be "submitted".

@lighthousekeeper How does one know that the paper hasn't been accepted in this context? I mean, when exactly can one say that a paper has been accepted for publication?

@Eilia I see, thanks. How long does the plagiarism check take usually? I have seen answers that have broad ranges of 2-6 months. Is it possible to narrow it down?

@Matte You will receive a notification e-mail by the organizers, stating that your paper has been accepted for publication. From this point, you can specify the status as "accepted", "to appear", or "in press" and list it as an actual publication.

@lighthousekeeper  I'm sorry for the confusion. Actually, before the conference, the organizers had sent instructions to edit my selected paper according to IEEE standards. They had intimated us to send the edited papers back within a certain deadline which I did. Following this, there was no mention of anything until the conference where I was told that the papers will take a while to be up on IEEE Xplore. So, does this mean my paper is accepted or do I need to get another mail before I know for sure?

It is probably best to just ask the organizers.

my experience is that review happens before the conference (and before acceptance) rather than after.

From the OP's description, it sounds like the conference might have postproceedings. Which is less common, but not unheard of.

@Matte, it depends on reputation of conference but normally, as you said, it takes 2-6 months from the presentation day to appearing paper in IEEE digital library. All in all, there is no thing to worry about. You have an accepted paper in a conference and it's OK to include it in your CV.

@Buffy Thanks, I will. JeffE has elaborated and answered all of my questions clearly so I accepted that answer but your answer definitely helped me, thank you.

@Eilia Thank you, it's a relief to know my paper has been accepted, grateful for your help :)

IEEE Xplore
I looked up IEEE Xplore and saw that it is a digital library, not a journal [1]:

The IEEE Xplore® digital library provides access to IEEE journals, transactions, letters, magazines and conference proceedings, IET journals and conference proceedings, IEEE Standards and IEEE educational courses.

Therefore, it does not count as a publication beyond your original conference publication. It currently contains over 4 million items [2].
Conferences and Journals in CS/CE
That said, an IEEE conference publication should not be considered unimportant due to not being in a journal. In some fields of computer science and engineering, conference publication is the gold standard. The Computing Research Association published a best practices memo, Evaluating Computer Scientists and Engineers For Promotion and Tenure written by 3 senior computer scientists at top departments: David Patterson (who went on to win the Turing Award), Larry Snyder, and Jeffrey Ullman. The first paragraph reads:

The evaluation of computer science and engineering faculty for
  promotion and tenure has generally followed the dictate “publish or
  perish,” where “publish” has had its standard academic meaning of
  “publish in archival journals” [Academic Careers, 94]. Relying on
  journal publications as the sole demonstration of scholarly
  achievement, especially counting such publications to determine
  whether they exceed a prescribed threshold, ignores significant
  evidence of accomplishment in computer science and engineering. For
  example, conference publication is preferred in the field, and
  computational artifacts —software, chips, etc. —are a tangible means
  of conveying ideas and insight. Obligating faculty to be evaluated by
  this traditional standard handicaps their careers, and indirectly
  harms the field. This document describes appropriate evidence of
  academic achievement in computer science and engineering.

My colleagues and I used to include that memo in our promotion and tenure dossiers, to positive effect.
That said, not all conferences are created equal. You should research and document the ranking of the conference that published your paper. The CORE Rankings Portal is a good place to start if your area is computing.

That's very informative, thanks! Are the papers over at IEEE Xplore also available in paper format?  Also you said, "In some fields of computer science and engineering, conference publication is the gold standard." Which CS fields are those usually? Are there any good websites out there that help in knowing these things?

@Matte Whether they've available in paper depends where they were published (a journal, a magazine, a conference proceedings, etc.) For the second question, the CORE Rankings is a good place to start.

With regard to conference proceedings, will they be available in paper or are they only published online?

@Matte It depends on the conference.

Ah! I assumed all IEEE Xplore proceedings were dealt with the same way, thanks for the information!


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I want to include a figure from a paper I wrote and is now published in a blog article, what's the best way to do this?
I was reading this question, and I was wondering what differences related to copyright (if any) there might be if I want to include one of the figures from an article I wrote and had published in a journal in a blog article I am writing summarizing my research.
Since the blog will be made public, I assume I will still need to get permission from the journal, but I'm unsure if being on a blog or my own previous work changes anything.

I'm only interested in not violating copyright laws. I'm not asking about how to cite or get the image.

If you don't still hold copyright to the journal article, then you need to get permission to use the figure and you need to cite the original. Your agreement with the publisher or the terms under which the article was published may, already, give you a license to do this. So, no, the requirements aren't different for blogs.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Copyright permissions vs fair use to include an image from Amazon
Hopefully, this isn't too off-topic or repetitive.
I'm writing my dissertation, and I am finishing up the last chapter discussing some of the experiments I did. In that chapter, I discuss a pump I ordered from a seller on Amazon, and the website has a perfect exploded view CAD drawing of the pump for my use.
I want to use this image, and I have already contacted the seller in the comments to see if I can use the picture. But I'm not sure I will get a reply.
I've looked online and found resources that say I can use the image without citation, saying it falls under fair use. Others say that I need to get written permission from the seller and from Amazon itself. This question says it's all about copyright, and I agree; I don't know 1) whether the image is copyrighted or 2) who to reach out to to get the most direct reply.
Are the images the seller uploads on Amazon copyrighted? And if so, can I go to the author or should I contact someone at Amazon directly?

If you are in the US, the copyright laws will make life very difficult for you. Could you simply do a tracing of the CAD image on photoshop, or another software? If you create a traced image that is a little different from the original, and you credit the original image in your paper with a link, then you should be able to claim fair use. If that's not possible, then the amazon CAD image is almost certainly copyrighted to one of these entities: 1) its creator; 2) its manufacturer. Amazon sellers only get a license to display the image, but own no copyright. Note: I'm not a lawyer.

@djohn, your mechanism for copying is still copying and makes no difference under copyright law. Even with minor changes. An image can be considered a "complete work" even when embedded within another.

"Fair use" has to do with copyright.  "Citation" has to do with giving credit.  Even is an image can be used under the fair use doctrine, you should still cite it, giving credit to the source of the image.

@Buffy Understood, thank you for the correction! I really wasn't sure about it.

@BobBrown, correct, but the OP should seek out the original source, which is very unlikely to be Amazon. Also, Amazon pages aren't necessarily stable.

I'm going to guess that there is a solution, though it is a bit of a grey area. First, copyright can only be applied to "creative works", so the question first arises whether such a figure is "creative". In particular, most images that you find in patents are not subject to copyright (see the accepted answer). Second, one of the important distinctions in "fair use" is whether use of the image (or whatever) reduces its commercial value, which isn't the case here. That is, the commercial value of the image itself, separate from the product it represents. Third, the fair use exemption for scholarship is a bit broader than in general. Fourth, while minor violations often occur, they have to be severe enough (usually in the commercial value area) to cause someone to sue you.
However, Amazon isn't the copyright holder but holds, at best, a license for use of the image. Any copyright would be held by the product's creator (most likely) and you might be able to find an "official" version of the image on the company web site, along with explicit permission to use the image.
If you want to be utterly sure, contact the company (or a lawyer, perhaps at your university), explain your use, and ask permission. Hopefully you aren't pointing out flaws in the product, which would make them touchy. But it then comes back to the question whether the image is "creative" in any sense and whether it has any value in itself, separate from the product it represents (the patent issue again).
My conclusion is that, while it is, perhaps a grey area, it isn't so dark-grey as to cause concern. But use the "official" version, not Amazon's.
Note: This isn't legal advice, but only one person's interpretation of the issues and likely outcomes. IANAL.

Thanks I'll try to contact the company directly then and see what they have to say.

I wouldn’t think there’s any legal doubt about whether a figure from a scientific article is creative or not. You might be able to make that case to one federal judge, but I think you’d lose that case on appeal. The data is probably not copyrightable in the US. But, its arrangement can be considered creative.

