text:
Is it cheating if I develop some part of my MSc. thesis in a hackathon in a team?
I am working on my master thesis in software engineering. I am going to present the idea of my thesis in a hackathon (startup competition), so most probably, we will make a team and develop a minimum viable product based on my thesis.
The question is:
Can I mention to this minimum viable product as the validation of my thesis?
Or it would be considering as plagiarism since i have not developed it alone, but in a team.

How about mentioning the work and explaining clearly which part came from you and which from others? Why would that not be viable? And why not ask your adviser? They can tell you what's acceptable in an assessment-relevant work.

It would be plagiarism if, and only if, you do not disclose in detail the process that led to the creation of the MVP, including the fact that it was created in a hackathon, the names of the participants, and details regarding which part of it was your personal contribution. And if you do in fact make such a disclosure, then it won't be plagiarism or cheating, but I'm guessing it would not be even remotely acceptable as sufficient work for a Master's thesis. As @CaptainEmacs said, check with your adviser.

@Dan can you please post this answer as an answer?

Simple answer: Ask your professor. He decides if he accepts your thesis and he should know (or direct you to someone who knows) the examination rules of the university about such things. If he told you something, you're on the safe side. For your thesis you should not act like "I don't ask, so I can't get a no", because you can get the no later then.

I believe it would be fine and acceptable as long as in your thesis writing you name who helped you and how they helped you.
I doubt anyone will think less of your thesis for having people help you. As long as it is still clear that you did a lot of work yourself... this team isn't completely doing your project and thesis for you!
You could ask your thesis advisor to be certain.
Many PhD students hire research assistants to help them code software engineering projects.

Strictly speaking it is not plagiarism to mention this minimum viable product in your thesis. That said, however, there are two considerations that require further attention; first, though, a point of clarification concerning "plagiarism":
Per Oxford University Plagiarism Guidelines, "Plagiarism is the presentation of someone else's work or ideas as your own.[...]by incorporating it into your work without full acknowledgement"
There are many forms of plagiarism, some intentional, and some unintentional, but while varied, plagiarism refers to a practice of attribution concerning some intellectual work; plagiarism is not however automatically conferred by a mode of authorship. Simply because a project, as your hackathon represents, involved a group does not preclude your ability to cite that project, properly attributing and crediting the efforts and works of each contributing group member. Such an instance of a group project, one that is directly instigated by a lecture presentation that you made would be permissible to cite as a project with discrete elements and scope. Similarly it would be irregular to cite the entire group in reference to the lecture you made.
Any work that is relevant in scope, or impact, to an intellectual endeavor or to an academic end arguably must be cited, regardless of whether it is convenient; the point is that it could be argued that leaving out the group project, as in not mentioning it at all, would constitute an instance of plagiarism.
Given the scope of your thesis and your stated acknowledgment that the lecture presentation you made and the group project are relevant to that end, you should acknowledge both, including contributors/collaborators.
Per internationally recognized ISO7144 standard, to varying extents,  a thesis generally is a theoretical, research-based, or clinical work that is prepared with the aim of demonstrating its creators qualifications.
While your project is important and relates to your theoretical work and research (and as such should be cited with credit to all participants), your project represents an instance of a theory you've developed, relating thus to your presentation in turn; in the same way that it would be difficult to submit a project that was merely practical, lacking research, as the thesis itself, it would follow that the project, which acts a supporting instance of your theory, would not undermine the research you conducted or the theory you promote.
Simply because there are collaborators on a project inspired by your research is insufficient by any count to be considered unfair or unoriginal work to the whole thesis.
Ultimately only you can know the extent to which any of this applies, but keep in mind many academic works are the fruit of collaborations that may or may not be part of a much larger researcher's canon or research field without rendering the whole of his research a group activity.

I think that if you are able at your level in your career to convince others to work on your own projects, be them academics or practitioners, you definitively deserve recognition. Let me elaborate my view:

a MS degree is NOT supposed to be research-intensive. That's PhD work.
MS dissertations typically either summarize other's people work, or provide limited original work on top of other's people work.
in case there is original work being developed, it is guided by the student's supervisor, and mostly executed by supervisor's team composed by research scientists/postdocs/PhDs.

A MS thesis is NOT an individual's homework. Even research at the highest levels is almost never done individual - I find it surprising that us faculty perpetrate the fictitious nineteenth century lone-genius narrative. I authored hundreds of papers, and the only work that bears my only name are my MD and my PhD thesis. And that's only because of the dissertation rules that were imposes to me - in a dissertation, the student is forced to relegate other's people contribution in the "acknowledgments", when they really are co-authors.
So if a MS student picks his own topic, and he/she self-assembles his own team to develop it and complete it rather than following semi-blindly the supervisor's (or her/his assistant's) direction, he/she should be highly praised. That's not plagiarism, that is leadership/entrepeneurial attitude at a very early stage.
Of course, just as in any academic work, you should refer to other people's contribution. In this case, you should make it clear you brought up the idea and encouraged others to collaborate with you, and try to assess in the most objective manner what is your own contribution, and what is not.
EDIT: thanks for the first upvote. I believe the downvotes were due to my first, short, in-your-face version of the answer. Hope my point is clear now.

Wow, here rain the downvotes. Wonder if anybody would comment on why this answer is not satisfactory? As a teacher, I always praise students who work in groups. As a MS and PhD supervisor, I praise students who think outside close academic circles and are able to fin external resources to solve their problems. What are your values as a faculty?

The notion that working in groups is desirable is fine.  The notion that this alone is sufficient for a degree is not fine.

So if I am able to "convince" someone else to write a complete Master's thesis in software engineering for me, I deserve not only a Master's degree in software engineering but also another Master's degree in business? Do you seriously not see why such a claim would be downvoted?

Not downvoted, but here's the catch: there is group work for assessing the ability to work in groups. If it is individual work (and a MSc is usually individual), you want to assess the individual ability of the student. Business ability is one pair of shoes and not measured by a degree; but technical and research ability in conjunction with critical discourse and analysis is what people get the MSc degree for. And that's not measured if they use the jointly developed tool from the hackaton without making clear what their contribution is. Plus: perhaps the idea comes from the others?

I hope I clarified I was being provocative. @CaptainEmacs (I dropped emacs but still love your nickname :)  of course he/she should still make clear what part of his thesis are his/her own work. This should happen in any thesis, regardless whether you got help from an academic, or else. I just realized I need to expand my answer further.

@famargar Thanks for your comment on the name ;-) As for your response, with the expansion, it is at least something to discuss. I think that entrepreneurial spirit is something to be applauded, and thinking out of the box is a good thing, so as long as it is really clear what the added value of the candidate's work is, I do not - in principle - see a problem. One issue is that this particular constellation (group work) is particularly vulnerable to a distortion of contributions. For a coursework, this may be tolerable, for a MSc thesis, this is a serious difficulty for fair assessment.

@CaptainEmacs, I surely understand your concern. However, in my field virtually no work is performed by one person alone. Thus it suffices to refer to other's contribution whenever needed. To me some unknown people in a hackaton are just like any other academic collaborator; as long as you don't appropriate their work, you can use what you have done together toward your dissertation/publication/grant writing/promotion etc.

@famargar Well, being the one on the assessment side, I am expected to to assess that particular person. I have worked in teams at uni, and this boils down to a part of the team doing everything. A hackaton is possibly different, but unless you abolish grades for homework (and I would be the first person to support that for much of the studies), you get a problem of fair allocation. In any case, I suggested for OP to ask their advisor - they will know best what flexibility of assessment are accepted in their institution.

A MS thesis is like a big homework assignment though. It's not research, it's a paper which summarizes other people's work that's then submitted to the professor. In many fields this is exactly what final exams look like, some even longer than most quantitative MS theses. In quantitative disciplines we're just not used to this, but in reality it's almost just a "super homework assignment" to show you can read not only in class but on your own, and not just the classics but also the new stuff. The next step is to actually research which isn't usually part of the MS thesis.

@ChrisRackauckas Depends on the field, my research group requires MS theses to have original contributions. Not as in-depth or individual as a PhD dissertation, but still not just a review of existing literature.


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Which factors in PostDoc opportunities choice?
Many of you probably have already lived these career turning point: your PhD program is going to end, and you have to choose an university research group to apply for a postdoc position.
Which factors do you consider as more important in this choice?
Take research group X at university Y.
Which factors you consider to decide if it's worth to write to them for a postdoc opportunity?

Research group project's affinity with your PhD research work?
Research group's excellence, and international ranking of its team
leader researchers?
Research group members' human affinity with your personality (if perceptible)?
Research group project's scientific novelty and genius?
University excellence, and its international
ranking?
Distance from your hometown? Proximity to your hometown?
Salary?
Going abroad?
The university city/country way of life?
Other elements?

Please tell which of these (and other) elements you consider the most important (or by giving a percentage to each, if you want).
Many thanks! :-)

That's easy: Apply everywhere you would be willing to work.  If you're lucky enough to get multiple offers, then worry about priorities.

