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How does the salary system for faculty in Canadian universities work?
How does the salary system for faculty members in Canadian universities work? Is it usually 8- or 9-monthly based same as in the USA Or 12-monthly?
Also, what do they mean by Taxable Benefits in their salary database (e.g., Ontario, Ministry of Finance; Public Sector Salary Disclosure for 2013: Universities)?

I don't know elsewhere, but in Quebec, except McGill university, all teachers are unionized. Then, even at McGill, salaries are for 12months (supplemented by "bonuses" for teaching credits).

Does it mean that in Quebec, except McGill U, all other universities have 12-monthly salary system for the faculty members? What is bonuses here? Do they get paid for teaching more?

All universities (with McGill) have 12-monthly salary system. The difference is at McGill every professor deals his own salaries, else they have a ranking and follow the union progression. For the "bonuses", each professor is expected to teach a few classes per year, and at McGill they get roughly 7500$ for every 3credit class taught. And I still have to see one professor asking to teach more then what is required by the department :).

What does it mean by Taxable Benefits then?

I saw a note somewhere that it could include tuition waivers for dependents.

There is a link in this question that might be of interest to you: http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/26487/10643

It's actually very straightforward: the salary they list is the salary you get. No 8- or 9-month shenanigans, just what they quote. You might get extra money for teaching (extra) courses, but you don't have to find a way to pay yourself over the summer (indeed, research grant money never goes into the PI's pocket).
Other Taxable Benefits means non-monetary benefits, which might include free or subsidized stuff like memberships (e.g., to a University fitness centre). Senior administrative types (also appointed as professors in some department or other) might get all kinds of non-monetary benefits like a place to live or the use of a car.


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In a publications list, how to categorize paper from conference whose proceedings are published in a peer-reviewed journal?
In a "list of publications" (e.g. for a PhD thesis), should a conference paper which is published as "proceedings" in a peer-reviewed journal be categorized as a "journal article"?
(I'm from Liquid Crystals field.)

Allow me to disagree with @xLeitix.
No.  It's a conference paper.
A paper qualifies as a "journal publication" if (and only if) it passes through the standard peer-review process for the journal in which the paper is published.  If a paper is reviewed only by the program committee for a conference, it's a conference paper, even if the proceedings are published in a journal.
As a particularly confusing example, consider SIGGRAPH, the flagship conference in computer graphics.  For many many years, SIGGRAPH has published its proceedings as a standard issue of the journal ACM Transactions on Graphics (aka "TOG").
SIGGRAPH accepts two types of papers: (1) direct submissions to the conference in response to the call for papers and (2) papers published in TOG in the last 12 months.  Papers accepted from TOG are clearly journal publications, because they went through the standard TOG refereeing process.  (Those papers are not republished in the proceedings issue of TOG, but they are listed in the "table of contents".)  But direct submissions accepted by the program committee are not journal publications, because they did not go through the standard TOG refereeing process, even though they are published in TOG.
The distinction is all the more confused by the facts that in the graphics community, "SIGGRAPH paper" is a considerably more valuable label than "journal paper", in part because the reviewing process for SIGGRAPH is (or has been historically) considered more rigorous than the refereeing process for graphics journals.
Of course, the rest of the world doesn't share this preference—or perhaps more accurately, doesn't believe that anyone sane could have such a preference—which is precisely why SIGGRAPH publishes their proceedings in a journal.  Put bluntly, the graphics community chose to defend itself against lazy scholars who value the imprimatur of a journal above the quality and impact of the work through deception.  Or if you prefer a slightly less inflammatory term: camouflage.
It's worth noting that ACM now explicitly forbids conferences from publishing proceedings in an ACM journal.  (SIGGRAPH's practice is grandfathered.)  But this doesn't stop non-ACM conferences like VLDB from wearing similar camouflage.

Unless I'm missing something here, you mean the conference proceedings were published in the conference series of some journal. If this is the case, what is published is certainly peer-reviewed, but is certainly not a journal publication.  A classic example in my field (Physics) is the Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics. But there is a clear line of demarcation here - whenever the proceedings of any conference get published with J. Phys., they are in the Journal of Physics :Conference Proceedings. This leaves no ambiguity - what is published in the latter in certainly a conference proceeding and can't be classified as a journal article. (Actually, articles in the latter carry that identifier. e.g. have a look at this one.)
I appreciate your concern - the only precaution that one has to take here is, not to mention an article in a manner that gives a wrong impression. This is because the rigor of reviewing process is different for a journal article and a conference proceeding (in general). For example, if the same article gets loosely mentioned as a ''Journal of Physics article'', it is inappropriate because it gives the impression that it is a journal article. That's why people divide generally divide into categories - journal articles, conference proceedings, conference talks, ''poster presented and abstract published'' sort of a thing.
But of course, if you clearly mention/ the same gets clearly mentioned via some identifier that the article in question is a conference article, there is no harm in putting it under the heading of peer-reviewed articles. It certainly is peer-reviewed.
Hope that helps.

As counter-intuitive as it sounds, there is no absolute rule for what is considered a "journal" and what is considered "conference proceedings". In most cases the distinction is trivial. Most journals are not associated with a specific event, and paper submission and review  are entirely unrelated from any conference or meeting. Contrary, most events have dedicated proceedings, which contain all and only the accompanying papers to the presented talks.
However, there are curious cases where the line blurs. Some conference proceedings have self-styled themselves as "journals", presumably in an attempt to make their publications seem more important. A slightly different case is VLDB, which basically does not do actual peer-review of conference submissions anymore. Instead, you submit to the VLDB journal, your submission gets the traditional journal peer-review process, and once a year the authors of all papers accepted in this year for the journal are invited to present their paper at the annual meeting.
This is all to say that I think the "clear line of demarcation" isn't quite as clear as New_new_newbie says.