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


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Private company using my dissertation
Context: I work for a small private company in the US energy sector. Recently, my colleague found an application opportunity for the tool I developed as my PhD dissertation. We tested it out with a public utility to great success, and it's getting some press. There is a high likelihood of future business.
Lack of citation: The company is trying to represent the work as a "Company Project" and they have removed all citations and mentions of me individually. I am worried that if I leave the company at some point, they will continue using my science, continue not crediting me, and I will feel cheated, even though I brought up the idea of using it while working here.
Lack of public voice: In addition, I was told all press contact must go through our Marketing department, even though I have been contacted independently by journalists that saw me present this project / my science at conferences earlier this year. I am not supposed to speak with them, and instead redirect them to our Marketing group. I find this very odd.
Question: On one hand, I am an employee of this company where the project was carried out. On the other hand, I did not develop the tool while in this role - I developed it as a PhD student five years earlier. I feel that because of this, I should receive due credit. The company doesn't own my dissertation knowledge - or do they? What should I do?

Is it published?

Yes and no. Yes, it is published in conference publications, some of them peer reviewed. Bits and pieces are also published in some books. In terms of a peer-reviewed industry journal, no, though it is under review.

It's also published online as part of the university's online academic commons for dissertations.

Shouldn't this be asked in law.SE or workplace.SE instead? Not sure this is the right community for this question. In other words, I believe you either want to talk to a lawyer or to your boss.

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because the question is about a situation that is completely outside academia.

I'd say it is off-topic here, too. But one thought: You got all academic credits based on your thesis and the related publications. The product you developed based on this is owned by the company since they payed you for doing it. They have no interlectual property rights on your thesis. As long as they don't cite the text, they don't have to reference the thesis. (of course, good style might be something different ;-) )

"The company doesn't own my dissertation knowledge - or do they?" They have every right to expect that you'll use your knowledge and capabilities in your role at their company.

I do not see a large difference between my question and https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1983/who-holds-intellectual-property-rights-on-a-thesis, which was not flagged as off topic, except that I provided more context. Both ask the same thing regarding IP.

I think that your best bet is to contact the IP department at the academic institution where you did your PhD:

They can inform you about your rights concerning the work you did there as a student
Potentially it's also in their interest to get credited for the work done by their PhD students, so they might be your ally in case there is a legal case.

Edit (addition):
Alternatively, you could try to negotiate internally with your company, they might be open to offering you something. But in this case you wouldn't be in a strong position, so it depends how you think the company might react.

Good idea. I have considered this, but I am worried that if they are not in my favor, or feel the university is owed part of the profits, that I will set off a bad series of events and jeopardize my career. I might have someone inquire on my behalf.

@ObviouslyAnonymous I think it is still important to get in touch with the university, because the university may in fact own some part of the IP here. If they feel they are owed part of the profits they may later go and sue the company, which is presumably worse.

@xLeitix that is something the companys IP department/lawyers should figure out. Going solo might be really bad for op.

@ObviouslyAnonymous in this case I think the safest option is for you to hire a lawyer, or at least to consult one in order to know your options and the potential risks. I'm also completing my answer to propose a different idea, see my edits.

@ObviouslyAnonymous if the phd was funded / a studentship the university might hold sole rights to the IP. at which point you using that application in the business was IP theft. Contact the University ASAP and find out. If 2 years from now the university sues your company for violating that right your career will be over. if you nogatiate now it could actually help your career

You are in an very difficult situation here.
The first thing to realise is that, unlike academia, companies make a point to decouple service from the people who provide it.
This is the opposite from the academic position where you as individual are entitled to be cited properly when your work is used in public. PR of a company does not count as academic work, so the fear of being seen as 'plagiarisers' will not scare them, and as you never mention a patent, there is no infringement there that the company has to be afraid of, either.
Furthermore, your company, I suspect (but IANAL), is entitled to control your public marketing-relevant communication.
I do not think that you can easily force the company to credit you as developer of this method. Companies are not academia. They are interested in keeping the credit for themselves, because this means raw money.
If you do not have a patent, the most you can do is to leave them and offer your know-how elsewhere (but again, your methodology/idea of using your technique in this particular context may now contractually "belong" to the company, via NDA or even possible pending patent, so you cannot even suggest this idea anymore to a competitor).
You could consider consulting a lawyer. But, if the matter is only about credit and not money, I do not really see how they can be of much help.

I agree about consulting a lawyer, but I don't think it is correct that withdrawal of service is the only route available to the questioner; a route, certainly, but not the only one. For example, per Erwan's answer, there is the possibility that the university will likewise be aggrieved by the way the company is acting, and act together with the questioner to seek redress for the way that the company is acting.

@Myles This was recommended by others, I did not see a reason to repeat this suggestion here.

Claim the tool as your intellectual property, then license or sell it to your company.
The IP to your tool could be held by a few people: you, your university, your funder, maybe even your professor, but it's certainly not held by your company. So unless the tool was released for free (e.g. a CCBY license), you should be able to derive royalties for it. I would speak first to your alma mater's IP office to establish who owns the intellectual property, and then negotiate with your employer.
I'll say though it looks like the conflict of interest will be tremendous. Some employers might argue that you're supposed to do your utmost for your duties (there's such a clause in some of the employment contracts I've signed), which might include using IP owned by you. Even if the company is OK with paying you a royalty, there's still a significant conflict of interest: what if a better tool comes along, would you resist using the better tool because you want to be paid royalties? It heavily depends on you and the company's character, of course, but you might ultimately find you have to work elsewhere.

I'm not a lawyer, but assuming you're in the US there are some basic protections you have. Your company does not own your intellectual property unless you have explicitly given it to them. Your company cannot control your behavior unless you voluntarily agree to abide by certain rules (such as in an employment contract or employee handbook). If you violate such a contract then they may have grounds to sue you for damages, but realistically the biggest threat they hold over you is termination of employment. You should assess what is it you really want to achieve and what that is worth to you.
That said, if push comes to shove there are specific protections you have over your work:
If they're reproducing or distributing elements of your dissertation or other written works, such as written passages, charts/graphs, user manuals for your tool, etc. these things are protected under copyright. They would normally need your explicit permission to reproduce and distribute these things, and for-profit businesses usually have a very hard time claiming the fair-use exception.
If they're using software you have written then copyright law protects you in a different way. You have the copyright over software you have written, and you control how this software may be reproduced and distributed. Copyright is very powerful in the software realm, since even making a single digital copy for a co-worker is considered reproduction and distribution. However, the way you made your software available is important: if you published it online under any specific license then the terms of that license will dictate how the company can use that software. If you put it online or gave it to them with no specific agreement or license in place then you probably retain all the normal copyright protections.
If your tool is not software but rather a physical tool or a conceptual method, you may have protections under patent law. However, patent protections are not automatic, so if you never filed for a patent then this does not apply to you.
If any of these cases apply then you probably have quite a bit of leverage over the company, if it's really true that your work is an avenue to future business.
Even if you're not protected in these specific ways, you are presumably the expert on your tool and the most capable person when it comes to using it. It took you years to get to the point where you could create and employ your tool effectively, and your refusal to cooperate with your employer could represent years of development time for them. At worst, your current position means that any competitors in the marketplace are facing years of their own development if they want to have someone like you working on their staff.

My understanding of Work for Hire is that in general a company definitely owns the work they specifically asked you to do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_for_hire . But I'm not sure how much that applies in this case because it isn't clear to me who hired who to do what work.

@Eilon Based on the question, it sounds like the work being contested (the dissertation) was done before the OP was employed by the company. Nobody hired the OP to do that work. So the work-for-hire rules would not apply at all in this case.