Actually, I think the frame of this question isn't quite right. I would argue that these are criteria that I would use if I were choosing between multiple postdoc offers, but these are not necessarily appropriate when deciding where to apply.
What I would do is decide what my "deal-breakers" are: that is, what are the criteria that would prevent me from accepting an offer, regardless of how good it is? For instance, if you need to take care of an ill family member that lives in a specific location, then you're probably not going to want to consider international programs. Similarly, if you're determined to go into industry, you're not going to be inclined to take a purely theoretical postdoc project.
However, once you've decided upon those deal-breakers, if you then see a project for which those criteria do not apply, then you should go ahead and submit an application. You don't have much to lose by doing so.
Once you have the offers, the challenge is tougher. All of the criteria you've listed are valid, and it's hard to say which of those might be the most important—it all depends on your own personal circumstances. One hopes that research concerns are the most important of all, but as I've mentioned above, there are valid reasons why that might not be the case. The only thing that I would make sure of is that whatever option you decide for in the end, it helps you in moving on with your career beyond your postdoc. There's nothing worse than getting stuck in "PD purgatory," where you can't really stay as a postdoc any longer, but are having problems moving to a permanent position afterward.

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How to postpone a skype interview by a potential supervisor if you are not fully prepared? Is it advisable to postpone?
How to postpone a skype interview by a potential supervisor if you are not fully prepared? Is it advisable to postpone, if you are only prepared some, and are not fluent in talking your research since English is not the first language.

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Can one get a second Master's degree in a related field (biochemistry, bioinformatics)?
If one has already got a Master’s degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, can he/she apply to the Masters’ Program in Bioinformatics at another university in another country?

Broadly, yes.
Previously, I worked with students on masters degree who already had other masters degree or other postgraduate qualifications.  Some even had doctorate.  Taking a second masters can be really valuable, especially if you are seeking professional development.
It would depending on the institution that you are applying to for your second masters (such as how you meet the entry requirements etc.), so you would need to check with them for advice on your specific situation.
There are two considerations you need to make, however (this is speaking from a UK context):
Funding
Some funding, especially in the UK, whether student loans, scholarships from private donors, government money and research grants will not cover someone who is taking a qualification of the equivalent level that they have already obtained.  Check this with the university you are applying for.
Visa and immigration
I am not qualified to give visa advice, however, you should know that, at least in the UK at the moment, the decision to grant you a student visa might also depend upon whether you are taking a qualification equivalent to the level of one you have already obtained.
If you're an international student and got your first masters in the UK, your chances of getting a visa to stay to do a second masters could be nil.  Speak with a visa and immigration adviser at the institution you are thinking about.

It might be worth mentioning that in the Netherlands at least, the government only subsidises a first masters degree. Once you successfully obtain that, you pay the so-called institutional fee for any further master level education, which is substantially higher. See for example https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/support/your-studies-begin/tuition-fees/explanation-tuition-fee-rates

Yes.
Realize that you are switching emphases from the "mainstream" of biology to "informatics," a different field that is, in this case, related to biology.
Put another way, you are emphasizing the "applied," data-intensive,portion of your field, rather than the "pure," theoretical portion. Assuming that your grades are pretty good, many programs will allow you to make the "switch."

As many have said, broadly, yes.  That said, you should have a thorough understanding about why you need to do so to advance your career, and be able to convince potential employers that it wasn't done to put off hard decisions.


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How do I find a research assistant positions (life science) in USA if you're an international student and outside of USA now? Is unpaid job possible?
I have a Master’s degree, and want to apply for PhD. I want to find a position during the gap year. It is also possible to do 2 years. But I am not in USA. So, How do I find a research assistant positions? Is unpaid job possible to get visa?

Research Assistant positions are almost exclusively filled by graduate (and occasionally, undergraduate) students. They are not normally available for non-students. You'll have to wait until you're enrolled - and an RA position may be part of your financial aid package.
Research Scientists and Research Staff positions are available to non-students. However, because there are so many people with work status who can fill them, employers will rarely agree to sponsor someone for a visa for them (unless there is a mitigating circumstance, like a spousal hire). You can find staff openings through the human resource (HR) portals of most major universities.
Under US law, you generally cannot take an unpaid job to circumvent visa restrictions -- this part of your question is best asked and answered in expatriates.stackexchange.com , as I have seen you have done.


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E-Scroll for University Graduates: Any problem?
University of Malaya, Malaysia's oldest public university has recently deployed a new system for issuing graduation certificate named e-scroll (it seems be the 1st university in the world to deploy e-scroll system). Under this new system, university will not issue any hard copy scroll (graduation certificate or degree) and instead provides a website from which graduates can download their electronically signed and timestamped degree in pdf format which can be printed out.
According to one of the officials, UM aims to produce digital degree certificates or E-Scrolls for its graduates to avoid forgery of certificate and ease employment process.
Some parts of the above links are here:

E-Scrolls now work exceptionally well for online applications or for employers who like to verify the authenticity of an applicant’s qualifications. When employers click on an E-Scroll, a PDF document containing the applicant’s degree certificate opens up. A verification tab will automatically pop up indicating that the digital certificate is verified and authentic. If information on the scroll has been modified, the verification tab will show up in red, indicating some form of tampering. They can also manually click on the digital signature  panels to gain technical information on the certificate and signatories.

“UM also provides an alternate method of verification for its graduates through the  Registry of Graduates website that contains the list of graduates,
According other fellows in the above links

The security of E-Scroll is based on a technology called Public Key Infrastructure. This is a proven technology that is widely used by governments worldwide to protect the e-passport, citizen identification cards, and by the financial institutions to secure transactions and online banking

Here and here are some articles discussion in depth about e-scroll and technology behind it.
Here is they problem:
UM will NOT issue any hard copy scroll anymore meaning that we are unable to present original degree that is printed on a thick paper, has 3d stamp, and has hologram. Instead they issue a pdf that has some note on it and provide access to a website to show its authenticity.
If UM had both of the certificates, it would be wonderful since it satisfies both concern; those who need original degree and those who want to verify authenticity of the degree.
My question:

How easy would it be to convince officials to accept such a e-scroll?
Imagine a visa officer at port who wants to verify student's document before entry. If we tell him so, how likely is that he agrees? and he goes to his computer and opens the website? How can we say that the website is not fake? Manipulating university websites is not harder that forging a degree, I guess.
Even if people trust the website and agree on usefulness of this approach, how practical it is that we expect governments to change their employment, verification, or other policies?

For instance, in my country, all degrees obtained from foreign countries must be take to the ministry of higher education for validation. Upon successful validation, the government party issue degree equivalency. Now here is the point that how easy is that for us to ask ministries to change their verification and validation process?
What is the best way to talk to University officials and ask them to issue both?
Do you know, as admission committee member or university administrates, what other problems new students graduated form UM will face in your university?
Here is the sample e-scroll

I know that this isn't the point of your question, but what makes you think UM is the "1st university in the world"? According to Wikipedia, UM was founded 1949, which makes it a pretty young university all things considered.

Thanks for hint. Not the 1st university in the world, but the 1st that deploys the e-scroll according to the online articles.I edited my question.

Unrelated comment but, why is not the major of the person mentioned in his degree certificate? Only a PhD title? PhD in what?

Thanks for your hint. Pls share your idea too. You always come up with good solutions and arguments.

To my university, which I tend to agree, PhD is PhD no matter in what. Saying PhD in something is wrong. They may say what is your research area and you reply CS or IT or ...

I have no idea whether this would be accepted at most universities. I have never understood why universities in 2015 would still rely on pieces of paper printed in a sophisticated way rather than just communicating with the issuing organisation if there is doubt about whether the candidate actually has the degree (s)he claims to have.

Related and possibly duplicate: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19515/electronic-version-of-diploma-in-the-us-universities?rq=1

Now I am wondering if you couldn't just turn it into a paper version by getting a "notarized printout", i.e. paying some with the right notary powers to verify and stamp it, similar to what you would do for a notarized copy normally.

I have never in my life used the hard copy of any of my degrees. If people wish to verify, they generally contact the university in any case. I thus anticipate no issue at all in a switch to electronic degree certificates.

However, I remember twice wanted to get UK visa and both times they asked me (and everybody else in the planet) to submit the original degrees not the notarised or certified ones. Even Canada asked my original IELTS though they could have verified the copy. They took original and never return it.

I've never needed the hard copy of my Ph.D. diploma, but I know someone who was required to bring his to a prospective employer --- and then the employer objected because it was in Latin.

@Espanta I can foresee this is a fairly major issue. I have personal experience of the intransigence of UK Visas & Immigration, and they will use any excuse to reject an application. There is no easy answer here, but I suspect that at least the High Commission in Malaysia will have to accept it eventually.

My diploma is 18 inches by 23 inches (46cm x 58cm) and is printed on sheepskin, as in the skin of a sheep. It's actually larger than that, since it's been framed. There's no way I'm taking it anywhere.

