text:
Dismissed after completing dissertation and one committee review
I was dismissed from a university after completing my study and had undergone one full committee review. The reason for dismissal was being over the university-imposed time limits. I was only a few weeks away, just needed one more committee review, an AQR review, and the defense. I always complied with my committee directives.
I was impacted by a natural disaster (when Texas froze in February 2021). My house was destroyed by bursting pipes, 6 weeks without water, no power or heat for days, etc. I provided my proof to the university, but they replied they were "under no obligation to consider this event."
I'm now unemployed and broke. After years of study, how do I proceed and receive what I paid for and earned in time & research?  Cannot afford a lawyer.
Just a PS after reading other questions posted on this forum it appears that the responses left here, for me were exceptionally harsh and unified in a rather odd fashion- again in comparison to other similar posts left. Further, my post was edited on one occasion, but not by my hand.  This sort of ability provided by this forum,  to tamper with the post of another is rather dangerous, and a bit telling in a negative way. Thank you.

Comments have been moved to chat; please do not continue the discussion here. Before posting a comment below this one, please review the purposes of comments. Comments that do not request clarification or suggest improvements usually belong as an answer, on [meta], or in [chat]. Comments continuing discussion may be removed.

Okay, so I think I can deduce what school this program was through.
I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it looks like this purely-online PhD program may have largely been a scam, preying on not-so-informed student hopefuls.
The university that I'm thinking of is a private, for-profit Christian university in the western U.S called Grand Canyon University. Last year, the U.S. government imposed several major sanctions for failures of its PhD program, per Wikipedia:

In 2023 the Department of Education fined the company $37.7 million
for deceiving students about the cost of doctoral degrees. The
department alleged that 78% of students graduating in those programs
paid about 25% more than the cost that GCU represented, with much of
the extra charges accumulating from additional "continuation classes"
for completing the dissertation requirement. Only 2% paid the
represented cost. The school disputed the allegation, claiming in
addition that it provides more information than is legally required.
GCU is the largest recipient of federal student aid. In addition to
the fine, the department imposed conditions on the school to continue
participating in the federal student aid programs.
Also in 2023, the Federal Trade Commission filed a federal lawsuit
alleging that GCU deceived prospective doctoral students about the
cost of its program and its for-profit status. The suit asserted that
GCU paid 60% of its revenues to the for-profit Grand Canyon Education
company and was the company's most significant source of revenue. The
university and company had the same CEO.

If I'm correct, then the dismissal may be some continuing form of shakedown for further tuition fees, and/or you may be nowhere near an actual successful PhD completion. Even if this is not the same institution, it could be a similar fraud with a different name.
It seems like the OP may need to, most sadly, just walk away from this scam and chalk it up to a painful lesson learned. OP has said, "Cannot afford a lawyer", so legal remedy seems out unless they can get an attorney on a contingency basis. Or file a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education (see above), or maybe the state attorney general. More-knowledgeable people here may have other ideas. I'm very sorry if this is the case.

Knowing now that this is an online PhD, which frankly I forgot even existed before your comment, I think you've got it totally right. OP's post is confusing because it's not describing a normal PhD program because OP was never in a normal PhD program.

A complaint to the US DOE or the state attorney generals office wouldn't hurt, if this is the case.

In response to comments about the identity of the institution alluded to, and considering that the quotes included actually do contain the name of the institution if you look carefully, I just went ahead and named them directly. We do have a policy against accusations against individuals and institutions, but I would say that reference to an institution fined by the government for misconduct is exempt as "widely reported or discussed".

@ScottSeidman: Good idea, I added that.

Bryan Krause
Thank you.  And again let it be noted that I never mentioned the name of an institution here.  Also, no one asked here if I had IRB approval and was officially moved to PHD candidacy, which I was.  I defended my proposal and was awarded PhD candidacy, and completed the study in full.  I had undergone, completed, finished one full committee review of the submitted manuscript.

@KaePeach No one said you did. Similarly, you do not need to keep copying the "reason you were dismissed" into comments talking about entirely different things. Please read this answer carefully; if it does in fact describe your institution, we don't need to know, but if that's the case then you should know that the degree you were pursuing likely has no value, your money was stolen by that institution, and further attempts to obtain your degree are likely to result in more money being stolen from you.

@KaePeach Neither did you mention you're working with human subjects, so no one knew to ask if you had IRB approval. Even if you had mentioned, I wouldn't have thought to ask anyway.

"ScottSeidman: Good idea, I added that. –
Daniel R. Collins"
Thank you "RE: A complaint to the US DOE or the state attorney generals office wouldn't hurt, if this is the case".   Cheers!

Bryan Krause
Thank you. I do believe there will emerge a positive outcome , especially as there is a full study out there that is mine, and does hold value as it stands shoulder to shoulder with similar research within that domain, and it extended that research, so yes, it does indeed have value, in addition to the dollar amount I paid, and the time and integrity placed into that body of research- lots were put in, etc.  Happy Labor Day Weekend Bryan Krause

Azor Ahai -him Thank you , no worries.  Thank you for your time & input, it's appreciated. ( and ultimately my problem, right, sigh!)  Happy Labor Day weekend.  Cheers!

@KaePeach Victims of other types of scam think that the person they're communicating with in another country has real romantic interest in them and they just need to send that additional $10,000 so they can get out of the bad situation they are in, or that they're about to come into a lot of money having helped a Nigerian prince access their funds that are held up in banking regulation. Be wary.

Bryan Krause
Thank you.  This is indeed a legitimate place, as I was there in person for a residency.  But I get what you're saying and hear about these sorts of things daily just on our neighborhood forums. Buyer beware, the thing is though, in regards to my case,  when I was accepted, there were no identifiable issues with the institution.  Rather it was on par and parallel with it's fellow programs, institutions etc.  Similarly, enjoy your Labor Day holiday weekend.  Your input too is appreciated! Cheers!

Your description is rather brief, and obviously from your own perspective, and reflects obviously those things you have visibility of.  For example, when asked if your advisor supported you, you say "...my advisor told me that they did support me, but the decision made to dismiss me was not theirs."  Well, behind closed doors, that conversation could have gone many ways, and still be accurately described by your advisor.  It could range all the way from "I would prefer if we did not remove this student from the program" to "This is the best student I've ever had, and if we allow this student to continue, please be assured that this student will be completely finished within the next 45 days".  Those are both "support", but at very different levels, and will have different impacts upon decision makers.  You really have no way to know which is closest to your situation, so obviously, we don't either.
There are things that we can surmise.  Presumably, your program accepted you, and has put many financial and time resources into supporting you during your tenure there.  Because of this, if your program is anything like other US programs that I've seen, there would have been people thinking long and hard about whether your case called for dismissal or not, and dismissal is a final option.  In my experience, dismissal of a PhD student usually occurs when people don't believe that the degree can be salvaged.
Because you can only tell us your side, we have to fill in the other side on our own, based on what our experience is.  This brings me to one of two possible scenarios.  The first is exactly as you state it.  You hit some deadline that was carved in stone, and the program had no choice other than separating you, and the reason you were given is perfectly accurate, and that the same outcome would happen to every other student that timed out.  The second is that your situation is not entirely what you understand it to be, your degree award wasn't as sure of a thing as you indicate, and the deadline thing, although probably a real thing, isn't the only reason why you were separated, and the real question is "why didn't they make an exception to this deadline rule for me?"
All the commenters and answerers have their own feelings about which situation your own situation is closest to, and none of them, including myself could know for certain.  Fortunately, it makes little difference to what your approach would be.
If your school has an ombudsperson, then you should make an appointment with the ombudsperson to discuss your case and see if they can see a way for you to appeal the situation.  If your school doesn't have an ombudsman program, then you need to find another person in another role to help you figure it out.  I suggest that person is probably the Dean of Graduate Studies.
The ombudsperson option is a bit likelier to help you find satisfaction, just because of the different roles Deans and ombudspeople have.
When you have these discussions, I think a valid approach would be to let them know that you feel blindsided.  When a student is in danger of being removed from a graduate program, I think it's fair to say that the student should be told that they are in such danger in time for them to remediate and prevent that bad outcome.  You apparently have not been afforded that courtesy, and that doesn't feel right.
You might offer to waive any financial support if they allow you to finish your degree.  Yes, money is often a driver of decisions like the one you've been on the receiving end of, so taking that off the table for the school might help.  I know you said you're broke, and I'm sorry about that, but if you're really a few short steps away from finishing, it may not be too unbearable for too long.
I suspect what you'll find when you start talking to these people is that there are those in your program that don't believe you're as close to finishing as you think you are, and even some who doubt your ability to finish your degree at all.  I suspect this because it tracks better with my experiences with such situations, but I have no way of knowing, obviously.  In any case, you've posted for help and advice, and pointing this out isn't an attempt to be "harsh", but an effort to let you know about how the people you might be working with to challenge the outcome might be thinking about your case.
To revisit the high point, your most powerful argument is probably that you received inadequate feedback about your status along the way.  That means that even if the decision to remove you was the "right" decision, there were fairer ways to make it that would have afforded you the opportunity to address a bad situation in time to fix it.  Couple this with an offer on your part to forego all or some of your financial support, and you can argue that a situation where both your and your program win something and lose something is a fair and equitable outcome for this situation.