To some extent, this depends on the value of the product, and what you'd like to get out of it.
If the product was developed outside of the company, they have no right to it.  They are also unable to protect themselves against claims from you (or maybe your university), as you (or maybe your school!) have every right to just sell the product to a competitor (if you dot a few i's and cross a few t's).  If your employer really wants to develop on this idea, and put resources into it, and incorporate it into their plans, it is clearly in their best interests to deal with IP issues up front.  Surprises down the road that have to do with these issues are often very unwelcome.
Now, the hard part!  These are your employers, and I suspect you would like to maintain a nice relationship with them.  Opening this can of worms, however nicely you approach it, does have some likelihood of souring this relationship, so as you go along, you have to think about whether your rewards are worth this risk.
One approach would be to start with your manager, and say "if anyone thinks this software is important, I'd gladly work with you and my school to make sure that we have a solid legal platform to protect the company investment."  If they think that's important, they should welcome this.  They may also look into this, and say "not worth the trouble" and drop the project.  If your ask is simply recognition, and not bucks, I think everyone would end up happy (though be ready for your university to throw in a monkey wrench if they expect licensing fees -- there is certainly a chance that they dig in their heels if the idea has real value).
If your biggest concern is your job, you should consider dropping the whole thing.
All this is complicated.  You should certainly consider finding an appropriate lawyer to help your with these issues (I am not a lawyer).

You may not have any rights:
You invented a tool*, during your PhD. Presumably you didn't file a patent for your invention and presumably your university didn't either. This severely limits any rights you have.
I suspect the knowledge of your dissertation is public domain: It is not owned by you nor your university, it can be used freely.
Using your tool as a foundation, your company developed an application, which has been well received. (Developing the application is merely your job.) The company is rightly promoting the application as a "Company Project" and rightly gagging you from speaking to the press, that's the marketing department's responsibility. The application is the company's intellectual property, not yours. You most likely have no right to use the application outside of your employment, e.g., if you leave the company.

The company doesn't own my dissertation knowledge - or do they?

No they don't, but I suspect the knowledge is public domain.

What should I do?

Do nothing, I suspect, but, you haven't given us enough information and you might want to speak to an IP attorney.

*What do you mean by tool?

"I suspect the knowledge of your dissertation is public domain: It is not owned by you nor your university, it can be used freely." I guess that is the crucial point here. Is this indeed the case? Are there any sources backing up this suspicion?

@Trilarion I don't know whether this is the case and I doubt the OP knows either. A IP attorney would need to be consulted and they'd need to consider the OP's employment contract (if any) during their PhD, in addition to understanding exactly what the tool is.

If it's a software tool, there might be copyright protection despite no patent, and there's the issue of who is entitled to license fees -- the OP or the university,  A lawyer is a good idea.

@ScottSeidman Even if it is software, it depends whether it was used in the application and, if so, how it was used.

@ScottSeidman The thesis and any software will have copyrights, but copyrights can't protect ideas, only tangible expressions of ideas.

I agree with Erwan that you should contact your university.
If you feel uncomfortable contacting them, you can always first refer to their policies on intellectual property. It should be available online on their website, and if not, you can always contact them but only ask about intellectual property policies regarding dissertations without giving any information.
If your tool was developed without assistance from sponsored research funds or using school funds or facilities, your university is not likely to claim IP rights. If other people were heavily involved, then credit would obviously have to be shared with them. One thing to be cautious about is that because it's from a Ph.D dissertation, there is a chance that you may have signed something giving the university IP rights or distribution rights. If you received, say, a tuition waver in exchange for work hours, or if it was developed as part of work carried out for the university, that would also make it more likely to be university property.
Now, data obtained from the "project", which I assume refers to the testing of the tool at the public utility, belongs to the company, since you gave them permission (I am assuming) to use the tool for that purpose. However, since the company was in no way involved (I am assuming) in the development of the tool, nor did you transfer IP rights to the company (I am assuming), they can't claim IP rights over the tool itself.
If you signed something that effectively hands over the IP rights of the tool to the company, of course, that's a different story.
That said, I should note that it is likely to be in your best interest to consult your university, because it could save a lot of hassle later down the road. It would be a nightmare if you released a commercial version only to have the university claim ownership.

tool I developed as my PhD dissertation.

What kind of tool? Over here (Germany) the copyright (i.e. the economic exploitation rights) for software are by default owned by the employer, i.e. possibly your university if you had an employment contract for your PhD work. If we're talking about a software tool, they need a license by the owner of the copyright.
Copyright wrt. the dissertation itself is not of importance here unless the company wants to make copies of the dissertation or quote/reuse parts of it (as opposed to using the methods described).
Methods and knowledge described in the thesis: unless there's a patent (which would grant the patentholder the exclusive right to use e.g. that method), everyone is free to use whatever they learn from reading your thesis. Just as you are free to use everything you learned from reading any other book or paper.
Thus:

The company doesn't own my dissertation knowledge - or do they?

No, but they also don't need to own your dissertation knowledge in order to use it. (With the exception of their employees including you) they  also cannot forbid anyone else to use that knowledge: they'd need to own a patent on that knowledge (or the copyright for software) to do that.
The important idea behind the patent is that the exclusive rights are granted in exchange for making the content of the patent public, i.e. from the point of view of patent law, you had the choice to keep it private (unpublished). But patent law requires you first to think: if you want a patent, i. e. to forbid others to make use of your knowledge, you need to declare that before making the knowledge public. If you don't want your knowledge to be public, keep it secret and neither ask a patent nor publish your knowledge. If you want to make the knowledge public, but don't want to forbid anyone to use it: fine, no need to file a patent, just publish it.
Which is what you did:
A normal PhD thesis is public (and published) in every sense of the terms, and so are your research papers.

I am worried that [...] they will continue using my science, continue not crediting me, and I will feel cheated, even though I brought up the idea of using it while working here.

No point in feeling cheated here, see above. If there's anything you could feel cheated about it's that you did not file a patent (in case that was possible: not all gains in knowledge can be patented or protected by copyright).
Any other company, including competitors of your current employer and any future employers of yours can use the knowledge they get from reading your thesis, just like your present employer.
Still, you may want to consider whether you like to work for an employer who turns out not be very generous (after all, saying thank you and that your contributions are valuable and publicly crediting you for your contribution costs more ego than money).

Lack of citation: The company is trying to represent the work as a "Company Project" and they have removed all citations and mentions of me individually.

Unless they try to get publicity by writing a scientific paper (where the usual academic standards for citing the source of ideas apply), they are bound by copyright. I.e. they need to cite (and possibly obtain a license) only if they quote or reuse tables or graphs from your thesis. Copyright btw. does not cover fact knowledge (if you measure and publish the density of pure water at 4 °C, others can use and quote your numbers without the need to obtain a license. Databases are different, though, and may not be reused without license)

I was told all press contact must go through our Marketing department, even though I have been contacted independently by journalists that saw me present this project / my science at conferences earlier this year. I am not supposed to speak with them, and instead redirect them to our Marketing group. I find this very odd.

(Side note: I found it even more odd, when I encountered a similar situation in an academic research institution)
IMHO it is within the rights of your employer to decide who the contact/spokesperson for the company project is. IANAL, but I don't expect* the company can forbid you to talk to journalists about your PhD thesis.
Whether you want to ruin your relationship with your employer about this question or whether it would be strategically a much smarter move to say that as you are interested in that project since long before they ever became aware of it, you'd like to be more deeply involved in this - and this way try be the important guy first marketing talks to about the project and after a while try to get a sufficiently public position.
The other recommendation I have is: try to find out why you are not supposed to speak to the journalists. A couple of reasons that for me would lead to totally different conclusions come to my mind:

Your company may be working towards a patent right now.  That hypothetical patent needs to achieve a certain non-negligible advance over the state of the art.  Everything described in your thesis is already state of the art, so they can patent only new inventions on top of that. But they may be afraid that you accidentally reveal relevant internal information to the journalist - and that would make that revealed knowledge also state of the art and thus endanger the patent. The marketing guys may be pros in realizing what internal knowledge must be kept internal - wheras your employer may (rightly or wrongly) think that you are still more in academic mode and tend to tell things.
(I'd probably try to be involved in any such patenting project, but think this a sensible reason)
It may be the general policy that marketing/PR is the only point of contact of the public.
(Whether I'd think this a sensible reason or not would depend - but if the general PR policy of the company doesn't suit you, this should enter your thoughts about what you want for your professional future)
They may try to gag you and get out all your knowledge and then ditch you.
Of course, not sensible/acceptable.