Before getting to the answer, I want to recount a related story. As an undergraduate due to some bureaucratic issues I attended graduation even though I wasn't graduating. I should have been handed an empty diploma tube, but they screwed up. A week later I received a desperate phone call from the registrar's office. The conversation went something like this:

RO: We need you to return your diploma since you did not graduate
ME: No, I like having it and you are going to give it to me anyway at the end of the summer
RO: It won't have the right date on it and when an employer asks to see the diploma it won't match your transcript and that will cause problems
ME: Not a problem, I will just forge a diploma then
RO: We really need it back
ME: I don't have it any more. I gave it to my mother since she paid my tuition. You can try calling her and asking for it, but I don't think you will have much luck

I still have not had to forge my diploma with the correct date on it or even show my diploma to anyone. Almost everything can be accomplished with either a non digitally signed pdf of my transcript, a unofficial printed version of my transcript, or an official transcript sent by the university directly to the individual that needs it. The only issue I can see with having only an e-transcript/diploma would be if the university stopped supporting the format. I would simply request a digital one at graduation and print it out for your records.

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3 years into my phd program, want to shift to theoretical physics
I joined a phd in electrical engg 2 years back. But requiring physics, I did log of physics courses and I have now developed a deep interest in mathematical physics and condensed matter. But that has lead me to undergoing coursework in maths dept as i had already finished lot of basic/masters level courses in physics and which gave me a feeling that doing math courses thoroughly first is the right way to do any physics. But my supervisor now is terribly disappointed with me. Also I am confused about shifting university as I am already 2years + into a graduate program. Also there is a feeling that once am through the coursework , I might find some problem interesting to electrical engineers that I might solve with the new skills. But a few professors and my current supervisor are discouraging me saying it is a vague plan. So what should I do, any suggestions?

You can find many areas in microelectronics which are closely related to the condensed matter physics (i.e: Electronic band structure, semiconductor, Conductors,  Superconductor, Ferroelectric, etc). My recommendation is to find a specific field in condensed matter that is also interesting for your supervisors, and pursue your PhD.
In your case, moving to another department is just burning two years.

Well there are other advantages of shifting department, one can have a more serious atmosphere and discussions regarding say physics or math so it will lead to a better phd.

In that case, switch the department and supervisors as soon as possible.


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Hiring Committee preference of academic CV structure
I am interested in applying for US math postdoctoral positions.The positions involve mainly research with light teaching duties. These applications will be assessed at departmental level by a hiring committee.
Consider the following headings:

Research Interests
Publications
Education
Awards and Honours
Teaching experience
Talks

After presenting contact information, in what order do members of a hiring committee typically prefer to view such information, and why? For instance, is the order (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) preferred over, say, (1, 3, 4, 2, 5, 6)?

I would start with Education and end with Publications. How you order the rest is less important.

I have never seen an academic CV in the US that has anything other than Education at the very top. The rest of your order seems correct. I would also consider adding Service (journal reviews, committee service, etc.), Skills (technical skills, coding languages, etc.) and Professional Membership, but this may differ by field.

You mean you would prefer to see (3, 1, 2, 4, 5, 6) over (1, 3, 2, 4, 5, 6)? Is there any particular reason?

Exactly. The logic behind a CV is that it is supposed to list your experience/qualifications from most important to least important. Presumably, committees would care more about where you went to school and what degree you received than your research interests. I've seen plenty senior academics omit the Research Interest portion completely, because their publishing record makes it clear what their interests are.


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Is there an upper limit on the number of students interested in a particular specialisation that a university will admit?
I am applying to an MS in CS program. I know most people apply for AI and Machine Learning. Does a university have a fixed number of slots for AI students? Or is this true for the Ph D program and not the MS program?

There is no sensible way to answer this question since every department will have different policies and internal politics which determine how they choose applicants to accept.

Admissions are always limited, because students consume finite resources: classroom space, lab and computing equipment, advising and grading time, funding,  and more generally faculty attention.  Even in online professional masters programs, admissions are restricted to students with a certain expectation of success, because failing students make the program look bad.  For research oriented MS and PhD programs, money and advising time are probably the most limited resources.
Different departments approach the limits differently.  Some define strict quotas in advance, depending on number of faculty and available funding levels.  Others (like my department) have softer quotas, which are influenced by prior belief that specific students will accept admission offers.  Others accept every student with a high enough GPA and GRE scores, and let the students fight each other for advisor attention.  But there are always limits.

This depends largely on the admissions policy of the program to which you are applying. If the program directly admits candidates to the PhD program, and has them go through the master's program first, then there is quite likely a cap on the total number of students who can be admitted. On the other hand, if the master's program is functionally separated from the doctoral program—that is, if students can apply to the master's program without any connection or expectations for applying to the doctoral program until later—then it is much less likely that admissions will be limited.


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Are prefaces common in academic papers?
I know that sometimes (in a thesis for instance) one can thank his supervisor, family or whoever and give a small reflection on the work. A good place would be a preface, I think, though I am not sure whether this is common in academic papers. If not, what is a good place to place reflections and - more informally - thank-you notes?

It depends on the type of publication, I would say.
It would not be typical for journal or conference publications to have prefaces since dead trees are at a premium and long prefaces are not useful technical material.
It is common for journal and conference publications to have a short "Acknowledgements" note at the end of the paper (just before the bibliography), or linked as a footnote from the title. This note is typically for acknowledging funding sources of the authors, as well as people who contributed informally to the paper (but are not co-authors). Sometimes I like to thank (even anonymous) reviewers if their feedback was useful. However, these notes are concise: they are not prefaces where you would discuss, for example, the invaluable contribution of your cat or somesuch.
For books, monographs, etc., prefaces are fair game. But do consider what you put in there. It is often the first thing a reader will read.

I am slightly confused. Would one place the Acknowledgements (as a separate chapter) at the end or at the beginning of such paper? (It is a paper I am to hand in for a course, not for a journal or anything.) And where would reflections (difficulties that may have presented themselves) go?

Just to clarify, I was talking about what is common in conference and journal publications, which are (supposed to be) concise communications of technical results. That's what I thought you meant by "academic papers". They don't have chapters and the Acknowledgement note would be shorter than this comment. Reflections can go into a discussion/conclusion section at the end if they are relevant to put the work in context. However, since your paper is for a course, that's too specific for a general answer. Ask your professor or your classmates. (I guess a preface would be fine.)


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Do Fall Courses Count in PhD Admission?
I am currently an undergraduate at a university. I am looking at graduate programs in Mathematics, and if I am applying for math graduate programs for the year 2014-2015, are fall courses (2013) taken into consideration for graduate applications?
If so, could you elaborate according to your knowledge and experiences. I'm sure this question is applicable to other graduate programs other than Mathematics, so any comments pertaining to this question would be appreciated.

The easiest way to tell if fall grades will be taken into account is to look at the application instructions. If you see instructions asking you to provide your mid-year grades, then that's a pretty clear indication that they will be taken into account during the admissions process. If you are not asked to submit it, then follow that guideline.
If it's optional for whatever reason, I would assume that you should plan as if it were a mandatory submission.


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Is it harmful to list too specific research interest in personal statement?
I'm undergraduate who are applying US research program. I have one interest field in which I have read 1 survey and 3 other papers (I know it is not enough). I only have some vague and primitive idea so that I am not sure I will do research in the field in graduate program.
I'm afraid if I write my research interest too specific and there are no professor who has knowledge about or is interested in such field, the admission committee would think my goals do not coincide with their department research interests.
Is it a disadvantage to write research interests too specific?
It is also possible that what I believe is too specific may be not specific enough for some professor.

I am not sure if a statement would be harmful, it will be a question of how well you appear to know the field. You are right in that you have not nearly read enough. It would be better to simply state that you are interested in such and such a field without going into depth, after all being interested is hardly a problem. If you try to get into arguing for why a field is interesting without having a good grasp of the field, you run into the likely situation that instead of primarily showing your interest, you simply expose your lack of knowledge. No-one would expect an undergraduate to have deeper knowledge about a specific research topic but if you try to argue for some field based on very sketchy knowledge, you may come across as naive. I therefore think it is better to simply state fields that you are interested in without going into specifics. If you manage to read up on a field (which would take, likely significant, time) so that you have a perspective, then such a statement would be a definite positive. Coming across as having good general skill (knowledge and abilities) is still the most important aspect.

Corollary: Read up on a field enough to have a perspective.

It's not uncommon for people to do a project entirely different from what they wrote about during the application process, so it's not necessarily a bad thing to write in detail about a project that would interest you. It's good to let the faculty know that you can sketch out one or more coherent, interesting, and potentially fundable/publishable ideas for a project that would be appropriate and manageable during your time in the department.
If you want to talk specifically about what you're interested in (and I encourage this), great - but get to know the specialties of faculty members before applying. You should be choosing the schools based on faculty, after all.
I think you're spot on about being too specific about a project causing a problem when there are no faculty on staff who specialize in that area. To be honest, it's in your best interest to not apply somewhere if there are few or no professors that specialize in what you're interested in. It becomes difficult not only for the student who may receive little help, but also for the advisor, and the result could be a poor working relationship.
Your letter of intent is one of the most important parts of your application package. If you don't talk specifically about a project you'd be interested in, then make sure what you do talk about is worthwhile and not simply filler.

