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Are single author publications given more weight in math hiring?
Suppose candidate A has only published alone, and in an alternate universe candidate B has an identical list of publications, most of which are with coauthors. All else being equal, would a typical hiring committee rate A higher?
I suspect the answer depends highly on the field; I'm especially interested in (pure) math.

Why the alternate universe?

The answer may depend in part on who the coauthors are.  In math at least, if candidate B's PhD advisor is a a coauthor on most of those publications, then candidate A would certainly look better.  If candidate B's coauthors are peers, the situation looks rather different.

@gerrit: The point of this phrasing is to imagine that two candidates are exactly the same except for the soloness/jointness of their authorship.  This is not possible in "just one universe"...

Since the order of authorship is alphabetical in most math journals, sole authorship conveys more information than it does in other fields where the first author likely had the greatest intellectual contribution. Perhaps this is unrelated, but my guess is it has something to do with why lack of co-authors may matter in math.

Things clearly depend on the field. In biology, I think that single authored paper are usually only reviews and might be casually discounted; they at least may look very weird. On the other extreme, I heard that in some social sciences the only things that gives you real credit are solo papers, chapters and mostly books. Fundamental mathematic is somewhat in between, as pointed out by Pete Clark.

All else being equal, solo papers can only be weighted more highly than joint papers in hiring decisions.  This is probably especially true at the very top: e.g. a joint Inventiones or Annals paper makes your application look fantastic.  A solo publication in either of these journals is a golden ticket for many academic jobs.
Things get much more complicated when one tries to determine how much more to weight solo papers than joint papers.  To the best of my knowledge few departments or universities have hard-and-fast rules or even written guidelines about this, so much of this evaluation goes on in the minds of the individual evaluators.  The truth is that in some situations jointly authored papers will count to exactly the same degree as solo authored papers, and in other situations the existence of coauthors will cause the work to be substantially discounted.
There is a dramatically increasing prevalence of joint papers in the mathematical profession.  Thirty years ago they were quite rare; and they are even more common now than at the beginning of my career, which was not much more than ten years ago.  There are now, for instance, certain conferences and workshops in which several people sign up in advance to work on a certain problem under the guidance of a senior mathematician.  And then everyone who came to the workshop gets their name put on the paper, even if everything they did was under the guidance of someone else.  This is a model much closer to that of the laboratory sciences than what used to be common in mathematics.  In my opinion, it is time for the profession as a whole and various groups within the profession to put down in writing some feelings about the merits of joint papers.  Of course this will be hard to do since the matter is so complicated: it matters whether your coauthors are "senior" or "junior" to you, it matters whether they have supervised you, it matters what percentage of your papers are joint and whether your papers are always joint with the same coauthors....
Sometimes I see certain publications listed on young people's CV's and think "I find it unlikely that they had a significant intellectual contribution to that work."  That's a problem both ways: i.e., people may be wrongly evaluating the merits of this type of work in either direction!

This situation is very complicated.  First, there's no hard and fast rule as different mathematicians have different opinions.  Second, it really matters how individual facts (like whether one paper is coauthored or singly authored) fit into a larger picture.
People want to hire candidates who have demonstrated that they have their own research program and their own direction.  Coauthored papers can hurt with this.  This is especially true if a candidate has too many papers coauthored with their advisor, or almost no singly authored paper, or too many papers coauthored with a single more senior person, or all papers coauthored with the same person.  (Of course, other factors like letters can counteract against this narrative.)
On the flip side, people also want candidates who are influential on their field.  Coauthored papers are one way to show that other people are interested in your research program.  (Of course there's other ways to demonstrate this, like giving talks at great places or letter writers say you're influential on them.)
In general my impression is that a paper with n authors counts as less than a singly authored paper but as much more than 1/n of a singly authored paper, and that in some sense the perfect situation is to both have effective collaborations and also do good work solo.

I agree: a joint publication with coauthors who are not obviously senior seems to count much closer to 1-epsilon than to 1/n.  It is less clear that it should be counted in this way, but as you (and I) say, things quickly become complicated when one tries to work out what the rules should actually be.

This depends not only on the field, but also on the institution doing the hiring.  At some places, a joint publication and a sole-authored publication are identical in terms of "credit" toward promotion decisions.  At the other extreme, other institutions consider a three-authored paper as one-third credit.    There are many in between as well.  Truly elite places don't care about how many papers or the authorship, but whether you've amazed the world.
Further, if the publication record is substantially more or less than expectations for the position, the authorship doesn't matter.  A place that expects its hires to have a dozen papers won't be impressed by an applicant with 5, even if they're sole-authored.  A place that  expects one or two will be delighted with the same 5, no matter how many authors.


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Doing masters thesis in another institute
Is it possible to do this? If I find a research group/researcher working on something I like and I just want to do my thesis there. Is it necessary that

I have to go there as an exchange student OR
I will have to enroll in their masters program?

I suppose the only way to do what I am asking about it via an exchange program,but is there any other way?

Your school has regulations as who can be your supervisor. Usually it can be whoever around the world with with high enough academic rank, but you'll have to ask your department for clarification.

This depends strongly upon what university you're attending now, and where you want to do your research. For instance, in Germany, students are allowed to do a master's thesis anywhere in the world, but they are responsible for organizing this themselves. Other schools and departments in other countries may have more restrictive policies.
An exchange program may or may not be necessary, but this is entirely dependent on the specific policies of both the school you're attending and the school or institute you'd like to do your thesis work at. The best guidance I can give you is to first ask the graduate students' office or "graduate officer" of your current department to ask what the relevant regulations are for your home institute. Then talk to the other institute. Of course, start such a process well in advance of when you want to do the thesis work; a semester at the minimum, a year is more strongly recommended, as it may take several months to organize the required paperwork and visas (if you're planning on traveling abroad to do the thesis).

Exchange student
I am writing my masters thesis as an exchange student at another university but it is not necessary to enrol as a student at the other university (like aeismail mentioned). If you need a scholarship then you might want to look for a possibility as an exchange student but it has also additional advantages to go as an exchange student. You get informed by the student administration of the university about several topics.
Compatibility
The most important thing is to ask first at your study administration/students office and afterward to find a supervisor for discussing with him the next steps. The thesis has to be compatible with your home universities restrictions.
Where to search
You can then search for a compatible thesis and research topic.
It depends on the university how they publish the open postions, research projects and theses topics.
Most research groups have their own homepage where they publish open positions or topics for a research project/thesis. You can also write them a polite email to ask for an project you are interested in.
Alternative places
There are also some independent institutes or even companies that provide writing a Masters or even PhD thesis (dependent on your field of research) on behalf of them.

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Are Undergraduates allowed to collaborate with other students for their dissertation research?
I'm not sure if this is common practice or not, but much like how we see co-authorship in research papers, I was wondering if an undergrad would be allowed to collaborate with other students (possibly from other institutions) for their research project?

Yes !
Undergraduates are definitely allowed to collaborate with other students (undergraduate/graduate) for their senior thesis/research project/dissertation etc.
Of course, the degree to which they can successfully collaborate depends on many things including their faculty adviser.
For instance, as an undergraduate I collaborated with students from Civil Engineering/Construction Management and used some of the results we obtained in my undergraduate thesis.
Currently, I am a doctoral candidate and I have worked with undergraduates in the past whose thesis has sprouted from the results of our active collaboration in a project.

Could someone please explain the downvote on this answer please?

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Is it unethical to submit an older paper to a conference and then update it after acceptance?
I have had a paper accepted for a conference this summer, which presents the preliminary results of my PhD research. However, I'd like to present my final results at another conference in the fall, the deadline for which is in a few weeks, and which requires a full paper submission. My question is: would it be unethical to submit the first paper (in a re-structured form) in the hope that it will get accepted for the later conference, and then subsequently update the results before the final deadline?

"May I submit a paper to another conference that is essentially the same as a paper that is already published or accepted for publication?"

NO *

"May I substantially change the content of an accepted conference paper after peer review?"

NO *
* Unless it is disclosed to, and permitted by, the PC/editor.

Is the first "NO" true in this absoluteness? For instance, preprints on arXiv seem to be okay for many venues, also workshop participations, and maybe even recent/not yet released journal publications (of longer versions). Should not the reviewers/editors decide this? (Obviously, you have to state clearly where your work has appeared or is going to appear.)

@Raphael In my area (computer science), putting something on ArXiv isn't "publishing" but just "making public". Indeed, FOCS actively encourages authors to put the full version on ArXiv. Conferences might be OK with material that has been submitted to a journal or even accepted and not yet published; but it's safest to submit the journal version only after the conference paper has been accepted.

@DavidRicherby By the very definition of the word "publish" is "to make publically availble" (although ODAL suggests a "sell" component). Maybe (some) academics have other connotations because only certain publications give credit. I have heard of conferences (and journals) that do not accept work published (or uploaded, if you insist) to arXiv, so apparently both views exist. In any case, I think we can agree that a simple, unequivocal "NO" does not even begin to answer the question.