* For Germany I have learned that broad gagging clauses in the employment contract that try to forbid more than what an employer can claim legitimate interest for are totally void. Together with the extremely employee-friendly court rulings we have here, I'd feel completely safe talking about my thesis work of 5 years before joining my current employer.
For the whole answer: keep in mind that I'm most used to Central European (German) legislation and working customs. Your legislation and work culture may have a different view on some of these aspects.


text:
Submitting articles on arXiv as an unaffiliated researcher
I was at a university for a year and then left. If I submit a research paper to arXiv and mention that I am a participant in that university, will they limit the research if it is accepted?
Because I have heard that arXiv does not accept unaffiliated research. (I have been endorsed on arXiv.)

You misunderstand some things. There is no prohibition against unaffiliated authors. You don't need to be associated with a university or research organization to submit. You do need to register, however, and you may need endorsements as well.
But affiliation, as such, is not a requirement.
There is also no concept of arXiv "limiting" your research. They make it public without review is all.
However, some publishers will reject work that has already appeared in any venue, including arXiv. That may be disappearing as I write, however. In some fields (math) the journals are very permissive. In others, not. The problem is that a commercial publisher wants to hold the copyright to the work, and by publishing it on arXiv you have already encumbered that copyright with the perpetual license you give them. So, the publisher, even if you assign copyright to them, needs to honor that license and can't claim "all rights reserved."
And, I hope you weren't dishonest about claiming affiliation with your former university. It isn't even needed.
ArXiv has a moderation process to weed out nonsense, but it has no proper review process. No one has necessarily verified the actual claims in any paper there. The endorsement process is just another way to weed out nonsense. Someone known to them, needs to vouch for you.


text:
Handling wasted time
I'm 27 years old, currently doing a Master's course in eletrical engineering in Germany.
I have a problem with my mindset having to do with my past. When I was 16 I was strongly addicted and smoked weed every day. After finishing school I got involved with new friends and more drugs while doing an apprenticeship (training for a practical job in Germany). I struggled but ended somehow managed to complete it.
After that (at age 19) I started undergrad studies and things went downhill. Obviously partying and using drugs while studying is not the best combination. After 2 years I realized that something has to change. I changed my field of study and left all of my friends.
It took me about 2 years to regain focus and start learning.
I somehow started being highly motivated and performed very well. I also started an industry job while studying and did well there, too.
But now it hurts to see how much time I wasted. My colleagues are almost 5 years younger than me. I know that I can be proud of myself for achieving what I did, but I can't let go of these regrets.
My questions are:

How can I deal with these feelings?

Also, how should I discuss the wasted time in a job interview?

I don't think either of your questions are suitable for this SE, where we deal with questions about academia and academic life. The second question might be better suited to the Workplace SE, but I don't know about the first.

thanks for your reply. From my point of view its connected to the academic life, since I am  unfortunate about my age in academic life because other students are so much younger than I am

How can I deal with these feelings?

It certainly helps to put things into perspective. In the large scheme of things, 5 years are not much. In these times, it's not uncommon that people make radical career shifts in their 30s or 40s, starting from zero at a much later point in time than you do now.

Also, how should I discuss the wasted time in a job interview?

It's unlikely that this will be addressed, since employees generally care more about "what you bring to the company" than about your personal biography. If they do address it, you're in a comfortable position because you changed your study field. You can explain that you reoriented yourself towards the new study field because it better matched your interests, preferences, and strengths (and recognizing that took some time for significant consideration).
Don't mention the partying and avoid a "wasted time" mindset. A better mindset is that this earlier study period was valuable because it allowed you to recognize what you're good at.


text:
Invitation to a new conference: possible scam?
I am a researcher on physics and I was invited to a conference as a speaker at the 1st European Conference on Engineering & Technology ECETECH 2022. The full expenses (round trip flight tickets, travel insurance, and hotel accommodation booking) will be paid by the organizer of the event. But I am expected to pay 650 euro as a registration fee in advance. My concern is, is the event real or scam to take money from researchers?

Does the organiser happen to be a Nigerian prince?

Unfortunately such “conferences” are petty common nowadays. Similarly to predatory publishers, it doesn’t look really good on your resume if you fall for them.

Hey, I am giving a party. I will pay for your drinks and dinner, there is just a registration fee of 1000 euro. Please let me know if you wish to attend.

Many aspects from the following questions apply here as well: 1. How do I identify predatory and low quality journals? With Beall's List gone, how can I tell if a journal is spam? 2. How to identify predatory publishers/journals

@Greg I was trying to decide recently whether I should include a 'Scams I've been extorted by' section on my resume. I didn't include it in the end, but I might go for it next time

I looked at the location of their so-called Europe office. Turns out it's a rental agency's office, so I don't think this is trustworthy.

I have an "Academic Spam" folder in my inbox full of crap like this. An I'm only a PhD student!

The domain ecetech.org is 3 months old. All the main sponsors domains appear to be less than 2 months old. Nuff said...

Their Europe office is a web design academy? https://webdesignacademy.eu/html/basic-course/paris/september/

@Bib Most of the websites are based off templates. 3 of the 4 sites are down as well...

It is shady at very least. Covering a wide range of topics, with barely any mention of the organizing committee or keynote speakers - there is hardly any information to go by at all! Even the information for authors throws a 404.
Another shady bit is the venue - they say it will be in an hotel (and quite nice one at that!), however, this hotel website does not show anything close to be usable as a venue and the photo of the conference room apparently comes from a page of a much larger hotel... In Nigeria.

Also, the lorem ipsum "Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis" under the purported picture of the conference room under "Venue"...

Also of the "sponsors" there is ThomasKutt Telecom which according to their site claims to do telco work in switzerland. No company with "Kutt" in its name exists in Switzerland. Delarist GmbH does not exist except for this conference page (and the linked webpage is dead). Similarly TomWang Telecom also leads to a dead page.

If the list of topics spans a page, you should already be suspicious. Conferences that have no focus typically imply that they are not where people with deep knowledge in a reasonably well circumscribed area of research tend to go, and that they need to draw from a much wider pool of people.
If there are shady aspects of the conference description, then you should be suspicious. For example, the description says "Only Invited Speakers (Incl. Spouse/Family or Co-Author's) are entitled to Free Round-Trip Flight Tickets, Accommodation and Feeding throughout the conference (courtesy of our sponsors)." That's just bizarre: Why would a conference pay for spouses and family to fly to the conference?
Pretty much everything else about this conference strikes me as odd as well. In the end, whether it's a scam I don't know -- it's quite possible that they will actually run the conference, but it seems almost certain that it will be a waste of your time and money: You're going to be surrounded by people who are not in your field and not at the top of their respective fields, so you're going to learn very little and you're not going to get very much credit for speaking there as well.

(+1) Your first paragraph articulates exactly what I was thinking (but didn't say nearly as well) in a recent comment when I wrote published paper titles suggest inclusion of "everything under the sun".


text:
Should I include code in my research paper?
My paper is about a specific application of blockchain. I've developed a basic prototype for it and so far, I've described it in detail, and put screencaps of the interface for it. Should I also include actual code of relating to different parts of the application?

Practical matter: you'll probably find silly bugs in your code later, and it'd be nice to be able to fix them without having to issue a revision to the paper.

Upload your code to GitHub and include a link in the appendix. Including your code will make your research more reproducible and help reviewers spot issues, and GitHub (or GitLab, etc.) is a better place to share code because it supports version history and collaboration.

I uploaded the code for my Master's thesis to github and just included the URL in the paper. The down side is now I'm committed to keeping that repo up there, but it definitely makes it far easier for others to use or check the code. My advisor was delighted with the solution.

better to include the source code and also a link to the source code in case it gets updated. Having the source code in a paper means it is there all the time. Putting just a link, the link will eventually go away and people will lose all the ability to see the code. But if it is in the paper, it will always be there. Hardcopy is better than nothing. Ive looked at paper 40 years old with code in it. There is no way I would have been able to see the code now if the code was on some link. It will be long gone by then. The author has also died by now.