You should choose either where do you want to go (e.g. research group) or what topic you want to research.
If you choose the group because those guys are really clever and doing very interesting things (whatever they do!), or maybe because they are where you want to live for personal reasons and you don't care about the topic, then find out what kind of interests they have (specially what do they need to cover with new people) and be specific on that. You can ask them, everybody likes getting new people to work with/for them specially when they need more people and have money to pay them. If they don't have money and don't need people, and possibly are saturated of work and cannot supervise/advise more students, then probably you should search for a different place (and repeat the process in this paragraph).
If you choose the topic then you should see which are the best groups to work on that topic, who is doing interesting things, where they are, choose the research group of your interest and then repeat the process in the previous paragraph. Do this until it works for a research group.
Be aware that working for many hours a day, days a year and years in total is more exhausting if you don't really like the topic of your work. I know it's feasible, and it's even possible to get good results and survive (at least physically and academically, your soul may be crushed), but certainly it's more advisable to do this after finding a topic you love.


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Can not having any research papers be a reason for rejection for an MS program?
I am applying to an MS program in CS. I have not published any technical papers, mainly because I had little opportunity to do research and I did not want to write a paper just for the sake of it. Will I be rejected for this reason? Also, do I stand a less chance of admission than my friend who has written an average technical paper (dumb topic IMHO)?

I would guess that in general no, but the answer really depends on the particular school/department you are applying...

There is no way to predict whether you will be accepted or rejected from any graduate program.  Graduate admission is a random process.  You have some influence on the expected outcome, but the variance is set differently by each department, and you only get one trial per department per year.
That said, as far as I know, there are no CS MS programs that restrict admission to applicants with prior publications.  There are PhD programs where most students in some research areas had published (or at least publishable) results as undergraduates—algorithms at Princeton, for example. But even in those programs, and in those research areas, publication is not an actual requirement for admission.

It is a little bit of a simplification (and an avoidance of your actual question), but in general the only reason applicants get rejected from a graduate program is lack of space and funding. Being rejected generally doesn't say anything about you or your application. All you can take away from a rejection is that the department ran out of space and funding before they got to your excellent application.

+1 for All you can take away from a rejection is that the department ran out of space and funding before they got to your excellent application.


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Why become a journal editor?
I know peer-reviewing research papers is a lot of work, but it is something that as a scientist in academia you must do. However, you are not required to become an editor of a journal. It seems to be tons of work, and I am trying to understand what people gain from it and whether it is worth the effort.
I mean, I can understand how being an editor for Science or Cell would be helpful in terms of prestige, connections, and exposure to top science, but what about for lesser known journals? And how is that integrated with research and other duties?

As you alluded to in your question, there are several things to be gained by being a journal editor:

Greater familiarity with ongoing research in your field
Credit for "service" within your department institution
Greater visibility within your research community
In some cases, monetary compensation (some editor positions are paid, some are unpaid)

Being a journal editor can be a very time-consuming job, and it's certainly not for everyone. However, it can also be an interesting and rewarding experience, even if it's not a journal at the level of Science or Cell. (Then again, many of the journals at the level of Science have in-house professional editors, rather than part-time staff from academia!)
Editing a minor journal can also offset other forms of outreach service, particularly if you are still developing a tenure dossier. In those situations you may find editing more (or less) rewarding than the duties you would take on (or be assigned) otherwise. (You should check with your department chair, however, that such service would be considered acceptable before committing to a position!)
Whether or not the connections are worth it at a particular level of journal is not something we can directly answer. You should consider the time commitments relative to other priorities that you might have, and make a decision accordingly.

Aeismail have listed several gains as reasons for becoming a journal editor. I think there are also several personal reasons which likely vary between persons. For me, I found that my experience as guest editor for several issues of journals was extremely rewarding. I found I was involved in handling new science at a detailed level unmatched by other venues. I also found myself getting new contacts in the form of authors and reviewers. All along the lines of Aeismail's answer. I strongly recommend trying to get involved in guest editing a single issue if the possibility arises. This might give you an insight into what is involved and how you might like it.
Before continuing, I should perhaps point out that editorships comes in several flavours (with varying names). Editors that are responsible for journals are often called Chief Editors, whereas a staff of other editors may handle reviews and not be involved in making the final decisions for publications and the journal itself. This will vary from journal to journal. The point of saying it is because getting involved as an editor can happen at different levels with differing tasks to perform.
When the opportunity came around for me to shoulder a journal as Editor-in-Chief, I did not need much convincing, but the reasons were more personal than anything else. One could say it is a position of power (to ultimately decide the fate of manuscripts), but I rather think of it in terms of responsibility. I saw it as a challenge to improve the journal and its standing, and to get a chance to implement several ideas I had developed over the years. Assembling a team around me and the second co-chief editor of the journal was also awarding and interesting. So more than anything else, the rewards now come as I can see the Citation Index rising and (hopefully) the standard of the journal improving.
In my case I (really "we" since we are two) get reimbursed for the editorship corresponding to one half day per week. The job is literally 365 days a year, and so far I have not seen this as a problem. The compensation is by no means corresponding to the time I spend on the task but more of a symbolic sum for the responsibility involved. Money is certainly not a reason for me.
To sign up as chief editor likely means signing up for a longer period, at least 3-5 years, to be able to fully embrace the flow of articles and handle all problems that may occur. This is particularly true if you wish to see any results of your work while you are still associated with the journal; it takes time to influence the reputation of a journal in a positive direction. I am not planning to stay forever, so somewhere between 5 and 10 years is likely a maximum. To sign up as review editor (or whatever it may be called) may not require such a long period since the task is more hands on.
So, as you can see I think becoming an editor is not something you just choose, you need to see if you personally get something out of the job that makes it worth your while. For me, just money or personal credit would not be enough, the challenge and sense of contribution associated with leading and improving a journal is.

I am curious: How does one improve a journal?

@Anonymous Several ways, improve the way and time MS are handled from submit to accept/reject, raise Impact Factor, simplify handling and review processes (relative to how they were done). It all depends on the individual journal and what needs or can be changed to improve efficiency, quality etc.

I agree with previous posts that being an editor has several benefits, fame, service, and recognition, to name a few.
I know a division in a society has a division journal. The Editor-in-Chief is paid over $65000 per year and several associate editors are paid ~$3000 each per year. These EIC and AEs are usually scholars/professors who have a full-time job in their own universities. They have different responsibilities. (These numbers are clearly specified in their bylaws).


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What to do when a journal publishes a paper plagiarizing one's work but doesn't care about it?
Recently I caught a paper which had plagiarized my paper. Several sentences had been copied from my article without citing my article. Some of the copied sentences had been shuffled, so the words were the same but the order of the words had been changed. Some other sentences were exactly copied from my article. Besides, all the copied sentences in the new article appeared in approximately same places to the original sentences used by me in my article. I am not inexperienced in academia and without any severe bias, it was quite obvious that they have picked my sentences. Even the citations at the end of my sentences had been used in the same order in the new article... Moreover, the style of my sentences were unique to my article and not inspired from another article. So it was not possible that those authors were copying from another source other than my paper.
I said all the above points to the editor of the journal. I also highlighted all the copied sentences and put very detailed comments beside each highlighted sentence in the new article and attached the new article and my article to the journal editor so he could see for himself. He didn't respond. So I searched for and found the email addresses of all the editorial members of the journal and emailed them the same letter, frequently. All the emails were correct and running. Only one of the addresses bounced my letter. So I am pretty sure they have received my emails.
However they again didn't do anything about it, nor they did respond to me... So I wonder what else can I do?
I intend to report them to as many authorities as possible. I know a couple of them, but don't think they will do much about it. I need to know what can I do about it? What those authorities are legally able to do? And that should I sue them in court or not? The plagiarizing journal is in Turkey (not my country) and I don't know can I sue them in a court of my country? Are there other routes for filing copyright theft complaints?
Any suggestion is appreciated for when the journal tries to hide the plagiarism or doesn't care about it.

Document everything.
If you can't get a reply from the editors of the journal, write to the publisher. Or if it's the journal of a learned society, contact them.
You probably can't act alone, but you may get more powerful allies (deeper pockets) on your side. There are others around you who have a vested interest in your work.
In particular, the journal where you published your work… given that you transferred them the copyright, I suppose they might act in their own name against the plagiarist. Even if it does not escalate all the way to a legal action, the publisher of the plagiarized work might respond (or respond faster) to a well-known publisher.
Your employer may also have an interest in helping you enforcing your copyright. They may also have a legal department who can advise you on this matter.

Thanks a lot for the prompt response. To answer you, 1. Everything is documented. 2. The publisher is already in the list of the authorities to reach in the next step, thanks a lot. 3. I would contact my university authorities and co-authors to get allies. 4. I will contact that journal too, however, the copyright is mine under Creative Common License Agreement. So legally it is my copyright theft. 5. My employer knows really nothing about these things (very unfortunately). Thanks again :)

I would expect journals/publishers to be interested in helping you even if you didn't transfer the copyright.

