text:
Can I submit a review paper to a journal without being invited?
I am currently in the process of waiting for PhD verdict. I have submitted the thesis last 2 weeks for examination and I am thinking while waiting for PhD verdict, I want to write a review paper on my subject. The reason is because I have ran out results from my PhD study for publication and I reckon why not try on reviewing the subject I am studying. My area of research is biological science. My question is whether it is possible to write a review to journal without being invited to do so.

Your literal question is obviously not what you mean to ask. Of course you can submit anything anywhere. You surely mean to ask whether there's any point in submitting a review paper... as in whether or not it has any chance of being accepted for publication, apart from the question of whether it's good to take the trouble to write up such a thing in the first place. I'd say that it's good (if there's nothing else in your event queue) to compose review papers, because it's personally educational. However, other people may not be much interested in the perception of a field by a novice.

I just did it on mitochondrial origins. I wasn't invited, no one asked for it, many people already did it, my grant somewhat required it, and I definitely needed it to organize the facts and theories I read in the last three years. Hopefully from an objective viewpoint. I was even turned down by one journal stating that they already have one such paper in the pipeline by someone else.

Yes, it is absolutely possible to write a review paper without being invited to do so.
How do I know this?
I've done it, several times, in the biological sciences.
The key is to recognize that the review needs to be invited at some point, but that point need not be "before you've written anything down*. If you have a target journal, and you think it is a decent fit for the review paper, I would suggest that you find the email for the appropriate section editor (or the Editor-in-Chief if there is none) and write them a polite email inquiring as to whether or not they would be interested in inviting a review on X topic, a draft of which is attached. Articulate why you think this is useful and interesting to their readership, and hope for the best.
And before we get on the "A PhD isn't enough clout to write a review", my first review was published with an undergraduate as the primary author.

You should check with the journal you plan to submit to. Many do not accept unsolicited review articles, so it would be a waste of time to write something that won't get considered.

Every review I've ever published began with "Hey, you want to solicit this unsolicited review?"

Personally I did write a review paper just after getting my PhD. The paper was, to be precise, invited. But it is not the point here.
In my case, I reviewed a niche or subset topic of a new and "trendy" field. I was really sure to be, if not the more conpetent, at least the more up to date person in that specific subject. Otherwise, I wouldn't have done that.

Firstly let me tell you that review papers are always more or less invited. They are written by the experts in the field. Basically it serves as an excellent reference to anyone who wants to learn from the masters. It also generally covers a wide area of the subject. So I would suggest that review paper would not be a good idea for you at this stage. There are no. Of reasons. 1. You are not invited! 2. A PhD degree is not always enough to know adequately about the subject unless you are a top shot. Therefore a PhD candidate can never fall under the category of an "expert". 3. A PhD student may not know the entire length and breadth of the area.
So I would suggest that a review paper is not a good idea now. You can certainly do it one day when you are a master yourself but not presently. Besides, it would also be a great idea to ask your advisor.
Cheers.

This answer may not be universal. I believe that in some areas it's common for PhD students to write review papers.

I know my PhD colleagues who write review papers with their supervisors. Maybe we come from different background

Oh yeah that might be the case then. Therefore, I don't see a specific solution to the question. Since it may vary from the field to field.

-1. My first, and heavily cited review paper, violated all three of your points.

As I already clarified, it may vary from domain to domain. You can't imagine doing that in astrophysics.

-1: I can't imagine that, even in fields where most review articles are written by senior people, that they're all invited. Surely some senior people decide to write a review article by themselves, and surely any journal that publishes review articles would be happy to consider unsolicited review articles from senior researchers.


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Asking to not present in a conference on Saturday
I am about to submit a paper to a conference. I just found out that the conference falls in Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Since I am an observant Jew, I don't want to present on Saturday. What are my options?

I thought to submit the paper, and if it is accepted, explicitly ask the organizers to schedule me to another day. Is this possible/acceptable?
Another option is to submit the paper, and if it is accepted and scheduled on Saturday (and the organizers don't agree to change this), then withdraw the paper. This is of course less preferable as it, probably, creates bad reputation if I don't present an accepted paper (I am also not sure if it will be published: Presented a paper in a conference, but my paper did not get published in proceeding )
The third option is not to submit at all, in order to prevent the option that I have to withdraw an accepted paper.

@NajibIdrissi This is also a good option, thanks

Option 5: Submit the paper and, if accepted, ask the organizers to not schedule on Saturday. If they can accommodate, great; if not, ask someone else to give the presentation on your behalf.

I routinely do 1, and it's never been a problem (i.e. 100% of my scheduling requests have been accommodated). Just make your request sooner rather than later, to make it easier for the organizers.

If your paper is accepted is it perfectly appropriate to ask them to observe your religious guidelines. A lot of people will give special date restrictions when presenting in a conference for lesser things like they need to fly home by a certain date, their funding doesn't cover hotels for the length of the conference, or they just don't have a desire to stay the whole time.
Good luck with presentations!

As a conference chair I've generally been able to satisfy these kinds of requests without any trouble.

In fact, if it was a problem, that would mean you find that a majority of presenters have a problem presenting on a given day. It's highly likely that means you'll have an attendance problem on that day too. The sooner you find out about this potential problem, the better!

I would say that this falls under the category of "reasonable requests for accommodation," and suggest pursuing option #1: first see if you're accepted, and then if you are, send a request to not be scheduled on Saturday.  The conference schedule is almost certainly not yet determined (it will depend on the distribution of accepted papers), and the fraction of the schedule that is problematic for you is pretty small.  Thus, if you are prompt in requesting accommodation after being notified of acceptance, there is a good chance that the organizers will be willing to make it happen.  If they do not, however, you may need to ask a colleague to present or to withdraw.
Pragmatically, scheduling accommodations are more likely to happen in small conferences than in large conferences.  If you're dealing with a single-track conference with a couple dozen talks, they will almost certainly be willing to flex the schedule for you.  If you are dealing with a multi-track conference with hundreds of talks, however, it is possible that they simply will not bother because your talk means so little to them.

It's also possible that the organisers intend to group presentations into themed sessions, and if two presenters in the same session have conflicting requests then only one of them will be able to present. This doesn't mean that the organisers necessarily don't care about the talk they have to exclude.

@MJeffryes 1) Having done my share of thematic grouping, I can tell you that it's often a very loose and post-facto process.  2) Even if session boundaries are rigid, moving a talk into its own displaced "session fragment" often works.  My "don't care" observation comes from watching the behaviors of some particular massive conferences which really don't care---certain organizers sometimes hold an arrogant attitude where they feel it is a privilege for people to talk in their conference, and so presenters should bend to accommodate them and not the other way around.

It may or may not work.
I don't know how it is in other fields, but in most medium-to-large conferences I've presented in (geosciences), people don't only submit to the conference, but upon submission, select a particular session.  Sessions are scheduled to occur on particular days.  The session convener cannot schedule presentations outside her or his particular session.  To reschedule, the conference organisation would have to reschedule the entire session, something they are unlikely to be willing to do.
But, I would go ahead and submit.  If you do end up being scheduled on a Saturday, and it does end up such that it cannot be rescheduled, I would ask a co-author to present on your behalf.  This is not an optimal situation, but it is a lot better than withdrawing completely.

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My department delayed my viva and is being unprofessional. Should I report this?
I submitted my PhD thesis to my department last August for examination. However, I found out from my supervisor that my department only sent my thesis to examiners last November for examination. So it took them about 3 months to get my thesis to examiners. Before submitting my thesis, my supervisor already has elected examiners to examine my thesis and they all agreed to do so. Thus, there would be no problem in getting examiners to examine my thesis. And crazy thing is, when I confronted the staff who is supposed to handle my thesis examination, she nonchalantly said that she was so busy handling something else and she apologized for purposefully delaying my viva because her plate was full. I was beyond furious to learn how unprofessional she is when handling my thesis. Now I am thinking to lodge a report to the Dean of my school regarding how unprofessional my department was in handling my viva voce. But then, I'm scared that my department will have their vendetta against me when they found out that I made a report. Another option is to lodge a report to the Dean once I graduate from the PhD program but that seems like a cowardly move.
What should I do?

What part of the world is this taking place? In the USA I submitted my thesis directly to my committee, the members of which I had chosen. This setup you describe seems very different and you lack agency in the process.

Sadly in a developing country in Asia

Duplicate or at leasr heavily related to this q : https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/102860/72855

Not duplicate. I already called the person in charge and she explained the situation as above. This is totally different scenario. Perhaps I shoulf amend the thread together

Already contacted them and the person in charge purposefully delayed my thesis submission to examiners. Now should I report her unprofessional behavior to the Dean? That's I'm asking here.

Is it possible your supervisor wanted to read your thesis first, before passing it on?  If that's what happened and your supervisor is busy and your thesis is quite long and complex, the delay doesn't seem surprising to me.