As mentioned in the answer by lordy, it is going to depend heavily on your field and journal. But to expand on things, here are a couple thoughts about including code directly in the content of the paper:

Programming language: You're code is going to be in just one of the many available programming languages out there. That might limit its usefulness or make it more difficult for people that are not familiar with that language.
Line lengths: Often it is hard to write readable code that fits into the line length of a single printed page. You have to resort to things like shorter, potentially less useful variable names, splitting lines, etc. Also, different journals might use different fonts that change how many characters  fit on a line, so you might have to spend a lot of time just reformatting the code for different submissions. It's worse if it has to be in a single column of a two-column layout.
Conciseness: there might be a lot of things that people don't need to see to understand the actual application of your paper, like initializing variables, unrolling loops, etc. This is just wasted space that may count toward word limits.
Future-proofness: Ideally, you don't want any part of the main content of your paper to become obsolete in the future. Technology changes, standards change, etc. Eventually your code could become unrunnable. It's probably impossible to avoid altogether, but including it in the main body of the paper just makes it more prominent if it does happen.

With that, here are some alternatives, some of which have already been mentioned in other answers/comments:

Pseudocode: basically the same as including code, but negates/offsets most or all of the negatives outlined above.
Supplementary info (SI): Many journals allow the inclusion of supplementary material. You could potentially include your code here. This has the advantage that no matter what, there will always be an archival record of your code associated with your paper that you don't have to spend time managing.
External repositories (e.g., Github): This makes you responsible for ensuring the code continues to be available for readers, and also depends on the service's continued existence, but has the upside that you can fix mistakes, add features, etc.

There's nothing stopping you from including all three options. Pseudocode provides permanency for describing an algorithm, supplementary info provides a combination of permanency and utility for an example implementation, and an external repository provides utility and future-proofness for actual mainstream use.

Depends on the field and journal - check other papers in the same journal on how they do it. In my field (Bioinformatics) we usually do not put code into the paper but provide the full source code via the department web-page and/or git.

I would even go as far as: never put code in a paper, this is what we did some decades ago. repositories as github are for this purpose. And I concur: yes, please put code and data somewhere public so that others can use and reproduce your results.

I would only include code snippets or pseudo-code snippets if it helps your readers understand a particularly tricky part.  If it takes up more space than a table or figure, it's too much.  But, as lordy says, use  the norms of the journal.

Even then I would argue that if you only use widely known algorithms it should be sufficient to simply name them. (Although I don't know if this is the case here.)

@MarcoLübbecke Combination of GitHub link and code in appendix seems the best to me; just think of all the code from papers that would have been lost in the past if it was exclusively hosted on one of the now defunct servers.

I would recommend not to use only departmental websites as they might change in future due to any rearrangement or university policies. Best case is to upload on multiple public sources so even if one changes/expires, others will be accessible. I have specifically observed this in Bioinformatics area. Lot of tools have generated and lost their URL from the paper some 10 years later.

To make sure your code is not lost if GitHub goes out of business, your department web changes etc., you can also archive code on Zenodo. And Zenodo has a solid archiving policy (run and guaranteed by CERN)

@MarcoLübbecke How can I find the github repository of a paper? Do authors mention this in the paper itself or what else?

@AJ.S yes, I would expect this to be mentioned in the paper; otherwise you can only be lucky using google

Your topic sounds like the paper would benefit from having the core algorithms as code in the paper, but you should probably use pseudo code with explicit declarations and everything.
Read a few other papers and look at the corresponding LaTeX packages, to get a rough impression how a good pseudo code listing should look like.
Do NOT:
int random_element(std::vector<int> mylist) {
  std::random_shuffle(mylist.begin(), mylist.end());
  return mylist.at(0);
}

Do:
Input:  A non-empty list of integers "mylist", a "shuffle" function that
        creates a random permutation of a list
Output: A random element of the list
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
shuffled_list ← shuffle(mylist)
result ← shuffled_list[0]
return result

Your reader should not need to understand the details of your programming language and many of them are implementation specific and have nothing to do with the algorithm itself. Your reader needs to understand the abstract method and is in general not interested in if you use smart pointers and other technical details.
The same applies for your screencaps. Are you sure, they are needed for the paper? Keep it at a minimum, if you're not explicitely writing about user interface guidelines. There are many ways to implement an UI for a specific application and when describing the method, it does not matter how you arranged the buttons.
Such things may be put into supplementary material, for example by putting your code online for others to read and try (possibly with a documentation including the screencaps and compiled binaries with the UI for easy testing).

I agree with @anjama.
The idea of an article is to communicate ideas, and listing code in an article is fine as far as it makes the article more readable and the code itself presents necessary clarification. To do so, the code should be clear and self-contained. That is all function names or variables do not need references to other code files that are not presented in the article.
This practice can be easily replaced by pseudo code instead or diagrams, and I would only put code in a paper if the paper describes how to use the code itself. For instance presenting how to use/call classes of a package I have developed. The reason is for avoiding putting code is that, which programming language I am going to use, the reader might not be familiar with it, and if things can not be communicated with pseudo-code or diagrams, then the code itself might not be clearer, since pseudo-code is developed in the first place to abstract the idea of code listing.
To summarize, use instead pesudo-code or diagram, and only list code to explain how to use a software package that the paper describes.

As others have written, code belongs in a public repo. I have one addition to make:
The only time I have ever seen code in a paper was in a paper presenting a new simulation tool. To demonstrate the ease of use and flexibility the short code snippets producing the plots were part of the figures (see here).
In a similar way, if you e.g. want to showcase a particularly nice or convenient API, it might be appropriate to have (minimal!) code snippet in the paper.

There are some papers in the machine learning field where an algorithm is complex, and a certain language (i.e. Python) is ubiquitous. For these papers, they usually first include a pseudocode description of the algorithm in the main paper, and add a minimal implementation in an appendix. You will have to decide if you believe that your idea is truly clearer to a majority of your readers if written as a code snippet.


text:
Is it alright not to do research for an extended period as a PhD student?
I have done about one year and nine months of my PhD (in the UK) and have got a paper published, one waiting to be submitted, and another reasonably-sized project completed. I have written up three chapters of my thesis corresponding to the previous three papers/projects. For the past three months or so I have not done any meaningful research, because my supervisor didn't give me any project to work on. I tried to find some research projects on my own, but failed miserably. Given that I am not interested in academia, I have instead spent my time learning about other technical/programming knowledge to prepare for my future career.
I am a little bit worried that I have not done research in a while, but I don't really know what I should do about it, and spending time to prepare for my career seems to be worthwhile. Is there anything better that I could do?

At this point why are you not proposing the next project? I don’t hire PhDs so I can tell them what to do. I hire PhDs so they tell me what has to be done, and then go do it. You are supposed to be learning to be independent.

I have tried thinking about new projects and reading through the literature to generate ideas, but I'm just unable to come up with anything worth doing. In fact that's one of the reasons why I don't want to stay in the academia. I have asked other PhD students in my group and it seems they also mostly receive ideas from the supervisor. I just can't learn about idea generation from anyone in my group. The lack of postdocs makes it worse.

Seems to me you have a clear assignment: work with your advisor to learn how to come up with ideas and figure out which are good and important. Then do them. Clearly he/she has the skill. This is a learnable skill, and needed for any job a PhD is required. Bemoaning a lack of postdocs is misplaced.

For a PhD, @joncuster is spot-on. It seems it might be prudent and timely to consider a course correction, maybe switch to a masters program?

Is there a reason you can't just graduate now?

@NoahSnyder well, submitting a thesis after less than two years will likely get it rejected simply because you're "not experienced enough". At least that's what I've heard from other fellow students.

@Aruralreader I've seen many students like me inside the group who are able to graduate with a PhD even though they're not really independent. I don't see any reason to switch if I can get away with it with the status quo, although I admit I need to improve my independence by learning from my supervisor as Joncuster said.

"All right" vs "alright" for your future professional endeavors.

I don't see a particular problem as long as your supervisor is OK with your progress, especially since you don't aspire to a career in academia. Learning other things is good.
The only issue is to assure that you make sufficient progress toward graduation that you aren't delayed.
Your goals don't need to be the same as every other student's goals. Be true to yourself, but make enough progress to finish.