Thanks. Let's see what happens. I will contact them and say to them that their article is plagiarized. Let's see what happens.

If the journal editor(s) did not act (a question is of course how much time they should have before "doing" something), it should be possible to contact the publisher. If the editor(s) are not interested in digging into a problem, a serious publisher will probably think differently. So, the step beyond editors will be the publisher.
You should also look at the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). COPE has a library of cases where assorted possibly unethical behaviours have been assessed. COPE is not intended for individuals but for editors to handle poor behaviour. But, by looking at their case studies you may find additional support for your case to influence both editors and publishers.
I cannot answer the questions on legal actions but considering theft of, for example, copyrighted music, fashion and technology around the world, plagiarism will be low on the scale.

I wrote to them about two weeks and then 10 days ago abd then a week ago etc. They are about a dozen of people. So it is interesting that no replies after several emails to all of them is written. Once I e-mailed one of them (a couple of years ago) asking for some question. He responded me immediately from his iPhone. So they have a proper response time (at least they used to have so). I would contact the publisher, thanks. Moreover, I was looking for such Plagiarism Watch Dogs. This COPE thing might help. I will also will expose my evidences in my blog. Thanks a lot. :)


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How should we evaluate our peers?
This is a quite broad question, to which I have some personal answers, but I think I need more different perspectives.
I am not talking about evaluating a peer's submitted work as a referee, but about evaluating applications ranging from small grants or sabbaticals (which have to be applied to at least in France) to tenure or tenure-track hiring. Such decisions have a small or huge impact on both others career and the overall academic system (by giving certain incentives), and should thus be taken very seriously. On the other hand, the time we are able to use for such evaluations is limited.

How should we deal with this opposing constraints (evaluation is serious matter but time is limited)? What tools and proxys should we use or avoid in the evaluation process?

I am not asking about how the system should be (I know my answer: more automatic funding, sabbaticals and pay raises to have less evaluations made more thoroughly), but about what one wanting to take evaluation seriously (as opposed to a formal game that only needs an arbitrary answer) can do in the current system. Actions that might imply change in the system are welcome, as far as they can be implemented individually and the plausible outcome is considered rather than the ideal outcome if everyone did the same thing.
Edit in view of comments
Clarification about "the system": if needed please precise in your answer the relevant bits of information about the evaluation system you are speaking about, as of course things evolve and vary from place to place -- but the broad principles should be applicable regardless of the fine details so please keep this as concise as is relevant.
Example of subquestions: it has often been said that impact factor, or more generally the glamor of journal titles should not be used for evaluation. Is there a consensus about this? I don't know. They are used in practice, but are there good alternatives? Are there specific evaluation circumstances when one should use this proxy?
What about h-index and other citation metrics? When should they and should they not be evaluated?
The question is not so much about how much time one should spend (which is more or less a given), but how to achieve a reasonable result in that time. Also, what to do in a situation where one feels a reasonable result cannot be achieved?

Is there any such thing as a current system? Each country has his own, which might be further constrained by law requirements.

@MassimoOrtolano, and/or at least a current system at the local institution.

Can you clarify what kind of answers you are expecting/hoping for? If the question really is "what can one wanting to take evaluation seriously do in the current system", the answer "one should take the available information (papers, promotion file, letters etc.), and spend as much time as is practical reading it and thinking about it, then reach a decision" seems pretty much like the unique, and rather trivial, answer. Maybe my imagination just isn't good enough to come up with something better? Anyway, it would be good to get a better sense of what kind of opinions you're hoping to solicit.

@vonbrand I've been at a fast growing engineering university for almost 15 years. The current system is quite ephemeral.

I'm only going to answer the first part of this question:

How should we deal with this opposing constraints (evaluation is serious matter but time is limited)?

It is true that it is often rather time consuming to do these evaluations. But I think ultimately, you need to apply the categorical imperative. In other words, you need to spend as much time and diligence on evaluations as you would expect your evaluators to spend on yours.
For a two-page application for a sabbatical, this may not be very much. But for someone applying for tenure, surely a thorough reading of at least the most important papers, along with some research about the impact of the candidate's work, is appropriate. This is thankless work, as you don't usually get a lot of credit for it. But it is nevertheless something that can't be taken lightly because of its outsize effect on the candidate and the importance of your evaluation. Consequently, if the case is not completely straightforward, if you find that you need to spend a couple of days on it, then that is what you need to do -- because you would your evaluators to do the same.

This question is heavily opinion based, but I personally think that the system used in the British REF is pretty good: What are the three best papers the person has written in the last 5 years? Of course, the quality of a paper is also opinion based, but at least in mathematics you have measures like How many famous people have tried to achieve what this person does in this paper? Does the proof use methods which have previously been applied somewhere else? Does the result or the method have applications within or without mathematics?

That is what is asked to the applicant, but what should the evaluator do with these three papers? Read them? Read the introduction? Look in which journals they where published?

Another point: I do not think this question is more opinion based than the large majority of other questions here; it may be more controversial, but that is another matter. I expect any opinion expressed as an answer to be backed by principle and facts, which should be easy in this case.

The evaluator does not have to understand the paper, but he should read enough to judge whether the problem was invented by the author or well known before, and see what reviews say about the paper. The name of the journal does not tell you too much about the quality of the paper. A paper in a top journal is never bad, but not always top. Vice versa top papers are rejected by all better than average journals, if their topic is far off the main stream. Also citation numbers say a lot more about which fields are popular, then which papers are important.

your comment would be much more useful as an edit to your answer.


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Diverse forms of testing and grading
I am close to an academic who is facing heavy criticism for having used an unorthodox grading scheme in a final exams (there was a multiplication involved to ensure a good grade would mean decent success in two independent parts).
My main question is:

Q0: what are the main guiding principles you use when designing a test and a grading scheme? Are there any clear limitations imposed to you (legal, moral, or traditional; internal or external)?

Let us assume that the tests handed out are completely anonymous, so that it is given that the grading only depends on the test handed out, and on no other element.
In particular, of course discrimination by gender or race or religious beliefs is not acceptable, but no need to mention it since (proper) anonymity should prevent it.
I would also like to gather a diverse array of ways to test and to grade. This type of "big list" question is sometimes seen at MathOverflow, I don't know if it is welcome here but I think seeing a variety of grading scheme and exam designs would help inform the answers to Q0.

Q1: What kind of exam design and grading scheme did you actually use (or enforce if you did not grade but coordinated graders)? What are the motivation behind this choice, and what did you conclude from the outcome? Multiple answers for various pairs of exam design/grading scheme is better unless they directly benefit from being gathered.

It is been asked in comment to specify, so let me add that I am more interested by scientific fields. The question clearly makes sense more generally, but is already quite broad.

Please don't take this as snark (it's not intended to be—you're asking a question I wish more people would): Q0 is basically the asking the state of assessment theory.  I'm not in pedagogy myself, but that question is sort of like asking "what is your opinion on how code / a program should be organized, designed and developed?" to a computer scientist.  I'm actually happy when professors ask this question because (ironically) whereas professors have a lot more freedom in designing assessments over their K-12 counterparts, they often have no assessment theory training. It's just really broad.

(but you could ground the question a bit more by changing Q0 from opinion to things based on current/published research — there's a lot out there)

@guifa: you may be right the question is too broad, but your suggested reformulation would not fit my purpose: the question is much about legal and moral barriers, e.g. must or should we avoid some forms of testing. I will try reformulate in a more answerable way.

First, you question is too broad. My suggestion is either narrow it down to smaller ones or make it wiki. I am reluctant to vote to close yet because I want to respect your own judgement. Second, I am curious to know, how do you keep  exam papers properly anomynous?

"Let us assume that the tests handed out are completely anonymous": Why assuming this? In my experience, or at least in my country, tests are really never anonymous.

@MassimoOrtolano In my country, national exams are completely anonymous. The person names on the exam papers are sealed. After the papers are graded, the seals are broken and then grades are recorded. This is why I asked the OP how to keep it anonymous.

@scaaahu In my country, national exams and selections are anonymous too, but not university exams, where the student is usually required to write their name on exam sheet and professors have anyway the correspondence between student ID and name.

@MassimoOrtolano Exactly the same in my country.

@scaaahu (et al.) : in France, anonymity of university (final) exams is mandatory by law. It is realized in a number of ways (sealed student identity on the sheet, or stickers with an anonymity number unknown by the professors (and thus different from the student ID number) are the two I have seen in my institutions).

Considering the broadness of my question: I think no one would actually use a large number of limitations or main guiding principles when constructing an examination. So this seems answerable, but arguably not easily given the lack of answers. I'll try to propose an answer which might help see what I am after more concretely, but I don't see how to split the question (except separating Q0 and Q1, which would be possible with cross-references of questions).