In a "list of publications" (e.g. for a PhD thesis), should a conference paper which is published as "proceedings" in a peer-reviewed journal be categorized as a "journal article"?

If it is called "proceedings", I would put it to the other conference papers. However, to be on the safe side, you can always just check how other authors of this conference are referring to their paper. Are they treating it as a conference talk, or a journal submission?

Well, the VLDB line blur example is news to me, so thanks for the information. However, please note that my sentence was ''... clear line of demarcation here...''. ''Here'' is the keyword there. Also, that I think that demarcation is important, because the different standards of reviewing thing is also true in general, but of course I didn't cover the line-blurs. :)

Also, it would be nice if you could elaborate on ''distinction is trivial'' part. Because, the rest of the sentences in that paragraph seem to be suggesting the exact opposite. Thanks :)

As long as you don't say anything that is not true, and do not go against your university's regulations, you can use the layout that you like the best.
In my thesis I categorized publications into:

Peer-reviewed articles
Conference talks
Conference posters

In "Peer-reviewed articles" I included any papers, including proceedings, that had been peer reviewed (i.e. I received an anonymous referee report for them). Anyone interested in reading my thesis will be familiar enough with the journals to know which ones are a conference proceedings venue. Certainly my thesis examiners were.

Thank you so much for your comment. Yes, I provided the info of the conference as well for the conference papers which published in peer-review journals.

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Does "required reviews completed" mean good news or bad?
I submitted by math paper to an Elsevier journal around 6 months ago. Today I logged into EES and saw that the status changed to "Required Reviews Completed" about 10 days ago. Is this good news or bad news ? Does it mean my paper is rejected and the Editor is basically preparing the rejection letter :( ?

Was it bad news in the end? :)

Found on Elsevier website. maybe useful for someone in the future.
In Editorial Manager (EM) a submission is considered ready for decision when a certain number of reviews have been completed, based on the article type and optionally customized by an editor. When a submission has reached the target number of completed reviews, or when a subordinate editor makes a decision ahead of that target:
The status changes to Required Reviews Completed.

It doesn't even necessarily mean that all reviews are completed. Sometimes editors invite more reviewers than is required. This message only means that the configured lower bound has been reached.

This is the right answer. Basically, it’s neither good news nor bad news, it’s no news, aka crappy user interface. One referee submitted their review, but probably more are needed, and there’s no telling how much more time it may take.

You need to learn to have patience with the peer review process. It means neither good nor bad, just that the reviews are in. You can't see further into this hole than that.

This simply means the reviews are completed. It is not good news or bad news, it simply means the reviews are available to the editor. Hopefully you hear back soon, although frankly sometimes even at this stage it can take weeks (even months)!

I had the same question and I got in touch with the journal editorial office and got a quick reply saying:

Upon checking, I noticed that some reviewers have yet to submit their
  reviews. The status "Required Reviews Completed" shows when the
  required number of reviews is reached. Please note that the editor is
  still waiting for additional reports for your manuscript. Rest assured
  that you will be notified once updates are available.

So as others mentioned above, some reviews came through, maybe 2 as the minimum default on the system, and there still some to come so the editor is waiting to receive all prior to submitting a final verdict.

It means just what it says on the tin - that the required reviews are complete. It says nothing about their content, and whether a paper is accepted or not, it will likely come with a number of revisions and the like from reviewers. The editor needs to read the reviews, decide whether or not to accept the manuscript (and there are several different scales between just accept and reject), compile those comments into something coherent, etc.
The only thing you can divine from that message is that it wasn't rejected without review, which is also a potential outcome of a paper submission.

If you see this status after submitting the revision, it is definitely a good News.
If it is after the first submission, it means that you will received the comments from the reviewers! keep your belt fasten!

Based on my experience, it is a good news that you will be hearing soon from the editor regarding your paper (although you might hear a bad news).
In general, it is good to get an idea about the time frame for the journal your are submitting to. I use the Journal Finder from Elsevier (http://journalfinder.elsevier.com), which you can use to make a decision regarding the journal. This will show you the different times and acceptance rate.
Good luck!

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What is the difference between a college and a university?
What is the difference between an institution calling itself a "college" or a "university"? For example, take the "University College London". Is it a college? A university? Both? What does it mean?

University College London (UCL) is a university; the term college does not mean anything in this case (it's part of the Uni. of London system, but this is irrelevant to its name).

Some colleges are universities: The Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, London; University College London; these award degrees in their own right.
Some colleges are listed bodies of collegiate universities: Merton College, University of Oxford; Churchill College, University of Cambridge. These do not award degrees in their own right; the parent university awards the degrees. Some teaching occurs in college. Some teaching and research staff are attached to a college, and to a university-wide department; others are attached only to a department. All undergraduates are members of a college, and of the parent university.
Some colleges are residential bodies of collegiate universities, e.g. Bowland College, University of Lancaster; Halifax College, University of York. Teaching does not occur in college, and the parent university awards the degrees.
Some colleges are independent and part of no university: Ruskin College, Oxford; Working Men's College, London. These tend to make awards other than traditional degrees.
This is the situation for England. Other anglophone countries may have different arrangements.

...and some English 'colleges' are purely secondary-education institutions (many sixth-form colleges, but also older schools which were historically named "X College")

"Other anglophone countries may have different arrangements." - not to mention non-anglophone countries, whose institutions of tertiary education more or less arbitrarily translate their names to English by calling themselves "university" or "college".

I am hesitant to even wade in, but I think University of London is an outlier since its colleges traditionally did not award degrees, but then Imperial seceded and UCL, Kings and LSE began awarding their own degrees.