@Raphael Neither "NO" is true in absoluteness, I added a caveat to both.

@Raphael I know that "publish" means, literally, to make public. However, when journals say they won't consider material that has already been published, they do not mean "made public on ArXiv" (at least in my field); they mean "published by another journal or similar thing."

To add to @ff524's absolutely correct answer, you can still submit to that second conference.  All you need to do is cite your first paper, state that this paper only adds results A,B,C.  It is possible that the modest additions to your first paper are enough to merit publication on their own; however you must be honest and let the editors/referees decide this.
In short, you may submit your updated paper, provided you are completely honest about its differences with the previously published work.  If indeed those differences are trivial (as suggested by the title of the question), then obviously this is pointless.

provided you are completely honest about its differences with the previously published work AND provided you submit the fully updated work with all the new content for review, rather than adding it later after peer review.

ff524's answer is true for the general case. There are two exceptional cases where you will be allowed, or actually required, to make substantial changes to the content. Note that none of them will happen because you want to add a bit more.
First, your paper might be put into a gatekeeping process. In this case, the acceptance is conditional on making certain changes and the reviewers being happy about these changes at a later reviewing stage.
Gatekeeping only occurs when the program committee requests it; you can't trigger it (and don't want to). It only allows you to make the changes the reviewers requested from you (normally to provide better argumentation for your conclusions, or to describe your empirical methods in your detail), not to include any results you forgot about or didn't have at the beginning.
The second case is if you find an error in your research which renders your paper wrong. In this case, you should contact the program committee, inform them of the error, and offer to retract the paper. If you have the improved results, and they are not completely changing the main statement of the paper, the program committee may allow you to keep the paper in the running, but will require you to rewrite the parts based on the mistaken results.

It is completely unethical to substantially change a conference paper after acceptance, just as it would be completely unethical for a used car salesman to substitute a different car after you'd agreed to buy. The programme committee accepted the first version, based on the advice of the reviewers; they did not even see the second version. If the same thing happened in a journal version, the second version would be sent back to the referees but there is no second round of reviewing for conferences.
Honestly, I'm worried that you're even asking this. It suggests that, in your mind, the primary goal has become publication, rather than doing good research.

Ad first paragraph: is it not the editor's job to catch such cases? Making changes to the accepted version is often prudent (if only to incorporate the reviewers' feedback) so the editor has to roughly check whether reviewed and final version match or, if not, decide if they'll accept the updated version anyway. I'll say that authors should be a) completely open and forward about this and b) very careful.

Ad second paragraph: that's obviously an opinion, but one I share. But then, in some fields pleasing The Reviewers seems to be somewhat orthogonal to doing good research, too, so maybe there is some selective pressure which is detrimental to professional ethics.

I like the used car salesman analogy!

@Raphael "is it not the editor's job to catch such cases?" Sure, just like it's the police's job to catch murderers. But my advice to people would be "Don't commit murder", not "Murder people if you want; the police will sort out the mess." Here, my advice is "Don't substantially change the paper after acceptance" not "Change it if you want; the editors will sort out the mess."

@DavidRicherby "It suggests that, in your mind, the primary goal has become publication, rather than doing good research." I am aware that this is how it appears. However, my motivation comes from my desire to present (and receive feedback on) what will be the main outcomes of my PhD thesis.  But the time frame involved means that I don't yet have those results. Judging from the response, honesty (and transparency) appears to be the best policy. Such is life!


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Should I choose easy modules?
So I'm in my third year of university and I'm at the point where I have to choose my modules for next year. This is a simple question, but I really wish I asked it a long time ago because I have no idea of the answer.
Should I pick modules I know I can easily pass that will get me a better final grade but probably won't teach me anything OR should I pick modules that will be more challenging for me, will give me a lower final grade than if I picked the easy ones but with the benefit of teaching me a great deal?
I suppose at the root of it the question is am I at university solely to strengthen my future career prospects or am I here for the purpose of learning. Regardless of my answer to that, I'd like to know what people advise regarding module picking.
Bare in mind that I don't say "easy" modules because they're easy but because I practice a lot of the required skills in my free time so I have experience. They will still have the same value as the hard modules if an employer were looking at them.

This may be obvious, but the answer is it depends. My undergraduate university had some courses aimed at math PhDs that were open to undergrads. Any undergrad who dared take them did really badly. In my final year only one of the undergrads who took one particular course achieved a passing grade. We all learned a lot, but I still have a fail on my transcript.

You mentioned that the "easy" courses are the ones in which you already have experience. If you take those classes, the course work will be redundant and will not boost your knowledge. On the other hand, it seems that you are also concerned about your overall GPA.
Ask yourself what you want to do. Then look for classes that come under the umbrella of 'what I want to do'. Eliminate the courses from that umbrella that fall into the "easy" bucket and the "very tough" bucket (which might dampen your GPA) and pick from among the rest.

Sounds like a Venn diagram needs to be drawn ;)

Short answer: Go neither for easy nor for challenging courses but for courses that interest you the most.

I like this answer, but tell me why I should pick courses that interest me the most over courses that would strengthen a future profession in a related field and teach me a lot?
Math at sixth form (ages 16-18 optional courses in the UK) never interested me but if I didn't pick it my career path would be hugely limited and would've made my CV/Résumé a lot weaker.

The way I see it, you have two options: go down the "money" path, taking sure-choices that might not interest  you and you might force yourself to do them, but will give you an edge at getting better grades, jobs, and salaries. But that way you risk ending up at a job you don't like, that seems like necessary everyday torture. Or you could go and do what you like even if you can't make money as easily. End up doing something that's your passion, enjoying your work and what you have. And eventually become good enough in what you are passionate about that people will pay well for your expertise.

What do you want to do afterwards? Academia or industry? What is your field? From what you say, "easy" modules would be the ones that interest you, so taking them will mean having formal training and proven experience. On the other hand, certain skills can be proven in many ways (you can show you know how to program by making contributions in open software projects). The formal training will allow you to get a much deeper understanding of the topic, provided the teaching and the course are good, of course.
The question is what is more valuable? Wide range of skills or deep knowledge of a few?
And yet another point to consider is how are your grades so far. Consider if you can afford loosing a few points, and what difference it will make. Perhaps the difference between a class 1 and 2.1 is bigger than a 2.1 and a 2.2.

If you work in a country that only cares about GPA (for things that aren't internships) then no fault to you if you try to maximize GPA. However, your goal should be to be exposed to as much theory as possible, with the highest difficulty possible; while aiming to understand and be able to use just a small fraction of that. The more you can use, (i.e. practically) the better. GPA can be quite useless.
Take the hardest courses you can without failing out of your program. Study such that (while you may not do well on tests), you'll remember this stuff after you graduate.

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"We" when I mean "I" or should I say "the author"?
I am currently working on my thesis and facing the problem of choosing between "I", "We" or "the author" when I want to talk about things I defined, decided etc. I am the only author of my thesis, but using "I" is not very common, is it? I saw quite a lot of work of single-authors that used "We" when referencing to themselves.
"The author" seems nicer to me, but it is not common?
Any recommendations or remarks?

Short answer It varies. Ask your advisor!
According to my advisor (Social Sciences, using APA style manual), 'the author' is always correct, and the use of 'I' hurts the eyes and the sensibilities!
Although many style guides now permit the use of 'I', especially for a single-author paper, you will find that many academics have been taught to avoid 'I'. They may express strong dislike for the use of 'I', and your work may subtly and unconsciously be considered 'less good' because of your pronoun use. 'The author' is always considered correct. The bigger problem is probably learning how to write fluidly and concisely with this construction. Vary your sentence structure, and absolutely do NOT begin every other sentence with 'the author found/did/decided'!

"We" is correct, even if you are the only author, by "we" you express "me and you, my dear reader". Therefore it's completely fine to use it in your thesis.

Could the downvoter please explain me what is wrong with the answer, so that I can improve it? Thank you.

I think this may vary by field. I've been told not to use "we" on a single-author paper.

In "We corrected for overfitting by performing a ..." in a single author paper the use of "we" to mean "me and the reader" is clearly absurd, as the reader can't be included in this process in the same way as he could when describing a derivation or so.


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I have a degree but it isn't actually what it looks like it is. How do I list it on my CV?
Due to various department sortings and organizations, I have a degree that is, functionally, a computer science degree but because it belonged to the College of Mathematics, the degree is formally "Mathematics".
Unfortunately this leads to many employers thinking that I have a mathematics background when the reality is far from this: I don't think like a mathematician or particularly enjoy its work.
Is there something I can do with my CV to reduce this bias? Is it as simple as changing "Mathematics" to "Computer science" even if it isn't the official title of the degree? Are there other options?

Hello @Multifix, and welcome to Academia StackExchange! I have converted your short one-line answer into a comment. Maybe you could expand it into a fully-fledged answer?