You should really talk to your supervisor about whether you have enough for a thesis or not. Most universities have a set of criteria for what makes a PhD.
These may include:

Forms an original contribution to knowledge in the field
Shows evidence of systematic study and of the ability to relate the results of such study to the general body of knowledge in the subject.
Is publishable (or is in part publisable)

You've clearly demonstrated the final part. I'd guess your demonstrated the first as well. Some universities quanalify these things with something like "contains a reasonable amount of study as can be expected in 3 years of study" or some similar (my university does not have this requirement, but, for example, Cambridge does). Its not impossible that what you have done in 1.75 years is as much as others might produce in 3, but you'd better check that with your supervisor.
If that is the case, then you might like to think about your goals. You can probably submit after 2 years (or 2.5 yeas, depending on your university's requirements), but this might also be a good oppotunity to get access to things you would otherwise not have access to.
If you wish to go into industry, is there some way your work can be made interesting to a company so that they might like to collaborate on an extension? Can your work be commercialized? These might offer you opportunities to form collaborations, and therefore network, with people that might be value contacts in the future.

Coming up with new research ideas isn't trivial. Finding promising ones is even harder. For both, you need to know and think a lot about the current state of the field, past developments, ideas currently floating around in related fields, etc.
The way to make progress here is to read a lot of textbooks and papers. Textbooks give you deeper knowledge of the fundamental methods of your field. As there are many different textbooks in every field, you should read multiple ones in parallel on a particular subject to get different views of the same matter. (Reading different textbooks also helped in an unexpected way: I found an older but very broad textbook with an unusual approach to many questions in my field, and it has been an invaluable source of inspiration.) Reading current articles then helps you identify what kind of questions people in the field currently are interested in. If you go through the details of what other people do, you can use the methodological knowledge you gained from reading textbooks to identify cracks in their current approaches which are worth investigating.
The specifics will obviously depend on the field. In technical areas, you will want to go through the mathematical derivations, maybe implement some of the equations yourself to play around with them, and so on. During this "playing around" you will get hands-on knowledge which you will need when you are working towards a specific goal later on.
This is the approach I used during my PhD, and it helped me come up with a few ideas which (after I convinced my supervisor that they were worth pursuing) eventually led to some nice publications.

That is fine — three months without doing research is not an "extended period".


text:
Have been thinking of Quitting PhD since day 1 - Advice appreciated!
I would really appreciate to hear some other people's thoughts on my situation. I am going into my third year of my PhD at a UK uni (paid studentship) and am thinking of quitting (80% sure) and finishing with MPhil. I have an undergrad, masters degree in Psychology (1st class) and after uni started as a research assistant in a nonpsych group. After umming and ah-ing for years I eventually took on a PhD and now i've just finished my second year.
I have been thinking of quitting literally from day 1 for the following reasons:
1- my PhD doesn't really match my background  so I have always felt I am pursing the 'wrong' topic or that it doesn't suit me.
2- The original PhD outline was cellular research but was changed to suit me and my background, which has been good in a way as I had more freedom to do what I want but also means the research aims/objectives have been pretty wool-y from the start.
3- my supervisors have said that I can focus on the behavior change aspect of the project so it better suits my psychology background but none of my advisors are experts in behaviour change.
4- I don't want to pursue a career in academia or research due to the fixed term nature of the contracts. I appreciate permanent research jobs are possible in some fields (biochem, engineering, pharmaceuticals, statistics etc) but after constant job searches it seems limited with my background and not worth the anxiety that lifestyle causes me to pursue the small % of jobs that are available.
5- My reasons to quit are not supervisory- they are very supportive and almost friends due to being colleagues for so long- which makes difficult
6- I have extensively researched psychological wellbeing jobs that I think would suit me skills and interest's wise and and would have permanent career progression.
7- I am nearly in third year but because of Covid am a year behind so still need to analyse write up my second study.
8- The toll on my mental health and general health ( I have a chronic health condition) I was having panic attacks over this- I have had counselling for this.
Questions:

Despite this I am still doubting if this is the right choice to leave early with an Mphil or if I should just stick it out for the whole PhD (1-2 years)?
Is it true that a PhD can help with higher up NHS jobs- e.g. either in research or patient care? ( I have been told this but am dubious as I cant see this anywhere on many job specs)
Is it better to just finish a PhD to get the qualification for the chance I might need it in the future even if the subject isn't the field I want to go into?

Thank you so much for reading this and for your help!

Thank you Captain Emacs for your comment. I think the trouble was I am interested and have experience in researching Parkinson's Disease so it seems logical at the time but I was naïve about the diet side of things. To be honest I feel that counselling can only do so much and of which I already have sought in the past. As you say I need to work out how to stop it from affecting me or stop, that is a good way of thinking about it, thanks for your reply :)

I wasn't sure my comments were relevant to you, but if they were helpful, which they seem to have been, I'll turn them into an answer.

I wish you luck, careers can be difficult to navigate. It might prove helpful to others in the future to explain why, if you were doubtful from Day 1, you continued on. What was the rationale, what were the reasons you gave yourself, for not exploring alternate paths earlier? I suspect many people here in similar situations would benefit from your insights. From a practical perspective, @CaptainEmacs is spot on, you need to play the ball as it lies.

Thank you Rural Leader. I continued because I wanted to allow myself enough time to see if my thoughts changed and if I could change the project to better suit me, rather than just quitting at the first negative thought. Due to Covid I had to wait longer to actually see any progress on my project on which to make a valid conclusion whether my situation had changed if that makes sense. It is hard to work out if the so-called potential benefits of finishing the PhD are legitimate or rather coming from biased sources (people who have invested interest for me to continue)....

In terms of alternative paths I did look into this in depth when I first had PhD doubts and still am wanting to pursue this path. But I keep being told that a PhD could potentially help in management roles for these jobs- senior management etc. So this is what is making me worried that it may bite me later on if I don't finish.

@Anonynon: "But I keep being told that a PhD could potentially help in management roles for these jobs- senior management etc." It's true that a PhD could indeed lead to senior management roles at some point in the future, in no small part because in the sciences a manager needs to have the respect of his or her direct reports, and a PhD is one step towards facilitating that. One of many though. And whether it's clear or not, that role might take many years to get to. You'll be competing with others who've started before you. The advice is good as far as it goes, but one piece of the puzzle.

@A Rural Leader- Is this true regarding just having a PhD in general regardless of whether the topic is related to the healthcare service in question e.g mental health?

You’d want the advanced degree to be close to the general area you’d manage. Put yourself in the shoes of a young, energetic, ambitious employee in the area you have an interest in. What sort of background would you like to see in your manager and mentor?

Any advice we give needs to be taken with a grain of salt.
First of all, a PhD is not something to enter lightly. To be honest, if you say you regret it from day 1, you should not have entered it. Even more, you should not have picked a topic you do not like.
Of course, now it's too late. So, most important is how much more do you have to work. 1-2 years, you say. The next criterion is if it depends on your motivation or you think you will make it work, no matter what.
If the latter, you might consider pulling through, it may open doors in the future. But if you think your work output is unpredictable and it may take longer, or it takes a mental toll, you need to reconsider it.
For mental toll, one thing that I usually do not like as advice, but may pertain to you in case you decide to continue, is to seek professional support. An activity that damages you is an activity you either need to to find a way to stop damaging you, or stopping it altogether.
[As for whether the PhD is useful in your field, I cannot tell, this needs to be answered by someone in the field]


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Is it ethical to omit your PhD and write it as working experience in your resume?
My friend has recently finished her PhD, and is now looking for a job, probably outside of academia. In the mean while, she is planning to apply for a temporary, simple admin job to make ends meet while she looks for a better job. Since the admin job does not require a PhD (or even a Bachelor's degree), she is planning to omit her PhD from her resume. However, doing that will result in a gap in her resume. Hence, she plans to write that she has 4 years of working experience, working as researcher in a laboratory (nothing to indicate that she has a PhD). My question is: is this ethical? Can you "convert" a PhD education to work experience in your resume?

I think this question is more suitable for https://workplace.stackexchange.com/. But I do not think that presenting a PhD as work experience is unethical: in many countries a PhD is (also offically) seen as work.

https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/40854/can-i-hide-my-bachelor-and-master-degrees-in-cv-when-i-apply-for-a-phd-position

@Roland This is a possibility. However, my friend does not mind if the employer will think she failed her PhD, as she is only applying for a simple admin position (and she will only be working there temporarily).