I agree with @StrongBad. I studied at Imperial for my bachelor's degree, finishing in 1970, before Imperial left London University. The degree was awarded by London University. although all exams were set and graded by Imperial professors.

In the US there really isn't a distinction any more.  Traditionally, a university was a larger institution that typically offered graduate degrees (MA/MS/PhD) and had a multitude of colleges (e.g. a college of arts and sciences and a college of engineering) and professional schools (law, business, medicine, etc.) Now, lots of institutions that offer only bachelor's degrees have taken to calling themselves universities.

Now, lots of institutions that offer only bachelor's degrees have taken to calling themselves universities. And the converse is also true (albeit rarely), schools that are traditionally referred to as "X College" which award doctoral degrees.


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How can one join the Royal Society of Chemistry as an AMRSC (or MRSC) without a referee?
The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) is an amalgam of what used to be many different societies, and has a long and rich history going back to Faraday (who incidentally, never received any degree), and it is considered a learned society, like the ACS in the USA, of which I am a long-standing member.
I have perused the RSC website extensively and I possess the necessary education and experience to join as a Associate Member, but one of the requisites when completing the application is that I name a referee, optimally someone who is already a member.
I do not know anyone who is a member as I live in the U.S.A. and simply have not crossed paths with such a person who would know me well enough.  I am aware there are offices in the US (Philadelphia) and there is not categorical statement that you must be of a certain nationality, so how do "Americans" apply?
Does anyone know how this process works?

Well, if having a referee is one of the requirements, then the answer to "how can one join without a referee?" is simply "one can't".  Maybe your real question is "how do I find a referee?"

If the application says "optimally someone who is already a member" perhaps they would accept as referee a senior member of the ACS who knows you and your work.

From the help page of the Royal Society of Chemistry:

Who can be a referee for my membership application?
Preferably a member of the Royal Society of Chemistry, however if you
  do not know a member who can act as referee, a member of a similar
  professional body can provide a reference. In some cases, a reference
  from a senior colleague, for example, your line manager or head of
  department will be acceptable.


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Is a PhD in a specific field of mathematics (combinatorics) instead of a mathematics PhD disadvantageous in faculty applications?
In recent years I have become aware of a few PhD programs specifically in combinatorics and optimization. Most notably, Georgia Tech and Carnegie Mellon both have PhD programs in Algorithms, Combinatorics, and Optimization, and the University of Waterloo has an entire department of Combinatorics and Optimization with a PhD program. (I'm not aware of any other such PhD programs, but please let me know if I've missed any.)
What are the advantages and disadvantages of getting a PhD in combinatorics rather than a PhD in mathematics, specifically career-wise. Really I'm asking if anyone who has completed a PhD in combinatorics has been disadvantaged from getting a faculty position in mathematics.

This is a good question.  As the OP indicates, this "specialized PhD program" is extant but seems quite rare.  I would be interested to know the philosophy behind it.  I should say that I doubt there is any real advantage here: in mathematics people categorize people by their advisor and their department, not the name of the degree.  I would expect most employers not to notice this.

I don't know about combinatorics in particular, but I did get a PhD from one of Carnegie Mellon's other interdisciplinary programs (Pure and Applied Logic); I was offered the choice of whether my PhD would officially be in the program name or in "Mathematical Sciences", and was advised to choose the latter.
If you're PhD is in something other than "Mathematics" or an obvious synonym, and you want to get hired as mathematics faculty, there are two concerns that might come up:

Do you know enough math, broadly speaking, to be a good colleague (for instance, be out outside member on thesis committees, to talk to people, and so on)?
Can you teach introductory courses?

I do know of people with degrees called "Logic" where these concerns were raised about hiring them.  In the cases I know, someone was around to address those concerns, but it might be a disadvantage in departments where no one in the faculty was familiar enough with the program to address them.  (On the other hand, places where no one is familiar with your program aren't as likely to hire you anyway.)
With a degree in something as clearly mathematical as combinatorics, I think the first concern is unlikely to be an issue.  The latter might be, especially if those programs don't necessarily include any TA-ing/teaching of intro calculus courses, but this is also a concern that can be preempted (for instance, by making sure to pursue enough teaching experience as a grad student).


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What are the methods for ranking papers, to decide which ones to read?
For example, say you have 100 papers but only have time to read 10 of them - you need some way of determining which 10 to read
The two main methods for ranking papers I'm aware of are:

Looking at the number of citations.
Asking old mate Bob who sits in the corner, about the latest, best papers.

Are there are other methods for gauging significance (particularly for recent research) that I'm not aware of?

Ranking for what purpose?

Seconding @ff524's question: to what end do you want "ranking"? And this rhetorical question (for me) is really just a thinly-veiled skepticism that "citation index" or any other "ranking" is a fruitful way to be thinking about papers. They're just not linearly ordered from best to worst, even within fields. "Even" less famous papers often contain important information. It's not the ranking, it's the content, and content is too complex to be ranked.

For example, say you have 100 papers but only have time to read 10 of them - you need some way of determining which 10 to read.

At least in mathematics, it might not be possible to know what you need until you've read parts of papers that steer you elsewhere. And maybe just read one section of some papers. Also, sometimes one simply has to "skim" rather than "read", if all 100 papers are significant. Many variables in play... Or after "reading" one paper, you realize that the newly-realized real issue is addressed elsewhere. Often this "inefficiency" is inescapable, even with expert advice. No answer at all but to keep many threads going... e.g., skimming as well as careful reading of basically everything you see.

Read the abstracts! That's what abstracts are for.

I think you need to get away from a binary read/not-read classification.

Reading for what purpose?

I put papers in front of a big fans and turn on the fans. I rank those papers by the distance they travel before they drop on the floor.
The accuracy of this method is about the same as looking at number of citations.