You think you have it bad? The full title of my degree is “B.Sc. Honours within the Natural Sciences programme in Computer Science and Mathematics.” :-)

I guess in your CV you have a section for the degrees and another one for the experience, the experience should clarify this. BTW :D

I would list it directly with the degree. I have a similar issue in that my degree is Geodetic Science, but my focus was in (at the time) computer-assisted mapping, now known as GIS. People try to call me a geodesist, but I'm not really. I would use something like:
M.S. Mathematics (specialty: Computer Science)
Edit: I finally remembered what the various tracks were called in our department--a concentration, not a specialty. Other synonyms include focus, even research or research topic.

I like this option: doesn't change the official title, but still concise.

I do this with my Open University degree.  Officially it's a "BSc Open", which is incredibly vague, so I list it as "BSc Open (Software Engineering)".  Never had a problem.

In your CV, state that you have a degree in "Mathematics, specializing in Computer Science" or something like that.  If you're sure it's not misleading, you could even say you have a degree in Computer Science from the College of Mathematics, Whatever University.
In either case, explain in your covering letter.

This is a very relevant problem for majority of the engineering school graduates in Sweden. Based on the Bologna Process all MSc level programs are essentially cut into two bits; one that roughly corresponds to a Bachelor's (approx 3 years) and one that corresponds to Master's (approx 2 years). So far so good, the issue is that you get 1 diploma and you are supposed to have 1 title however there are numerous ways you can do your 3+2.
What they have done to amend that is to formulate it as:

M.Sc. in Engineering X with specialization in Y

which could be something you do in your CV as well.

PS: I have the same issue even for my PhD, my group is part of a department that has a much different focus compared to what I do. So much so that there is pretty much zero overlap between my departmental association and my day-to-day research.
Even there the I will be getting a PhD title with a description along the lines of:

PhD in [dept_name] on Bioinformatics and Systems Biology

Of course one would and should write more about the actual work regarding the PhD, like the thesis title, and a short description of what it's about.
It really is a clumpy way to describe what you "are" and what you have "done" but it's getting harder and harder to define and classify research as fields start merging into one another.

It would be a huge waste of effort to get a PhD and then just write "PhD in [dept name] on Bioinformatics and Systems Biology" on your CV. At the very least, give the thesis title and a one-sentence description of what it was about! Having a PhD means that you're the world's foremost expert on some (admittedly tiny) subject. The least you owe yourself is to say what that subject is.

@DavidRicherby I meant the actual name of the title, not on the CV. Of course one would write more about the thesis on a CV :) Thanks for the clarification pointer. Also regarding being an expert in a small field, it might be easier said than done see: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/10798/interpretation-of-a-phd-degree-in-a-very-broad-interdisciplinary-field

I would suggest, for your CV/Resume, that you present yourself as a Computer Scientist and you present the University up-front, as opposed to the college, and that you frame the PhD as being in Computational Mathematics, and then list the topics that you studied, classes that you took, and technologies that you used in getting your degree (depending on how you prefer to frame it), and then finally your actual degree. e.g.

Studied algorithms, numerical methods, and symbolic methods.
Took Monte Carlo methods, computer simulation, theory of computation
Used R, Matlab, and C to solve multithreaded Linear Algebra problems
You were presented with a PhD in Mathematics with a concentration in Computer Science

Depends on the employer. Any academic employer will look at your publications, rather than what your degree actually says. So I see no problem there
If this is for an undergrad degree, I think is out of the scope for this particular forum, since this is mostly oriented towards jobs in the Academia.
But I do think you might have problems with different titles in your undergrad, I would recommend mostly just applying for jobs and in your CV make the comment that it is oriented toward CS, many universities CS departments spawned from the math department, so I do not think there should be much of a problem.


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Is there a stigma in computer science toward too many postdoc positions?
I am wondering if there is a stigma attached to holding too many soft-money positions when looking for a tenure-track position in the area of computer science.
In computer science, postdoc positions were uncommon, but after the Dot-com bust and a general trend toward not hiring tenure-track faculty in the early 2000s, there are now many more postdoc positions in that discipline.
Do people who hold too many postdocs (or too long of a postdoc) get disadvantaged? Do they acquire a stigma of "This person can't hold a tenure-track job" or "This person bounces around too much" or "This person can't do independent research and relies too much on soft money"?
I know of a handful of faculty members who have been hired after multiple postdocs and visiting faculty positions so it seems that it isn't a permanent roadblock, but it could be a path I might not want to go down just in case it is.

I always thought of post-doc positions as something you do until you can find a tenure track position.  But lately, I have heard a growing trend against having too many of such positions.  I'm extremely curious to hear the answers to this question!

Reiterating @aeismall's first point: > **The number of PhD recipients is growing at a much faster rate than the

number of available tenure-track positions.** We, graduate students (PhD/Master), as minions of academia are nothing but scientific/humanities peddlers selling our ideas to the world. Only the catels and the kingpins of science/humanities enjoy the suite life. see http://alexandreafonso.wordpress.com/2013/11/21/how-academia-resembles-a-drug-gang/

There are multiple simultaneous trends which are working against one another:

The number of PhD recipients is growing at a much faster rate than the number of available tenure-track positions.
More and more locations have been instituting term limits on the length of postdoctoral positions.
Hiring committees are not as receptive to applicants who have done too many postdoctoral positions.

This leads to a lot of challenges for many academic aspirants. Personally, my impression is that the dangers are as follows:

Remaining in any single postdoctoral position for more than about three years.
Accepting more than two postdoctoral assignments.

Once either of those thresholds have been crossed, I think it starts to hurt an applicant later in their career. The exception to this might be "research professorships" and "staff scientist" positions that are seen to be more permanent than a postdoctoral position. Even in these positions, however, there is always the challenge that it can be difficult to transition to a different position afterwards.

I would reiterate 'The number of PhD recipients is growing at a much faster rate than the number of available tenure-track positions.'

"Personally, my impression is that the dangers are as follows..." This was my "personal impression" as well, but I am wondering if this is something that is discussed, for example, by faculty search committees and is a real risk to hiring the candidate. I appreciate the answer, but would like to gather more evidence.

I don't have enough experience with faculty hiring committees to confirm that; what I have seen is how few scientists have followed "non-orthodox" paths to academia.

In computer science, it's not yet common for people to be doing multipe postdocs before acquiring a faculty position. It's more common to see someone doing a single postdoc (or a virtual postdoc by working in an industrial lab). So it's hard to say whether there is a stigma or not. If anything, I suspect that having a postdoc might improve one's chances at getting an interview at department, assuming that the candidate has used the postdoc to

beef up their resume
establish connections (and letters of reference) with well known researchers

As a general matter though, if someone appears to have gone through a series of postdocs, I might at least wonder why. But I'm sympathetic to the vagaries of the job market and might not think more of it if the candidate looks promising in other respects.


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co-authorship for software adaption
Beside the determination of a property of newly prepared compounds, I aimed for a comparision with the value of the same property for already literature-known materials.  During this meta-analysis I became aware of a program that may assist this process.
In a first attempt, the software performed better than I expected.  It looked like the potential field of application was more general than the one initially described in an accompanying publication for this program. I contacted the developer to check if the results still were reasonable with this "version A" of the softwared.  The developer was surprised the algorithm implemented performs so well even in cases initially not envisaged / estimated as "too difficult" back then the software was released initially, confirmed the results, provided hints "how to do even better" and improved the software further into "version A+".
The question is in the context of writing up for a publication.  The intended paper's barycentre will not be the aforementioned meta-analysis with this software.  Certainly the developer will appear in the literature references for the initial publication presenting the software.  Where however discern between a special acknowledgement in the publication, on one hand, and co-authorship, on the other?  As "version A" was performing well, offering already the insight sought-after, yet "version A+" does so even better?
So far, to express gratitude for the assistance provided by the developer in the section "acknowledgements"  is the minimum to do.

As you're feeling, this is a greyish area.  To me, it depends on the paper itself.  If the paper really focuses on using this software to do something, this would nudge me toward offering authorship -- and I would ask the developer to fully participate in manuscript prep.  The credibility/knowlege of the developer may well make your paper better, and might be of help depending on how it is received by the referees.
If the use of the software amounts to a sentence in the methods section, I would acknowledge.


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Should a TA be doing software development for the professor?
I am a PhD student and a new TA for a class. I receive no extra money for TA'ing. Instead, my TA'ing offsets my advisors need to fund me. The professor I'm TA'ing for knows that I have advanced software engineering skills from professional experience.
The class I'm TA'ing for is very different than lecture style classes. It is more of an incubator/studio/software project class. In addition to office hours and lectures, the professor has asked me to continue development on future iterations of custom software made specifically for the class. The professor has previously paid other students to do this development. While I am able to do this development, is this a valid use of a TA?
I can't help but feel taken advantage of, because my software work usually pays quite well.

So ask how much it actually costs to fund you.  Can you make more money than that, in the same amount of time, by going to work with your software skills?  If so, then maybe you should consider quitting your TA position and becoming a self-funded student.

@NateEldredge that might work, however it is required by my program that we TA during our PhD.

@NateEldredge And also, are you actually serious? There's such a thing as self-funded students in STEM?