@Roland It is very unlikely that an employes for an "admin job oustide academia" will assume that lab work equals a PhD (even in academia most informed people know that plenty of lab workers do not have PhDs), and it is even more unlikely that they know who owns the laboratory.

Your friend should expect that her/his "creativity" when writing the CV will come out eventually. Employers don't like to be lied to, this includes lies by omission. Regardless, of ethical consideration, your friend should expect repercussions eventually if she/he gets the job.

@MaartenBuis A "lie by omission" would imply that the fact that she tried to do a PhD would be relevant for the employer. It's not obvious why that's the case. Employers should hire people for their skills and personality, not for their earlier life plans.

What is her reasoning for omitting the PhD? Is she afraid of being "overqualified", of looking uncommitted?

@henning my friend says she often gets the question on why she does a PhD, and she is tired of answering them.

@MaartenBuis & Roland as well I really don't think the employer would mind if after a while it turned out that she had a PhD, but has done a good job in the meantime. It seems to be a lowlevel job with few requirements, so the change that she would be outright rejected because of being overqualified is IMHO much more real than an employer being mad about something that isn't relevant for her doing her job at all. Imagine someone would seek temporary employment at a restaurant, omitting that they have a masters degree. Would anyone care if the find out - NO.

@Sursula We don't know the country, that makes answering the question hard. I am sure that in your country you are right. However, that does not mean your are right for the country the OP is in. I can imagine many situations where this situation would be a highly problematic, and the OP's friend would suffer repercussions. It is up to the OP's friend to carefully weigh the risks in her/his community.

What does temporary mean here? An actual temporary job where both employee and employer expect it last a limited time, or taking a permanent position with the intention of ditching it ASAP?

@JackAidley the job description mentions that they are offering a temporary position of 6 months, hence both my friend and the hiring manager understand that it is a limited-time position. However, they also mention that there is a chance to extend beyond the 6 months.

Thanks everyone for your replies and joining this discussion. It seems that the answer to this question is dependent on the country and its culture. How do you find out about the hiring culture of a country?

I would say it's perfectly reasonable to omit some information. I looked through hundreds of resumes and conducted dozens of interviews. Every person has a diverse set of interests and experiences and you need to mention only the relevant ones. I would say it is even helpful. To exaggerate, if you try to work as a software engineer, you don't need to mention the student summer job as a boy scout leader. As of the Ph.D. - the goal is to teach you to make the research by practicing it. If she managed to finish the Ph.d., she is definitely published some works, so, she did do some research work successfully.
If she would say she has the Ph.D. when she's not, then it's another story and would be totally unethical. But in described case everything's totally fine.

Thanks for your reply! I guess I did not phase my question clearly, my friend wrote her PhD under the working experience section in the resume, instead of the education section. Strictly speaking, she was not 'employed' by the university, she was a student there. Will this be fine?

See, there are two sides -- practical and legal. Legally the mileage may vary, as if she didn't formally have an assistant or researcher position, in some cases/countries it wouldn't count as a work experience.
Practically, the CV is not a legal document, it's a way of communicating your previous work history to a future partner. And as the work of post-doc and good PhD student is very similar, it's a minor detail for the employer from the other fields.

And as @Louic mentioned before, the PhD in many countries (i.e. Germany, Norway, Netherlands) is considered a full-time job in the first place. Bottom line -- I don't see a big problem here if your friend believe it would fit as a job experience better.


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Why are there no DOIs for NeurIPS papers?
It is nowadays pretty standard to have a DOI with every item-to-be-cited (papers, algorithms, data, etc.), and they are really useful for all kinds of purposes. Considering this, I am quite surprised to be unable to find DOIs for NeurIPS papers, especially considering that it is one of the major CS conferences... Is there a reason for this?
Related question: Why do some papers not have a DOI? The highest voted answer there relates to the time/cost required to obtain a DOI, both of which I would assume not to be an issue for NeurIPS...

I work at Crossref (there are other DOI agencies too) and it looks like the proceedings used to be published by MIT Press and registered with Crossref as book chapters - see search results. But there isn't anything with us since 2007 so not sure whether the conference moved to a new publisher that isn't a Crossref member or something like that? I searched the ISBN database too but that doesn't help much. Probably best to ask the conference/organisation directly? Let me know if you find out!

NeurIPS seems to be publishing with Curran Associates (https://www.proceedings.com), which I have frankly never heard of. Curran seems to offering DOIs, but maybe NeurIPS is not taking them up on this offer?


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When you're collaborating with another group, how do you decide which one is the first author of the paper?
Say, A and B are two PhD students working on the same project, and C is their supervisor. D and E are two students working on a similar project to A and B's, and F is D and E's supervisor. The other day C and F met and decided to collaborate. And now the project is about to end, so it's time to write a paper. A, B, D, and E all insist they should be the first author, and no one wants to be the fourth place.
In this situation, how should the supervisors decide who's first?
And imagine this scenario: B writes the paper without letting anyone know, and then they show this paper to the two groups and ask for the other three people's data. Then does this automatically make B the first author?

You give no basis for a way to make a decision other than to have a big and unsatisfying fight. Work with people less ego driven, I guess. No, B is automatically a leech, or trying to be. Some fields just list people alphabetically, which always put me near the front, of course.

This has nothing to do with 'ego driven'.

Certainly it does. Make C the lead author since s/he has a bit of scientific humility.

Sounds like there weren't enough discussions about the form of the collaboration before the project started... Some things to consider: Who did the most work, or the most important part of the work? Is this a field where joint first-authorship is recognized?

@Anyon, I think measures like "most work" or "most important" are just weapons to be employed with little basis in reality. "Initiator of the study" might have more validity. If people contribute differently to a whole, who is to say which is "most"? These sorts of fights are very unsatisfying for everyone and can be destructive. "First-authorship" fields are, IMO, being very foolish. It is easy enough to add a "contributions" section in which the nature of the contribution of each is mentioned - not the quantity or quality, but the nature of it.

Of course, I recognize that I can't change the (dysfunctional) culture of a field not my own. But there are many solutions to this problem that are less annoying. In my field, no one thinks that my colleague, "Bella", contributed more than I did, being listed first, on a joint paper. We worked together and shared ideas. The paper is good, so we deserve praise, or bad, so not.

You get them to do "paper, rock, scissors" or draw straws - it seems, at this point, that they sound like 5 year old's in a playground...

@Buffy It is what it is. I certainly agree that these fights aren't good for anyone, and that contribution sections are a good thing. Yet I do think that "most work" measures are more realistic than you give them credit for. They're not perfect, of course, but in the vast majority of papers I've been involved with, we've had a clear consensus about it. It gets murkier for say second and third authorships, but fights for those are much rarer. As for "initiator", in many fields that'd be understood as the PI, who by convention is often last author... Perhaps "driving force" could work.

Although I never saw that for more than two authors, there should be (depending on the journal) the possibility to mention that those authors contributed equally. See the 3rd answer here: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/41341/equal-author-contribution?rq=1

@David I've seen it done for up to three authors.

Wait - you have two professors and four grad students working in an area, and all they can come up with is one paper?

I find all this hypothetical language really distracting and obfuscating. Just say what happened.

@ Solar Mike That's offensive

@ Azor Ahai Because I'm asking a general question, not discussing a specific story.

@JonCuster Yes, what's the problem?

@OhLook - well, if there is that much work to be done, in my experience there are more papers that can be written based on the work and fairly straightforward extensions of it. The short letter announcing the new concept. The longer paper with complete results in an area. The theory. An extension of the concept in a new direction. Modeling and simulation. All of a sudden it becomes pretty trivial to have first author papers for more people, and each would be able to articulate what they brought in particular to the broader work. And, no fights, because everyone has lots of work to do...