Scott Seidman Thank you for your very thoughtful response.  I will review this at  full lenght. Per "The ombudsperson option is a bit likelier to help you find satisfaction, just because of the different roles Deans and ombudspeople have."  Your suggestion is fitting. This institution does not have an ombuds.

As part of their operating practices, US universities (especially state-funded) should typically have established policies on how they handle petitions to extend deadlines on the basis of extenuating circumstances, especially when the petitions are submitted in advance of the deadline. After-the-fact petitions may be documented to end with cold dismissal, as you've experienced. So, first off ...
--> Update yourself on the procedures to petition for an extension of deadline and assure that you followed them exactly, especially before the deadline not after.
As part of graduate school policies, you were likely also required to register for dissertation credits or equivalent official coursework to certify being engaged in your dissertation research during your program of study. Such registration comes with a presumption that you will complete the stated work for the credit hours awarded. Petitions for an overall excuse due to extenuating circumstances may take into consideration the extent that you noted the absence on official records at the time the incident occurred. By example, the university may expect that you should have filed for an academic withdrawal of some kind from your course work obligations for the dissertation research in the semester of concern. So, next off ...
--> Assemble the documentation that indicates that your petition now for extenuating circumstances was also properly recorded by all duly expected actions at the time of the incident.
Your dissertation advisor must have been engaged in your initial petition. So, next off ...
--> Re-engage your dissertation advisor to help you sort through the next best options, as noted next.
Finally, the university must have documentations on the processes needed and supporting officers in place that should help you start an appeal. The presumptions for successful appeal should be a) you filed your petition for an extension in advance (not after) the deadline, b) your dissertation advisor was and remains fully engaged and fully supportive of your petition as well as the appeal, and c) you followed all procedures for the initial petition as per the university's documentation to the letter. Absent that you meet these criteria, an internal appeal, as well as an inference that you must hire a lawyer, could otherwise be futile. Or, bluntly said, when this fall-out was due to a failure on the part of your advisor and you to act properly and in advance, you may be left with no steps back.


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How can I perform better in lecture based quizzes?
I am in a BIO 100 class. The class structure is as follows:

A reading given after class for the next class
A 3 hour lecture
A quiz at the end of the lecture over what went on in class.

I’ve been scoring consistently lower scores with each coming week. At first I got a 10, then a 9, now an 8. What do I need to do to absorb more of the lectures and do better on the quizzes? As far as I am concerned, I cannot have the PowerPoint slides before the day of class.
Update: I was able to get the PowerPoint and I’m using them for studying. Any suggestions on how to best take advantage of this? Quizzes are based on what we talk about in class, both what’s said and what’s on the PowerPoints. Thank you for your helpful answers thus far.

What do you do with the reading in between one class and the next?

That is a teeny amount of variance. I wouldn't consider yourself failing yet when you've scored an average of 90% over three quizzes

I watch a YouTube lecture on the subject so I get the core concepts before going into the textbook material. Then I look for the quiz at the end of the chapter and answer the questions as I go through the textbook and quiz myself throughout the week until the next class.

Azor, I guess when you word it like that, it’s not as bad as I think. I’m trying to get a 4.0 across all my classes for scholarships and this is the only class I’m struggling to maintain a good grade in. Consistent 10s is somewhat unrealistic, but at least 9s and a few 10s I think is a good goal for what I’m capable of. I understand I might be a little too critical.

Turn the lecture into a form of active learning. Just watching and listening is passive and the brain wants more.
Taking notes by writing with pen and paper is a traditional technique. It is likely superior to typing notes as the brain is engaged more. When a "big idea" is presented in the lecture, make a note of that on a note card, one idea per card. These (and the written notes) will be useful later for review.
Some lecturers depend more on the slides than others. Some depend more on what is said and use the slides only for props. Try to figure out which is more important to the lecturer and focus on that, primarily.
If you are making assumptions about not having prior access to the slides, clear that up. A print-out of the slides can be a good place to take notes on what is said about that slide.
Engage your brain. Ask questions if possible about anything you don't understand. Others will probably have the same questions.

Learn actively — don’t just passively read and then passively listen. While you are reading, underline key points (unless it is a library book or one that you want to sell after the course), take notes summarising what you have read, and ask yourself what quiz questions you would ask about this. text if you wanted to test someone else’s understanding of it. Write down those questions and your answers. If possible, do the reading and note-taking well before the lecture so that you have time to review your notes ahead of the lecture itself.
If you have been given a course outline or study guide that indicates what you are expected to learn or be able to do by the end of the course, cross-reference your notes against that.
Keep the notes so that you can come back to them in later study, to help you prepare for your final exams, for instance. Test yourself on the questions you wrote at increasing time intervals later.
During the lectures, take notes — write down key points and perhaps a mind map of how they are related. Ask yourself whether anything covered in the lecture casts a new light on what you read earlier, whether it adds something new or reinforces what you have already learned. Ask yourself whether the way the lecture is presented suggests which parts the lecturer thinks are most important. Ask yourself whether you understand the material well enough to apply it in a different context — ask questions if not!

Improve your active engagements to communicate with the instructor before, during, and after the lectures. Before -- To help you appreciate what could be coming up at the next lecture. During -- To help you cement new information presented at the lecture into your knowledge and/or to translate something in your current knowledge on the topics during the lecture into deeper understandings about those topics. After -- To help you better understand what you apparently may not have mastered to the standards desired by the instructor as per the quiz questions.

source: Stack Exchange

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

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If I have already had a PhD in philosophy in a foreign country, can I get another PhD in theology in the US or religious studies?
I already have a PhD in philosophy from a foreign country. I studied political philosophy, but I became interested in Christianity and want to study more about it. Can I get another PhD in theology or religious studies in the US?

At the current time there is no hard limit on how many degrees one can accumulate. Have at it and best of luck in your endeavors!

You may educate yourself as you please. Doctorates are not rationed. If you are in doubt, simply ask the department where you wish to do your second doctorate.

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


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Best practices when refering to above section
I'm wondering about how to refer to sections right above or below the piece of text referring. I know that I'm supposed to use section numbers almost all the time, but personally feel that this might be an exception.
I know that this question might be subjective, but that's what I want to find out: if it's subjective I can choose and write whatever I think is best. However, I want to check that what I think is right isn't 'not-done'.
Concider the following piece of pseudo-document:

Section 1: point-by-point problem description
Section 2.1: point-by-point solution description
Section 2.2: mapping problem points to solution and explain benefit
Referring text here

Right now, the referring text says something like "This section explains how the point-by-point problem description in section 1 maps to the point-by-point solution description above." Is this right? Because the alternative "This section explains how the point-by-point problem description in section 1 maps to the point-by-point solution description in section 2.1." seems wrong, since it is right under the thing it is referring to.

Also, lets say we have Section 3, that has the introductory text "In the section below, abcd is explained" which refers to section 3.1 starting directly under the referring text. Is that okay?

@Najib that's why you use LaTeX!

Exactly, I'm using LaTeX as well :) So to draw the conclusion, it's not bad style, just a possible pain when reordering?

It is, of course, possible to have LaTeX keep track of whether something is above or above; see Referencing to "above" or "below"? on the TeX site.

This section explains how the point-by-point problem description in section 1 maps to the point-by-point solution description above, in section 2.1.

Being unambiguous and adding redundant information is good, because you might very well make a mistake when writing one of the references (but it is unlikely to make the same same mistake with all of them), and the reader might make a mistake when reading the references (but this is less likely when there are several things all pointing to the same direction).
If your sections have names in addition to numbers, you may refer to them using both, if this is a good stylictic choice, or only the name or only the number. Do not, however, alternate between using only the section number and only the section name, as this will only confuse the reader, who might not realize that the name and the number point to the same thing.

Thank you. Do you think that when referring to the sections by name, would it be better to italicize the section name?

@Aqqqq Please see if the question has been asked before, and if not, go ahead and ask it, together with context that helps people answer.

I'm not aware of any prescribed rules. But best practice is definitely to use the section number. You know that "above" refers to directly above, but to the reader it only narrows down the search to the first half of the document. Section numbers are unambiguous and I can't see any disadvantage to using them.

I think you should keep the automatic reference system generated by LaTeX to avoid the mess when rearranging your paragraphs. Also you could mention the name of the section (e.g. problem description) followed by the reference.

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


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Is machine learning causing a brain drain in math, science and engineering academic community?
Engineering undergrads that I talk to often express a desire to go learn about machine learning, AI, or data science.
Even students in specialized fields, e.g. computer architecture or pure math, often relate their field to machine learning.
Examples:

In differential geometry, there's "manifold learning" and "topological data analysis".

In FPGA pipeline design, there's "FPGA for deep neural network".

Machine learning courses are so popular now a lot of courses offered at my university changes its name to "X + machine learning applications".

A traditional course titled "Nonlinear Optimization" is now "Nonlinear optimization for machine learning application".

A course on basic Neurobiology is now "Neuroscience and Artificial Intelligence" (or maybe "Human Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence"?).

Questions:

Can anyone who is working in math, science or engineering comment on the phenomenon of the prevalence of machine learning in their own department?

Is the popularity of machine learning taking away students from doing work and advancing traditional research disciplines?

Do you see this as ultimately a good thing for academia as a whole?