@NateEldredge And yes, at 20 hours a week, most entry-level software development salaries could fund me with quite a bit left over. Outside part-time work is frowned upon though.

Clarification: The software being developed - is it for teaching/instruction purposes, or just "Some of these projects are really neat..."?

@Fomite The end user of the software would be researchers, which could be students, faculty, or professionals.

@JackWade Alright, so it's not "Code for class"

It sounds to me like you have unusually advanced skills for a TA, and the professor is quite rationally trying to allocate the resource he has control over (your time as a TA) to its maximally productive use. That sounds pretty reasonable from the professor's point of view. Whether he has a right to assign you this particular sort of work would depend on your institution and department. At my department, TAs sign a contract at the beginning of the quarter which includes a list of the types of work they will be expected to do. If the professor wants to add something that isn't on the standard list, that needs to be discussed prior to that stage. The contract also specifies the number of weekly hours the TA will be working, and obviously the professor needs to respect that limitation as well.
Now let's think of how things look from your point of view. I'm not exactly sure why you feel taken advantage of for being asked to work on the software project, except for details that sound irrelevant to me, such as:

that the professor has previously paid someone for a similar service (maybe he did not have access to a TA with such qualifications as you);
that you would have gotten a higher salary for doing similar work in industry (but you willingly chose to go into a graduate program and subsist on a grad student stipend for a few years);
that you are not paid directly for being a TA but through some kind of indirect funding arrangement (but you are still committed to doing work as a TA for X hours per week, so I don't see why that should matter).

If I make the reasonable assumption that the high-value software development work is more intellectually stimulating than other duties the professor can be assigning you as a TA (grading papers or other boring gruntwork), are you not yourself better off working on the software project? In that case, could it be that the feeling of being exploited is simply regret for choosing this particular academic path when you could have stayed in industry?
To summarize, my feeling is that unless the work the professor is assigning you is completely outside the scope of work that a TA in your department could be reasonably expected to help with (which may be the case if you are, say, in a humanities program), you are probably not being taken advantage of. But perhaps I misunderstood the situation or your reasoning for being concerned; if you care to clarify any of the details I will reconsider my position.
Edit: I'm sorry if the OP finds my answer a bit tone deaf. I'm generally quite sensitive to and concerned by the phenomenon of exploitation of graduate students in academia, as can be seen by perusing my SE history. I think it makes sense to revise my verdict slightly: Jack, you are not being taken advantage of any more than TAs are typically taken advantage of. That is, I don't find anything unusually exploitative about the software development being discussed here, but the whole system of employing graduate students in academia as cheap labor (whether it's calling them TA's, RA's or something else) does carry with it an unpleasant whiff of exploitation. This is well known and recognized by many people (and has provided fodder for many a web comic). So you are right to be at least a little concerned about that -- how much exactly depends on your school. But I think that is off-topic given your specific question. Bottom line is, be aware of your rights, and if your contract says you should only work X hours per week, insist on following that to the letter.

This is a well constructed answer. Logically it rings true, but I can't help but notice the tone-deaf academic nature of it. (1) We are required to TA for teaching experience, not free software dev. (2) Software dev never works out "X hours per week", more like X^X. (3) Grading papers is much less mental stress than software dev work. (4) Signing a TA contract, it's easy to tell if a TA doesn't grade papers or give a lecture. What happens if they don't complete software development?

To be completely honest, yes, it does feel like salt rubbed in a wound. I left industry to follow my dreams and learn how to become a good researcher. When I finally got in and started researching, they required me to be a TA. Becoming a TA, they learned I could build software well and fast. Now they want me to spend 20 hrs a week doing what I was doing in industry, but for free. Meanwhile I'm barely making it by for my wife and kids. Yes, I feel regret now for going this path. Nowhere at all was this documented before I started.

@JackWade: You really need PhD Comics to set you straight about academia :)

See for example: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=17 and http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=18

@StuartGolodetz the humor actually really helps!

@JackWade answering your questions: (1) TA is a broad definition. At my school we often have lead course TAs who spend much of their time answering emails and maintaining course-related software. If your assignment has at least marginally to do with a course, it would probably be considered reasonable. But check with your department. (2) See the edit to my answer: insist on working no more than X. (3) Not sure I can help with that or even understand why that's true. (4) You are only committed to devoting X hours per week. If you don't complete the project in that time, that's not your problem.

@JackWade: Regarding your third point ("Grading papers is much less mental stress than software dev work"), you might want to find a tactful way to mention this to the professor.  For me, grading is really painful, while software development is much more interesting and satisfying.  If your professor feels similarly, he/she may think this is doing you a favor by giving you a less onerous task.

@JackWade, one more thought: I see you refer to your software dev work as "free" twice in your comments ("...not free software dev"; "...but for free"). However, in your question you describe a financial quid pro quo whereby your TA'ing essentially funds your stay in the program. So, one gets the impression that there is a disconnect between your perception that your TA'ing work is done "for free" and the actual reality that this work brings you a very real economic benefit. If you can free yourself of the mindset that you are working for free, you'll probably feel less exploited.

Accepting this as the solution because (1) It clarifies the departmental view of a TA (2) It confronts the student's perspective and corrects it (3) It was modified to reflect discussion (4) Author maintained an engaging discussion (5) It has the most upvotes (6) It really helped me as the OP to re-align my perspective as the grad student, which is will empathised by PhD Comics

The expectations and responsibilities of TAs vary from department to department, but work on software supporting a class is not unusual in my experience.  This is quite typical in lab classes, for example, where the software is effectively part of the "lab equipment" that the TA may be expected to help maintain.
Comparing the "hourly wage" for TA work to the amount of money you could earn in industry is not a useful comparison, because that applies to pretty much anything you do in academia.
To me, the real question is how much work is being asked of you.  Typically, TA responsibilities are formulated in terms of a number of hours of expected work per week (often 20 hours/week, but some TAships are different).  If your professor is expecting you to work more than that amount, then it is a problem.  If the work on software is being offset by, for example, not having much grading work, such that you are able to do the software work for the class in the expected amount of time, then that's entirely reasonable.

It appears that your course organizer has forgotten his responsibilities to a graduate student doing a mandatory teaching practicum -- namely to help you get teaching experience that will prepare you to become a full professor in the future.
Clearly someone in your department feels that teaching experience is valuable, or else the practicum wouldn't be required, and you feel that way as well.  It should be sufficient for you to let your organizer know that you want to use this opportunity to better prepare yourself for future teaching responsibilities.  Probably he thinks of dealing with students as a chore, and thinks he is doing you a favor by letting you get out of it, while still checking the box toward graduation.
If letting him know your expectations doesn't result in adjustment of your duties, your next actions should be to find out who in the department supported the practicum mandate, and bring the matter to their attention. Your goal is not to make trouble for the faculty, but to get moved to an opportunity that better advances your teaching career.

If the software used in class is software used in class, one could rightly suspect that those skills will be useful later. Having had professors who could code well, and professors who could not, it has an impact on pedagogy.

@Fomite: He's not learning skills from writing out solutions to the class projects, or even making improvements to course-specific tools.  He already has those skills.  And if he didn't, there's the whole rest of his curriculum designed to cover that.  Teaching practicum is supposed to provide experience in preparing material and dealing with students (expectations, complaints, grading mistakes, etc).

I asked the OP to clarify, because its unclear to me what the purpose of the software being developed is. But having once had to prepare software for a course that involved skills I "already had", I still benefitted greatly from doing to work - and it has improved by teaching dramatically.

It is very, very important to actually get teaching experience as a TA. I found I did not like lecturing to a large group, even though I enjoy small group and individual teaching. I would not have learned that by doing software development, regardless of whether it related to teaching or not.


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What is a social strategy I can use to respond to "How's your PhD going?"
I was surprised when starting my PhD as to how much I get asked this question and how much I fail at answering it. Whenever I attempt an answer, I fumble around and the subject immediately changes after. If I state exactly how it's going, the stress of publishing and intensity of the program comes off overly negative. If I state what I'm working on, I either lose them or bore them.
What's a good social strategy to respond to this question?

I sometimes respond by showing them this: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=47

If you're being a good grad student, you'll be too busy with research to meet people who might ask about your research.

@user137 In my experience in CS, more efficient people don't work overly long hours. In fact, working too long is stigmatized in Germany as a sign of inefficiency.

@user137 I fear too many people will take that comment seriously.

A related question on Math SE: http://math.stackexchange.com/q/1139368/11323

I usually immediately start crying, run away, hide under a blanket and eat ice cream directly from the pot. You should try it.

@JiK or this http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1030 :-)

@Blaisorblade media in America has done a wonderful job into brainwashing us into thinking working 60-80 hour weeks and having 2-4 weeks vacation annually is a virtue... :( envious

@HC_ - if someone's weak-minded enough that "media" can "brainwash" them into working 60-80 hour weeks, I'm not sure I'd like to employ them in any kind of job that has those kinds of hours (which is usually higher-IQ white collar jobs like programming, law or medicine).