What is a viva?   What do you expect to accomplish by reporting?  Is your supervisor aware it did not go out until November?   I would not call the delay purposeful.   Too busy is negligent.   Purposeful would be put it to the side to hurt you or some other intent.

Yes, supervisor already read everything and approved the thesis prior to submission. Since examiner is anonymous to student, person in charge in my department is responsible to send the thesis to examiners. But she delayed the supposed submission to examiners because she was busy

@Paparazzi A viva is an oral exam where the candidate defends their thesis, as explained here.

The title and the description do not match. Your description is clearly of incompetence, not purposeful delay. There was no purpose -- sending the thesis to reviewers just didn't happen.

A viva is an oral defence typically for a PhD. Masters' thesis does not generally require a viva. (@NicoleHamilton: the link you gave is subscriberwalled, we can't view it.)

@smci  Archive.org has a copy of the article here:  https://web.archive.org/web/20170917152759/http://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/ld/resources/presentations/viva/

I assume English is a second language for you.
Purposefully is not the correct word here.

in a way that shows determination or resolve

Purposely is what I think you mean

on purpose; intentionally

To me it does not sound like the delay was on purpose. It was negligent of the staff not to take the time to complete this fairly simple task. A three month delay is not reasonable and I can understand you are upset.
For sure the department as a whole did not do this on purpose.
I don't see how going to the Dean would help you.  I don't see how that would speed up the process at this point.
If you do go to the Dean I suggest you not use words like on purpose or unprofessional. Communicate the problem and how it impacted you. It is fair to name the person responsible for the delay.
Maybe your supervisor could tell the examiners there was a delay and ask them review quickly.

I would vote for this answer without the first part included. Just start with "To me" without nitpicking the English. I think many native speakers would not know the difference between purposefully and intentionally

@Dawn I did not include that to nitpick.   Sorry you took it that way.

If you think @Dawn's comment contained a helpful suggestion, you can always edit your answer to incorporate it.

Complaining about this won't speed up your defense or get your thesis to your committee any faster. It will just make you disliked within your department. Accept the loss of time, do your defense, get your degree, and start your next job. Unless there are specific rules against doing so, take the lesson that when getting your thesis to your committee and scheduling your defense date, no administrator will ever take the issue as seriously as you. So instead of delegating something you care a lot about to someone who doesn't care at all about this task, you could do these tasks yourself and get them done under a timescale you like.

In my school:1.  Supervisor approved the thesis before being submitted. 2.I sent the thesis to person in charge in my department so she could send the thesis to respective examiners. Also in my school students cannot be made aware who their examiners are, hence the person in charge has the responsibility to get thesis sent to examiners.

This assumes the OP is in the US, which they clearly are not.

seems like under this system the students are being treated like babies and not being allowed to take responsibility. I bet this type of mismanagement happens often. Finishing PhD can be a very good time in your life because you should have time to relax and enjoy life. Try to slow down a bit and enjoy the moment because you will probably be overworked when you start your next job.

eh I think it's fine as is

In some countries, such as Germany, the process is much more bureaucratic than in the US. It’s not that they’re treating the candidates as children; it’s just a very burdensome process.

Still an active participant would be able to follow up on the stages of bureaucracy, "hello, was my thesis distributed to my examiners?" etc

Indeed, in the UK contacting your examiners prior to the exam would be seen as serious misconduct and would leave you open to accusations of trying to tamper with the examination process.

Yes, you should report this to the dean.
If you are afraid of retaliation, then you can wait until your degree is awarded.
It sounds like your real problem is that your department does not have enough staff to fulfill its obligations to students.  It is (normally) the dean's responsibility to ensure adequate staffing, so it is very appropriate to tell the dean about it.  Just state the facts, leaving out your feelings about how you were treated.

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How to cite three things in the same sentence
If all A, B, and C are from the same reference [1], what is the shortest way to cite them? Is this clear?

I use A, B, and C [1] in my paper.

It is concise, but it is like you are not giving a reference for A, and B. How can I have a better sentence?

The original "I use A, B, and C [1] in my paper." is not quite clear for the reasons you've mentioned.
Better:

I use A, B, and C in my paper [1].

How about this?: I use A, B, and C [1] in my paper.

How is my suggestion?


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Why do journals require authors to provide funding information?
Recently I have communicated a manuscript to Springer journal. In editorial system I was required to furnish funding information. If the funding information is available then does that mean that I have to publish my work through open access by paying fee from funds that have been sanctioned  to me?
Although the journal is not open access journal but I am afraid if they ask for article processing fee after acceptance of manuscript. My sanctioned funds does not cover article processing charges

Are you talking about "Our submission systems will offer the option to include your funding source in a standardized way." from the Springer web page?

I don't know if this is the reason in your case, but many journals require disclosing the funding source as a way of managing perceived or real conflicts of interest. This is especially important in medical studies, which are often funded by pharmaceutical companies. Here's an example.

Do you wish to pay for open access? If not, nobody can force you to. Acknowledging and disclosing funding is standard for academic articles.

Your situation is a bit too vague, does your funding source require you to pay for open access (which I think is pretty stupid, but I know it exists) and you would prefer not to but are afraid that disclosing that funding will reveal that you do not abide by their policy? If that is the case, the journal doesn't care, it's between you and your funding agency.

@CapeCode : My sanctioned funding does not cover APC. I have furnished them(Springer) my funding source.

I am afraid if they ask for open access fee after acceptance of manuscript Does this journal require APC payment for all submissions? If yes, then you will have to pay regardless of your funding. If not then it's unclear why you're worried.

@CapeCode, actually some funding agencies now mandate open access. The Wikipeida page talk about the mandates more.

@RichardErickson having a self-archiving mandate is not the same as forcing authors to pay for gold OA.

@CapeCode, I agree self-archiving is different than paying for gold OA. However, funding sources can require a great deal as a condition of the PI accepting funding. Some funding agencies seem to be moving towards requiring open access. For example, the Welcome Trust "encourage – and where it pays an open access fee, require – authors and publishers to licence research papers using the Creative Commons Attribution licence". In the future, funding bodies such as this may require all research they fund to be open access.

@RichardErickson I understand that. In my second comment above I asked OP if that was a requirement from the funding body. As a side note, I think it's sad that funding agencies encourage such a bad practice. But at least it's their own money they're throwing out the window.

Funding information is often required even when a journal has no open source option to it. The source of funding is a major potential conflict of interest, and as such is a key piece of information in evaluating a paper.
That being said, it may also be used to determine things like whether or not they should give a break on open access fees, whether it needs to be deposited in Pubmed Central, etc.

In addition to Fomite's answer, there is another reason to demand funding information: to ensure that any possible conflicts of interest in the research that arise because of funding are disclosed. This is particularly an issue in medical research, where many studies are funded by industry.


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What effect does a good research paper have on a university's reputation and worldwide ranking?
What effect does a good research paper have on a university's worldwide rankings?

None. One good paper makes its author(s) look good, but does not make the university more or less remarkable (either in term of perception by the research community or rankings). It takes a lot of good output (papers, conferences, etc.) for people to start saying “hey, that university has great research done in so many research groups, it looks like a great place”, and for whatever rankings to be affected.
Unless by “good” you mean “outstanding”, not in the academic sense “quite okay but I’m writing in hyperbolic style” but in the meaning of “exceptionally good; clearly noticeable”. One groundbreaking (Nobel level, if you wish) discovery made at a single institution will help it.

One groundbreaking (Nobel level, if you wish) discovery made at a single institution will help it. — [citation needed]

@JeffE if the University of X creates, say, an AIDS vaccine that is talked about in the media, it creates a lot of good (national and international) publicity for it. I have a few examples in France of universities whose funding dramatically improved after they received the spotlight (I'm thinking about Pierre Gilles de Gennes and Jean-Marie Lehn's institutions, for example)

A single good research paper typically has a very small impact on the university's ranking and prestige. However, universities are very large organisations. Any one university may be producing thousands of publications each year. Thus, the presence or absence of one publication is unlikely to change the ranking of a university on some prestige or publication based league table.
That said, each publication (and especially the "good" ones) does play its role in the overall evaluation of prestige. Thus, if a single good publication contributed .01% or .1% of the total citations (or other prestige generating effects) that a university received in a given period, then that is still important. I remember hearing that a study that received a lot of publicity was supposed to have generated $200,000 in free advertising exposure for the university. Presumably similar quantifications could be applied to university prestige. While the contribution of one publication relative to the prestige of an entire university is small, the absolute value may still be substantial.
Furthermore the influence of one good publication on prestige naturally amplifies as you go to smaller groupings from nation to university to faculty to department to research group to individual researcher.


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Is there a bias against mentioning your name on presentation slides?
Is there some sort of unwritten rule in academia that you shouldn't mention your own name explicitly on presentation slides? I have seen this time and time again, if you cite work in the middle of the talk and it happens to be your own work, people abbreviate their names. For example, they only write their first name. 'Miller' is abbreviated to 'M.', but all other names are spelled out in full.