There have been fads before. At some points, well over 50% of incoming graduate students in CS departments wanted to work in AI. But way fewer than 50% of graduating students ended up doing their theses in AI.

(1) More, please. (2) No, of course not. (3) What is "academia as a whole"?

Question (3) seems very opinion-based.  It may help to improve this question if it's either removed or reworked.

Why has this been closed? I am sure someone has fact-based answers. And I can’t see any answer, let alone opinions here.

It has become somewhat popular in physics too. Anywhere with lots of data might find machine learning a useful tool, somewhat like statistical methods.

Many moons ago, the buzzword was gaming.  Nowadays, cybersecurity and blockchains are hot.  It's just marketing.   Focus on the fundamentals and ignore the sales pitch or wanabes.

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How important is it to submit papers early to a conference?
Does the submission number in any way influence the way a paper is treated?
For instance, is it likely that an early submission will be picked up by a member of the program committee, rather than being handed over to a subreferee?  When I'm going through a list, I do have a tendency to be more concentrated on the first few elements.
Thus, is it a good idea, knowing that I'll be on time for the conference deadline, to submit a good draft a few days/weeks before in order to rank higher in the submission number, then update with a polished version?

My short answer: you submit your paper when you're ready to submit it.

@scaaahu: Your short answer does not answer my question though :-)

I have heard of some unofficial research that found that the closer to the deadline a paper was submitted, the more likely it was to be accepted.

With a typical peer-reviewed conference, submission number has absolutely no effect on the way a paper is treated.  Lots of excellent well-established folks submit at the last minute, and paper assignment is generally not done until the deadline is passed.  Furthermore, paper assignment is often done with the assistance of a paper-handling system like EasyChair, which includes randomization and non-order-based heuristics.

You are saying that the papers in EasyChair are never presented in order of submission (or any other order, like alphabetical), and that it is unlikely that a program committee member would peak at the submissions before the deadline?

@Michaël, I'll say it more or less. EasyChair shows reviewers a list of papers numbered in submission order, but the assignment of 6 or 8 out of say 100 papers to a reviewer is randomized (accounting for declared conflicts) in a way that submission order isn't factored in. I don't know of any studies that show a bias towards lower-numbered submissions, and it took several studies to show that parts of CS should move to double-blind submission to hide author identity so that underrepresented authors were not as disadvantaged. I don't think it matters that reviewers can see the submission order.

As a last minute submitter with an excellent track record of having submissions accepted I have to admit it never occurred to me that there was any advantage to submitting early.

My personal theory is that submitting late is beneficial for getting accepted at EasyChair conferences: a low submission number correlates pretty well with finishing work early, which in turn correlates well with having been rejected at another conference before, so this submitting early could be an indicator for sub-stellar work and some reviewers start the work with a bias in mind. Obviously, I have no data to back this up.

@DCTLib You'd probably be prejudiced against my own papers, then, which often have a low number due simply to preferring to get things wrapped up promptly so I can deal with the next thing instead.

@jakebeal I'm not using this heuristic myself, especially as there is a good chance that the revised papers fixed the problems that got them rejected at earlier conferences. But I once saw the accepted paper list of a conference which included the submission numbers (for some reason unknown to me). The numbers were very dense towards the end and very sparse at the beginning. That made me wonder why this was the case.

For instance, is it likely that an early submission will be picked up by a member of the program committee, rather than being handed over to a subreferee? When I'm going through a list, I do have a tendency to be more concentrated on the first few elements.

PC members often bid to review the papers that are closed to their research area. Because these papers may be relevant to their research, it would also take less time to review, and it would be easier to review since they already have a lot of background.
AFAIK, even for very established researchers, only a small fractions of submissions are closed to their research area. So indexes is very unlikely to be a priority.
After review bidding, there are papers, from the tittle and abstract, that everybody want to review, e.g.:

All You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex (but might have been afraid to ask). Opps...this link is correct :)
Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend

There are also papers that sound so scary/weird that nobody want to review. Therefore, the conference chairs have to do the tedious and labor-intensive task of assigning papers to PC members. This process eliminates any tiny influence of indexes that may have.

AFAIK the following is a general overview of how the review process works for most conferences:

Submissions are collected until the relevant deadline.
The submitted papers are assigned to reviewers.
Reviewers review the papers and hand in their scores.
Papers are accepted or rejected based on the scores and the reviews.

I have never heard of a process where papers are assigned to reviewers on the fly, before all of them are received. For many reasons (managing reviewer workload, reviewer/subject match, fairness...) papers are assigned to reviewers after the submission period is over and all papers are handed in. Thus, it does not matter when a paper is received, as long as the submission is made within the relevant period
Introducing the submission date (or a similar variable) as a factor into submission evaluation process would mean extra work for the organizers, without contributing value to the end result.


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Tracking dissemination of open access publications
I recently published a paper in an open access journal, allowing me to archive the post-print in other platforms, e.g. in my university's repository, or on ResearchGate.
I wonder however whether I should attach the PDF directly on these secondary platforms, or just share a link to the journal's website, where the paper is anyway freely available.
Won't multiplying the sources of the pdf make it more difficult to reflect the actual number of views or downloads of the paper? Although citations should anyway be counted properly, I assume number of reads/downloads also might influence potential readers in finding relevant papers, and I'm not sure if e.g. ResearchGate synchronizes counting with other platforms.

One reason not to upload to ResearchGate: it rewrites the PDF file to turn every citation and reference into a prominently underlined link back to a ResearchGate page, breaking existing internal and external links in the process. It also adds a cover page promoting ResearchGate. Linking to the journal's website instead ensures that your readers get a clean PDF.

@Pont One can opt out of all those modifications though. The option is buried deep in the user settings: it is in the "Privacy settings" for some reason and is a tickbox that states: "Add cover pages to my publications with details such as authors and stats, and enrich the full-text with publication information and clickable links.".

For some reason it is opted in by default. Probably the same reason why they don't turn the DOI into a clickable link on the article page.

@plannapus Thanks, I would never have thought to look there! And "enrich" would not have been my first choice of word to describe the procedure...

Why are you worried about number of reads and downloads? Do you work for a marketing company?

Thanks for the inputs regarding default "enriching" by RG! I also found a bit odd indeed that the DOI was not clickable on RG, which would make things simpler. I'm not from a marketing company, nor am I really worried about reads/downloads. Just curious of how to best make use of the internet. One comparable concern might be having many duplicates of a (possible) viral video on youtube, which might make it less likely to go viral. Of course, popularity doesn't necessarily mean relevance or quality, but often might, so keeping an accurate count might be beneficial.

Incidentally (although this doesn't answer your question), if you're interested in tracking dissemination of your papers, you might want to sign up for Kudos, who provide free services to help you do this. (Disclosure: a friend of mine works for them.)

I think this is only a concern if you believe that people choose what to read based on how "popular" it is in terms of reads on sites such as ResearchGate. I really hope that this is not the case.... so long as it's citations that you are tracking (which is itself a flawed metric, but less so, and is one that is commonly used), then it doesn't matter where the paper is hosted - what matters is keeping it as accessible as possible.


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Is it ok to copy/paste a section of a previous paper of mine into a new one?
I'm in the Physics community. I've already published an article on a journal where I've described a solution scheme that serves to solve a certain problem. Now, I've discovered that the same approach can be used to solve a different model. Of course the model, the comments the results, the plots, etc are different, but the technique is the same. So, is it ok to copy the section of my previous article where I describe the solution technique and paste it into the new one? Notice that the old and the new article feature the same identical authors and that the previous article would be, of course, properly cited.

Why not cite it and give a high-level overview?

Thanks, it could be a solution. Although, maybe, repeating it could make the article more self-contained?

Dupes: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31199/is-it-inappropriate-for-an-author-to-copy-and-paste-from-his-her-original-paper?rq=1 https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/24554/overlapping-sentences-in-methodology-descriptions-in-separate-journal-articles?rq=1 https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/29362/is-it-self-plagiarism-to-reuse-some-parts-of-my-published-thesis-in-my-new-journ?rq=1 https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2937/can-i-publish-parts-of-the-ph-d-thesis-as-a-paper-in-a-journal

If you explicitly state that "the following section describes the method and is identical to §2.2 of our previous work [4]", then this is IMHO okay. However, you should definitely check with the journal editor before submission.
But, do you really need to do this? Surely, you can improve the text and/or adapt it to the particular application.

I never do this, and I would not recommend doing this to anyone. You can keep the same meaning, but change the wording, add a couple of new sentences, etc. It's pretty simple.

But it makes it much harder for readers of academic paper. When trying to learn about a research line I often read groups of related papers together. If a later paper quotes a paragraph from an earlier paper, I only have to work out what it means once. If it is rewritten, I have to work out whether there has been a change in meaning.


text:
Can a national annual data report be reworked as an annual journal?
I have some questions regarding developing an academic journal. We produce a comprehensive annual scientific data report once a year. We are looking for a way of making our report data more accessible through online bibliographic services. We are exploring the possibility of developing our annual report as a journal published by us and containing articles that contain the data findings of the annual report. Our annual report is already peer reviewed and the articles are written by different authors, so we see we can at least fulfil Pubmed’s journal criteria if we were to adapt it into a journal. However, we do not want to open the journal to external manuscript contributions as this would stretch us beyond capacity! Basically, we want to produce an annual journal containing articles on the annual report only. So, I was wondering if anyone could tell me if this would constitute a journal? And if you know of any journals that have developed from an annual report and are dedicated to only producing journal articles based on this content? Any advice, guidance and/or suggestions would be very much appreciated.