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What kind of index of papers is behind the search functionality of web applications and services related to the scientific literature?
There are many, many websites that include a search function that returns a list of papers matching some keyword: Scirate, Shortscience, Brevy, etc.
Do all these sites run their own crawlers and build up their own index? Or is there a shared index somewhere?
For example, if you go to shortscience.org/search, and type in 'computer vision' it comes up with a list of relevant papers. Where is this data coming from?

Ssrn.com is an open database,  but generally these papers have yet to be peer reviewed.

Scirate is based on arXiv.

Of the services that you have listed, only Google Scholar indexes papers. The other services support various "extras" involving academic papers, but aren't really intended as an index. Can you clarify what you're asking, and why this information would be useful to you? It might help us give you a better answer.

For example, if you go to http://www.shortscience.org/search, and type in 'computer vision' it comes up with a list of relevant papers. Where is this data coming from?

There are various APIs that other services can use to search assorted indices from other sites
For example, according to the about page of ShortScience.org:

The search can access all papers in the DOI, arχiv, dblp, and Bibsonomy databases

Some of those (e.g. DBLP) only host bibliographic data; others (e.g. arXiv) host the full text of articles or preprints. Some allow access to their data by API, others make their complete database available for download.
SciRate uses arXiv. Brevy does not seem to have an index; it's just a wiki, and the search function just searches user-submitted content.


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Invitation to visit a colleague's university, who usually provides support for this?
In the past year, colleagues or collaborators have informally extended an invitation to visit their University, maybe to meet potential collaborators and give a talk. In general, is it normal for the "host" institution to provide any support? Does one's "home" institution normally provide support to do so?
Note: I'm currently a graduate student and am primarily asking for potential opportunities.

Related: http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/588/19607

What is 'normal' differs by country, field, people.... politely ask, never assume...ass/u/me :)

If you have been invited to visit, the default assumption in my realm is that the inviter will cover expenses unless they tell you up front that they don't/may not have money to fund all or any of your visit.
Usually the thing to do when you want to take an advantage of an open, informal invitation is contact the person, reminding them of your conversation, and ask about or suggest times to visit.  If their reply does not make it clear if they intend to fund your visit, just ask them.

informally extended an invitation ... is it normal for the "host" institution to provide any support

The keyword here is "informally". For a formal invitation (to give a colloquium, to interview, ...) it is indeed customary that the host institution pays unless agreed otherwise. For an informal invitation among colleagues, you should not assume anything. Just ask, but be prepared that the answer may easily be that they don't have money or are not willing to pay for your visit.

Does one's "home" institution normally provide support to do so?

This depends entirely on your home institution, its budget situation, and as how valuable your visit is perceived by your home institution. Here in Switzerland, many institutions would pretty much auto-approve any such business visits as long as they are not horrendously expensive. In Austria, it was sometimes hard to get visits approved.

I agree with Kimball's answer. If I would like that somebody visits me but don't want to fund the visit, I would tell at the very beginning that I do not have funding for the visit. But then I would not call that an "invitation".
Sometimes people say something like "It would be great if you could visit our group when you are around." I would not call this an invitation but an "offer for deeper collaboration".  If you've got some "invitation" like this and follow up on this by email, I would suggest to write something like "I would like visit and also could prepare a talk, but unfortunately, I do not have any funding available." (if this is true), and then see what reply you get.
If it is clear that the hosting group will not fund you, but you really want to go, then the first person to ask about funding is your advisor. More advice is not possible in general since universities/faculties/departments/groups differ a lot in this respect. Sometimes the department may have some travel money for which you may apply (but often this is not the case), sometimes there are other resources available, but a general advice is impossible.


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Should I be concerned about the validity of my degree if my peers in other educational systems seem to have more difficult exams?
I'm an Italian student of mathematical physics at the university of Edinburgh. I have recently caught up with one of my friends and noticed that their exams in Linear algebra and calculus (analisi I, II and Geometria 1) are harder than those I have done here, which made me question how valid my university actually is. I am aware that at Edinburgh university the toughest year is supposed to be the third (unlike in Italy where the first is when most people drop out).
Does this mean that an Italian degree in physics provides a better preparation to become a theoretical physicist, or are the two qualifications equivalent?

Hi, and welcome to Academia.SE!  Unfortunately, it is very difficult to judge a question like this in general because so much depends on the specific individual and their specific goals and area of work.

being a first year physics student, my specific goals are not clear yet, all I know is that so far I have enjoyed the theoretical side of science more than the experimental one, and I therefore hope to become the "best" theoretical physicist I can be.

I have no specific knowledge of Edinburgh. Apparently it's a good university. But certainly, to my knowledge and experience: UK higher education studies are easier than Italian ones on average (in comparable universities). The reason is probably social-economical. In the UK for instance students pay higher fees than in Italy, and it is impossible in this sense to fail more than 10-20% students in a class. Hence exams must be made easy. This is not the case in good Italian universities.

One very important advantage of studying overseas that you may not have considered: unless you were very fluent in English before you started, you will likely find the language skills you pick up now to be invaluable later. Unless you're actually considering switching universities, don't think about this too much or you'll only worry unnecessarily!

@Dilworth: Rather, I think that UK universities have never (well, since long before fees) wanted drop-out rates above 10%. They'd consider that a failure of recruitment. Any difference between the UK and Italy, if it's because of fees, would have started in 1998 and presumably jumped up in 2010 when fees were tripled to their current level. And Scottish universities don't charge the fees to their Scottish undergrads, so they might be less affected. I expect differences in difficulty/syllabus are longer-standing with other causes, although of course it's a worry for the future.