@Kimball oh my god, this answer: http://math.stackexchange.com/a/1139382/77968 "Mostly word problems..."

"It's going well, last week I made some good progress on X. How're things with you?"
The vast majority of people are just asking to be polite. If they're actually curious for specifics, they'll follow up with a more specific question. I personally like to have some kind of a cute story about my research because nobody has any idea what pure math people actually do. (I draw fractals for a living, so I have some pictures on my phone to show around.)
EDIT: Some of the comments bring up relevant points about cultural differences. If the local culture is one in which asking out of politeness is frowned upon (ie German @O. R. Mapper, or grad students @JiK), I think it would be still best to start an answer of the above form. This allows people to either gracefully exit or pursue a more in depth description according to their own interest and cultural mores.

Exactly.  It's analogous to answering "How are you doing?"  Very few people want an update on whatever tumultuous events are happening in your life.  Just because your PhD is consuming your life doesn't mean it's that interesting or important to others.  They are just being polite.

@Chan-HoSuh: "Very few people want an update on whatever tumultuous events are happening in your life." - being from one of the cultures where "you don't ask unless you really want to know", I feel compelled to point out that this statement is extremely culture-specific (cf. e.g. this, or this) ;)

In the UK, when someone ask you "how are you doing" the last thing they want is for you to tell them how are you doing. They think it is extremely unpolite not to answer "not bad" or "all right". This is commonly called the "British politeness paradox", they are the most polite in the world but they care the less of all.

(I just made up the "British politeness paradox" thing, but it should exist)

BTW @Joe, you draw fractals for a living?? I have chosen the wrong PhD, those things are gorgeous!

@AnderBiguri, I exaggerate a bit. I do complex dynamics, which means I draw fractals for talks. Otherwise, I push epsilons and deltas just like all the other analysts.

@AnderBiguri americans do the same thing, except europeans call us 'fake' for it.

@AnderBiguri Traditionally, "How are you?" (like "how do you do?") isn't even a question. It's a greeting, to which it is proper to respond in kind. That is, one shouldn't even provide a vague "polite" answer like "not bad," one ought simply to reply "How are you?"

@KSmarts In my original country if we don't want asn answer we usually use something that is not a question, like, "Good morning" or "hope you are well" or something else! If you formulate a question don;t get mad if you get an answer!! (sidenote: I love British politeness,makes life way easier)

Accepting this as the solution because (1) it contains a working strategy that I tried (your quote as a template) (2) it contains a secondary strategy (showing pictures) (3) it contains a background explanation (4) it addresses diversity (5) it contains a great followup discussion (6) it has the most upvotes

Use it as a chance to practice your "lay person" elevator research pitch. The more you practice it the better you get. "I started working on ... here is why it is significant ..." Don't answer with how your research is going, talk about your research. Presumably you are interested in it. Convey your excitement. Think about it from the other person's point of view. Would you rather hear "great, how are things with you", or would you rather learn something new.
If your elevator pitch isn't very good yet, then forcing yourself to do this will make it better. If your elevator pitch is in fact good, then they will be way happier hearing it than "great how about you." Either way someone benefits from hearing the elevator pitch.

+1. Any researcher needs to be able to relate his research in laymans terms. Its good practice for futher job interviews and you will often get much more better conversation if people understand what your doing. Im not saying you should explain your subject in details to complete strangers, but you should be able to convey what your doing and why it is important!

I think that most people, if they ask you "how is your PhD going", they want to talk about you, not about your research. So I try to answer them with an anecdote about some aspect of my PhD work that I believe the other person can relate to based on what I know about them.

Great, I have very nice colleagues and we work together well. Recently, we talked about a research article that is relevant to my work in a coffee break. (Answer this to people that work in an office).
Great, but it's a lot of work right now, because I want to submit a research article until this and that deadline. I'm really excited about writing about my research. (Answer this to people that work on projects with deadlines).
Great, I finally understood how this-and-that arcane topic relates to my thesis topic, and now I can progress further. (Answer this to undergraduate students in your own discipline).
Great, I have been working as a TA for this and that course and it was lots of fun to teach young people. (Answer this to school teachers).

There are many aspects of doing a PhD you can talk about, many of them even less related to your research:

Great, my new computer arrived and now everything feels faster.
Great, there was one fellow student who annoyed me a lot, but now the student graduated and I don't have to be around them anymore.
Great, all students contributed some money and we bought a new coffee machine for the lab.

Unless the person really has an idea of what a PhD requires and some background knowledge about what you are doing, I agree with the other answers, it's nothing more than an "How are you?".
If you are bothered by the question, I'd highly recommend PhD comics on the topic, e.g., here, here, and here. You're not alone.
For practical purposes, a canned answer like: "It's research, it has its ups or downs." usually works well.

You're right, it is often used to replace to "how are you?" for people who know I'm working on the PhD and wanted to ask a more interesting question. Perhaps improving my small-talk skills would improve my responses here too.

This doesn't work for everybody, but I generally deflect uncomfortable questions with humor. If somebody asked me how my PhD was going and I didn't want to answer I'd say:

It was DELICIOUS! ...or
The conditions of my parole don't allow me to reveal that information. ...or
I'm up to 15! ...or
WHO ARE YOU? WHO SENT YOU?

Again, it doesn't work for everybody. But for me, the level of absurdity of the response is 1) directly proportional to the amount of time it buys me to think of a change of subject, and 2) inversely proportional to the chance they'll ask again.
So first time's usually a polite, slightly funny head fake. Then it gets weirder and weirder ("I can't go back to Spain after the pants weasels attacked me!")
-hth

There is the risk that this sends the message that you don't want to talk about your PhD studies. Since there is a correlation between things not going well and not wanting to talk about that, this strategy may easily make people suspect that your studies are not going well.

Yes, it's true that there are few absolutes in social situations, which can be dynamic and complex due to many factors. There is the same risk you mentioned in the OP's current strategy, which is to fumble around and get lost. Sometimes innocent questions can feel like an overbearing "interrogation," so one way to interrupt that cycle and give agency back to the person being asked is for them to shift the tone / focus of the conversation. One way to do that is through humor.

@DCTLib: my experience of PhD students is that things are never going well until the day after their viva. So people will form the same suspicion whether you talk about it or not ;-)

In my humble opinion, the key to answering this question in a good way is not to be pressed to talk about results, but rather about the process. So for example, an answer to "How is your PhD going?" could be:
Good. I'm currently performing a study on the effects of sunrays on the love life of cobblestones.
Now some people may ask back tricky questions, such as "But didn't you work on that already 6 months ago?". In that case, stick with the process, i.e., what you are doing at the moment. For past work, you can use results, but they do not have to be strong. So you could say:
That's correct. Back then, I worked on an axiomatic approach to this question. The results were promising, but not statistically significant. So now I am conducting a survey with the cobblestones.
In the end, the only "selling" that you may want to make when hearing such a question is that you are working on your PhD. Unlike the author of another answer, I would refrain from giving funny answers. That gives the impression that there is a need for you to dodge the question.

There are a lot of good answers here, and I use various responses based on who I'm talking to.  I try to be honest, but also to find something positive to say.  One thing I've found is that the vast majority of people have no clue what getting a PhD entails, and so I try to convey a little bit of that to them.  They don't know what "research" is, or how long a PhD takes, or what graduate students spend their time doing.  I have a chance to change that!
"So, is spring break next week?"
"Well, it's spring break for all the students, but I've got a research presentation on Tuesday and have a lot to prepare for TA-ing.  Not really a break for me."
"You've been here three years - are you about to finish?
"Hehe, no!  The median time in my program is six years.  Someday I'll graduate!"
"How much longer till you finish?"
"Well, I'm done taking classes, so now it just depends on how fast I can come up with great ideas, and make them work, and write about them."
"How's research going?"
It's up and down.  It's tough, because there isn't a lot of direction and it's hard to see how everything fits together.  I got a few bits of code to work this week, though."
I am sometimes a bit sarcastic or pessimistic ("I'll get out of here some day..."), but in truth I love what I'm doing and I try to make that clear when I'm talking to someone.

"Eh, I'd rather not talk about it, so how are you?"
If you really don't want to talk about it, and it's not going great, and you don't want to lie, this is the answer you should give.
Now, some people will try to press you for more details, even though you just told them you don't want to talk about it, which is why you're shifting to focus to them right after saying so.
If they insist on asking for more details, just reiterate that you'd really rather not talk about it.
At that point, it's simply rude to keep pressing.  Just remember - you don't have an obligation to anyone to talk about your thesis if you don't want to.
Mind, if it's going well, then disregard this advice - telling people you'd 'rather not talk about it' gives the impression that it isn't going well.
If you want to give the impression that it's going alright, say instead "Well, it's going okay, but I'd rather not talk about it" - which delivers the same message, but helps give the impression that you're doing fine.
Unfortunately, there's no real way to give a 'neutral' impression, because not wanting to talk about it gives a default impression that it isn't going well - this is cultural, and there's no real way to get around it.
Either way, you may get pressed for more details, but in both cases, you are not obliged to provide any.