In 25 years in academia, I've never seen such a thing. If there's a bias, it's field dependent: could you please specify your field?

@MassimoOrtolano sounds like Mathematics. Here it seems to be somewhat the norm

@MassimoOrtolano Certainly in the part of physics I know it is also quite common that in references, people fully abbreviate their name, i.e. the reference would be "A. First, B.S., and C. Third", where B.S. is the person presenting.

Personally, what I would find more interesting than the reason why people do it now is the history of this - when, where and why this started.  I think nowadays people mostly just do it because everyone does it.

Yeah in math people do this quite a lot. It surprised me to hear that it’s not common in other fields.

It is common in the sense that being in your own presentation people attending it easily connect the initials to you, the presenter. But it is not a rule. Formally, as @Anonymous Physicist has told us (I down voted his/her answer by mistake...), is more a mistake. Another point, eventually, is to be reticent on citing much of your own work. But this is a complete different story.

@Alchimista: At least in pure math, I don't recall seeing citations very often in slides. Yes, there will sometimes be a reference slide (or two), in which references are normally given "in full name", but normally you'd not include the reference every time you mention a theorem. Instead you'd have "Theorem (X.-Young-Zephod [3])" or something like that.

It also helps when others share your family name (e.g. your spouse, parent, child, or sibling, or maybe it's just common). There's no shortage of examples in my field. This way you know if the person who proved the theorem is the speaker or not.

@Inkblot well that is also true. It comes down to the use of citations in general.

@shalop: Yes, it's common in mathematics. I have the impression math has a strange mix of ego and bragging vs showing humbleness.

There is nothing wrong with mentioning your own name in full in citations on your own slides, and nobody would think anything of it if you did. However, there are a number of reasons why people do this.

Replacing your own name with initials is a subtle way of emphasizing that it is your work that is being cited. You can think of it as a “humblebrag”.
Since you are usually talking about your own work, you end up citing yourself a lot. Replacing your name with initials simply saves space, especially if you have a long name.

To me, it is always a hint saying "What, you don't remember my full name, better pay attention who is giving the talk!".  In conferences with many talks and a broad scope, it is easy to forget the name of the speaker, and I would be happy if I were reminded.

@user151413 How does writing the name in full in references tell the audience that this is the name of the speaker? To remind the audience who you are it is better to put your name in the header/footer of the slides.

All I'm saying is that whenever I see such an abbreviation, I have to actively think what the name of the speaker is, which is disruptive, and maybe even check the program.  I think that's one real reason: It looks like understatement, but in fact it is telling the audience: Yes, this is my paper. (I guess that's your point 1, and that's why this habit always struck me as mannered.)

To clarify: I am not saying that writing the full name tells the audience it is the name of the speaker.  But writing the abbreviation does, and it makes it awfully clear that you forgot the speaker's name. If it were just for the reference, there would be no reason to point out it is the speakers reference in the first place, so it is about the self-advertisement.

These are reasons people use, but they are incorrect reasons.  The actual result of using initials is confusion.

@AnonymousPhysicist if it is confusion you want to avoid use the space saved by writing initials to give the arxiv identifier of the reference.

If you really don't want to include your own name, I'd say use the ArXiv identifier only and omit the initials, since the initials do nothing to disambiguate the reference.  Exception:  The professor formerly know as "XYZ."  http://www.columbia.edu/cu/chemistry/groups/zhu/

I think 1 is the main reason.  It’s indicating it’s your result.  If you write the whole name people might think it’s a result by someone else with the same surname.

@AnonymousPhysicist The actual reason why people use initials, I think, is "because that's what I have seen other people in my field do".

Humblebrag might the best way to explain that behavior. For some reason, mathematics is all about ego and bragging. At the same time, everything is expected to be "humble". Which is obviously inconsistent and more a matter of very strange etiquette.

In my experience in pure mathematics, it seems to be somewhat of a norm not to write your full name when citing yourself and just use initials. I have seen this on many conference presentations or any other talks using slides.
When giving a blackboard talk it has the advantage of using less space on the board which typically is a scarce resource.
On the other hand, I have also seen the occasional talk where this "rule" was not followed and I do not think that this left a bad impression on anyone.

Blackboard space is much less scarce than space on a slide!

But writing a name on the blackboard takes much more time and energy...

Agree using initials is totally normal, but it would seem very odd to me to use a full first name and initialize the last name, rather than the other way around. I generally don't know the presenter on a first-name basis, and I would normally refer to a manuscript by an author's last name, not their first - I might ask a colleague if they read the Miller paper, not if they read the paper by Bob M.

@user2705196 If you are are pure mathematics but you hate giving blackboard talks there is something seriously wrong with you.

I meant the additional cost of writing out your name is larger when doing so during a blackboard talk compared to when giving a computer slide presentation. That's maybe where the tradition comes from! Nothing against using the blackboard but minimizing extra stuff to write is key to a good blackboard talk...

@NuclearHoagie In my experience in math one uses only the initials of the last name, and the first name is rarely, if ever, used in any citation.

To the question, briefly: Abbreviating as described is common in math, but I can't imagine anyone reacting negatively or at all to variations in something so minute.
An alternative motive from a mathematician's perspective I don't see in the other answers or comments:
My surname is fairly common. So I use just an initial in my slides when referencing theorems I've worked on as a concise clarification that I am the person referred to. I'm not aware of anyone else sharing my surname in my field of specialization, but that's hardly a guarantee. This has nothing to do with encouraging memorizing my name, as that's in a header/footer on virtually every slide.

The bias is against self-aggrandizement, and that's what helped establish the norm Christian mentioned in their answer: If you cite yourself a few times, and you use your name, it is as though you bring people into a room where you show them many images of your name. Of course that's not the contents of the presentation, but there is at least some element of that. So, symbolically, you self-deprecate by limiting your self-mention to a single letter. Your full name on the first slide of the presentation is actually common, though (so people know who's giving the talk if they've forgotten or don't know what's on the schedule today); there's no bias - that I know of - against that.

In conference presentations, there is a bias against mentioning one's own name because the speaker knows their own name and doesn't realize their audience has forgotten who is speaking.
It's not an unwritten rule; it's a common mistake.  If you are citing your own work, do write your own name correctly so people can find the reference if they want to.

Please Anonymous P. could you change a comma or so? I have mistakenly down voted instead of a plus 1.....

That’s why you put your name in a header/footer.

Downvoted because "unwritten rule" and "common mistake" is a false dichotomy.

@Xerxes "it is not an unwritten rule because it is a common mistake" would be a false dichotomy.  What I wrote is not a dichotomy.

That depends.
I saw one prof get credit for someone elses work by putting his name on the slide and pointing to the other persons results!
Why do  you want your name on the slides?
Isnt the title page on the first one enough?

Especially at bigger conferences with lots of parallel sessions, people may come after you have already started.

The question is about citations of the author's work, not including their name as part of the slide template.

@Sneftel  -  that is not how the OP is worded.  It was about the name on the slide not the name in a citation.

From the OP: “ if you cite work in the middle of the talk and it happens to be your own work”. That’s pretty unambiguous. Read the other answers to get an idea of the context around this practice.

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text:
How do SJR and Web of Science journal rankings and quartiles differ?
I want to know about how journal quartiles  (i.e., Q1 to Q4) calculations differ.
Web of Science (WoS) uses Journal Impact Factor Quartile the journal’s rank in category (X) is based on where the journal stands relative to the total number in the category. InCites (WoS)  displays the best quartile for journals that appear in multiple Web of Science Research Areas. When a research area is specified, the quartile for that particular journal and research area is displayed.
I've recently submitted an article in a ISI journal.
This journal (urban design international) is ranked 36 out of 40 journals in the "urban studies" category; when I searched it in the Scopus, it was showed as a Q2 journal. But according to the web of science calculation, it is Q4 (36/40 = 0.9, Q4>0.75 ~ 0.9 = Q4)
So my questions are:

How  are SJR journal quartiles calculated?
How can SJR and WoS journal quartiles differ so much (e.g., Q2 in SJR and Q4 in web of science)?
Which ranking (SJR or WoS) is more important or valid?
When someone asks about journal quartiles, which system is more commonly used?