The fairly prestigious 'Annual Review of ...' series (eg AR of Sociology, AR of Physics) is entirely invited articles and internal reviewers. So it's clearly not a requirement that the journal be open to unsolicited articles for it to be considered a journal.


text:
Should I use a cover letter for my writing samples in my PhD application?
I can't find any guidelines regarding this. For context I'm applying to one of Stanford's graduate program. Assuming that a cover page would be fine, if not required, would such a basic cover page be okay? My MA thesis is my best work, but it was way too long, which I then condensed into an article and is currently under blind-PR. I've decided to use some of its parts as the writing sample as I'll be able to include more content overall. Want to know that if mentioning the same in the cover page, and cover page in general would be a good idea, or should I just submit it with no context. Also should I include appendices and works cited section in the writing sample? That'd increase the number of pages considerably.

Provided that the institution permits it, I would prefer to see a brief explanation in cases in which the sample is an excerpt from a larger work. Others might differ.
The purpose of such a sample is to get a general idea of your writing competence, especially within the field if possible. It goes a bit beyond familiarity with the language itself.
And, no, the appendices and bibliography aren't essential for this purpose.
And, you might consider an excerpt from a published work or thesis, rather than a separate condensation.


text:
What is the name of that white, dark blue/purple, and black slideshow presentation format/template?
What is the name of that dark blue/purple border, white background, black sans serif text (except for the heading text, which is white on a dark blue/purple background) slideshow presentation format/template? It is sometimes used in the physical sciences, mathematics and philosophy.

You should at least consider not using latex/beamer for your presentations if that's on option in your field. https://better-scientific-presentations.blogspot.com/2012/04/on-why-i-hate-latexbeamer.html
https://matusiak.eu/numerodix/blog/2007/11/28/latex-sucks/
http://people.irisa.fr/Tomofumi.Yuki/beamer.html

I guess most slideshows you have seen are made with the beamer package of LaTeX. One of the default themes matches your description.
Here's a brief introduction in Overleaf, including illustrations: https://www.overleaf.com/learn/latex/Beamer

Thanks, that's the one. I've selected yours as the approved answer, but I can't upvote with my account yet.


text:
Query about Visa for a E13 TV-L position (19.9 hours of work per week)
I am student from India and finished my master's this year. I secured a PhD position at Göttingen university in mathematics. In my offer letter it is written that I will be employed from 1.10.2018 to 30.09.2021 as a research assistant at the mathematical institute of the George-August-Universität Göttingen. I will be hired part-time (19,9 h/week) and paid according to E13 TV-L (minimum 1758,68 € per month).
Here someone wrote that, with a TV-L position, getting a student visa is not only problematic, but also something that can't be fixed later. But it looks like I have a 50% position. In Germany, people are are considered a student from the perspective of social security (health insurance, pension, unemployment insurance), if work is less than 20 hours per week (in my case it is 19,9, as per contract). So I could be considered a student as well. I don't understand which Visa I should go for. In India, the available long term Visas are these. I guess it should go for Student, Employment or Guest Scientist Visa. But I don't understand which one. This seems to be a very complicated affair. What should I do?

The student status at your university is completely independent of your visa. One thing to keep in mind is that if you opt for the student visa and you ever decide to quit you PhD, you have to leave the country immediately (not the next day, but you can't stay the full duration). So the advice still stands: As soon as you earn any money, opt for the employment visa.

I have no idea about the visa issues, but I'd reckon a TV-L position is not a student assistant position, but a full-fledged working position. So, while my intuition says "work permit visa", I'd recommend you to check with the ambassy and/or international office of your university.

@Oleg Lobachev ist right. It's definitely not a 'geringfügige' research assistant position, but a regular part-time job as 'wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter'.

Hi all, embassy asked me to refer their website for the Research and Internship visa under the National visa category. I think its a work permist Visa. But it is asked for a consent letter from “Bundesagentur für Arbeit”. Could anyone please tell me what this letter is ?

I also want to point out that the (very curious) amount of 19.9 hours per week sounds a lot like the university wants to ensure that you are not 50% employed, but <50%. I don't know exactly why, but it's not accurate to say that you have a 50% position (at least not on paper).

@xLeitix: I don't think so. In Niedersachsen full-time according to TV-L is 39 hours and 48 minutes per week (yes, really), so half is exactly 19.9 hours. See https://www.oeffentlichen-dienst.de/tv-l/arbeitszeit.html

@PieterNaaijkens Ok, that's weird. I was not aware of this.


text:
I didn't finish my masters but want to do a PhD, what to do?
I enrolled in a master's program in mathematics a while back and finished my coursework and comprehensive exams with good marks. I had difficulty finishing my thesis since I had no motivation doing it as it was in a field that I am not interested in. I had a full-time job while my thesis was still in progress. Now that I have maxed out the allowed time to finish it, I can no longer finish the degree.
I still wish to pursue a PhD in math, but with what has happened, I feel like my chances of getting accepted in North American programs is very slim. What can I do to improve my chances significantly or is there still anything I can do?

The title of your post doesn't match the body.

i thought it was close enough, but is this better?

"I had difficulty finishing my thesis since I had no motivation doing it as it was in a field that I am not interested in". So, what makes you think that you will have the motivation and dedication to finish a PhD now when you did not have that level of motivation while working on your Master's degree ? -- It is safe to assume that a PhD will take a lot more effort and dedication than a Master's degree does.

@Job_September_2020 : By carefully picking a research question I am really interested in and doing it full-time?

@TheLastCipher I think the point is - you are going to face the question Job_September_2020 asked in your applications, either directly (i.e. you are asked during an interview), or indirectly (your application readers will read your application looking for answers to that question). Be ready to explain why you really are interested in the research question you picked and will be able to finish if you commit full-time.

In the US you do not need a MSc to get a PhD, however you need one in many other places (EU, Asia). Also, that question  mentioned above will definitely will pop up, and I do not think “I try harder” will be a sufficient answer.

What country or countries are you asking about? I'm guessing not the US, but where?

Restart the master's degree when the time feels right for you at a place that will enable you to pursue your real interests.
I have a colleague (in a field other than mathematics) who did a very similar thing. They completed all of the other requirements for their master's degree, but got an excellent full-time job and never handed in their thesis. Many years later, they wanted to resolve the loose end and possibly continue to a Ph.D., so they applied to a master's degree in the same field at a different school. They completed the MA and proceeded to the Ph.D., which they also finished.
Explaining this carefully in your statement of interest is necessary - a department will need reassurance that you'll be able to finish the master's degree the second time around rather than just repeating your own history - but it's doable.

Given that you don't normally fail a PhD so much as fail to complete a PhD I would have severe questions in your ability to complete a PhD as you struggle to do it for a much much shorter masters thesis (A PhD is in most cases an exercise in perceverance)

You won't know about how your portfolio is viewed until you apply.
PhD students are a very big commitment for a department and an investigator.  If a student doesn't finish, the resources the department put into that student are lost.
For this reason, one of the primary concerns for admissions committees when making choices about students is "if we admit this student, will they finish".
Toward that decision, an incomplete Master's degree is a pretty big red flag.  I advise that your application should thus try to mollify the committees concerns over the issue, convincing them that if accepted, you'll be in for the long haul.  FWIW, I don't think the "I wasn't interested in the work, so I didn't finish" is particularly compelling toward making that case.
So, where does that leave you.  There may be programs in your field that don't go by the "let's not lose any students" narrative.  They may provide almost nothing in the way of resources until you pass a qualifier exam and find a mentor.  Programs like that often eliminate a good portion of there graduate student population at the qualifier.  I think your chances for admission are best at an institution like that.  Be warned, my perception is that schools have been moving away from that admissions model.
You should also apply to schools that you consider your 2nd or 3rd tier, but with a strong mentor in the area you want to work in.  They may not have the same size or quality of applicant pool as your top tier schools, but you'll still get a fine education.
Note that the burden of reviewing the application and admitting a graduate student goes up for nondomestic students, because of the visa issues.  Most schools that routinely admit nondomestic students probably have this well in hand, but I do think admissions committees from top tier schools may really try to make offers to only the cream of the crop from the foreign applicant pool.

Please start focusing on your MASTERS thesis, with this you can develop interest in the research area and definitely you will end up with great motivation, which you need at the moment. For a PhD a strong motivation is required, and I wish you achieve a great opportunity for a PhD.
Second option, you can find MS leading PhD programs.

So you think it is still possible to get into a good MS program?