How you would want to answer this would depend to a large extent on who's asking the question. If it's a colleague or someone from a related field, the person might have a genuine interest in your PhD. So, depending on how much you wish to reveal, you can talk a bit about the work you are doing and share an interesting experience or perspective.
However, if a lay person is asking you, it is most likely just out of politeness. In that case, you can give a very general or witty reply as mentioned in some of the other answers.


text:
Can I put a preprint of a paper on arXiv without informing my co-authors?
I am the main author and have three co-authors on a paper that I have been working on for quite some time now. Two of them have given me constructive suggestions and do think that the paper is a publishable material.
However, the other one, who also happens to be my supervisor, has been nothing but pessimistic and rather critical in a negative way. Moreover, his suggestions are totally irrelevant to the paper. I am beginning to think that he is trying to deliberately block my paper. Believe me when I say that I am trying to give him the benefit of the doubt; I am trying as much as possible to fulfill his irrelevant and unreasonable demands.
On top of that, my contract with the university is about to end soon. I have found another position in the same field. If this paper was even submitted, which it should have been months ago, it would strengthen my CV a lot.
Can I put it on arXiv without informing my supervisor? If not, what is the best way to deal with the situation?

First, no you should not upload the paper when not all co-authors agreed (and also not submit it to a journal).
On how to deal with the situation: If I understood correctly, there are four authors, one is your supervisor, one is you and there are two more. I think the way to go is, to get the other two authors involved in the process. For example, if you think that you supervisor has irrelevant requests for you, forward the requests to the full group of authors (including your supervisor) and ask about opinions on that matter. Be polite, focus on facts. Do not give the impression that you want to overrule your supervisor, but that you want all authors to be involved in the process. I should add that this approach may not work well with every supervisor, but I can't tell or guess what will be the case in your situation.

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


text:
How to handle conflicts with inventorship on a patent with my supervisors from the university and the company?
I am working on a research project funded by a company. So, I have two supervisors - one at the university and the other at the company.
The company likes the work I did and is encouraging me to disclose the invention at the university's technology transfer office. I made the mistake of filling up the technology transfer form with the names of both supervisors and sending it to them for comments. This is what one would usually do with publications.
However, I learnt only later that inventorship in a patent is completely different from authorship in a research article. I also understand that incorrectly naming an inventor on the form can invalidate the patent.
None of my supervisors made any intellectual contributions that led to the invention. I am also able to prove this as I have documents/slides about topics discussed during meetings.
How do I deal with this situation as both my supervisors expect their names to be on the patent? I must also mention that my university supervisor is extremely unprofessional. I have had problems with him in the past with publications. He could damage my career if I offend him. On the other hand I'd hate to share credit for something which I came up totally on my own when he was actually putting me under a great deal of pressure to work on one of his ideas that was not relevant to the problem at hand.

This seems like a legal question, not one for academics.

But still I would like to have practical advice from experienced people. Making the wrong decisions could damage my career

The contract is with the university and doesn't really throw any light on the matter. I have forwarded it to the office and they said the same thing. They will be taking a look at the contract between the company and university and getting back to me

All this is causing a lot of delay and I don't have much time left in the contract

He could damage my career if I offend him. — Go back in time and find a new advisor. — On the other hand I'd hate to share credit for something which I came up totally on my own — Unless you have a time machine, you may have to swallow your pride.

Contact the tech transfer office and tell them the mistake you made.

I suggest discussing the matter with the technology transfer office and asking them how to proceed.
They have expertise in patent applications, and should be able to advise you. If you can say "The technology transfer office says..." it may reduce pressure on you when talking to the supervisors.
At the best, the advisors know better than to expect to be on a patent without an intellectual contribution to the invention, and would have assumed you had only listed them to get their input on the application.

The advisors "may" know better, but will they act morally and ethically with that "plum" in front of their noses...

I agree that this is exactly what tech transfer offices are their to sort out. However, in terms of personal benefit, i've always found that being generous with credit will almost always work out better for you.

@IanSudbery Being generous is OK if it is a matter of how big the contribution was. However, inaccuracy in the inventor list can make a patent invalid, and the OP did say they made no intellectual contribution.

I'm not sure this can be right. At my institution students cannot be named as inventors, and we have a contractual obligation to protect all possible IP. Not saying this is good or right, but there is clearly more to it than "inaccuracy in the inventor list can make a patent invalid".

@IanSudbery I only have experience of US patent applications in industry, where we were told to be careful to list the inventors. It certainly seems weird to not list an inventor just because they are a student.


text:
Conflict of interest statement for Elsevier
I want to submit a research paper to an Elsevier Journal. There is also an invention disclosure associated with this work. I have got the approval of the Technology Transfer Office to submit the paper. Do I need to report anything in the Conflict of Interest statement?

Why are you asking here rather than at Elsevier?

No response from them.

And why do you expect we would know better?

Because this should be a common enough situation that many would have already been through.

Just do a search of the other papers in the journal for "patent" and copy what they do.

If you intend to license a patent, this might be a conflict of interest.  For example, the interest in getting accurate data might conflict with the interest in getting money from a license.
I recommend disclosure if there is any possibility someone might perceive a conflict of interest.


text:
How to bring up an interviewers research in an interview for a post-doc position?
I am applying for a post-doc position with a PI whose research I have cited in my publication and I have actually found very useful for my knowledge. I want to bring this up in an interview to highlight that our research interests overlap very well. But I do not want to sound too flattering. How should I bring this up in the interview?

If you talk about your research and you used the interviewer's work or found it helpful, you can say so as an aside without sounding too flattering. A statement like "I actually learned this concept from you." is factual and not overblown. Similar for "I used your technique from ISCA 1990". Good luck with your interview.


text:
Recommender choice for admission to a MSc program
I am planning to apply for an MSc program in Northern Europe or the UK, starting September 2014, which typically requires two recommendation letters from my former university professors. I have the following dilemma:
I have a personal relationship with two professors from my faculty, whom i know are going to give excellent recommendations for me. However, I chose neither of them as my supervisor for my Bachelor thesis, and I prefered to work on it under the supervision of a third professor, whom i have a slightly less personal relationship and spent limited time with during my undergraduate years (reason for that being my subject of choice overlapping with his/his groups research). In fact I only had extensive direct contact with one of his PhDs, under the guidance of whom i conducted my project.
So what I really want to ask is: Is it considered necessary for one of my LOR to be given from my thesis advisor? Is it going to look bad or somewhat odd to the eyes of the admissions committee if not?

If possible, it is always better if you can get a good letter of recommendation from someone who has actually supervised your research, because they can directly comment on your promise as a researcher. At the master's level, however, I don't know if it's quite so important as at the doctoral level, particularly because some fields may not require a bachelor's thesis (they may have a senior project, laboratory, or design course instead).
In the present circumstances, this would be one of those times where you should check with the places you're applying and ask if you can submit a third letter of recommendation. Then you get the advantage of having two people who know you well personally, plus someone who can comment on your research.


text:
Do you need a bachelor's degree to get a master's degree?
Can you ignore the core curriculum at your university and still get into graduate school?

Which country is this about?

Some universities will allow you to start just about any course if they deem your professional experience relevant. Other universities won't.
You will have to apply and, perhaps, have a meeting with a member of faculty. That is what I did anyway.

If they allow that then undergraduate experience should qualify.

They will allow what they want, but will that match want you want is a different question...

This depends on the country. In the US it might in principle be possible because in the US degrees are not things with official legal status.
In most (all?) European countries it would not be allowed, because university degrees are something officially recognized in laws. For example, in Spain it is a legal requirement (not something that depends on the university) to have an undergraduate degree in order to enter a master's program.


text:
Grading proofs without reading them?
Is it unethical or illegal to grade a proof exam without reading all of the proofs? Someone I know would give students 0 points if they do not use theorems presented in lectures, or if they have one solution that solves multiple problems at once will ignore it. Also would make up criteria to fit his/her own agenda for punishing students. Then he/she would leave it up to the students to possibly argue for changes in office hours. Is there some standard criteria for grading proofs, either on a legal or professional level?

I think the question of whether this is legal is off-topic here, in addition to being unanswerable without knowing your jurisdiction.  But in general, most legal systems don't try to get involved in the details of academia at this level.

It is ok to agree to be convinced that one graded an exam wrongly. However, making this the default procedure for treating deviations from the "standard" solution is bad teaching.

This feels more of a rant than an honest question.

@Davidmh It was meant to be an honest uestion but my emotions got the better of me in the execution of the text. Grading/correcting policies are definintely on topic.