Presumably, when you say SJR quartiles, you mean the rankings presented by Scimago. I previously posted details about how journal ranks and quartiles are estimated on scimago.
There are several key differences between WoS and Scimago that lead to different journal ranks (and quartiles):

Database of journals: WoS rankings uses web of science indexed journals and I think Scimago uses Scopus ISI indexed journals. Scopus is much more inclusive than WoS and also provides better coverage in some disciplines (e.g., social sciences) than WoS. In some disciplines, simply being listed in WoS suggests that the journal is at least a reasonably strong one in the discipline.
Source of citations: Indexing different databases mean that the citations used to evaluate journals are also based on different databases of articles. WoS has a more exclusive set of journals and the coverage is not as balanced across the sciences. The consequence is that metrics based on citations per year per article (e.g., impact factor, citescore) will be higher when using Scopus, and this difference will be amplified for social sciences and other disciplines with less WoS coverage. However, although journal metrics based on citations per year will be lower in WoS, this in itself wont necessarily affect journal rankings within disciplines, because in many cases all journals within a discipline will be broadly influenced.
Definition of an article: I believe that Scopus/Scimago and WoS define articles differently. In particular, I believe that Scimago categorises some items as articles that WoS does not. In general, most citation metrics have a formula that divides citations in a given period by number of articles. I believe this scopus approach reduces citations per year indicators for some journals that include a lot of non-standard article types (e.g., Nature and Science).
Metric: Irrespective of the database of citations used and definitions of what is an article, impact factor and SJR are different citation metrics. See my previous answer about how SJR works. In short, SJR is based on a 3 year window, and impact factor is based on a 2 year window. SJR also has a bunch of corrections to reduce discipline-specific differences in citation practices and a way of weighting certain citations more highly (based on the prestige/impact of source). While I think SJR is much better than impact factor, this might not change within discipline rankings too much because most of these differences between metrics address discipline-level differences.

So, why is it that a journal can be Q2 in Scimago and Q4 in WoS? I think this is most likely due to the database of journals used. WoS is more exclusive and particularly deficient in certain disciplines. So for example, a journal may have a reasonable reputation (e.g., ranked 35 out of 100 in Scimago), but only ranked 35 out of 40 in WoS, because there are a whole pile of journals in Scimago that aren't even listed in WoS.
Which indicator of journal quartile is more valid?
First, I think that SJR as a metric of impact and the more inclusive journal database are better and make the sicmago metrics of journal impact more valid. Of course, at some point, you need to ask about what it means to speak about the rank or quartile of a journal. What should the criteria for membership in the population of journals from which a rank is obtained? The WoS criteria is quite high. Most people would agree that predatory journals with no legitimate peer review should not be included.
I think an argument could be made that Scopus / ISI is sometimes too inclusive (e.g., it includes some journals that have questionable peer review). But I think the stronger argument is that WoS is too exclusive. So perhaps  the Scimago/Scopus interpretation aligns more naturally to what we might think of as a rank or quartile. I.e., of the legitimate journals (or at least, reasonably legitimate) in a discipline that are published, where does a given journal sit.
What quartile is typically used? It's difficult to say how people will interpret a statement like "this journal is Q1" without you specifying the source. It's a bit like when you say "this article has 50 citations", but you don't say which database this citation count is based on (e.g., WoS, Scopus, Google Scholar).
In contexts where it matters, you should clarify which source you are relying on. That said, my impression is that the Scimago quartiles are becoming more popular. For example, at my university we are encouraged to mainly publish in Q1 journals, where quartiles are based on Scimago.
As a minor practical point, access to WoS citation metrics is by subscription only and the user interface is terrible. In contrast, the interface for scimago is public and quite user friendly.

Thanks for taking the time to edit the question and write such a comprehensive answer.

Thanks very much for the perfect answer. It must have taken a lot of time.


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How to find double blind peer review journals in physics?
I have tried googling but couldn't get a definitive answer.
Could anyone suggest/list Journals that allow a double blind peer review for physics, preferably, particle physics.

I'm voting to close this question as "shopping" questions for specific journals are off-topic here.

From what I know, there are some journals from World Scientific such as International Journal of Modern Physics D which allow double blind.

Why is "double blind" your principal concern?
There are many sites that will list major journals by discipline and sub-discipline.
Here is a listing of Physics journals with bibliometric data http://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php?area=3100
Once you've found relevant journals, just read the journal website to find out how they do peer review.
However, normally the "double-blind" aspect would be a minor consideration relative to other criteria for choosing a journal, such as impact, relevance of manuscript to journal, and quality. In other cases, you may be able to request double blind review if you are particularly concerned about that aspect.

Thanks. I was wondering which high impact journals for particle/general physics allow double blind review, a review in which the reviewer doesn't know the identity of the author, nor does the author know the identity of the reviewer.

@DominikCar Yes, and Jeromy is telling you that this is a somewhat odd thing to be concerned about (also, almost all reviews will be blinded such that the author does not know the reviewer). Do you have some specific reason why you need that?

So why is double-blindness relevant? A crackpot paper is a crackpot paper whether the reviewer knows the names of the authors or not.


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What do you need to know about potential supervisor's publications when attending an interview for a PhD?
I have been advised that it is a good idea to read papers written by a potential supervisor before having an interview with them for a PhD position.
I can make sense of the summaries and introductions, but that is all.

Do supervisors ask applicants about whether they have read their papers?
Do I attempt to summarise vaguely what the paper is about?
What sort of questions may be asked about papers?
Can you just say something along the lines of  ' I find it very interesting that you did a recent article in ????' for flattery?

If your supervisor has (recently) published a review paper that's a really good place to start.  At least in the fields I'm used to, these tend to be more likely to be actually written by the academic (as opposed to a PhD student or postdoc), and they'll be a much better route into the topic than a paper on a minor technical point.  My supervisor actually recommended some papers from his group when we first informally discussed a PhD -- but I already knew him a little.

I'm confused how you became interested in this potential supervisor.  Was there anything that intrigued you or drew you to this person?

I would, in fact, ask the opposite question: Why would you want to work with someone if you are not interested in their work? Of course, I wouldn't hold an oral exam or something with a prospective PhD student, but I would hope to be able to have a substantive discussion about my field with the student.
Thus: I wouldn't ask "Have you read my work?" because to me, it would be obvious that the student has read some of my work. Out of interest, not because I asked for it.
BTW: I wouldn't recomment you to say something along the lines of 'I find it very interesting that you did a recent article in...'. Say something substantive, challenge me, tell me why you are not convinced by that article, ask me about it -- yes! But don't try to flatter me in a blunt manner.
Good luck with your applications!

+1 for being much more clear than my answer in terms of being able to challenge and have a substantive conversation - I think I may have unintentionally suggested flattery when that wasn't my intent. The whole point really is that this should be the fun part of your PhD interviews. This isn't where you have to deflect questions about why your GPA suffered that one semester or why only your quantitative GPA scores were good - this is research, this is the fun of doing a PhD, and if you aren't interested in someones work why are you interviewing with them/even doing a PhD.

I would not expect a direct "Have you read my papers? Please summarize them in 5 minutes or less."
However, potential supervisors will likely want to tell you about their research and it will be obvious whether you are lost or following along. Try to understand their published work at least well enough to ask some informed questions. Be prepared to have a conversation. You don't have to be an expert yet on their research but you should be knowledgeable enough to follow along.
If you are wanting to spend something like 5 years in their lab hopefully something they are doing is interesting to you - you should be prepared to ask about that as well: "I saw you did some work on laziness in physicists, are you still working on that? If so, what became of the project? I thought it was really remarkable how much the laziness was anticorrelated with time spent on StackExchange, I would have expected the lazier physicists to spend more time there."

The above answers are both great. I will add my two cents, since it seems this point is not apparent from the -nevertheless- great answers.
You should read the papers of your potential PhD supervisor not because you find somewhere advice to do so, but because you are interested in her/his research and you want to pursue similar line of research. Any other reason is the wrong reason.

More than likely you will co-author papers with your supervisor. So you need some common ground in order to work together effectively. During your meeting you should get a feel for how well you could work together over a period of 3-5 years. No matter how much you think you know, over time you will discover that you over-estimated your knowledge.

The prevalence of co-authorship varies by field. So I don't think the answer needs to be amended.

What does this add over the other, existing answers? You outright state that this is just a rewording of other answers! Is it needed?

@user2390246 I meant that they are great answers. I did not mean that my answer a rephrasing of their answer. I added something that I see is missing from the above, great nevertheless, answers. I do not think it deserves a downvote.

Sorry, I felt that the other answers already made the point about needing to be interested in your supervisor's research for its own sake. Maybe you can edit the answer to bring out what gives it a different perspective?

I can make sense of the summaries and introductions, but that is all.

That is a problem. If you are so unfamiliar with the field that you cannot understand anything about the methods, how can you know if this is what you want to do for the next 5-6 years? A certain amount of training is expected to happen during a PhD but graduate school is not like undergrad. There are no TAs. Great majority of PIs do not have the time to hold your hand and teach you everything. You need to seriously consider if you have the necessary background to do a PhD in this field.

Do supervisors ask applicants about whether they have read their papers?

They will ask why you want to join their lab. If the plan is to say "I haven't seen your work but XYZ", XYZ better be good!

Do I attempt to summarise vaguely what the paper is about?