You should add the topic or at least field we are talking about. A test e.g. in math or computer science might be totally different to a language or history class. If you want a really broad answer, you might at least differentiate between "result oriented" and "content oriented" exams, e.g. computing results or giving small proofs vs. writing an essay about a given topic.

I've designed a number of assessments, and also have had recent experience of a rather complex grade calculation going wrong for some students, so I would say first of all that it needs to be kept simple, so that it is transparent to students how you have arrived at the mark. Of course, there needs to be a close correspondence to the curriculum/learning objectives. We also try to think about applying Bloom's taxonomy, so that questions mix the descriptive and the evaluative.

Q0: We have some constraints, some of them being mandated, but others really an attempt to standardise the rubrics within the department where I work. One of these, which makes a fair amount of sense, is to use an assessment grid, so that for each thing the student is graded on (e.g. level of critical analysis), there is an example of the kind of quality level expected within each grade boundary. We also have spent a lot of time thinking about group work and how to fairly grade it. A common approach for us now is to allocate an overall mark for a student group but also have an individual element, or allow for an adjustment based on individual performance. This is hard to get right, as you need to avoid a) team members not pulling their weight; but also b) one "stronger" team member taking all the work on themselves.
Q1 These days I avoid exams in the main, and use mostly assessed presentations, vivas and poster presentations. The grading scheme typically is something like 70/30 aspects of between content and presentation.  As I teach HCI & Information Science, there often needs to be evidence of following a structured design process, rather than merely giving this process lip service. This is almost always clear to see in the student work if it has been done well / at all.

My experience comes from pure math in the US, with no clear limitations.  My approach depends on the course, and I usually try things a little differently each semester, but my main design principles are:

first, determine what are the main things I think a student should definitely be able to do upon finishing the course (e.g, for differential calculus: compute limits and derivatives, understand the relation with tangent lines, simple optimization problems), as well as things I would like students to be able to do (e.g., more complicated optimization problems, logarithmic differentiation, conceptual mastery, ...).  this gives me a set of benchmarks for the students to both get passing grades (meet minimum requirements), as well higher-tiered benchmarks to get B's or A's.
try to make an exam that tests as many of these things, as independently as possible, and in varying level of difficulty, with a constraint that a very good student should be able to finish in about half the allotted time
try to make questions that are straightforward to grade, both for ease of my grading as well as to improve uniformity of grading
try to use problems similar to what they have seen before on homework/previous exams/in-class examples, but for the most part slightly different,

As for some ways I (attempt to) put this into practice (say for calculus):

make true/false to test conceptual understanding (effect: most students get very close to the same number of true/false right, so this has little effect in differentiating grades except for a few students who do very well or very badly)
for the other problems problems (some of which the students may have to show work for, and some of which I allow them to omit work if they wish), essentially the grading scheme is: full credit (very minor errors allowed), half credit, or no credit (effect: grading is easy, and I think rather fair)
what I need to give out at the end are letter grades (A, B, C, D, F); based on the exam questions and the benchmarks I have in mind, I set cut-offs for the number of problems a student I think should get right to get, say an A or a C, and convert this into a number of points.  (in practice: I often find I there are too many low grades, and end up looking at individual final exams to reevaluate what I think various students deserve, and revise my cut-offs after grading)


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Reapplying for a PhD position at another institute after failing the qualifying exam
It's embarassing, I failed my quals (in PhD ECE). The school is going to give me a terminal masters (w.o. thesis). My gpa is also not that stellar (3.4+), from a mediocre school. But I have a strong will to do a PhD (I enjoy doing research).
My supervisor (along with other co-authors) are supportive in the sense that they are willing to write good letters (i.e. I have a quite decent publication record). So, I am planning to apply this year, my specific queries are --

Is it really worth a shot? as I have a "bad record" now (although my transcript will not convey such information, but I am not willing to hide it either)
If no.1 is "yes", then how should I justify this to the adcom ? For example, explaining my financial and family problems that I faced during my last years (probably in the SOP)?
Is it possible to go to a better school/lab compared to my current one ?

Some particulars:

I am an international grad student in the US.
I have a 3.8+ undergrad score from south-east asia (used to be a class topper, if that helps)
My GRE was also decent.

I think you can probably break this composite question into smaller questions; i) whether or not to reapply, given the failure of the qualifying exam, ii) whether or not to explain financial and/or familial problems when you reapply, and finally iii) whether or not it's possible to get into a better school (the answer to which is most likely "yes it's possible but..." )

@posdef: I do not follow, why I should break it into multiple sub-questions.

because that's how StackExchange sites work, or at least that is the code that is accepted and expected in most SE sites. http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/39223/one-post-with-multiple-questions-or-multiple-posts

@posdef: Questions 1 and 2 can become one, but I don't think that breaking the questions will help.

@posdef: It would make no sense to make the first and second questions independent of one another!

@aeismail whether or not to reapply after having failed the first time round, is one valid, independent question. Whether or not justifying/excusing a prior failure when reapplying is a good idea, is yet another, valid and independent question. And finally whether or not "upgrading" in the situation OP is in, is again a valid question. I am not saying that they are ideal questions, or that they have no overlapping background, but asked separately they are questions that will be relevant to more people than just the OP.

I think this is fine as one question: "How can I effectively apply to a PhD program in a stronger department?"

You can't let one setback keep you from pursuing your goals or dreams. Yes, it's bad that you failed your quals, but that doesn't mean you should just give up. Having supportive committee members will help a lot when applying to other schools or programs.

Do whatever is up to you to achieve your goals. Don't focus on the previous events but rather try to get some lessons from them not to repeat them in the future.
Try to focus on your advantages. It seems that you are not in a bad situation. You have a supportive supervisor, not bad scores. Besides, if there is a procedure of reapplying, it means that they also know that someone may need a second chance.
So, answering your questions.

Certainly. At the end you may say, at least I tried everything. Just keep moving and you will see the directions. If you are staying in the same place, you will never know whether your path is right or not. Give it a try.
You don't have to justify anything. If they ask, then slightly explain the situation. They are not monsters.
You can apply to a few places simultaneously. Of course it is worth trying. If you have time to manage that.

As it was mentioned, you can also try to apply to another programs in your or other universities (if you want)/
Good luck.

Consider applying to a different school or switching majors in the same university. Yes it is certainly worth a short. And no do not mention financial or family problems in the SOP.
Also consider joining the workforce. It is good to have options in hand. A PhD is not very useful unless you want to stick in academia which means low pay, being stuck in small city in the middle of nowhere, dealing with procrastinating students, begging NSF for funding etc.
ECE Masters are paid well in the industry and most PhDs I know work on "stuff" that a Masters can easily do. There are always exceptions to everything.

If you want a research career (as opposed to a development career), a PhD is essentially a prerequisite today.

Most universities I'm familiar with are in cities — This is not the same as "most universities".  Ahem.


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Etiquette on sending a thank you e-mail to respondents who gave me helpful information
Sometimes there are cases in a e-mail correspondence with academia staff (professors and bureaucrats) in which I don't know which is the best practice. I wonder if there is any best practice for the following cases:
Reply to a reply: when I ask for information via e-mail, and the reply gives me all the information I want, should I send an email just to thank them, or is this considered a bad, time-consuming practice?
How does a professor react to this kind of reply? And what about a bureaucrat (who maybe receives more e-mail)?
If I asked for an internship and he gave me a negative response, is not replying to him considered rude or normal?

Some professors even answer questions on [Academia.SE] SE!

In he first email I use to write "Thanks in advance", so I don't have the feeling that I need to reply to the reply just to say thanks. Also this helps to reduce the amount of unnecessary emails that academia staff receives

@user454322: Seriously, assuming that "Thanks in advance" replaces a thank you after the other party has put some work into sending you information would seem very rude to me. If anything, that may decrease your chances of getting any info from that person again (which a simple thank you e-mail, required or not, is unlikely to do, because the other party cannot complain about mere politeness). Note that some people with many mails are happy to receive a "concluding e-mail" that tells them they can now move that whole conversation thread into the "done" folder and be sure nothing more will ...

... follow up on that thread.

I asked a professor about this once, and they said not to reply with just "thanks", so I stopped doing it. Last week, a different professor asked me if I'd got their email, and told me I should reply "thanks", if I had. I think it's probably safer just to reply "thanks".

@O.R.Mapper What is rude about expressing gratefulness in advance?

@NewWorld: Where did you read that? I just remarked that it could appear rude to express gratefulness exclusively in advance, without responding again after receiving the information.

@O.R.Mapper I see, but what is rude about that? You have already expressed thanks.

@NewWorld: It looks like you feigned politeness in advance to get what you want, and once you got your information, you drop that politeness and stop responding as there is nothing more for you personally to gain from that. It's like those restaurants that at first serve you within minutes to make a good first impression while you might still walk away, and once you've eaten and thus cannot decide against giving that restaurant any money any more, you have to wait for ages till you get the bill because the restaurant's gain (your payment) is already guaranteed, so they have no incentive to ...

... invest any further effort in pleasing you.