Based strictly on the information you have provided to me about this mystery person, I'd say the instructor engaging in these activities is highly unethical and may have some other psychological issues. That's just what I sense "prima facie". "Absolute power corrupts absolutely", but I could easily be wrong.
Then again, maybe the mystery person has explained the grading criteria, but hasn't explained it clearly enough.
Be very careful about making a formal accusation against this person. If you make an accusation, make sure it's iron-clad and infallible so that you're certain to win.
Many years ago, in an Engineering Mechanics class, I openly accused my professor of erring in his solution to an exam question. My exam question was marked as "incorrect" with very little partial credit. I stared at that problem for some time and concluded my solution was correct and the professor's was wrong. I treaded very gingerly as I described my disagreement with his solution, but I went step by step and ultimately, before the entire class, he admitted he was wrong and I was right.
I was about 18 or 19 years old at the time. Trust me. Be very careful. Professors are smart and they don't like to be proven wrong. My professor was, thankfully, a person who loved truth more than being correct.

I have heard rumors that in some countries it is standard practice to only accept answers that are exactly the same as the answer in the textbook, even if there are obviously many correct answers.

@ChrisWhite: not exactly, I think. It's Inquisitive interpreting what would have to be the case in order for the questioner's description to be accurate and a fair representation. There's a subtext here: "if this person isn't highly unethical, then you are not giving us the full picture".

For example, "give students 0 points if they do not use theorems presented in lectures" is presented by the questioner without context and may appear arbitrary. But if the assignment is to prove X from theorem Y, and you choose instead to prove X from some other more powerful theorem not covered in lectures, certainly you've failed the assignment, and the questioner perhaps doesn't fully understand this. Or perhaps does understand it, and is trying find justification on the interwebs for exactly the grade grubbing behaviour you accuse them of.

Likewise, "makes up criteria to fit agenda for punishing students" is bad if accurate, but the actual situation might be that the criteria are pretty common and/or a reasonable interpretation of the assignments given, but didn't go in the questioner's favour. As long as the "agenda" is to "punish students" in the sense of giving them 0 marks for garbage answers it'd be OK. Inquisitive does say the answer is a remark on the prima facie picture the questioner paints, not on whether that picture is correct.

@Chris White You need to stop being a "Sheldon" and start exhibiting some reading comprehension capability.

@ Steve Jessop You are exactly correct in interpreting what I wrote. Unfortunately, Chris White seems to be the one wildly drawing fallacious conclusions.

Yes, I'd second the point that if your prof loves truth more than "being correct", then things will turn out ok if everyone is reasonably polite! :)

It is not necessarily wrong for a proof to be marked wrong without reading the whole thing. If it sets out to prove the wrong thing, it is wrong. If it starts at the conclusion and works towards the hypothesis (a very common mistake) it is wrong. If it assumes something incorrect, or simply not shown, that makes it easier to arrive at a proof, it is wrong for the purpose of the assessment. If it proves multiple things at once, it is almost certainly wrong, in such a context. If it is illegible it could get no marks regardless of other factors. If it is correct but hard to read, it may be worth no marks if that was the assessment criterion.
And, no, there is no universal mark scheme. For anything (at university level).


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First-year PhD student with weak CV/Resume; how to stand out in fellowship competitions?
I am a first year PhD in a large Social Sciences program at an American public institution. My CV is very weak as I am not yet published. I have research assistantship experience and teaching experience as well as a stint on a Fulbright. I'm applying to fellowships for the summer to gain more research experience.
I am working on a fellowship application and would like to stand out amongst the crowd. Other than my attributes above, I have nothing! My CV barely fills two pages. Will I be written off because I don't have much experience? I need fellowships like these in order to grow my tiny resume- but- I'm worried can't compete to get them without more.
Thank you for your help!

Did answers to your question help you with your application? Did you receive any fellowship? What happened?

Everyone starts out with no publications.  Never mind starting a PhD in that condition:  I finished my PhD at a top-three program for my field without any publications, and I still got a good postdoctoral position.  How did I do this?  Because of my advisor's recommendation.  (And it was a sound recommendation: eventually I did get some publications...)
For graduate students -- and especially, early career graduate students --  recommendation letters are all-important.  Do you have a thesis advisor yet?  If so, go directly to her and tell her what fellowships you are thinking of applying for and asking whether that sounds reasonable and whether your application will be competitive.  If you do not have a thesis advisor, try out the same conversation with several faculty members in your department that know you through your coursework, research or TAing.  Emphasize that because you are young and unpublished, you think you will need strong recommendations from them to get serious consideration for summer research fellowships.  Select from among these the ones who sound most enthusiastic.
In general, faculty in your department should be very supportive of your endeavor.  On the one hand, such fellowships generally provide funding, and faculty are always very happy when graduate students can find external funding of any kind whatsoever, since internal funding is so limited and hard to come up with in these straitened economic times.  On the other hand, if you get the fellowship you will be getting funded for doing exactly what you are supposed to be doing in the summer as a graduate student: research.  So if you feel like the faculty you've spoken to are not helping you enough with this, it could be worthwhile to discuss this with someone like the graduate coordinator or department head: not in a way which casts any blame on the faculty members, but just to emphasize that you want to do this very desirable thing and you haven't yet found the right person to help you out.
Good luck.

When reading this I thought "Wow this guy must have had an eminent advisor" and having checked ... you did!

unfortunately or not, not all fellowship applications require letters of recommendation.

It might be an idea to contact the career or academic advisory department of your university and ask for an appointment with them to discuss improving your CV and get their input on how you can improve it and what you should and should not put in.
As regards gaining experience and kudos could be to consider publishing some of the Undergrad work you feel proud of. There are lots of open source journals which might be a good starting point.
You can also network with researchers using resources like [researchgate][1] for ideas and to get experience peer reviewing articles so you can put your contributions onto your CV and maybe get some feedback on undergrad work you have already done to learn more about the whole process of peer review and network with other academics.
Ultimately getting ahead in academia is likely like everything else: more about who you know not what you know so putting yourself out there by banging on doors and networking is going to be the ticket to filling your CV with stuff. Ironically, it will probably mean you'll not need to show your CV to get the position you want the end, too perhaps.
Such is life.

I think the "best to keep a CV short as possible and try not to go over a page" thing applies to a résumé, not an academic CV.

Maybe there is no such thing as a resume in the UK so it's hard to say. Given the 8 up votes I will assume you are right though as I do not know much about academic CV writing. I will edit that bit out.


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Printing a collection of articles in a 'proceedings' for a maths conference
I am organising a one day meeting on a maths topic. I would like to print a proceedings consisting  of papers recommended by each of the (seven) speakers to try and keep a review of the topics discussed. No profit will be made, all copies will be provided free.
Is this possible? Is this unprofessional? What copyright laws would I encounter from journals (where a paper may have already appeared)? Can I collect papers without calling it a publication?

This article may assit you. However I believe that as long as you have permissions from the authors/journals there should not be a problem. Also I take it you have sourced these papers legally etc?

Yes, each participant will hopefully recommend a paper (i.e. the one their talk is based on). I would then seek permission if it has already appeared.

Then as far as I am aware, if you are dealing with the author's directly then you should have no issue, jsut so long as you state that the papers were reccomended by them and that they are t be used for the proceedings only. It is a case of being as open as possible.


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Acknowleding referee suggestions after rejection
I submitted a paper to a conference, it got rejected but I received valuable feedback. After implementing the suggested changes, I am submitting the manuscript to a different conference but I would like to thank the referees from the previous conference.
If I just write "We thank the reviewers for their invaluable suggestions" then it might be confusing for the referees of the current (second) conference.
What are you doing in such a situation?

"We thank 4 anonymous reviewers." By adding the number it often gives the appropriate information.

How about:

We would like to thank X and Y for their review of a previous version of this manuscript

That would work nicely if one knew their names...

Nothing stops you from putting "anonymous" in there.

nothiing stops you from leaving X and Y: We would like to thank X and Y for their review of a previous version of this manuscript. We unfortunately do not know their names, but this does not decrease our gratitude. :D

@Michael I like the anonymous suggestions, thank you


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Should historical data be considered ambigious if not proven as fact?
Simple question, if there is few data points that allow concrete hypothesis (ancient history has many), should the information always be accompanied by some sort of disclaimer? A example would be you often hear descriptions of early nomadic tribes based upon generalizations given by a conquering foe only, very little if any from the nomads themselves.

Any time you have a single source for information (generalizations given by a conquering foe), there is no other supporting evidence, and there are no counter-examples, then yes, it should be accompanied with disclaimers since the data is actually quite weak.
It would be like saying "John Smith reported the sky turned red just before the earthquake." This is far better than saying "The sky turned red just before the earthquake." The latter implies that there are multiple independent sources for the information where, indeed, there might only be one.


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Publishing a research paper
I have some new ideas regarding a concept in computer science and have done considerable independent reasearch work.None of the faculty members in my university seem to be interested in helping an independent undergrad thesis in computer science.I have some time to complete it formally, though.
Could anyone please tell me the steps to get my paper published ? What should I ensure about my paper before sending it for publication ?
I am confused as to what to do , there are so many things- transations, journals , proceedings, conferences ..etc , How are these different and where it is the best to send a research paper ?

there are lot to learn for a successful worthy publication and you need to find someone interested to help you. The best way is to do whatever you can do by yourself. Once you have some tangible contents (perhaps prematurely written and organized), then try to find a potential co-author with good record of publications and see if he/she agrees to help you with the rest. This is better way to succeed. I am sure if you try you can find. You may not look for well-known professors in MIT or Harvard, I guess an enthusiast postdoc or last year PhD students with couple of papers can be of great help.