@MicheleGalli: are you on a combined Bsc/MPhys course with a 3/4 year option? Bear in mind that due to quirks of UK 16-18 education, it's the general opinion of UK universities that UK students are under-prepared for mathematical and scientific studies. It's why the 4-year undergrad degrees exist at all, and it might account for them taking it easier than you'd expect on the maths in the first year. I did a tougher maths A-level than the average, and there was literally an entire first-year course on linear algebra  at Oxford that I had already covered. They'll step it up.

@Steve, you might be correct. I don't know the reason for this precisely, but I was speculating it is related also to higher fees and difference in culture: the student are treated as customers.

As an Edinburgh alumnus (2006) I found that the first year of my 4 year Computer Science degree course was (especially with regards mathematics) easier than even my A2 (college) examinations in the subject, and we were certainly starting at a more basic level than friends at English universities - I suspect the same may apply when compared to the Italian system. I understood that it was because Scottish students can/do attend university at 17 years old so the first year is almost a catch-up to get everyone to the same level before the real work begins, but unsure if that's actually the goal.

@Dilworth so I guess you have been educated in Italy, did you find big differences with guys who had been educated in Scotland or England when you did post graduate studies? as in: were they "behind"?

Compared with other UK universities, both English and Scottish (and the two systems are very different), Edinburgh seems to promote breadth of education as opposed to depth. Which might or might not be the right thing for you, but it would me a mistake to think that it's in any way inferior.

I have edited the title of this question to focus on the general "answerable" concern, rather than the specific comparison of two educational systems. As I believe it is no longer a "we can't say more than 'it depends'" question, I am voting to reopen.

One important difference is that in Edinburgh you have one chance at taking the subject, and if you fail, it is failed for good; while in Italy you can retake subjects. This means that they have to make sure it is possible to pass each and every exam. Let me add that I know several physicists that studied in Edinburgh, my girlfriend among them, and their education is certainly very good, much better rounded than the one I got from Spain.

As an Italian student I can tell you that, hearing from people doing things like ERASMUS abroad, all courses in all the universities of the planet are easier than those in Italy. I'm pretty sure this cannot be the case. I may concede that the average Italian university may have slightly higher standards than the average university of a maybe big set of countries, but you cannot really generalize in any meaningful way. In the end it depends by you and the professors you got.

@Michele, no, I was not educated in Italy. I just know many good Italians academics, and unfortunately not so many good academics educated in the British system. The UK has good faculty, sure, but student wise---this is not their forte (obviously this is just my personal impression, and is not meant to offend any specific academic).

@Dilworth I take absolutely no offense, but if i can ask: in which country were you educated?

Comparing different educational systems is frequently a futile exercise. Learning is like hiking to the top of a mountain from different trails: all of them lead to the same top, but one can be very steep at the beginning, a second one can have its steepest segment halfway to the top and a third one can have a final wall that needs an expert climber. Different educational systems can choose different paths according to different intermediate objectives.
Though it's true that some people prefer a certain type of trail with respect to another, and that along certain trails one can find more people with whom to share the joys and sorrows of hiking (learning), arriving to the top depends only on your efforts.
Now you are at the beginning of your trail. It's too early to decide whether it's a good trail or not: start hiking and enjoy the landscape, and if you think that the trail is not enough steep for your training, try to jog or run uphill. In other words, challenge yourself: you will learn much much more.

An anecdote about the appropriateness of certain steep starts. When I was a sophomore (2nd year) studying electronic engineering we had a mandatory class called Rational Mechanics, about Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics. The exam consisted in a set of problems on mechanical systems to be solved with those two formalisms, a home project in which we had to develop a numerical solver with different techniques (in Pascal), and a viva where we had to prove various theorems. It was a tough exam at the sophomore level, but mostly because no one could really get the grasp of it. I somehow managed to tunnel through the exam, even with a decent grade.
Two years later I attended a class on quantum mechanics. The first lecture the professor said something like: "Quantum mechanics is based on Hamiltonian mechanics, and since you already know it we can proceed quickly". I then timidly raised my hand and said "Er... no one in this room has the faintest idea of what Hamiltonian mechanics is. Yes, we passed the exam two years ago, but really... could you please give us a refresher?". She was astonished, but then agreed to spend a few lectures on Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics. I integrated her lectures with a classic book, and since then those topics have been among my favourites.
The above example is to say that sometimes a tough exam at the beginning is just a misplaced exam, because some topics require a certain level of scientific maturity to be properly understood.

Thank you very much! It is just hard sometimes to easily cope with criticism like that found on the internet and be very far from home at the same time.

I have travelled a similar path around 1970 asking the same questions transplanted from Italy and studying engineering in New York. My opinion is that the US or UK will actually prepare the student better, maybe at a slightly slower pace but not any less. In the US, classes and Labs are well furnished, with lab time and equipment for each student (or teams) to conduct research. In the US, the real study is Graduate and Pos-Graduate, often students are led by well respected leaders in their fields.
The advantage of the US (and possibly the UK) is a better learning environment, less theoretical, more practical (focused on using what is learned toward problem solving).  The student body in the US is much more competitive but everyone benefits from exposure to bright students from around the globe.
Unfortunately, the academic study does not prepare the individual for the next steps, like work in academia or the private sector where it will take not only the learned methodology and skills but your insights and ambition to succeed.
To my surprise I landed on Wall Street, a really competitive environment particularly during the past few decades.
I would personally consider what will come after the course of study and which country (economy) will actually offer the opportunity to pursue a rewarding career, since the contacts made during the course of study can help the direction the career will take.


text:
Am I less likely to get into a masters in finance or economics with a bachelors in business administration than I would with a bachelors in finance?
I had always thought I have going for a bachelors in finance, but it turns out I am getting a bachelors in business administration with concentrations in finance & applied analytics. I plan on going to grad school for a masters in finance or economics and even a possible doctorate if I go the research/econ route. Will this hurt my chances of getting into grad school with a more common and not as prestigious degree? Are my employment aspects lessened?