You could try asking a question about the paper. You probably should admit straight away that you don't understand the methodology very well. Perhaps the PI will be willing to explain it to you! (This actually happened to me several times, most scientists are very eager to talk about their research)

What sort of questions may be asked about papers?

Future directions, next experiments to do, etc are popular questions since that is exactly what you would be doing if you joined the lab.

Can you just say something along the lines of ' I find it very interesting that you did a recent article in ????' for flattery?

You can but you will likely be asked what you like about the article.
NOTE: I am a biomedical researcher, not a physicist.


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What is a "good" PhD dropout rate, and how would we know?
In a few questions/answers on here (e.g., here), passing reference has been made to the difficulty of determining a good/acceptable/healthy dropout rate for a PhD program.  However, I haven't seen any questions directly asking how this question is or can be addressed.  In practice, it seems this question must come up.  If a lot of students drop out of a program, the faculty (not to mention the other students) must begin to wonder if something is awry.
The difficulty, of course, is that an ideal dropout rate is probably neither 0% nor 100%.  (If no one drops out, the program is likely to be too easy; if everyone drops out, the program is probably too challenging.)  How do departments/schools deal with this question in practice?  How do they distinguish between "good" dropouts (where the faculty and student agree dropping out is best for all concerned and there is no ill will) and "bad" dropouts (where the dropout is due to burnout, a harsh environment, lack of funding, etc.), and track those outcomes over time?  How do they avoid self-protective rationalizations (e.g., "our program can't be too/hard easy" based on review of the program content rather than the dropout rates)?  Are there established ways of looking at the dropout pattern and evaluating it?
As a sort of side note, I'd be interested in hard data on dropout rates.  Although there are numerous popular-press articles and blogs lamenting the dropout rates, the only concrete data I've been able to find is this slideshow and a few other things that seem to be drawing on the same data.  (It's rather surprising that there is so much discussion of the "problem" with so little discussion of how to decide whether it's actually a problem or not.  There seem to be many articles saying "the dropout rate is so horribly high!" and very few saying why it's considered high, and what would be considered low or normal.)
Just to clarify: I recognize that the dropout rate is not the only meaningful assessment of a program's health or quality.  My question is not "How do you decide everythig about a program based just on the dropout rate?"  My question is "How do you decide what the dropout rate is telling you about the health and quality of the program?"  You will of course combine that information with other kinds of assessments of the program.

Dropout does not depend only on the difficulty of a program but also on student's personal choices and on possible conflicts with the advisor(s).

This is a very interesting question. I know of a PhD program that was shut by university after too many students were leaving ABD, and I've always wondered how they decided when to throw in the towel.

@MassimoOrtolano: Of course.  That's another reason why it's hard to figure out what an "okay" dropout rate is, and I'm curious how people handle that.

Surely an ideal drop out rate is zero? The aim must be to take on only those students who have both the aptitude and desire to finish the course, and have a clear understanding of what they are getting themselves in for.

Some quantitative information on dropout rates can be found for UK institutions and US. I think the US data is the same source the OP linked. This doesn't give any indication of the cause of dropouts but is a useful starting point.

One hears anecdotes, e.g. of some top math programs in the US, where large numbers of MS students are admitted in order to staff the required teaching assistant positions, but with awareness that only some fraction of those students will get funding for doctoral studies.  However, I don't have firsthand knowledge of such a program.

Where I went in Sweden, any dropout is a serious matter, that should be avoided if possible. If a student is too weak to not complete the program, he/she should not have been admitted in the first place, as it wastes both the institution and the students time. Of course, there are other, unforeseen circumstances (personal tragedies), but  these are of course something that are extraordinary as well.

Ideal dropout rate is 0%, no doubt. You want a system well designed to support students that "get lost on the way" and students properly chosen, students that really want to get a PhD and are able to do so. How on earth is good to have a system where people drop out?

My view is that some students will drop out because that is what they want to do, and what is best for them.  In such a case, getting them not to drop out would be a disservice.  I agree this number should be small, and over some spans of time it might be zero, but if a program went, say, 10 or 15 years without any dropouts, I might be suspicious that degrees were being handed out willy-nilly, or conversely that students were being browbeaten into finishing when it wouldn't benefit or satisfy them in any way.

The algorithmic answer, semi-serious: perform a calculation involving how many living persons hold PhDs, how many students are currently enrolled in PhD programs, and an arbitrary determination of how exclusive you want the club to be.  The Army only promotes so many Generals, no matter how many Colonels deserve a star.

I would think the most obvious way to do this would be to conduct exit surveys when a student says he's leaving without the degree.

@AlexanderGruber: That thought has occurred to me as well.  Do you know of any schools that actually do that?

I don't think there is a "good" dropout rate - without knowing why students drop out, the number is meaningless. But my overall view is that education (on any level) should be measured by the improvement in knowledge/skills/competence/... it provides to students and not by its ability to classify students into those who pass and the rest.
In this view, ideal (but unachievable) drop out rate is zero as you make sure that only students that are a good fit for the program enlist and then you do your best to lead them to maximal achievements they are individually capable of.
In the real world, it is hard to know for both the student and the institution whether the program is a good fit. Also people and their priorities change over time. So I guess there are a few "valid" reasons for dropping out:

The student's life situation changes (e.g. has a child)
Although the studies proceed well, the student realizes that he/she wants to do something different with his/her life. This should not include the case when the student had incorrect information on what the study program is actually like.
Early in the program the student realizes that he/she is unable to fulfill the expectations of the program (that were known to him/her before enlisting)
The student behaved in some unacceptable manner and was asked to leave.

To me the goal is to have very few dropouts of this "valid" kind and exactly zero dropouts for other reasons. In particular I think that if students fail because they learn midway that your program is too hard for them or because the environment is too harsh or because their ideals of what the study program would look like were shattered, than it is a failure of the institution (although often the student is also at least partially responsible).

Per the first bullet, “unexpectedly” doesn’t seem a necessary qualifier. Even if the change was foreseen, the significance of the change could have been underestimated, leading student and/or institution to believe that the student could or would continue despite the change. Many new parents, for instance, planned on returning to work (of any kind) prior to actually having the baby, but wind up not doing so.

Interesting.  Most comments seem to agree with you that the "ideal" dropout rate is zero, and that the "realistic" target dropout rate should be pretty close to zero.  Given this, it seems quite shocking that (at least according to the data I've seen) the actual rate seems to be over 30% and in many cases around 50%.  This is a colossal disparity between desired and actual outcomes.  Do you suppose that means that even the "practical" near-zero rate is too optimistic, and inefficiencies and human foibles will always lead to significantly more dropouts for "invalid" reasons?

"If students fail because they learn midway that your program is too hard for them ... it is a failure of the institution" I disagree with this insofar as the information can be available and accurate but still have the student not expect the load. To use some made up numbers as an example, say a prospective student is currently working a job with a 40 hour workweek. They are then told by their future supervisor that they will realistically have to spend 50 hours each week for their course of study. The student thinks about this as 125% of their current workload and thinks that it is (1/2)

@DTR very manageable, but part-way through the program they realize that the extra 10 hours are much less efficient, much more exhausting, and have a much greater impact on other areas of their life than they were expecting. The university in this case gave full and accurate information, but the student wasn't actually able to use it. tl;dr - There are some things that you cannot really tell until you get into the work itself, and there's not much you can do about that as the student OR the university.

@DTR By "midway" I mean approximately after more than a year in the program. I think your case is included in the "early leaving" clause within the reasons I consider valid.

@MartinČerný Ah, that seems logical. Thanks for the clarification.

@KRyan You are right, I have removed the "unexpectedly" qualifier from the first bullet point.

@BrenBarn From extremely casual observation (I don’t have, am not pursuing, and have never pursued a PhD, I have only observations of numerous friends and colleagues who fit in one of those categories), I would guess that a lot of the disparity comes from simple failures of communication: the student and/or the institution failed to get a complete and accurate description of themselves through to the other. Considering that students are actively “selling themselves” (and so are many institutions), and also pressured to rationalize away any concerns they have and accept, this is no surprise.

it is a failure of the institution — That could be a failure of the institution.  Or it might indicate a willingness by the institution to take risks on students who might succeed, instead of accepting only applicants with 4.00 GPAs from MIT and Harvard.

As a dropout, this may be an anecdote, but I have observed that myself and almost everyone else who dropped out did so because of personal reasons (health, marriage, children, financial, etc). There was only one person who left the program after multiple failures of the qualifying exam.
The basic assumption was that everyone who has been accepted has met a certain bar so the program should not be too rigorous for them.