Generally for computer science the accepted methodology is to publish your initial idea or concept with some preliminary results in a conference. Then afterwards if there is still more to discuss you can continue publishing conference papers or target a journal for an in depth publication.
To get started you need to find a conference that suits your area of research. For example if you are working in computer vision you might target CVPR. There are a number of databases full of conferences, which should help you find an appropriate venue. Then read the submission requirements. Usually conferences have a LateX template you can use for your paper.
You should ensure your paper conforms to all conference regulations, has been spell checked and proof read by yourself and someone else.

CVPR is probably way too hard for an undergrad, unless guided by a person with a track record publishing in CVPR.  You don't want to discourage the student :)


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Are Canadian applicants favored in graduate admissions or funding for Canadian graduate programs?
I'm not sure if this question is off-topic here, but I have applied to some Canadian master's economics programs as an international student along with my Canadian classmates. Even though I have a better academic record than they do, I didn't get into the schools with as much funding as my Canadian classmates. My question is why is it so? Based on my knowledge and experience, I don't think that schools in US have this type of a double standard policy, as I received enough funding from some public universities there. I know I could be wrong as I may well be generalizing.

It's really impossible to say why your friends were offered more funding - there are many factors that go into this determination. I definitely would not assume it's because they are Canadian.

@ff524 If other factors are even considered then I'm surely at an advantage: I am a Co-President of the university's economics society, TAed for two years and was a Research Assistant last summer. To top it off, I also got published in a top undergraduate journal as possibly the only Canadian student. Now unlike American schools, Canadian schools only look at your grades. I even discussed this with my prof and he agreed with me, but he didn't explain why this is the case. I think the schools in the States clearly judged my application holistically.

In addition, I think they also considered that I am a citizen of a developing/poor country, which is why a decent amount of funding is important.

You're right, I looked up a few Canadian schools and it seems some sources of funding are available only to Canadians (e.g., http://www.yorku.ca/grads/money_matters/york_awards.html)

@ff524 Yes, but why do they do it? Isn't it discriminatory? In Canada, an international student has to pay twice as much as the domestic students, and they claim that it's because of the students' parents paying taxes, which I agree. But bringing in admissions and funding into this is deplorable. And it's not only in Canada, other schools of Commonwealth countries seem to follow this policy.

You didn't say that admissions was handled differently - only funding. Funding can come from the Canadian govt (which they may restrict to taxpaying citizens) or from scholarships set up by individuals (who are free to apply whatever criteria they want to the scholarship). On the other hand, there may be scholarships specifically for international students that your Canadian friends are not eligible for.

In my case, admissions wasn't an issue, but I know some international students in my university who were complaining about it. But the argument can be twofold: universities might admit more international students for higher revenues unless of course there's a quota on it.

@user36829 "Isn't it discriminatory?" Depends on how you look at it. In Austria schools, for example, a non-EU student also pays a fee which is twice as large than what an EU citizen pays. The argument being that a public university is funded by the state of Austria to educate Austrian (and european, by EU law) citizens. Citizens of other countries are allowed to use this service as well, but have to pay a little more for it. I am assuming the reasoning in Canada is similar.

Without knowing the details of your classmates funding, it's difficult to say whether there's bias. Having said that, Canadian students will be at a definite advantage when trying to get funding at a Canadian University.
For some students, funding at the Masters level will be formed from multiple sources:

Government Scholarships. Some of these are open to international students, others are not. For example, the NSERC Vanier scholarships accept international applicants, but the NSERC CGS M does not.
University scholarships: These are typically funded from a variety of sources which will have varying requirements. Some must go to students from Canada, some must go to international students, some are purely merit based.
TA/RA-ships. My experience is that these typically aren't restricted based on international status, but I can't say for sure.

So, it's easy enough to imagine that your friends funding could simply include scholarship money that is unavailable to you as an international student. Most universities realize that international students aren't on perfectly even footing, and will have sections of their websites dedicated to funding for international students. This could be of great help for you, though the money  might not come soon enough for you to be able to make it work.
Another thing to mention, is that some countries have scholarships for outgoing international scholars. These vary hugely, but should also be considered.


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Can I publish an article or thesis about my research without supervisor?
I am a bachelor student majoring on computer engineering and working on robotics. Last year as a part of my research, I worked together with a student and one teacher as a supervisor, so we published our article for conference together. But later we finished our research and all of us left the team. Now I am working on other research problem by myself and got some results and want to publish it. But this time I am alone, I have no supervisor on that research problem or any student partner. So I'd like to ask can I submit a paper for conference/journal by myself?
P.S. My current research project has no relationship with old one.

You definitely submit a paper by yourself and if you write a high quality submission, it will be accepted.
When I was early in my research career I found it very helpful to have a collaborator such as a teacher/professor or a postdoc student with publishing experience to collaborate on papers. This often helps catching points or issues that you may overlook within your research as well as providing advice and guidance.

It is not uncommon for (PhD) students to publish independently of an advisor. So as eoinbrazil wrote already, if you have a submission of a high quality, you can give it a try. Many students do publish with their supervisors, however, for a couple of good reasons. Besides the obvious ones, here are some not-so-obvious ones:

Funding for conference travel: You mentioned conferences as publication venue yourself. Assuming that your paper gets accepted: do you have the funding to visit it?
The scopes of conferences/journals: there is often a disagreement between a call for papers and the types of papers that conferences or journals actually want. Having experience in this area helps a lot.
The community behind a conference/journal: different communities focus on different things: some want the sales pitch, some are find with just the results. Some care about experiments, for others, the theory is enough. Some have a set of standard benchmarks, some don't. These are just some examples. Again, having experience with a conference or journal helps a lot.
Selection of conferences/journals: Nowadays, with spamferences and spam-journals -- probably not a big deal for you, as your have published already and at the moment it is relatively easy to tell from a call for papers if a journal or conference is of reasonable quality. For the record, this may become harder, however.
Typically, you will be asked to state your institution at submission time. Does your university have rules about submissions? Some might have some reviewing process in place in order to avoid that papers are submitted that are so bad that even submitting them could harm the reputation of the university. If you publish with your advisor, she/he will make the "internal review".


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When should you require to be addressed by your title?
I have been asked to sign a lengthly and detailed contract in order to teach a course as an adjunct at a local community college. The administrator requesting this information signed it with her title and her degree. The document was addressed to me as "Mr." ... I have both a Ph.D. and a thirty plus year career at a major university where I retired as a named research professor (facts clearly indicated on the vita in the administrator's possession!). Am I wrong to expect to be addressed as Dr. in such documents?

Did you ask them to address you as "Dr."?  (Or better yet: "Prof."?)

Please clarify.  Are you saying there's a contract and a cover letter?  Did the cover letter address you as "Mr." and the administrator by her title?  Does the contract refer to you as "Mr." and to the administrator by her title?

Note also that the use or non-use of titles such as "Dr." depends heavily on institutional culture.  Are the other PhD-holding faculty in the department routinely addressed with this title?

Demand away, and remind them that you self-identify as a "named reasearch professor" "at a major university" before you start. Good luck.

https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/130017/when-to-use-a-doctoral-title

A lot of admin documents are produced by machine these days, the ones that aren't are usually done by clueless people who aren't paid an awful lot. It would be ideal that they addressed you as 'Dr.', but unless they deal with a lot of doctors they probably just shoved your name into the standard mail merge template.
If you'd rather be addressed as 'Dr.' then raising the issue with them wouldn't be stepping out of line, after all you are the one providing them with a service.


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How necessary is research for a collegiate teaching job?
I am finishing up a PhD and looking toward teaching. I have a Masters in Math, Masters in Computer Science and am finishing up a PhD in Computational Science. I am wondering how important research is to academia jobs.
I love to teach and am very good at it and I could honestly see myself teaching for the rest of my life and not doing research (writing paper, presenting at conferences, etc is very stressful for me). My question is how important is research to getting a job in academia. For example, I see one person at my university is an associate professor and does no have a PhD. Is this person publishing?
Are full-time professors at community colleges publishing and active in on-going research?
Are there ways to become a full-time, tenured professor without a great track record for research?

Yes, it is possible.  Of course, you will probably teach more than you would if you were in a "traditional" professhorship (with teaching and research), but if you love teaching, maybe that is great.
This article from the Chronicle of Higher Education has some useful statements, to wit:

research and writing are not part of a faculty member's typical workday at a two-year college.

Also:

The good news is that the vast majority of two-year colleges do not require faculty members to publish a single word in order to earn tenure.  [...] most community colleges do still offer tenure. In many state systems, earning tenure is simply a matter of doing your job in a satisfactory manner for a set period of time—generally, three to five years.

There are also positions at four-year liberal-arts colleges that are primarily teaching-oriented.