BBAs are probably the most common business undergraduate degrees in the US. Nobody will care that it doesn't say Bach. Finance. You should do your best to highlight that your concentration was in finance when you apply for your graduate work.


text:
A postdoc joining my group is interested in my experiment. How to proceed with respect to leadership on the project?
The situation is the following: I have been researching, in an experimental science, the capabilities of a new way how to perform a given experiment. Due to the challenging nature of the project, I have encountered several pitfalls until now and after several years have found a main line of projects within this scope that can yield a good outcome.
The peril: a new postdoc will join our group and he already stated his main interest in also working in the same experiment.
Since I feel like being held back by my advisor, who is agreeing on this situation, my question is: How should I proceed in this case with regard to the division between our leadership? The postdoc will probably perform some of the experiments that took me (a PhD student) two years to find the right track.

Why can't you collaborate with this postdoc?

I totally can and will. My main issue is on stablishing routes and now having to endure no longer being the main responsible in this project. Would you suggest any route?

I don't see why you assume you will "no longer be the main responsible in the project". If you have the most expertise on this experiment, why wouldn't you have the primary responsibility?

The OP is right to be careful. Much depends on the level of trust the OP has to his advisor. The word collaboration is pleasant to the ears, and fun to act out when it works, but there also needs to be a mechanism that protects the OP's investment, in case things do not work out. Yes, students have been sidelined by higher-level forces after investment, so, not knowing the postdoc, it is wise to be careful. However, on the other hand, the OP should not let it appear as if immediately prepared for the worst case. It's a balance act. That being said, it is worth contemplating if there something the postdoc could bring into the game.
If there is a good level of trust between the OP and the adviser, it may be a possibility of bringing up issues of leadership, credit, etc. in a discreet conversation how the OP's investment is going to be protected, if that's the fear. Unfortunately, it will not cost the advisor as much if things go wrong, so clearly the OP needs to make sure his interests are taken care of, if the adviser is not privy of the possible pitfalls.
If the OP merely wants to keep the experiment and its benefits for himself, there is not much he can argue with, I am afraid, but in this case it won't cost him too much to collaborate, as long as first-author credits and potential leadership issues are taken care of.


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Do universities maintain secret textbooks?
Textbooks are highly important resources for course work as well as for research work.
Some textbooks are freely available over internet. Some textbooks can be purchased.
Is it true that there exists secret textbooks available only for the students of that particular university and for no others?
I had this doubt because one of my batch mates claimed that there is a university (say X) has its secret textbook for students as well as researchers of that university only and it is a common practice for many top end universities.
Note that I am asking about textbooks only, not regarding teaching material and others.

Comments in answers, the discussion about the grey zone between text books and lecture notes, and similar have been moved to chat. Please read this FAQ before posting another comment.

I have never heard of a textbook being "secret" in the sense that it was being kept intentionally hidden to give students of one organization an advantage.
I have often, however, encountered draft textbooks that a professor had not yet completed or published, for which students were partly acting as "beta testers."  These are often not released for general use (for obvious reasons), and may be in preparation for many years, which could make them act something like a "secret" textbook.
Indeed, as the stage and organization of such documents becomes earlier and less formal, the boundary between "textbook" and "lecture notes" becomes unclear, and there are certainly some professors who are effectively writing a private textbook and just never get around to putting in the effort (or relaxing their perfectionism) to make it public.

I know of a draft textbook that has been complete except for perfectionist revisions for more than a decade, which is only available in the campus bookstore, and only when the author is teaching one particular class.  The content and typesetting look exactly like a textbook; the only difference is the spiral binding. The author steadfastly refuses to make his book available to the public, not because it gives his students an advantage, but because he thinks (incorrectly IMHO) that he's not done yet.  (Yes, he revises it every term.)

Plus, some professors I've interacted with just plain liked teaching out of books that people had never heard of. I don't know why, but I know that those books were similar to "secret textbooks", because no other universities were using them. Especially when the professor is teaching out of either their own or a colleague's work.

I had a similar professor-written text for an undergrad diffeq course.  Of course this was long before PDF readers or even laser printers became common, so it was IIRC a stack of mimeographed pages.

@user45266 They are not "secret": in my experience they are clearly noted in the syllabus and everyone with access to the internet can find out that professor X uses book Y in their course. Probably the professor uses that obscure book because they think it is much better than more known alternatives.

I disliked the texts other professors used for ENGL 100 ("You Say I Say" was all about mimicry --- no thanks!) and ENGL 393 (way too expensive and physically heavy - new editions every year!).  So I would be the only instructor using the books I chose, but they were all freely available on Amazon, and I resisted version changes when I could to allow students to re-sell texts.  This was a State U: when I was at the community college, I had to use assigned texts only - so I started writing my own.

My linear algebra professor always used his own textbooks for his classes.  They contained errors and poor explanations and no one I knew cared for them.  They weren't "beta" because there was no intention to publish them.  I think the main reason was that they just wouldn't sell so no one wanted to pay for publishing costs.

I had a professor who had a textbook he’d written, and that he had copied at Kinko’s and sold for $20—he said they charged him $17, but he couldn’t be bothered to deal with the change, and if you didn’t like it, consider he could have the school print it and charge $80, or sell it to a publisher and have them charge $160.