Yes, for sure, you can do the best. Just be determined towards your goal.


text:
What is the goal of this AI generated research solicitation?
As a research mathematician, I occasionally get unsolicited emails from local high school students asking if there are opportunities to work on a research project with me.    I haven't ever decided to work with a student but have sometimes tried to give encouragement and advice.  Recently, I received an email that felt very different.  It was oddly non-specific about the sender and oddly specific about methods for a research project, but devoid of specifics about a research goal/question and completely misguided about how one actually does math research and about how a research mentorship or collaborative project might start.  Here it is with the name of the sender blanked out:

Inquiry Regarding Potential Research Advisorship and Proposal for Research Collaboration
Dear Professor Reading,
I hope this email finds you well. My name is xxxx xxxx, and I am a High School Student with a strong interest in algebraic and geometric combinatorics. I have been following your work with great admiration, particularly your contributions to the field of Coxeter groups and cluster algebras.
I am reaching out to inquire about the possibility of serving as your student and pursuing a research project under your guidance. After reviewing your extensive research portfolio and publications, I am impressed by your expertise and believe that your mentorship would be invaluable in shaping my research trajectory.
My research interests align closely with your areas of expertise, and I am particularly interested in exploring the combinatorial structures underlying Coxeter groups and cluster algebras. In line with this interest, I have developed a proposal for a research project aimed at deepening our understanding of the interconnections and applications of these structures.
Research Proposal: Exploring Combinatorial Structures in Coxeter Groups and Cluster Algebras
Objective: The objective of this research project is to further explore the combinatorial structures underlying Coxeter groups and cluster algebras in order to deepen our understanding of their interconnections and applications.
Plan:

Literature Review: Conduct an extensive review of existing literature on Coxeter groups, cluster algebras, and their combinatorial aspects to gain a comprehensive understanding of the current state of research in the field.

Theoretical Analysis: Analyze the combinatorial properties of Coxeter groups and cluster algebras, focusing on key concepts such as noncrossing partitions, Cambrian lattices, and lattice congruences. Identify potential areas for further exploration and research.

Computational Experiments: Perform computational experiments to explore and visualize the combinatorial structures associated with Coxeter groups and cluster algebras. Utilize computational tools and software to generate and analyze data, and to test conjectures and hypotheses.

Investigation of Interconnections: Investigate the interconnections between Coxeter groups and cluster algebras, with a focus on identifying new connections and relationships between these structures. Explore how insights from one area can inform and enrich our understanding of the other.

Applications and Implications: Explore potential applications of the combinatorial structures in Coxeter groups and cluster algebras in other areas of mathematics and beyond. Investigate how these structures can be applied to problems in representation theory, mathematical physics, and computational mathematics.

Collaboration and Dissemination: Collaborate with experts in related fields to share insights, exchange ideas, and foster interdisciplinary collaboration. Disseminate research findings through publications in peer-reviewed journals, conference presentations, and seminar talks.

I believe that this research project aligns well with your expertise and research interests, and I am eager to explore the possibility of working under your supervision to bring this project to fruition. Your guidance and mentorship would be invaluable in shaping the direction of the research and contributing to its success.
Please let me know if you would be open to discussing this further. I am available at your convenience for a meeting or discussion to explore this opportunity in more detail.
Thank you for considering my inquiry and proposal. I look forward to the possibility of working with you and contributing to the ongoing research in algebraic and geometric combinatorics under your guidance.
Best regards,
xxxx xxxx
[email address]

Not surprisingly, my "scam-sense" was tingling, so I decided not to respond.  To my surprise, about 3 weeks later, I received the following email, which seems to presuppose some sort of arrangement between me and the sender.

My Situation in Tangent with Future Research
Dear Professor Reading,
Firstly I would like to sincerely apologize for my overall radio-silence over the past few weeks. I had severely snapped radius a few weeks ago and I have been in and out of surgery and recovery, despite that I still should've promptly let you know. Fortunately, I just had my last surgery and am feeling much better, and am still devotely committed to this research and our partnership. I promise to send you a full presentation of my knowledge on Coxeter Groups and their application in symmetrical dimensions by the end of Sunday.
Again I am so sorry for keeping you completely in the dark about my situation.
Best Regards,
xxxx xxxx
[email address]

It's worth saying that part of this essentially reads as "full presentation of my knowledge on Coxeter Groups and [mathematical gibberish] by the end of Sunday."  I continued to not respond.  Finally, just today, I received this:

Termination
Dear Professor Reading,
After a lot of deliberation and effort I am sorry to inform you that I don't believe I will be able to move through this project. I am sorry for telling you so late but I have been lackluster in communication with you and stagnant in my progress on this research paper. Again I am sincerely sorry but I will not be able to complete this paper.
Thank you for your consideration and again I'm sorry.
Best Regards,
xxxx xxxx
[email address]

This was so surprising that I thought more about it.  I checked the first message on https://copyleaks.com/ai-content-detector and it flagged the whole thing as AI generated.  It decided that the second and third messages are human generated.  (Note:  I used copyleaks.com because it came up in a google search.  I have no idea whether it is a good AI detector.)
I am interested in the community's take on this.  It is obviously fishy, but what is the scam?  The only thing I can say for sure is that they are trying to manipulate me into replying (to say yes or no to the initial solicitation, to express sympathy for the injury and surprise about the asumption of a research relationship between us in the second message, etc.)  But to what end?  Does it come back to an old-fashioned confidence scheme that is supposed to end with me putting $100-bills into a bitcoin machine?  Or is this a real student trying to deceive their own high school somehow? Has anyone else received emails like this?  For me, this seems to be something new and different.

Sadly. I don't think the first message is AI generated. It sounds exactly like the kind of non-sense requests I've received already before generative AI became popular; cf https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/41687/what-is-behind-the-indian-undergrad-research-experience-spam

@Arno The steps 1-6 are incredibly LLM-generated. Perhaps other bits aren't, but it 100% is.

FWIW the current hot fraud is the pig butchering scam, creating any kind of relationship whatsoever over a long period of time, and indeed ending with, "I'd like to share this great crypto investment opportunity with my good friend". It's a rough guess... if they keep pinging you with more personal updates then that could be the direction.

I agree with Daniel. The tell-tale sign of pig butchering is the sad story on hospitalization from a person you've never even communicated with. The end game is fake crypto investment.

From the first email it could have been a shy/naive student. From the other emails, scam and not even that advanced, see https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/04/asia/deepfake-cfo-scam-hong-kong-intl-hnk/index.html


text:
What can the community do about serial fraud by a conference attendee?
Some of my colleagues and I have become aware of an individual (name withheld) who makes a habit of attending math conferences on false pretences in order to get travel support.
I have second-hand knowledge of a conference where they claimed an affiliation that they no longer had and they presented a paper that was blatantly plagiarized from a publication in another language.  (My sources are attendees and organizers of the conference, who checked with the institution and found the source paper for the plagiarism.)  A search on the web for this name (an uncommon name) shows participation and speaking at conferences in a ridiculously broad collection of mathematical areas.  No one person could do original research in all those areas, so I conclude that this is serial fraud.
A few days ago, a conference for which I have some supervisory connection received a query from this individual asking for travel support.  Of course, we will not be fooled, because we know better.  But how many other conferences will be fooled?  Is there a mechanism for stopping this sort of thing?
(One thing that I think will not work:  Contacting their current institution, because it's likely that they are currently unaffiliated.)

The community of 'organizers' is likely pretty small and well connected. It should not take long for the news to spread.

Fraud is a crime, so you can report it to the police. On the other hand, are you really sure this is fraud? Just asking for travel support by itself does not necessarily involve deception. If I ask for travel support to attend a topology conference, am I implying that I do research in that area?

@DanRomik:  Yes, good point.  The conference I am involved in is still in the future, so we still don't know whether they will give a false affiliation (as they did for the earlier conference that I was not involved in).  The only speakers will be the invited speakers, so there is no possibility of a plagiarized talk.

@JonCuster:  I have less confidence than you in the "small and well-connected" idea.  There are areas of math where I would know no organizers at topical conferences, unless they happened to be in my department.

Who is providing "travel support"? The conference? A university department?

@Buffy:  See my comment to your question.  Most often this support is funded by small conference grants (e.g. from NSF).

I wonder how many deserving individuals did not get needed travel support as a result; there are injured parties. If there were identifiable "next in lines" they could be identified (if they so chose), which might help with this answer.

@DanRomik Asking for travel support alone is not fraud, but intentionally making false claims (such as being affiliated with a research institution that they are not actually affiliated with) for the purpose of asking for travel support, would seem to be fraud.

So did you not ask them to fill out basic information (affiliation, appointment, etc) on a registration form in order to request travel support?  I think this is pretty standard.

How was this prolific poly math whiz dealing with Q&A sessions at conferences?

A group of people that might have a direct interest in taking action against said individual might be those whose work has been plagiarized by him, or the publishers that published the original work or the plagiarized work (if there was a conference proceedings, for example). Maybe it might be an idea to contact them about your allegations when you can provide sufficient evidence?

@Kimball  Again, I can't speak for the organizers of the other conference, but for our conference, yes, there is a registration form that asks for such information.  But have we been in the habit of being skeptical about the information they provided?  No.

@kricheli  This is an excellent point.  I will mention this to the organizers of the other conference where the plagiarism is known to occur.

I asked because you said "we still don't know whether they will give a false affiliation" but if they already applied, doesn't that mean they already listed an affiliation if they were going to?

Can you please provide more detail on the "they claimed an affiliation that they no longer had" part? It just occurred to me that I've seen multiple young people who got bachelor's degrees in June, haven't found real jobs yet, and parade about displayng their most recent academic affiliation, instead of their current "McDonalds" or "Starbucks". Is this what you mean?

@DimitriVulis:  My understanding is that it was not something innocent like that.