To send a short mail saying thanks for a service provided is never wrong; in fact, it is good etiquette. Sending such a mail also serves as a receipt acknowledging you received the information. I recommend a very short mail; do not overdo it, the show of gratitude is enough.

A big +1. Almost every single time I get such an email back, I automatically think very positively of the sender.

+1 Confirmation is key here. I often acknowledge that what they sent me was exactly what I needed and thank them. 1-2 quick sentences usually does the trick. In my opinion, this applies to all email communication, not just in the world of academics.

If the person you're thanking didn't give you everything you needed, but their email led you to the right track, thank them and mention that, too. (A link may or may not be appropriate.)

how about an example?

I always write a short thank email as an act of acknowledgement. If I spend my time answering someone's questions and don't get any response I would be very unhappy (luckily, it never happened).  Don't worry about spamming the professors. They all know how to deal with mass amount of emails.

+1 for profs know how to deal with mass amount of emails


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Are PhD students enrolled or hired?
In most universities, PhD students are literally students similar to master students. Fellowships and scholarships only support them financially, but officially they are students.
Some European university advertise PhD open positions like a contract job (similar to research associates or postdoc). It is understandable that these funded PhD students provide some services for the university, but in the first case too, PhD students regularly provide TA and RA services, but they are still students.
Are these two schemes different in action, or difference is only in words on paper?
Do European PhD students (mentioned in the second case) have more rights or flexibility?

What is the question here? You have precisely the rights and obligations that are prescribed in your contract.

@Moriarty, assuming you have a contract. Many (most?) people in the US work without an explicit contract and are covered by a patchwork of laws, regulations, and rules.

@Moriarty that's the point. a student (undergraduate or PhD) normally does not have contract. He is enrolled through the admission system. When an employee (here a PhD student) has contract, he can negotiate over terms, but a student cannot, as he should follow the general academic policy, which is set for all students.

@BillBarth Indeed, not having an employment contract certainly makes the situation less clear. Having (or not having) a contract is the differentiator here. Your situation will be different, but how different will depend on your country (or perhaps even by state, university, department, or scholarship provider). I don't see how this is clearly answerable.

@user13854 If you assume that PhD students can generally negotiate their contract in europe, you are sadly mistaken.

At least in Germany, doctoral candidates are either employed as Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiter (research assistants) or given stipends as "doctoral fellows."
However, regardless of how they are paid for their efforts, they must "enroll" as doctoral candidates with one of the faculties if they are to receive a degree. So, to a certain extent, they are treated like students as well, and have many of the same privileges (for instance, they are entitled to the same student benefits when they register).
So, to a certain extent, they are both; however, their employment contract, rather than student regulations, tends to be the "controlling factor" in their treatment.

Yes, the schemes are different in action. All law related to employment (e.g. taxes, eligibility for retirement and unemployment benefits) do depend on the actual status of a PhD student. It depends as well on a country, obviously.
Source: in my program (Spain) first two years are being a student and the second two - an employed researcher. Set of duties do not change (or the effective salary), but the official status (with respect to employment laws) - does.

This European scheme seems interesting. Is there any tendency to shift towards this scheme? For example, attracting more students because of its benefits; then universities tend to this scheme!

I don't think it is typical in Europe. I just gave an example that it can vary.

yes, exactly! I meant do European students prefer this scheme and look for universities offering that?

I guess not. Wrt employment much important are actual duties and salary (the later varies a LOT depending on the country, particular place, funding, etc).

Europe is different from the US in the sense that there are larger bariers between EU member countries than between the states of the US. Many (potential) PhD students just aren't aware of the conditions in other countries, and even if they are, there are still substantial language and cultural bariers.

In the Netherland shifts between the employed versus stipend (and the wage) mainly happened as a reaction to the local labour market. I happend to benefit from the dotcom boom, but before that the stipends were on the rise. I don't think international competition played a role, possibly because the German system (potentially the main competitor) is less generous.


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How do I encourage learning to an underprivileged group
Some faculty members are required to perform service to the community. Providing free education that improve societal value is one of the many ways to deliver the service. However, we recently are faced with a difficult situation in this channel, and I hope faculty here who had experience in teaching outside the school or social science researchers working in underprivileged groups will be able to point us to the right direction.
We are a small group of software developers and teachers who give free computer lessons to pretty much anyone who is interested. So far we have taught 32 students and they are all working as programmers in various places. However the dropout rate has been 8 to 1 so far. But lately the big problem is finding new students.
We don't charge money, there are no contracts to sign and we even provide required software and books free of charge. Sometimes we even supply the computers. The classes are online last about a hour a day. Still, even with sharing success stories and having former students themselves talk to new students, we are finding it hard to find new students who would be interested in taking the classes. I personally know people who would rather complain about the unfairness of life than take a job working as a paid intern somewhere.
My question is: What can we do to make free learning more appealing to people who are not in a school environment?

As much as I think this is a GREAT effort, this doesn't seem to be about "academia" so much as "professional training not involving graduate school", which is off topic here.

You are probably right. But I am guessing there would be many educators here who may have faced similar situations and found some novel ways to get around. I am hoping for their ideas. If you think there is a better forum for me to ask this question, please feel free to suggest.

I don't know of a better site for this question, but unfortunately that doesn't make it more on-topic here.

I edited it to improve relevance. There are faculty members who need to deliver similar service and I believe there are social scientists here who may be able to help. The setting is not academic, but academic people do occasionally need to do jobs like what user3067743 is doing.

@Penguin_Knight: Still needs some work, but it is better.

This definitely makes my question more relevant and targeted. Really appreciate the edit. Thank you...

For questions or teaching and education, see http://matheducators.stackexchange.com/.

You have a program that sounds almost too good to be true (e.g., free classes, free software, free books, no contract).  And your biggest challenge is that you cannot find new students, right?  Well, two things come to mind.  First, there is a "catch" -- that is, when it is too good to be true, it probably isn't true.  Are there any hidden costs or problems with the program that you have not shared or identified?  Second, what is the extent of the mismatch between the objectives of this program and the needs, values, and interest of your target group?
My recommendation would involve careful analysis of both questions.  You are likely to find a lot of good information by following up with those who have dropped out. Ask them why they dropped out.  Barriers to attendance?  Then you need to figure out why more people aren't signing up.  Consider surveying individuals who were provided the information but chose not to sign up.

None of us looked at it from that angle (too good to be true). Thank you. We did survey the dropouts, the biggest reason appeared to be immediate need of employment vs education then employment. We hoped it would be because of the study materials but that wasn't the case.

I am a biology education researcher who has created and run free online preparation courses for students entering a college introductory biology course, so I've done a good bit of reading on this subject.
In March 2014, the Public Policy Institute of California published a report on student learning in online courses in California community colleges.
http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/report/R_514HJR.pdf
They found that students do significantly worse in online courses compared to their own performance in face-to-face courses. Students who showed the biggest negative effect of online courses were:

younger
African American or Latino
male
those with low intent to transfer to 4-year college
those with low high school GPA

If your target demographic is within this group, they will find an online course more difficult and unsupportive than a face-to-face course would be. As a researcher, I would like to see if a cohort of your students that meets together to watch videos and work on homework is more successful than a cohort that takes your online version.

I think the summary of my issues would be a sum of your take and @Brian take. There is an inherent lack of trust about something for free this might be the cause of not finding enough people to sign up. The dropout rate is probably directly related to lack of face to face interaction. Back to the drawing board for us. Thanks to everyone for their inputs


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What care do reviewers take when writing a review for a published paper in mathematics?
Question is as in the title:

What care do reviewers take when writing a review for a published paper in mathematics?

I have seen some reviews from MathSciNet. These reviews slightly overlap with the abstract of an article but say much more than an abstract of a paper, in a clearer way.
I am not asking for a referee report of a submitted paper. I am asking for a review of an already published
paper.

This is not a well posed question. Please feel free to edit if you think some edit can make it more clearer or wellposed..

What sort of review are you interested in? Some "after publication" reviews are just summaries and condensations for a more general audience. Are you thinking of something else?

@Buffy I am interested in all sorts of reviews one come across in MathSciNet, which also includes just summaries...

Why don’t you just go to MathSciNet and have a look at some random reviews there? What can anyone here tell you that you won’t easily learn that way?

I don't think I understand what you mean by "care".  I'm a MathSciNet reviewer but I don't know how to answer your question.  Are you asking for a general summary of how the reviewing process works?  Things that the reviewer has to pay specific attention to?  A description of the level of precision or correctness that's expected?  Please clarify.

You might find it helpful to read https://mathscinet.ams.org/mresubs/guide-reviewers.html.  When you've read it, you'll have as much information about the review expectations as any reviewer (there are no other instructions given to reviewers beyond this).

@NateEldredge " Are you asking for a general summary of how the reviewing process works? Things that the reviewer has to pay specific attention to? A description of the level of precision or correctness that's expected?" Yes.. At least this much I would like to know :) I will see the suggested link :)

MathSciNet reviews are not the kind of reviews an editor would get for a submitted paper. Rather, what is posted on MathSciNet is more of a summary of the article and someone putting it into the context of the broader field -- something that would help a reader understand not only what the paper provides, but why it is relevant. As such, the authors of these reviewers don't have to go through all proofs with care -- they don't even have to understand the proofs as long as they understand the theorems.
On the other hand, reviewers of math papers often go to great lengths to ascertain that the proofs in the paper in question are in fact correct. That typically requires a great deal of care, detailed insight, and work.