Having attended two top end universities, I can say that I have never seen or heard of a proper textbook that was only for use within that university.  Textbooks require a lot of time and effort, and the author (often a professor) expects to be properly compensated, which can only occur if students at many different colleges and universities purchase his book.
I did have a professor at a top university require his own properly-published book as one of the textbooks for the course.  Although it was not for use only within that institution, I doubt that any other professors, whether at that university or elsewhere would use that book as a textbook.
However, at an average university, I did have a business law class where the professor had a work that he described as "your Bible", meaning it functioned as our textbook for the course.  It was not a properly published textbook printed by a professional publisher, but it was 50 or a hundred pages held together with a heavy-duty staple.  This was obviously not for sale to others outside the university.  Whether you would consider this a textbook would depend on your definition of "textbook".

Maybe this is something that was done in the 1500's. "Written here and pressed on our printing press, damn it: doesn't leave our library" kind of thing?

@Kaz Much earlier than than, many of Aristotle's works are believed to have been originally meant more as lecture notes for his students, and not for wider publication.

The closest thing to a "secret textbook" (apart from draft textbooks) I've encountered were sometimes referred to as 'compendia'. These were often glorified lecture notes, sometimes spanning multiple logically connected courses, tailored to the syllabi at a given institution. Hence they lacked the breadth that would make them useful as textbooks for others. Some of them also contained detailed instructions and information* about lab experiments to be done during the course(s), which obviously is of local interest only. (C.f. lab manuals.) However, they were often maintained over many years by many lecturers, and semi-professionally printed and bound by the university's printing services, and purchased by students in the university bookshop.
*I remember that at least a couple of them included reproductions of component data sheets and excerpts from equipment manuals. Given the limited distribution no one was worried about copyright issues, but a published textbook would be a different question.

I guess it depends on the definition of a text book. For one of the courses I teach, a fellow professor and I wrote the text book for that course ourselves, because we couldn't find anything out there covering the subject properly.
However, neither of us wanted to go the publication route, as that would have been a lot of extra work for a rather specialized book anyway.
It is a proper textbook, although it is limited in scope to just the course I teach. But it does fit into your description of a "secret text book", as it is only available for the students following my course. Not that I am trying to hide it from the world though, I just haven't had any great incentives to put in the work required to make it relevant as a general textbook for everyone.

Place it on your homepage. If there is interest, it will be used (and you might get corrections and additions from the public). If not, no loss.

I agree with @vonbrand, -- what subject? Share a link on your profile here to your homepage, which should link to it!  You have roused our curiosity!

I don't maintain a homepage at the University, and all course stuff is stored in our LMS, which isn't readable by guests. And, the text is in Norwegian.
The course is a about networking and server management, including such topics as Active Directory, virtualization, security, routing etc. Part of the reason for writing our own texts was that it wasn't possible to find a single book covering it, and we didn't want students purchasing a lot of books
Course description in Norwegian at https://bit.ly/34dS8kN
Book is due for updating, I'll consider putting it some more public after that.

The only university that I am aware of, that has "secret textbooks" is the National Intelligence University (university site).  The text books are classified. As a facility where all students are required to have a Top Secret/SCI clearance, I expect all of the text books to be classified at least Top Secret.
I expect other service academies and military colleges to have classified texts.
Outside of these situations, or a research project with classified materials, I don't expect any university that you might enroll in, to have "secret texts".

textbooks available only for the students of that particular university and for no others

I've come across text books that were prepared specially for particular universities. They were almost always a version of an existing textbook that had chapters removed for a particular professor or university. This made it virtually impossible to sell the book back after the semester. They had cheap binding and mentioned the university that they were for in huge letters on the cover and spine. I hated those.

I expect all of the text books to be classified at least Top Secret. - Why?  They also need to study things that are public knowledge.

It works the other way around: if you have at least one document or information classified at a given level, then you need the staff dealing with it to have the required clearance. But you certainly do not want everything they read or write to be classified as there are significant costs and hassle associated with the handling of classified information. So I would expect most textbooks or documents to be restricted in some way, some to be classified at the confidential or secret level and only very little to be classified at the top secret level.

A national military academy in any number of countries will have restricted textbooks.

Some universities have their own edition of a few textbooks. Maybe this is what your classmate meant.
For example, this Vector Calculus book used at KAIST, best-ranked Korean university for science and engineering. But, since the book is mentioned in the course syllabus, and you can buy it on an online bookstore, it has nothing secret.
(I had the book in my hands a few years ago, but I forgot what are the differences with the classic edition)

There are a few reasons for restricted resources (not sure if all qualify as text books):
It is quite normal for remote/online universities that some of the course material is produced for a course and only available to payers of the course fees.
This includes printed textbooks, digital text but also multimedia productions.
Some university libraries have archives with historical documents which might be unique, in a bad shape, not scanned or indexed. Access to that is sometimes restricted to staff or with special permission. This is especially true of the material is archived for an owner (like a church or nobel family).
Thesis and diploma works written at a university is archived there. Some of that material has restrictions placed on it because it might be confidential or sponsored work. In that case access is on a permission base.
Some universities publish specific books and instead of having a infrastructure for selling them they might offer them for their own course attendees only.
I am sure there are other reasons. Really secret is most likely only some historic documents in private or church owned institutions.

+1 for material of on-line courses given only to students enrollen in the course.

Something I did see:  For a large calculus course, the publisher offered to produce an edition of their textbook with exactly the desired chapters in the order specified by the Math Department.  This was back in the days when books were on paper, and there were no personal computers to read any other type of book.

A school I attended had "textbooks" which were just selected chapters from several other separately-published textbooks combined and bound into a single book, with the school's own cover applied, often with one or more professors from the school listed as "editors".  None of the content (possibly excluding a forward) was written by anyone at the school.  While these books were only available for purchase directly from the school, they couldn't exactly be called "secret", since their source material was directly copied from several other books, all of which are available separately for general purchase.  I think the idea was this saved the students from having to buy half a dozen different books of which only small portions were used, but it had the unfortunate side-effect that you couldn't look up the books online since there were no other places where they could be legally purchased.