@Kimball:  They reached out informally, and have now been invited to fill out the registration form.  We'll see what happens.

"The community" can't really do anything. The conference committee can contact the institution to verify affiliation. I don't see any issue with that. But they can put them on a list of "auto reject submission" until they clear it up.
I worry about the conference if they pay people for travel without verification and any review process should find "blatant" plagiarism. Perhaps you need to update your acceptance process.
The conference, can also open a dialog with them and let them know the consequences of bad action.

"My" or "our" acceptance process in not at issue, since this person gave a plagiarized talk at a different conference that I/we didn't organize, and our conference has only invited speakers.  But in math there are many large conferences (e.g. AMS meetings) that accept "contributed papers" with essentially no "acceptance process".

Yes, I realize you didn't claim to be the victim here, but it is the conference that needs to be vigilant if such things occur. I'm still puzzled by the "travel support", though. Maybe you could add a bit to your question to clarify.

There are also lots of small math conferences that have a small amount of money to bring speakers, and a small amount of money to bring graduate students and other young mathematicians.  Those students might be allowed to present talks/posters.  If a person asks for support and claims to be a grad student at U. of X, typically the organizers would take their word for it, unless they had some reason to doubt.  I believe that's what happened in the other conference.  Doubts started to arise at the conference itself, and later they checked on the affiliation and searched to find the plagiarism.

@NathanReading presumably expenses are reimbursed after the event so if you are suspicious during the event you can still withdraw (or at least delay) the support, especially if you discover the contribution is plagiarized.   The onus is on the organizers to check the credentials of those receiving support.

@NathanReading in math there are many large conferences... - Sure, but they (e.g., AMS meetings) don't typically provide funding for participants.  As for the aspect of contributed talk sessions letting virtually anyone talk, I think that is a feature not a bug.

@NathanReading every conference I attended as a graduate student/phd candidate that offered some travel support or a discount on the registration fee for students, required some form of proof (either proof of enrollment, or some official statement from the advisor or the university). No one ever took my word for it.

@JordiVermeulen: was that in math? What you say is completely orthogonal to my experience.

@Kimball The AMS winter meetings often have support for students and some others to attend.  (Search AMS math travel grants.)  I agree that contributed sessions letting almost anyone speak is a good thing.  No need to censor what someone wants to say about math in such a setting... but if someone is serially giving plagiarized talks, we would probably want to prevent that.

@MartinArgerami theoretical computer science.

@Nathan Reading  I am not so sure about "typically the organizers would take their word for it" as I have had to write two-sentence letters in support of a student asking for travel money.  I see this in the US and in German for math conferences.  It is easy to implement.

@TerryLoring:  Yes, you're right.  Now that you remind me, I have also written such letters.  A more accurate statement on my part would have been "often the organizers take their word for it" or  "sometimes the organizers take their word for it".  One take-away lesson for me in this experience is that the support letters from advisors should always be required.

I am not a lawyer..
If the query about travel support that you recently received contains lies (e.g., he claims to be a starving doctoral student at a particular institution, and the institution says he was never affiliated in any way) then see if you can interest your local district attorney in a criminal fraud case.

I also believe that plagiarism is a statutory crime in a number of countries.

@MrVocabulary I’m curious, could you give examples? Or are you talking about copyright infringement, which is illegal just about everywhere? (Obviously enforcement varies.)

@Charles I feel ill-equipped to discuss the intricacies of that, but some more blatant cases of academic plagiarism in Poland — verification of which is enforeced by law — ended up in court and resulted in stripping a person of their academic titles. To what extent it was copyright, plagiarism and disciplinary course, I cannot speak to — this is why I made my statement as general as possible.

@MrVocabulary Thank you for the info!

I would guess that would be a waste of time and effort. The amount doesn't rise to the level that expending scarce prosecutorial and judicial resources would be worth it.

@Buffy in Poland all dissertations are verified using statistical methods. For higher academic works (PhD and upwards) this seems a perfectly reasonable method, preventing a person to leech of (mostly) public institutions for years or decades.

You indicate that conference grants are involved. You should report the fraud and "waste" in accordance with the funding agency's fraud office as well as your local institution's procedures. You may even have a duty to report this misuse of funds in accordance with funding regulations and local institution policies.
For example, if NSF funds were involved, you should report it to the NSF Office of Inspector General.
Local police and the DA may not have the jurisdiction, as the fraud presumably occurs across state or national lines, and federal funds are involved.

Why do you believe NSF provides funding to conferences that they are permitted to spend by handing out travel expenses to attendees?  I have never seen a scientific funding agency do that.  Maybe a tourism agency would.

@AnonymousPhysicist Because they do. NSF PPAPG Chapter II E9 Travel Proposal "A university, professional society... may apply for funds to enable it to coordinate and support participation in one or more scientific meeting(s)" These are also part of conference grants "MCB supports broadening participation to include early-career investigators or members of under-represented groups in science. Funds can be used to defray costs for registration, room and board, or travel..."

Yes, this is an excellent point.  I will pass it along to the organizers of the other conference.

Nathan, you claim that your approval process does not have a problem - yet your "community" constantly approves this guy who is a fraud. Call apples, apples and oranges, oranges. You have an approval process problem.
Now, so far from reading all of your commentary, you do not want to prevent future bad actors from getting in nor do you want to prevent fraud by implementing a better approval process. You simply want to know what you can do to this one guy.
Well in that case, contact the police - notify others in the community and that's it. Anything further and he might just sue you.

Thanks for this perspective.  Yes, the approval process is certainly part of the story, but the culture around conferences in math is different than what you might be used to in your field. My understanding is that, in some fields, papers accepted to conferences are the main research "currency" that gets you tenure, etc.  In math (as far as I have experienced), the currency is papers published in journals.  Conferences (especially some of the small conferences) are places to interact and share ideas, but do not make or break your career.  "Approval process" is thus less crucial and

(as some have said in comments around this post) it's not clear that it's good to try to be exclusive.  There is a tendency to assume goodwill, for better or for worse.  And in this case, it's being exploited.  Certainly, we can improve our process to prevent this kind of thing (which, however, I hope is very rare).

You should tell the institutions that they falsely claim to be from, for one thing. They certainly have an interest in this since it harms their reputation if someone actually believes this person. I'm guessing a letter from the university lawyer saying "please stop claiming to be affiliated with us" would go a long way. Even if the previous conference checked with the university you also should so that they know this person is continuing this behavior.
Likewise you should tell anyone they have plagiarized--or any journals if the papers were published. Individuals probably won't be able to do much (although at least they will know what's up in case anyone asks why they have the same paper as someone else) but publishers also have corporate resources to get this kind of thing stopped.


text:
Comparing tools for plagiarism detection in writing
As a professor I’m planning to include more training about plagiarism in my courses to address some of the misconceptions and misunderstandings. What is your experience with such tools?
My university doesn’t have any tools, so I’m often left to my own devices:

“Hmm… that was a really good sentence. Wait, that was a really good sentence."
[Proceeds to copy and paste into Google and finds a match for the sentence.]

I'd like to use such a tool for scanning student assignments (probably only as a secondary scan when I think there are issues). If it has good reporting, I would use it as evidence for mandatory reporting of academic misconduct issues. The other case I might use it is for theses and dissertation drafts where it would be helpful to rely on something beyond my own attention and the conversations would be more formative and instructive before a final submission.
Because my university doesn't have anything set up, I'm think there are a few criteria: an easy workflow (would be standalone, not in the LMS), hopefully low cost, capable of scanning short or long documents. I might be missing other factors to consider.

Not an answer, possibly helpful: https://www.cs.umb.edu/~eb/honesty/

https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/40097/which-free-online-academic-plagiarism-checker-is-closest-to-turnitin

https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/29723/what-is-the-acceptable-similarity-in-a-mathematics-phd-dissertation-when-checkin/29733#29733

At University of Michigan, we used the MOSS (measure of software similarity) system at Stanford to detect possible copying in the projects submitted by students in our introductory computer science courses.  While not directly comparable to systems designed to work on essays like the ones offered by Turnitin, our experience may be helpful in setting expectations.

If you have lots of submissions to cross-check (or if, your case, you're hoping to cross-check with the entire web or a provider's database), you can't do it manually but automated systems do work.  We used MOSS in classes with 1000 to 1100 students in 5 sections submitting projects that remained pretty much unchanged from semester to semester, inviting cheating.  Over the years, we'd collected many thousands of submissions to be cross-compared.  We typically reported about 6% of our students for academic violation, of which about 90% were found responsible.  (Most common reason a student might be found not responsible was that their partner did it and they didn't know.)
These systems only detect possible copying.  You still have to manually eyeball every single case and decide for yourself whether you find the evidence compelling.
It was lot of work feeding submissions to MOSS, getting it to run (it's cranky and doesn't always), sifting the results to find the ones you intend to report, and then writing up the reports for our Honor Council in a two-column format where they could see the copying side-by-side. I assigned one of my student staff to running MOSS, reviewing the results with me and then writing the reports we agreed on, but it was a big job and it usually took them a semester as an understudy to learn how to do it.

I offer a free tool for preparing those nasty side-by-side reports (Word is a pain) that nicely colors the identical text on each side. Remember to print the background colors when you print! https://people.f4.htw-berlin.de/~weberwu/simtexter/app.html

The second point on here is incredibly important. You need only search this site to find example after example of students accused of plagiarism over quotes, obvious wordings, partial similarities, and even citations.