As a freshly minted PhD, I would suggest that the drop-out rate must be combined with more qualitative assessments, such as mentor conflicts, level of committee involvement, administrative entanglements, commitment level, technical difficulty (e.g., statistical background), study complexity, and much more.  While a drop-out rate gives you a summary statistic, or the "what", it does not give you the "why".   I suggest that most PhD candidates are more interested in why so that they can finish. For example, high or low drop out rates did not figure prominently in my seven year program.  Rather, I was more concerned with how I would complete the program, avoiding pitfalls along the way.  My mentor was quite instrumental in helping me sidestep many of those pitfalls.  For me, my mentor was key reason why I completed, although my commitment level also saw me through several pitfalls.

Dropout rate is a metric among others to evaluate a program. A dropout rate of zero would probably be best as only student who can complete the program would enlist. But in real-life, it will most likely not be zero because of many factors. The dropout can be because the program is hard, but also because of various other reasons such as the student changing career path, or anything else. Because of that, I don't think that it would be good to evaluate a program based on a single metric like the dropout rate. The dropout rate itself is influenced by other criteria such as the criteria for selecting students in the program, etc. One needs to see the global picture and consider many factors to evaluate a program.

I agree a program shouldn't be evaluated solely based on dropout rate.  My question is how to assess dropout rate, because once we have an idea of how to do that, we can combine it with other assessments of other aspects of the program.


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How do departments evaluate and update their course requirements?
To begin with the main question: how do academic departments evaluate their course requirements?  By that I mean, how do departments decide if they are requiring too many classes, not enough classes, not the right classes, etc.?  The question also could be generalized to "how do departments decide what classes to offer"?  I'm especially interested in evaluation of what courses should be required, but I'm also interested in how that interacts with the overall course offerings of the department (e.g., what might lead departments to reorganize classes to reduce overlap).
I anticipate that the answer will vary quite a bit depending on the size of the department, the field, the type of school, etc.  I welcome that variety.  What interests me most is whether there are established decision-making processes for this.  (For instance, is it something that is specifically looked at when a department undergoes external review, and if so, how exactly does the external review committee evaluate it?)  I'm interested particularly in coursework requirements for grad programs, but would be interested in relevant comparisons with undergrad programs as well.
The background: I graduated from a PhD program about a year ago and have a number of friends who are still in the program.  Over the last few years (beginning in my last two or three years and continuing to the present), there have been some shifts in the department in terms of the size of incoming cohorts and the funding decisions for the new students as well as ongoing funding for more senior students.  This has created an environment of worry and uncertainty among some grad students who fear that there is an increasing disconnect between the assumptions of the department funding process and the reality of student progress.  (Simply put, people worry that most students will run out of funding before they finish, because the funding is for X years but nearly everyone takes more than X years to finish the program.)  There is a perception among some of the students that one contributor to this problem is the heavy coursework load, both because it delays students from starting on their own research, and because logistical hurdles (e.g., not having the right classes offered when you need to take them) make it difficult to complete the requirements in the supposedly "normal" time.
I did a bit of informal research and found that the coursework requirements for my department, compared to those of many other departments at the school (some related to my department, some not). are substantially greater (in terms of number of units required) and less flexible (i.e., much more "you must take course X" and less "you must take one of these three courses").  The department's requirements are also somewhat heavier than those of departments in the same field at other comparable schools.
So what I'm curious about is, is this a reasonable approach to evaluating coursework requirements?  I don't mean to suggest that this alone would mandate changes; no doubt many kinds of information would be considered together.  But is it the sort of thing that departments (or external review committees) would do to get a sense of how reasonable the curriculum is?  Is it the sort of thing that, if known, would be expected to arouse concern among the faculty?  If not, what sort of thing would?  How do departments assess their course requirements, and what would make them think they should be changed?

This doesn't answer your question, but I think your friends would be entirely justified in bringing their concerns to the graduate director and/or to their advisors.

@Anonymous: That has actually been done.  As far as I saw, the only response was "the faculty want to keep the requirements the way they are".  Current students may no more, but as far as I saw there was no real explanation of how the faculty decided that.

Departments ought to be concerned about their graduation rates. If the rates are low, it is a good idea to find out why and make changes. This could be changes to the curriculum, it could be changes to the admissions policy, or any number of other things.
Benchmarking is certainly a reasonable approach to review the current rules, although niche marketing often gives incentives to introduce distinguishing features that are consciously pitched against the prevailing practices.
I presume your department has a curriculum committee. Request a meeting and see where that leads.

That's a good point.  Do you know what standard of comparison a department would use to decide whether their rates were "too low"?

I disagree that low graduation rates necessarily indicates a problem --- it might be a sign that department does not graduate students who are not competent in their field (in majority of the US universities, a C grade average indicates near total incompetence, but suffices to obtain a degree).

@BorisBukh: That depends on what "low" means (which is why I asked for clarification on that).  If "low" means "low relative to other comparable programs", then I think it would indicate a problem.

@BrenBarn Being different from majority is not a problem if the majority is wrong. The grade inflation, and the degree entitlement syndrome are problems where the majority is wrong.

@BorisBukh: Ok, but the question here is, how do you tell?  It is also possible that low graduation rates are a sign of unrealistic expectations, a toxic environment, poor administration, inadequate funding, etc.  The question I'm asking is how do you evaluate the requirements.

@BrenBarn My comment was not an answer your question. I only objected to the answer by user3697176 that low graduation rates necessarily require changes (the first sentence). That is all.  As you correctly say the reason might be a bad one, in which case is needed. Or it could be a good one.

@BorisBukh it might be a sign that department does not graduate students who are not competent in their field — But that's still a problem.  If a significant fraction of students in your program are failing out, there is a serious mismatch between your expectations and your admission standards.

@JeffE Good point, I did not think of the admission part. However, it does not invalid my point: predicting future performance in something that student never done before is very difficult , and is subject huge errors. In my opinion, many schools graduate a number of incompetent students (for various reasons: from compassion to ranking manipulation).

Here (Department of Informatics, more or less Software Engineering with a hearty dash of Computer Science) when recently reformulating the curriculum we started with the curriculum suggestions of ACM/IEEE, and worked from there to flesh out course definitions. Some courses are given by general requirements of the university (common science classes, for example). We also looked at curricula at other schools in Chile and elsewhere.
For graduates, the courses offered depend in part on the interests, research and specializations of the lecturers.


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Is there a publication that critically reviews the effectiveness of academic accreditation bodies?
It seems there is a general belief that when a university fails to meet some accreditation body's standards then the university is somehow less than genuine.

Is there any objective proof that accreditation produces excellence in higher education ?

I ask this because I see my university always trying to game the system. Little effort is placed towards the real goal of being a better university. Rather, we merely try to jump through whatever hoop has been placed by the accrediting body. Rather than trusting faculty to have the best idea of how to structure the university (in which we build our careers, so, you'd think you might trust us) we instead restructure things merely on the whim of an external body which does not know nearly as much about what is best for the university!
It seems to me, at many universities the assessment process is largely financial with no real attention to excellence in education. Faculty pretend to engage in the assessment process, but, we don't really care or respect the process because it:

reduces the autonomy of professors
it has half-informed "experts" trumping the opinion professors who are actually already performing real assessment all the time.

It is by now obvious to me that assessment at my university is actually damaging to academics! Is this a quirk of my institution (which values the input of faculty at a tragically sad rate) or is this common?
My larger question, is there a publication in which a critical review of accreditation bodies and how they fail in their supposed mission ?

My larger question, is there a publication in which a critical review of accreditation bodies and how they fail in their supposed mission ? This what lawyers call a leading question ...

I don't think even the accreditors would honestly say their job is to produce excellence.  It's more accurate to say that their job is to prevent incompetence.

@AlexanderWoo so they claim... but, at my institution, accreditation leads to incompetence. All of the meetings of my university are centered around meeting the demands of the accreditors. Consequently, we rarely have time for any sort of genuine introspection as an institution. When the accreditation body makes a demand we drop everything, ignore usual rules of changing rules for majors etc..., and make drastic changes without the reasoned approval of the faculty. The quickness of our response ought to raise red flags. But, no, they love us and even place us above other more real places!

@ConcernedHuman: It's no secret that the standards of accreditors are very very low, and they prize obvious evidence of meeting these very low standards over less obvious but equally valid evidence of meeting higher standards.  Ultimately, it's the fault of your institution, not the accreditors, that it doesn't value meeting a higher standard than that demanded by accreditation.  Accreditation is not meant to produce excellence, just ensure that a very very low bare minimum is met.


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How should degrees be listed in an e-mail signature?
I have the following degrees:

PhD in Information Technology (Computer Science concentration)
MS in Systems Engineering (MSE)
MS in Engineering Management (MEM)
BS in Computer Science

What would a proper e-mail signature look like?
Examples:
Dr. Bob Roberts
PhD IT, MSE, MEM

or
Dr. Bob Roberts
PhD Information Technology
MS Systems Engineering
MS Engineering Management
BS Computer Science

And it is generally regarded as incorrect to prefix your title and to repeat it after the name. Even with a single degree, you should either say "Dr. Bob Roberts" or "Bob Roberts, PhD". Saying "Dr. Bob Roberts, PhD" isn't good. So, if you really want to list all of your degrees, you should probably omit the title before your name. Aren't you going to include High School, Junior High, Elementary, and Kindergarden as well? It all seems a bit excessive. I think I would just stick with "Dr. Bob Roberts". Including the rest seems rather unhumble.