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How does a professor lose their tenure over a sex scandal which he was not involved in?
The Michigan State University (MSU) has moved to fire the medical school dean for the actions of the child molester / doctor, Larry Nassar.  Why does that happen in academia?  I'm interested in knowing why the professors around a convicted child molester also have to lose their tenure and jobs.  Is this a typical procedure of American universities?
For comparison, a person working in industry who is guilty of sexual crimes usually seems to be solely responsible and only they are held accountable - not their entire department of managers.

Hopefully, there is no typical procedure for a case like Nassar and everything around it. Clearly, what matters here is the meaning of "around." As for the specific case, clearly following the news is more useful than asking abstract questions here. -1

Read this article: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/michigan-state-moves-fire-larry-nassar-s-boss-william-strampel-n846391 According to the article, the dean knew of at least two sexual assault accusations against Nassar, did not take recommended action to protect patients, and even told Nassar: "Good luck. I am on your side."

People in senior management positions are regularly turfed out for either ignoring or covering up the illegal actions of their subordinates, especially when those actions occurred in the context of the employment. This is no different and the portrayal of the dean as "not involved" is very mistaken.

He facilitated rape. I am suprise he is not in jail

Sounds like some religions who, if a priest had a “reputation” just moved them on to a new area - so they could start again or, perhaps hoping it would “go away”...

A manager in industry is also held responsible to some degree for the actions of their underlings. Many would say this is really what management is all about - taking responsibility.

The Dean of the medical school is not being fired because he was involved in sexual crimes.
He is being fired because he poorly handled the Title IX investigation. He utterly failed to ensure the safety of student and patient safety, and he bears responsibility for that.
To characterize him as being "not involved in" the scandal is not accurate - the scandal is not only Nassar's actions, but that they were allowed to go on as long as they were without being addressed.

Well, it's not just title IX, but more general stuff... though the existence of "Title IX" should have been vivid in the dean's mind, etc...

If the Dean knew that there was good reason to believe that this Dr. Nassar was guilty of what was charged (as if others have also filed a complaint) and did not act on it, there is complicity.

Your analogy is mistaken.  A better one would be: a manager's job description includes "making sure employees don't molest customers or other employees, and acting and initiating investigations promptly if any accusations thereof arise".  Said manager then fails to act and investigate promptly when accusations thereof arise, or do anything to prevent potential future or ongoing incidents, thereby endangering both people and company alike.  Still sound like getting fired is mysterious?

As a general principle academic tenure protects an academic against being fired for expressing unpopular views, but it still allows the university to fire the academic "for cause".  Academics with tenure are not totally immune from losing their positions, especially if they engage in misconduct or failure that does not involve merely an expression of unpopular views.
In the case you are talking about, MSU has referred Dr William Strampel (Dean of Medicine) to Faculty Review Panel who will decide if there is "cause" to remove his tenure.  The university alleges that he has failed to satisfy his job requirements in his administrative position, by failing to enforce guidelines on Nassar for the protection of students.  There is certainly no suggestion that Dr Strampel was involved in the sexual assaults committed by Nassar; the allegation is that he did not properly adhere to the administrative requirements that would have restricted Nassar's ability to commit misconduct against students.  He is accused of breaches of criminal law relating to misconduct in a public office for these alleged failures, and he is also subject to a review of his position by MSU.
This is an interesting case, because of the separate aspects of academic tenure as a protection of academic work, versus the responsibility of senior academics in their administrative capacities.  I think there is a reasonable argument for the position that administrative failures ought to lead to removal from administrative positions, without necessarily leading to loss of tenure as an academic (e.g., Strampel might be removed from holding an administrative position, but still be allowed to work as a tenured academic in a research/teaching capacity).  It appears that the university is seeking a full firing in this case, and it remains to be seen what the Faculty Panel will decide.

Update: It appears that Dr Strampel was convicted of "misconduct in office" and "willful neglect of duty" relating to his actions in relation to this matter; he recently lost an appeal against conviction (see news reports here and here).

Strampel was sentenced to one year in jail by Judge Joyce Draganchuk in August, 2019. During his sentencing, he received one year each for two counts of willful neglect in his role as former MSU doctor Larry Nassar’s boss and 11 months for misconduct in office. He was released after serving 8 months of his one-year sentence, two-weeks earlier than expected due to COVID-19.

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


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Who can help me . I am interested to be a reviwer
Shall anybody recommend me a journal -in the field of analytical chemistry- that can easily offer me to be a reviewer in it . I am very interested to do so although it will be the first!. I am a master student . I have one paper not published yet but has big chance .

Given the premises, you haven't yet enough experience to become a reviewer, a role which requires expertise in the field.

The English may need some polishing...

Talk to your supervisor. If she feels you're capable of reviewing articles, she can direct one of the reviewer invitations she receives to you. If not, then she should be able to tell you what you need to do before you can be a peer reviewer.

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


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Are the conferences organized by WASET legit or some type of scam?
Searching through websites dedicated to collect upcoming scientific conferences, I have stumbled upon a lot of similar-sounding conferences around the world (e.g., see here), all organized through the "World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology", WASET. There is plenty of information about them on their respective websites, as the organizing committee, speakers already confirmed, etc.
This high quantity of similarly-titled conferences smells fishy. Is this some sort of scam, be it hard (they steal your money) or soft (lectures are actually given, without any real effort to look for relevant speakers, do peer-review, etc.)? Can anyone shed some light on this? Has someone here actually participated in, or even organized one of those?

Does this answer your question? How can I determine whether a conference is reputable?

There are many, many different red or orange flags that you can use as signal to identify whether a specific conference may be spam, but the simplest algorithm is as follows:
Have you previously read high-quality, relevant papers from this venue? If no, is there some other specific reason for you to believe that this venue is reputable (e.g., trusted colleagues believe in the conference, or you are aware that this is a new conference bootstrapped by trust members of the community)? If the answer to both of these questions is "no", it's likely spam and not worth further investigation.
In the specific case of WASET, I would be surprised if this is anything else than a scam. They seem to be doing the same "conference" many times a month in many different "places" (although all virtual at the moment, apparently), and even though they seem to have a bunch of software engineering related conferences I can't for the life of me recall ever reading, or even seeing, a paper published there. Clear pass.


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High Latency Communication with Potential Thesis Supervisor
I'm currently pursuing my Masters in Switzerland and got in touch with a Professor at a major UK university a month ago via E-Mail for a potential thesis project. I immediately got a positive reply mentioning my interesting background and the good fit with his current research.
Two weeks ago we talked on the phone for a little more than an hour. It was almost exclusively him explaining three research projects that would fit my background and interest. It all sounded very positive and ended with his request for me to think it over and tell him as soon as possible if I was interested in any of the projects, as he was "super busy".
I decided on one of the projects that I really liked and wrote a nice E-Mail the same day.
I have not heard back from my potential supervisor yet (2 weeks in now). I wrote a brief follow-up E-Mail one week ago, asking if he knew whether he wanted to go ahead with our collaboration. This week he will be attending a conference abroad (according to search results on Google), so surely he is very busy.
While I have had Professors not reply to E-Mails about thesis opportunities in the past, I am confused both because of the good conversation we had on the phone and what we had agreed on in that conversation.
After all, if he really has lost interest in a collaboration, he could easily drop me a line via E-Mail.
Right now I think another E-Mail by the end of the week would be the only option - reaching out by phone is difficult, because he seems to rarely be in his office. How do I come across without making the impression of being pushy or annoying?

Maybe consider that some people don´t just want to "easily drop a line via E-Mail" while they are very busy with things (like preparing for and going to a conference), especially if it´s something they want to get right (like hiring someone to work on their projects for the next few years).

They sound sincerely interested in working with you. There's no right answer to this; you're right that there's a balance between staying engaged and giving them polite space to reply. It's likely they will be coping with various life events, not just work; who knows what may be filling their time and attention. It's normal that people may be responsive in one period and then less so.
I recommend perhaps lengthening the time between check-ins, so 1 week for the first follow-up, and then 3 weeks, and then maybe 6; and then stop. Alternately, you could call as much as once a week, if you don't leave a message. Most of the risk of too much contact is because of making them read or respond to a message, so if there isn't one, that's less of an etiquette problem. Ultimately, there's no way to control whether they experience this input as pushy or annoying. I would also continue exploring other potential advisors.