I’m planning to include more training about plagiarism in my courses to address some of the misconceptions and misunderstandings.

One of the most common misconceptions about plagiarism seen on this site is that software tools can tell you if there is plagiarism or not.  Those tools measure text similarity.  Plagiarism is not about text similarity.  There can be plagiarism with zero text similarity.
Plagiarism is about taking other people's ideas without attribution.  No software is able to compare ideas.
If you want to teach students about plagiarism, have them search real life examples for plagiarized ideas.

I hate to be a broken record and quote myself, but there is no magic bullet. I have been testing such software for many years. From our recent publication: "The sobering results show that although some systems can indeed help identify some plagiarized content, they clearly do not find all plagiarism and at times also identify non-plagiarized material as problematic."
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s41239-020-00192-4


text:
Gender transition as a starting faculty member: a terrible idea?
I'm a computer scientist at the point in my postdoc where I will have to decide soon whether to apply for faculty positions this fall or go to industry, in the US/Canada/UK/maybe Europe.1
But I've also recently come to the realization that spending half of my waking hours fervently wishing I had been born a girl could be a sign that maybe I should be doing something about that.
My situation is such that I doubt I would be able to really "pass" anytime soon, if ever. Even if I went all-out on transition immediately – which I'm not sure I'm ready for anyway – I can't imagine that I wouldn't be quite obviously physically trans at interview time and at least for a while afterwards.
I'd be fine presenting male through the faculty interview process and so on; my dysphoria is not particularly acute, and I have not yet started on hormones or anything. But I am certainly not willing to wait until tenure! I'm old enough already. (~30, but losing hair fast....)
Transition will obviously make life harder either in industry or in academia. But assistant professorships are not like normal jobs. Getting students, perhaps getting grants, perhaps teaching, and probably a million other things will all be harder in the midst of transition. It would also be combining two quite stressful experiences at the same time, and early-stage assistant professorships are not necessarily the most friendly job to the possibility of required medical absences / etc.
By contrast, my assumption is that a job as a researcher at some tech company will only provide the "usual" amount of discrimination and inconvenience, with probably better capability to handle potential medical issues, much more financial support for a potentially expensive process, and maybe fewer people I'll need to convince I'm a real person. A greater portion of these jobs are also going to be available in a major liberal city with the support structure for this process (and near my existing social networks for support).
And yet, ideally I think I'd want to be on the faculty market anyway.
So: how infeasible is transitioning as an early-career faculty member? Should I abandon this path for now and go to industry research instead, and maybe come back to it after a few years?
I'd particularly love to hear from anyone who's been in a similar situation, or to be pointed to examples of academic scientists who've transitioned before being well-established in their careers.
(This seems to be the only relevant question on the site, but is broader, and the examples of trans academics there seem to have all transitioned after already being quite established [except Lynn Conway, who (a) did this in the 60s/70s and (b) had to completely restart her career in "stealth mode"]. There are also a few on workplace about related situations for "normal" jobs, but I'm looking for academia-specific thoughts.)

1 I don't really want to do another postdoc; I'm in the second year of my current one, with a professor who's relatively prominent in my subfield, and though it's been great I can't help but think that a second one almost anywhere else would be seen as a "step down." Doing multiple postdocs is also quite rare, though not unheard of, in my area. My current position is "term-limited" before another faculty cycle comes around.

If you think about it in terms of "is it a terrible idea?" but without considering the academia field, what changes in that equation? Maybe thinking outside of this context can shed some light on possible solutions.

I think not transitioning is a terrible idea. Transitioning isn't frictionless, but living against yourself seems like pretty much the worst possible scenario. Best wishes with that, and congrats on being true to yourself :)

@mgarciaisaia That's imo a given that maybe didn't come across clearly; the question is whether doing it at the same time as starting out as faculty is a bad idea and therefore I should go into industry instead (at least for a while).

I'm voting to leave this open for now, but it's borderline. Suggestion: Focus the question on the academic side of things; ask for anecdotal or empirical data on out trans people in academia, maybe something interesting will come up. Outside of this it mostly comes down to opinion / your specific circumstances / general workplace.
Whatever you decide, good luck!

Any major life changes are an extra burden so to speak. In a new job you are getting the ropes, people are getting to know you. For instance, I lost a new job with complicated politics due to being in the middle of a breakup with my ex. I would try a thing at a time.

This question has appeared in my review queue again, flagged for closure as "primarily opinion-based". It's true that it is primarily opinion-based (although much on academia.se is - this isn't such a hard rule as places like SO where there is a Right Answer), but it has 100 upvotes and at least two good answers by transgender people with experience in academia. As such it seems like a good resource; I'm voting to leave open, and I hope other reviewers will too.

How infeasible is transitioning as an early-career faculty member?

I transitioned as a postdoc back in 2013, so I did it.  Whether or not it's a terrible idea depends on many factors, and just plain luck.  I don't have experience in industry, so I can't comment much on that.  But I'm sure it's the same situation: it depends on many factors, and plain luck.
Travel
One thing that would likely be distinct between academia and industry is traveling: conference travel is the norm in academia.  This has two important consequences:

Surgeries for transgender medical procedures are not performed in most places, e.g., in Canada, there's only one clinic that performs GRS (in Montreal).  Different surgeons have different styles, and have different levels of experience.  To be able to choose one's desired surgeon (and get the most suitable results), one needs to be able to travel, which I expect is far easier in academia than industry.
For surgery, I organized to attend conferences nearby, which helped ease the travel costs.  My hormones are prescription-free in Turkey, so I stock up when I'm there.

Traveling is more difficult for transgender people, including security inspections, applying for visas, carrying medicines, facial hair growing during long flights, dilation, shared accommodation, and so on.  In fact, some countries have anti-debauchery laws.

I highlight some other important factors below.
1. Transitioning is personalized.
Everyone's transition is different.  For many people, transitioning is essential: they choose between transitioning or killing themselves.  Other people find it suitable to not transition full time.  Many people are between these two extremes.
Whether or not what you have in mind is "a terrible idea" depends on you: (a) how critical it is to transition, (b) your financial situation, and (c) your family situation.  And many other factors: religion, friends, disability, race, local laws, and so on.
2. At no point is transitioning convenient.
I doubt there will ever be a point where you feel now is the optimum time to transition.  At the very least, a huge amount of time gets eaten up with updating one's documents and medical care, along with simply learning how to dress and behave.
One point: If you wait, are you going to publish under your dead name?
My experience is that students mostly don't get involved in the transition.  If you stay focused on the material, so will they.  I would say family is probably of greater concern than students.  However, there's inevitably some complications: your reputation (good or bad) rubs off onto your students, and writing letters of recommendation can be a bit awkward.
Some people take medical steps (such as sperm donations, hormones, facial hair removal, etc.) prior to socially transitioning.  However, WPATH standards of care for various medical treatments have real life tests, which is relevant if you're intending to seek medical treatment down the line.  You need to establish yourself as your gender to get medical referrals.
When I've asked older transgender people, they only ever say they regret not transitioning earlier.  In your case, if you end up losing your hair, it could have significant and irreversible negative impact on your quality of life; you may want to consider starting medical treatment soon.
3. Transitioning takes place with incomplete information.
Whatever decision you make, you're going to make it without all the information.  You won't know how people will react in advance.  You'll make a decision without knowing which path is best.  And, regardless of what you do, you'll probably spend a fair chunk of your life thinking you made the wrong decision.
4. Don't overvalue being passable.
Being passable helps everyday activities proceed smoothly.  However, my impression is that if someone is making an effortful attempt to present and behave as a certain gender, one's gender will almost uniformly be respected (despite not being passable).
Setting a goal of being passable is risky; it is often not achievable, and it can be devastating to accept that oneself is not passable.
I'm mostly passable nowadays, but people still find out about my past through my prior publications.  Generally even if they find out, they act like they don't know.
Hormones make a big difference to passability (but they take time).  There's also surgery, such as facial feminization surgery, which is a major improvement, but it's expensive and a referral may be required, depending on the surgeon(s).
5. Unpredictability.
Transitioning takes time, and over time people's values change.  There's also a roller-coaster of emotions, a "second puberty" when one undergoes hormone therapy, and often dieting becomes important (which may mean a lack of energy to be productive).
Particularly difficult for me was belonging to a "boys club" (mathematics/computer science) while I was desperate to establish and assert my femininity.
People are unpredictable.  Just because someone has liberal values, and so on, doesn't mean they're going to be accepting.  Likewise, just because someone is conservative, doesn't mean they're going to be hostile.  The people you work with make a difference to your quality of life in general, and it's impossible to predict.
Task difficulty is unpredictable.  There's going to be things that turn out far easier than expected, and things that should be simple which are complicated.
Mental health is unpredictable.  It's difficult to maintain mental health as a transgender person.  It's possible to end up with depression and/or anxiety, eating disorders, and engaging in self-harm or suicide attempts.  (Every transgender person I've asked has a clear plan on how they would kill themselves.)  And even without being transgender, academia can be a rough ride mentally.
Relationships are unpredictable.  In addition to transitioning having unpredictable effects on your current relationships, hormones (if you choose to go down that road) are known to affect people's sexuality, which may impact if and who you marry, which may impact your career options.  Moreover, if you end up marrying a man, by default a husband's career is socially considered more important than the wife's, and it's considered the wife's responsibility to look after children (perhaps through adoption).
6. Other points.