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There is no formal academic convention for email signatures, although your university or institution may have formatting guidelines. You can simply include as much or as little information as you want the recipient to know.
Personally, I think your name and position are sufficient and listing every degree you have is a bit redundant (and, as others have pointed out, pretentious). People will probably infer that you have a BS and MS if you also have a PhD.

I listed my degrees to communicate my area of expertise (mostly internally), I am in a VERY diverse school, where the PhD student sitting next to me, might be studying something completely different. So if it provides useful information, is that still problematic? Although I am now considering deleting that section, in light of your answer.

There are cultures where a MS is not a requirement for a PhD. This being said, for normal communication, I think using the Dr. title is enough.

@A.T.Ad: You don't seem to be the person asking the original question, but I would expect your official position to cover your 'area of expertise'. If you feel the need to specify, do so by specifying your position. Don't just rattle off all your degrees.

@A.T.Ad It's not necessarily problematic, it just has the potential to come off as trivially boasting. If it conveys useful information, I wouldn't be too concerned. For example, for a Professor of Ethics with an MS in Biology, listing both might help to inform people of diverse (relevant) experience. However, it's rather pointless for a Professor of Biology to list a PhD, MS and BS all in biology - also mentioning the additional degrees doesn't add anything, except perhaps ego padding. -- Rule of thumb: only list them if they indicate expertise not implied by the most advanced title.

@A.T.Ad: Do you really think people would go on to read your signature to find out your area of expertise? Just put that on your website.

@R.M. Just out of curiosity, have you ever actually acted on such information that was included in a signature? Generally when I'm emailing someone I already know who they are and have a reason to email them. If I want to find someone who has expertise in area X I wouldn't send a mail to everyone and then check their signatures to find whom I'm looking for.

@Voo Good point. (Though following that argument to the logical conclusion, any degree/position listed in the signature is superfluous.) I was thinking less about searching for someone with expertise, and more emailing in one context which touches on another (e.g. when talking about bioethics with an ethics expert, discovering they also had an MS in biology may be useful) -- but true, I've never personally been in a situation where such an email sig was useful.

This is very culture-dependent. In Germany (and Austria, according to one of the answers) only listing four qualifications might be considered subversively informal. On the other hand, in the USA it is probably four too many.

@Roland : But that is different from UK/US where the "Dr." would not be included.

It's supposed to be an email signature, not a CV. "Dr Bob Roberts" already says that you have a PhD. The rest is redundant, because having a PhD implies that you probably have a master's degree (which nobody cares about, because you have a PhD), and almost certainly have a bachelor's degree (which nobody cares about, because you have a master's). And, hey, you probably got some qualifications in high school, too (which nobody cares about, because you have a bachelor's).
So the only reason for including all that stuff in your signature is tooting your horn. And, in an academic context, it looks crass because you're drawing attention to the obvious. "Oh, look at me, I have a PhD and a master's and a bachelor's!" Well, er, so does everybody else on the academic and research staff.  That level of qualifications is implied by the fact that you work here.

If you'll allow me, i'd like to play devil's advocate.  Don't list your degrees in your email signature.  The signature is there to format email more like a letter.  It's not the place to communicate your experience.  I'd recommend setting up a personal resume website or a linkedin page to showcase your experience.
Allow your message content to communicate your command of a subject, don't rest on your letters.

+1 I usually sign my e-mails "Patricia", unless I am being really formal, when I use "Patricia Shanahan", but just for this occasion: Patricia Shanahan, PhD, MSc, BSc, ARCS.

@PatriciaShanahan It's good to know that you treat Academia.SE as a really formal environment. :-D

@PatriciaShanahan Today I learned: the level of formality we attribute to commenting on SE is directly related to the naming conventions of our usernames. :) Apparently you, David, and myself are all quite formal; chuck, not so much.

I am advocating this - the default should be to keep emails as informal as possible and appropriate.

I want to give a different perspective.
Do what is common practise in your institution/region (i. e. what your collegues or other comparable people do).
Here in Austria, it seems to be common practise to list all your titles (maybe except for BSc/BA if you have a MSc/MA because people are not so used to these two titles). I often see multiple doctor titles and honoris causa titles in signatures.
In my view, many people here see a signature (if there is any) as a place where you state your "official" name - and, at least here, this includes your titles. "Bob" in a signature would certainly be viewed as unprofessional and strange. (But then again, I am not sure if the commenters suggesting writing "Bob" are serious or joking.)
While many people on this site view many titles as "bragging", not including them  can certainly interpreted as an insult to the others - like you are saying "you guys including so many titles are pretentious".
So in short, do what your environment does.
However, I have never ever seen someone stating the field they received their titles in. (Although there are titles like "BA (FH)" (FH meanging Fachhochschule, "university of applied sciences"), which appear sometimes. Probably they have to be stated in exact this way.)

The advice to do what other people in the same situation does is excellent. But I think somebody would have to be almost paranoid to interpret somebody not including something in their signature as a judgement on those who do. What next? "OMG, he's wearing a different coloured shirt to me! It must be an insult!"

Yeah it's culture dependent. Using just your first name in professional circumstances is quite common in the US, but seems incredibly weird to Germans and Austrians (so no, not a joke to just sign with "Bob"). That said I wouldn't use my titles in emails or conversations, it's more something to put on formal documentation or requests where it really does make a difference (certainly use every title you have when trying to rent an apartment..). There is a bit of a generational divide too it seems to me.

Slightly different German perspective. Listing titles is rather uncommon here, but it is common to give rather more details on your institute. For business, full company name, address, phone and tax number and possibly trade registry number etc. are often mandatory. So "blacksaibot, head of IT, company X" would need to give more details on X.

Exactly! A year ago I registered at a GP in Czech Republic and now after a year a nurse came to me, "don't you have another title?". Medicine here is all about the titles. It is strange to be called a doctor when you are a patient, but that is how they do that here. They expect all the titles.

Are we speaking about e-mail signatures in academia or in industry / rest of the world? There is probably a difference between them. (And, by the way, my "use Bob" was serious.)

@BigMadAndy: well, I think in industry a single Dr. + field (unless position implies field) is quite sensible. My research affiliation email signature gives neither Dr. nor chemist as the institute name implies what kind of shop I speak. Similarly, were I "Dr. C B, head of chemistry lab" I wouldn't put the Dipl.-Chem. But "Dr. C. B., CEO" doesn't tell people that we can dive into subject matter so my business card says that I'm C. B. and (in small print) Dipl.-Chem. and Dr. rer. nat (but omits the CEO forbalance). Felt already bit awkward at first. Long CamelCase lists I mostly met in UK.

Either:

Dr. Bob Roberts

or

Bob Roberts, Ph.D.

unless one of two things obtain.  First, your organization has a set of internal customs or formal rules regarding the signature.  Second, if your degrees are in different areas.  For example,

Bob Roberts
Ph.D. Management Science
MS Nursing

For interrelated fields, the Ph.D. supersedes the master's degree and ceases being relevant.  It is also relevant to show certifications that are not superseded by the doctorate.

Nice; Brief and concise!

Your signature indicates how you want the person you're writing to address you.  If you want be called by your first name, sign "Bob" or "Bob Roberts".  If you want to be called "Dr. Roberts", sign "Dr. Bob Roberts".
No one is going to call you "Dr. Bob Roberts PhD IT, MSE, MEM", and what do you really hope to accomplish with that signature?

Another way to do this would be to just include your linkedin profile link. That way anyone interested in learning about your credentials can just click on there. Something else I see common in Academic settings is to link to their personal webpage for the department. That page usually lists their resume, educational credentials, what paper they may have presented in the past, etc. Ofcourse ensure to setup the webpage and add all the relevant information there.

I never had an email signature. Can't think of something to put there that the person I'm communicating with doesn't know already or can easily find out if interested in having that information.
When something is relevant to the other party I'll mention it in the email, not on the signature. If exchanging more than a few emails, having long signatures becomes annoying (IMO).
As for the question, I'd keep the signature as simple as possible, e.g. John Doe, PhD. This way you're not adding additional lines to your name/signature combo, while still informing everyone that you have a PhD and everything else that comes beforehand.

You can list your other degrees if they are relevant to your work. For example, if I were an art therapist, a BA in fine art is relevant to my work, so I'd list it. But don't list the BS in Psychology that led to the MS. And you would list any licensure first, if you have it, such as MFT.