I'll guess this is the same for other, similar, reviews as well.

+1 Please feel free to share if you have any favourite review that helped you to get a broader picture of the situation :)

@PraphullaKoushik -- sorry, I don't usually consult MathSciNet and wouldn't know...

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


text:
Is it common to have no MathSciNet version of a paper in Mathematics?
For papers/books in mentioned in MathSciNet there is a way to get a BibTex version of the citation.
I wanted to cite a paper and it is not in MathSciNet. It is a published paper in  International Mathematics Research Notices in the year 2018. I do not see any reason why it is not in MathSciNet.
Could it be possible that I am not searching correctly?
Is it common to have no MathSciNet version of a published paper in Mathematics?
In case if it helpful (or relevent) I am looking for MathSciNet version of the paper  Principal Actions of Stacky Lie Groupoids. It is not available. I have checked in pages of all three authors of the paper.

MathSciNet indexes IMRN, and any article from 2018 should certainly already be indexed.  You can try searching different ways (author, title, volume, ...) and if you still don't see it report it to MSN as an omission.

@Kimball I have added additional information. :)

So have you reported it as suggested?

@SolarMike Yes, I have reported now..

In case anyone has an access to https://academic.oup.com/imrn/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/imrn/rny142/5049385?redirectedFrom=fulltext can you tell how do you cite it, with specifying page numbers?

You can cite it as a preprint, to appear.  If you want you can give the doi.  In any case, journals should take care of finalizing your reference lists.

Technically speaking, the answer to your question is that no, it's not common for a paper not to be indexed. MathSciNet indexes almost all reputable math journals. And I say almost because like all good mathematicians I don't want to make an unproved universal claim, but I don't have any example of a non-indexed reputable math journal in mind.
What is happening here is that the paper you have linked has not been assigned to an issue yet. It is an "advance article", it's available on the publisher's website but it has not been published in print yet. MathSciNet does not index such articles and waits until the paper is formally published to index it. Basically math moves faster than publishers. There is nothing out of the ordinary here.
Since it's been almost two years that the paper has been published online, one can hope it will be formally released soon. From my experience it's a bit long. IMRN has quite the backlog and their oldest advance article is apparently from April 2018. My guess would be that in June the paper will be assigned an issue and that a few weeks/months later it will appear on MathSciNet. Whether this is good practice on IMRN's part is another discussion.
As for your question on how to cite it, you can write the .bib yourself. It's really not complicated. Another option in this particular case is to click the "Cite" button on IMRN's page. They provide a bibtex file. There are no page numbers, of course, since the article is not part of any issue yet.

"Another option in this particular case is to click the "Cite" button on IMRN's page" Yes, I copied bib tex file from there. I could not guess there is some thing called advance article. So, I thought there is something wrong as it is not saying any page numbers... Now it is clear...

"And I say almost because like all good mathematicians I don't want to make an unproved universal claim..." Then why do you claim that the subset of reputable journals not indexed in MathSciNet has measure zero? :)

@mmeent: I just saw your "Mar 27 '20" comment. In case you didn't know -- your use of :) suggests you might know -- certain events with measure zero can still occur. See Zero probability and impossibility.


text:
Looking for Mathematics Subject Classification
I'm writing a math paper for submission to some journal or other and section 2.1.10 of https://www.ams.org/publications/authors/AMS-StyleGuide-online.pdf says I need a Subject Classification number in the top material of my paper.
The paper is about an original formula I developed for generating Pythagorean triples and then goes on to show how to find such triples "on demand" given criteria such as side length, perimeter, area/perimeter ratio, area, product, and side differences. Indeed, the title is "On Finding Pythagorean Triples".
I have looked here https://zbmath.org/classification/ and my best guess is that the number I'm looking for would begin with 11 (number theory) but that's as far as I can figure out. I don't even know the proper tag(s) for this question. Can anyone help me in my search?

What classification numbers do similar/related papers have?

From a quick search for "Pythagorean triples" on MathSciNet, 11D09 looks like a good bet: "Number theory : Diophantine equations : Quadratic and bilinear equations."

(originally this was a couple of comments, but perhaps it should be an answer)
Section 11: Number Theory is on pp. 4-6 of this current Mathematics Subject Classification (MSC) document. Besides just looking for what seems to be appropriate there (often, however, this requires a much broader knowledge than the specific topic you're looking for), you can look for similar papers and see how they're classified. For example, you can try a google scholar search for "Pythagorean triples", pick a possibly similar paper such as Height and excess of Pythagorean triples, and if you don't have access to it and you don't see any MSC's for it, you can look it up at MR Lookup (freely available), click on the MR number to get MR2126355, at which point you can see "11D09 (20M99)" (11D09 is the primary classification, 20M99 is a secondary classification). Repeat with other papers you find. Thus, in the case of Clifford algebras and Euclid’s parametrization of Pythagorean triples I get 11D09 (11E25 15A66 20H20). It appears (but do some more checks of this nature) that Nate Eldredge (in a comment) was correct -- 11D09 seems an appropriate classification, probably the primary classification.

Rather than the 2010 version, use the newly released 2020 version. (It makes no difference for this specific paper.)

@Andrés E. Caicedo: Thanks! FYI, I read somewhere (not at the link I gave) that the 2020 version was not yet ready, so I didn't even try to specifically search for it.

My past decade of research has allowed me to answer questions about diophantine-equations on Mathematics Stack Exchange (MSE) but my paper has little to do with them. None of the articles suggested resemble my paper about a new formula that "has it's advantages" over Euclid. I have searched hundreds of pages, spent hundreds on books and even asked MSE for help in finding prior art here. Your suggestion of $11D09$ appears to be correct even though I solve cubics and quintics. Thanks. :–)


text:
Apply for a second PhD in US in a related or same field
I seriously need advice. I did my first PhD in my home country (Italy) but it came out to be a disaster (no peer-reviewed pubblications, and none of them in my field), no support from my supervisor, no conferences, no academic network. My research interests were completely different from my department's, and I didn't share any methodological approach of my institution. After completing the PhD I had to face mental and health issues so I stopped for a couple of years, then the pandemic started and everything, of course, got it worst.
I want to go back in academia and, simultaneously, go abroad. I know I am not competitive at all in academic market and I really believe no one can offer me a postdoc position. Furthermore I don't even have a library where I live so it's impossible even to do research on my own. I don't have the fundings to go abroad and do research on my own, go to conferences (I'm not affiliated with any institution since three years) and, most of all, I can't do research while a have here a full-time and stressful work.
I was thinking to apply for another PhD in the US, firstly because I always wanted to move over the Atlantic, secondly because I like how American PhD is structured in comparison to Italian PhD.
But I have a few questions:
I know it's not advisable to do a second PhD in the same (or related) field (e.g. I'm interested in aesthetic and philosophy of music, so I could look also for a doctorate in music theory of art theory) but is it even allowed to do that?
Will I considered a low-profile if I have two PhDs?
I was thinking to write to some professor of the departments I'm interested in and ask a sincere opinion on my plan. Is it a good idea?
I really want to do research but now I'm out of the market, no network and no support by any institution.
I feel like I need to start again and do it better.

Thank you for your kind and sincere answer. I have a low profile because while I started my PhD began to have health problems (I spend the first two years inside a hospital for continuos check ups) and consequently I developed depression. My supervisor didn't help me at all and left be basically alone in my research.  I think I'm a good researcher, in my institution I began doing research at BA, and I was excellent, very high scores and good research seminars. I had a health and mental breakdown and it really crushes me that I don't have a second chance

Thank you for you kind words. To me more precise I wasn't hospitalized for two years (luckily) but went very often to the hospital for contious check-ups and examinations, I was hospitalized only once, for 8-10 days. Of course it's very stressful tu do a PhD and at the same time being constantly worried about my health. I agree with you that I have to de-emphasize the mental side. Luckily though now I feel much better and I feel I have control again of my life. Furthermore I am very passionate about the topic of my PhD thesis (Philosophy of music).

(minor English nit-pick observation in case you're interested) no peer-reviewed pubblications, and none of them in my field --- This could easily be understood as saying that you have no peer-reviewed publications, and among your (0 number of) peer-reviewed publications there are none in your field, which is a rather odd conclusion to explicitly state. I suspect you meant: "no peer-reviewed publications, and no publications in my field". The problem is the ambiguity with what "them" refers to -- "peer-reviewed publications" or "publications".

You might like to browse the [tag:second-degree] tag as it has many questions about this kind of situation.  Note that some US institutions (and maybe elsewhere too) do have policies that they do not accept students for PhD study who already have a PhD in that field or a similar one.  There may be a process for an exception to be made, though.

There are a lot of comments here that probably should be answers.