Don't get lost in your transition.  It's common for transgender people to end up only thinking about their transition, and that becomes who they are as a person.  My impression is that this causes others to perceive you as "a transgender" rather than "a woman".  I feel it's best to develop non-transgender-related interests.

Work harder than expected.  Job security is a big deal for mental health, but on top of this, medical treatment is expensive.  So I encourage you to make sure your colleagues have instances in their mind where you have gone beyond what's expected.

Have ambitions beyond merely surviving.  It is hard to have goals when you feel like you're merely surviving on a day to day basis, but it's good for one's mental health.  Don't just constantly perceive yourself as a victim, but do something with your life.

Expect hiccups.  While deeply hurtful, you're inevitably going to be misgendered and deadnamed, have people comment on your appearance, have people scheming behind your back, and so on.  When this happens, it makes me paranoid (Is this what people truly think of me?).  Somehow, you need to continue to be productive despite this.  As you become more established, these hiccups become less frequent.

What is "dilation"?

After surgery, a neovagina will naturally close shut permanently.  To prevent this, you insert dilators (which are basically dildos) inside yourself for a period of time, and this is dilation.  It may e.g. be embarrassing going through airport security carrying your dilators, and awkward using shared accommodation while needing to dilate.

I would challenge the notion that travel in academia is different than travel in industry. There are many industries and professions that require substantial amounts of travel. It's not called "Academia class" - it's called "Business class" after all.

This question came up the hot network questions sidebar, and I found the whole thing very interesting. However I was confused by some of the terms you and the OP used. Someone asked about dilation already and I was able to google deadnaming, but what does passable mean in this context?

"Passable", in this context, means to appear convincingly as one's gender.  It's not the best word, since it implies some level of trickery, but it's what's used. (It's also used outside of transgender contexts "a passable impersonation of Donald Trump".)  And for the future reader, "deadnaming" is when you use a transgender person's former name (or non-preferred name); it's incredibly hurtful when it happens.

@RebeccaJ.Stones would you mind elaborating on why it's incredibly hurtful?

@Celos this is second-hand, but it was explained to me this way: imagine someone who comes up and says, "Hi Luke, you're Lutheran, right?". I'd respond, "I'm Morgen, and I'm LDS, are you looking for someone else?". Deadnaming would be if they responded, "Nope, pretty sure that's you", and then insisted on greeting me as "Lutheran Luke" every time we met. Super disrespectful to start, and both triviallizing and rejecting the reality of a core part of your identity.

Using someone's deadname implies partial (if not total) rejection of the authenticity of their gender.  It implies a preference for the inauthentic (and involuntary) prior identity, akin to saying "I don't want you to exist."  It costs nothing to use someone's real name (and pronouns), so failing to do so indicates that person's perceived worth (close to nothing).  It also reveals personal information, increases their risk of discrimination and violence, and encourages others to do likewise.

Unless things have changed, I don't believe facial feminization surgery (FFS) usually requires a referral.  Ousterhout certainly didn't ask for one.  Only reassignment requires letters from therapists.

Getting an ORCID id (https://orcid.org) might help in alleviating the problem of "losing" publications upon a name change.

As a CS academic, I've not been in shared accommodation when travelling since I was a PhD student. It should be pretty easily avoidable for conferences and so on. (The one time I have shared as a postdoc was when several of us from my institution were visiting another university for a whole semester, which is a fairly unusual situation. Two of us shared an apartment and two of us lived separately so, even then, sharing would have been avoidable.)

"However, my impression is that if someone is making an effortful attempt to present and behave as a certain gender, one's gender will almost uniformly be respected (despite not being passable)."  It made me really happy to read this.  I'm glad you are experiencing this.

@RebeccaJ.Stones For the record, "passing" came originally from Black activism (racial passing). Among people of colour, "passing as white" means that, by chance, you're not subjected to most of discrimination that your peers do. Likewise a transgender person who "passes" isn't "passing" as a woman or man; they're passing as cisgender, and thus avoiding the brunt of transphobia that non-passable-as-cisgender people do. Passing is, in Serano's terms, "conditional cisgender privilege"; it can be revoked at any time if it comes out that you're trans (similarly for a white-passing immigrant, etc.)

@RebeccaJ.Stones I (the person formerly known as “anon”, now an early-career faculty member…) just happened to re-read this answer and saw that you mentioned being outed by old papers. It’s of course been years, but if you didn’t know this yet: many publishers now allow silently correcting your name on old papers, and if yours don’t, they should (and we can help make that happen). https://ncpwg.org has some info, and contact me for an invite to the Discord if you want!

Rebecca Stones has already given a great answer that got my upvote.  But allow me to offer some personal perspective based on my experience here in US.
I transitioned about 20 years ago.  The world is a much less hostile environment for trans people today than it was then.  I think you will find academia, at least here in the US, to be an especially supportive environment.
Transition is difficult and scary for everyone.  None of us ever starts out expecting we will ever pass.  But there's a wide variety of people's appearances anyway and hormones, hair removal and facial surgery all really work.  Within about a year or two, most people have learned the role, they look the part, they've moved on with their lives and they blend in mostly unnoticed.  It happens faster than people expect and almost everyone comes out looking much better than they expected.  (Transition really does cure transgenderism.)
Whether to begin transition before or after you find an appointment is your choice.  If you've literally just begun transition and haven't yet figured out how to choose an outfit or apply makeup without looking like a cross between a circus clown and a pole dancer, well, yes, that could be distracting and unhelpful.  But if you can present as a serious professional person, albeit of somewhat ambiguous gender, I think you will be fine.  Early in transition, you might have some difficulty getting your name right on all the documents, however.
Good luck.
Added:  On reflection, it occurs to me to point out there is an advantage to transitioning before the job search.  When you transition, everyone around you also has to transition.  They have to learn your new name, break old habits of what pronouns to use and change how they think about you.  Transition is stressful for them, too.  When they're uncomfortable, you'll be uncomfortable, too.  If you start transition before looking for a job, even if you're not that far along, your new colleagues will only know you as your new self.

I am aware of one faculty member at my institute (in Germany) who transitioned between interviews and starting her assistant professorship. I don't know her personally so I have no idea about her experiences, but I thought it might be a useful data point anyway.
Looking for jobs in a large and liberal city might be useful for faculty positions as well as for industry; obviously job supply is less in academics than in industry but you could still look for positions in those kind of cities.

I think it depends a lot on the institution. When I joined my Mathematics & CS department in 1998, there was already a transgender faculty member. Since then, that person has retired, but at least one other faculty member has transitioned, and my institution has explicitly welcomed transgender students, of whom there are many.
Perhaps when considering a school (after getting an offer?), you (or a friend, if you wish to be anonymous as long as possible), could contact the campus LGBTQ group, Queer Studies, or Women's Studies department to find out if there are any out transgender faculty whom you could contact.
Good luck!


text:
How much is the freedom of research after tenure?
Is this true?

Also, are there any obligations about the minimum amount of research papers you should produce
(say every year) after being tenured?
What if a tenured professor does not produce a paper for say a year or two?

Please ask one question per post.

This question reminds me of the PHD comic "The Evolution of Intellectual Freedom".

Normally this is something that is negotiated between faculty and administration on an annual basis (or so) and is more related to future salary and duties than to tenure. Usually ending tenure requires provable misbehavior.
Expectations differ by institution and department, of course. But there are certainly situations in which a tenured professor is working hard, but on a difficult problem, and doesn't produce anything publishable for some time. If they are otherwise productive (doctoral students are being produced, say) then things are probably fine.
People also tend to wind down as the approach retirement and this is also allowed most places, though the person won't get much in the way of salary increases and will probably see an increase in teaching/advising load.
Also, what is considered "productive" in one field may be considered unproductive in another. I'm always reminded that Einstein worked for ten years on Special Relativity prior to the 1905 paper. It was a hard problem worked on unsuccessfully by many people including the luminaries of the day.
Quality of research is valued, not just quantity. And if the quality is poor, the quantity doesn't matter much.
But a faculty member needs to convince the chair and dean that what they are doing is appropriate, though tenure is very unlikely to be at risk.
Note also that the freedom to set the direction of your research is the more important question. That freedom lets you delve into odd and obscure corners without fear of losing your job.

Thank you so much for the answer. It clears my doubts.

As for the freedom of research: The situation with research is not so different from the freedom of speech in many countries. Yes, you can say whatever you want. But (i) you don't have the right that anyone actually has to listen, (ii) you don't have the right that anyone actually likes it. You just can't be punished for it.
This is how it is with research: The university might not be able to fire you because your interest lies in researching the obscure animal stone louse, and spend all of your research time on it. But you might not get published, and you might not get funding for it either. And that is something the university might care about, and reasonably so I might add. That's because ultimately universities have an obligation to society, and if what you do has no outcomes, then you're not doing your job. The university can then reasonably withhold promotions, pay raises, and other perks such as workload assignments that allow you to prioritize research over teaching.
As a consequence, choosing a research area that is publishable and fundable puts some constraints on what you do.

Thank you so much for the answer. It is really helpful.