While in grad school I was told by my dissertation advisor that in formal correspondence you should not refer to yourself by Dr.  The proper form would be:
Bob Roberts, Ph.D. in   and not,
Dr. Bob Roberts.
Medical doctors seem to violate this convention quite frequently though.

That's because medical doctors are MDs, not PhDs. Also this is very culture specific; in the UK, writing Dr Bob Roberts is far more common than Bob Roberts, PhD. Or, as others have pointed out, just plain old Bob.

May I guess that you (or rather, your dissertation adviser) are American?   Certainly in Commonwealth English, it's normal (and correct) to write "Dr." before someone's name, regardless of what type of doctorate they hold.

Yes, American.  The advice applied to self-references only.  Referring to someone else as Dr. would of course be perfectly normal.  I guess his point was that you would not introduce yourself as, "Hello, I'm Mr. Bob Roberts", so the same logic should apply to Dr. as a prefix.  These are by definition English honorifics intended to address a person with respect.  Therefore use in the case of a self-reference would seem inappropriate.  I can see why at a medical center people would refer to themselves as Dr. in order to distinguish themselves from the nurses and janitors.

You shouldn't put any of that in your email.  There is a general correlation of Ph.D.s who call themselves Dr. or use the ,Ph.D. being the weaker ones.  Even if not true in your case, it will still come across that way.  And not just to the general public, but other Ph.D. holders.  (Same thing applies to retired military ranks unless you are writing a letter to the editor.)
First Last
(optional) position and/or org
cell phone number
email
You include the cell so people can call you.  Lots of people use email sigs for finding phone numebrs and get annoyed by others who don't list it.  (Of course if it is an email you don't want the cell included, edit it out.)  Include the actual email since many email programs or physical printouts list your name in the header but not the email adress

I've seen
Fred Davidson, M.D. Ph.D
which i personally like because it's all in one line and the fact that the md and the phd are together makes it look more powerful rather than separated.

This is something of a different case. the MD and PhD degrees both lead to the title "Dr" and, in the context of medical practice or research, it's good to distinguish "I'm an physician" from "I'm an academic" from "I'm both a physician and an academic."

authors: Vladimir F Героям слава


text:
What can first author do if co-author who submitted paper put himself down as corresponding author without first author's permission?
N is the first author for a paper (PhD work) and there are three co-authors, B, C and D.
B and C are from the same department and the author D is from different department but they are all from the same institution. B had the biggest contribution in terms of the experimental work and N spent a long time writing the paper.
The paper was sent to all for revision. After the paper is ready, the co-author submits the manuscript considering herself as the corresponding author without the first author permission. The problem is that she gave an incorrect email address of the first author to the journal.
Is this situation illegal? Can the first author contact the journal and at least change his correct email address?

Illegal??? That seems pretty extreme.

Can I do something about this?

Contact the editor, if you don#t have the editors info and your co-author will not forward it to you, contact the editor-in-chief.

Isn't it logic that the person submitting the manuscript is the corresponding author?

You don't say what field you're in.  In the life sciences fields I'm familiar with, "Corresponding author" has no prestige or value attached to it, but is merely an indication that this person is doing the administrative work associated with processing the paper, handling requests for reprints (almost nonexistent now), etc.  Instead of assuming malice, why not simply ask the coauthor to correct your email for you?

I have received the submission confirmation but on an email address that is temporary. I asked her to edit my details but she said it is too late now and you don't need to do anything as I am the corresponding author. She really annoyed me with doing this. She knows that I started the process of submitting but she did not give me the chance to finish it myself.

Why did you want to finish it yourself? Do you think there's some prestige or value attached to it? If her understanding is that "Corresponding author" is a minor administrative role, then she could have taken it over as a favor to you. You seem upset far out of proportion to the issue.

Who of B, C, D, is the submitting co-author?

I did not understand what you meant Walter

Probably the reason the submitter sees no reason to change the email is because it really doesn't matter. It won't be in the publication in any way, it's just for you to receive emails about the publication process. I think you are way more concerned about this than you need to be. If you are losing access to that email address imminently and can't have mail forwarded from that address you could ask the editor to update it for further correspondence.

Legality doesn't really come into this, but academic ethics most certainly does.
The real problem here is that the paper was submitted without a clear agreement amongst the authors that it was ready for submission and about who would submit.
From your story and comments, I assume that you are "N", but you don't say which of co-authors B, C, or D submitted. I am guessing that one of those co-authors is your advisor, and I believe that's who you need to have a conversation with.

If your advisor was the one who submitted (or told the other co-author to submit), they may have had good reason for doing so, or may have thought that you had already consented to submission.
If your advisor didn't think the paper was ready to submit, they need to know that it has happened so that they can help defend both of your interests.

Depending on what happens in your conversation with your advisor, there are three basic paths from here:

It was a misunderstanding of some sort or a basically harmless error, and nothing needs to be done,
The journal editor can be contacted to change paper meta-data, or
The article needs to be withdrawn and resubmitted at a later date.

From what you have written so far, however, it is impossible to tell which is the appropriate course.

I assume that your field is one of those where "first author" is important (indicates how much work N contributed) but "corresponding author" just means the person willing to handle correspondence about the paper. If that's correct, and if the order of authors wasn't changed, and if I were the first author N, then I would be happy that B or C or D has volunteered to take over the work of dealing with future correspondence.
If "gave an incorrect email address ... to the journal" means that an incorrect address will be published in the paper, then I would write to the editor to try to have it corrected. If, on the other hand, it only means that the journal can't reach me by email, then I wouldn't worry about it, because the journal is supposed to contact the new corresponding author, not me.


text:
Is it possible to publish a paper when the research was done many years earlier?
Is it possible to publish a paper when the research was done a number of years ago?
For example, can I write a paper from my Masters thesis which was done in 2011 and try to publish it in 2017?

what is the domain? what does your thesis talking about? does it deal with the timely manners issue? ...

Hi @Asmat, welcome to Academia.SE. We prefer questions that could be useful to a range of people, rather than dealing very specifically with your circumstances. Therefore, I have edited your question to emphasise the more general question. However, if you don't like my edits you can "rollback" to your original version by using the "edit" button.

At a minimum, you will need to update the related work section to take into account relevant papers published in the intervening years. After doing that, you should be able to tell whether the paper still advances published knowledge enough to be publishable.

Yes, IF the research is still relevant and novel.
When you publish a research paper you never write when was the research performed, you merely describe the research and explain why it is relevant. If the research is still a new/different method, then it doesn't matter when you did it. No one is going to ask. If the method was novel then, but now several people have published about it and you can not add anything to the current literature, then it is not worth publishing.
Just follow the same criteria that you would use if the research was done last night to consider if its worth of publication.

"you never write when the research was performed" - this is field dependent. In my field (ecology) it is very common to mention when data were collected since temporal fluctuations are often found in wild populations.

@user2390246 but then the research may no longer be relevant.

@user2390246 If I do not understand wrong, you do not write when the research is conducted, but you are giving full information about the data.  You may as well have processed the data 2~5 years later, as it happens a lot with this type of research. Do you generally say that, or do you just say when is the data from?

@AnderBiguri Yes, that is true, we would give the year(s) of data collection but not when the data were analysed. To be clear, I completely agree with your general recommendation, just wanted to point out that in some cases the reader does get some information on when the research was carried out.

@Walter Not necessarily, as in ecology having historical data about an issue is worthwhile. Heck, there is an effort to transcribe and annotate old 19th century ships logs, as that gives a record of what the climate was back then. What the historical record of weather/ecology was like back in 2011 hasn't been invalidated since, and provides a valuable resource for people attempting to compare it to what's happening in 2017, 2035, etc.

http://astro.ic.ac.uk/bmay/home Dr. Brian May is a great example of old research being published later.  Dr. May completed most of his research in the 1970s, but was distracted by other employment (the rock band Queen) and finished his doctorate in 2007.

In addition to Ander Biguri's answer:  Yes, check the relevance of your intended publication against the current literature, as you would do for a publication about "contemporary research" performed recently.  Equally check to which extent you may / have to cite your master thesis as literature reference, for example if it deposited on a open-access repository.
Such a delays happened in the past, for example because the results were judged of military importance. H. C. Browns publications eventually leading to a widespread use of boranes as reducing agents in organic chemistry are one example, as some precursors were suitable high-density materials foreseen for rocket engines:

(source, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 1953, 75, 186–190; doi: 10.1021/ja01097a049).
Or an other (doi 10.1021/ja01097a055) in the same journal, citing a thesis at the University of Chicago submitted in 1946, expressing his hopes that (in 1953) "It is anticipated that this article will soon be published in a more accessible form."
Instead of an embargo, a considerable delay between recording the research data and publication may occur even today.  Imagine, for example, you want to publish your results in a journal after successfully filing for a patent application.  Hence, in agreement with your patent attorney, you may send the compuscript to the publisher to gain "academic priority", but with the request to delay the publication intentionally up to a date that is convenient for the patent.