I had several engineering courses where the professor had written the textbooks and required us to buy them.
The books weren't used at any other universities (with one exception), and the prices were outrageous. It wasn't secret, but it was exclusive.

Yes, as long as you remove the word "secret."
I remember a few professors who used their own private textbooks for their classes. In some cases, these textbooks were also available to other teachers and students doing another section of that same class at that same institution.
Some of them would offer copies of their own private books to the campus bookstore. Some of them wanted to save the students money and would provide a PDF copy of the book and tell the students to print it out in a computer lab - this caused friction with the computer department who managed the printers, as it drastically inflated the paper usage past their budget for it. Some of them would only make a few copies of their book and would give them to the campus library.
I don't think this practice was a secret, but in all other ways it fits your description.

Some publishers do offer customized texts (at least for first and second year gen ed courses) and they may only be provided to that school's book store (or only available online via publisher CMS/LMS) but I'm not sure about the "secret" part.  Typically the customization choices are like "well, we have these 48 chapters basic college algebra concepts. Which of them do you want, and in what order?" and "do you want solutions for even or odd problems in the back"
Obviously the instructor prepared lecture notes or "course packs", etc. (are those still a thing) may count, but again I'm not sure about the "secret" part.

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


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As a TA, Should I allow students to ask their doubts without schedule?
In the first or introductory lecture of a course, either associate professors or professors of my university tells to students to clarify doubts with teaching assistants. Faculty do not say to students any explicit statements regarding how, when and where to ask doubts.
In general no course site or any centralized communication channel is present.
Most of the students comes with lot of doubts without proper study and asks for TA time individually. For example some students asks TA to tell the entire course in an easy manner. Some students asks advance questions that TA cannot answer. Some students ask for mobile number, personal mail etc., Some students asks for appointment and lot of time for discussions.
In the scenario of academics, is it apt for a TA to inform to the corresponding faculty about these issues or is it apt to give strict instructions to students in the absence of the faculty regarding how to ask, where to ask and when to ask their doubts based on TA's personal comfort?
Note: I am asking this because faculty consider these as minor issues. But as a TA, one mayn't able to manage such unorganized stuff.

If you give out your phone number and email, they will expect you to be available 24/7....

@SolarMike Yeah.  they use to send messages or Whatsapp etc.,

This is going to depend on the expectations set by your supervisor, university, or academic culture in your country or region.  I could tell you what is normal in my country, but it may not be the same as yours.

Possibly related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/80524/limits-on-one-student-using-all-of-ones-office-hours

Are you given a university email address? That is the only method of contact I've ever heard of being acceptable.

Some students asks advance questions that TA cannot answer — Good! Thank them, say "I don't know", and move on. — mobile number, personal mail, etc. — "What? No, of course not!"

I agree with Nate...ideally the faculty should support whatever reasonable guidelines you impose, and we could explain what's normally considered reasonable (whatsapp, are you kidding me?). But at some institutions, the professors just want the TAs to handle the students and will blame the TA whenever students complain, regardless of reasonableness.

A former colleague (TA and later assistant researcher) of mine set up a delay for his emails. He would usually answer student questions right away, but set it such that his answer is only send out a few hours later, so that the students don't expect his availability 24/7. If that is the perfect way to do it I don't know, but he worked as TA for multiple years, so I'm sure he had a good reason to take this approach.

@AzorAhai College email is in use. But some students don't ask the questions from that.

@cag51 Yeah, faculty may not scold but gives TA the whole responsibility to whatever extent they can give.

I'm confused about a few aspects of your question, but unquestionably it's 100% OK and expected to tell them "Questions only through my university email; to which I'll respond when I can." In other words, don't send a panicked question 20 minutes before the deadline ... One of my TAs said they wouldn't answer between 8 PM and 8 AM. If you don't have an LMS, email is the only option (plus office hours).

From the student's standpoint it is very helpful to learning to be able to ask questions when they arise, rather than waiting hours or days for the opportunity. But if you are managing a number of students you need to be able to respond to student needs both effectively and efficiently. Also, responding to student questions doesn't always mean actually answering them. More often, actually, you can show them where to get the answers themselves. Their learning will be deeper if they put effort into it, so make them do that. One exception is that you sometimes need to dispel misconceptions that people have so that they don't waste time on unproductive study.
One of the best techniques that I used in the past (I'm retired now) extensively was an email list to which I and all the students were subscribed. I didn't answer questions sent to my normal email - individual questions - but I always saw that student questions directed to the mailing list were answered. But other students were also encouraged to answer questions posted to the list, so that not all answers came from me. I normally had to answer about a third to a half of the questions. Moreover, every student was able to see every question and the answer. Then, you don't have to answer the same question multiple times. And you also have a record of questions that can be useful for future course preparation.
I had to monitor the list, of course, in case incorrect answers were given, and I had to set some ground rules so that answers to exercises weren't given, but generally, the list was very open. People were encouraged to help their classmates learn, by pointing to resources, for example.
Such a list is also helpful if some students are dissatisfied with the course and complain on the list. I never had to "defend" myself on the list but occasionally students would themselves respond to complaints of their peers.
There are, I assume, other ways to do this, but the keys were (a) complete transparency of questions and answers, and (b) ask a question or express a concern at any time, day or night.

Back in the stone age, my classes used local Usenet newsgroups for this.  These days we mostly use Piazza, although some smaller classes use Slack.


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Reason for less or almost no research papers from PhD students in India
It is evident from the stats of some reputed journals and conferences that Ph.D. students from India are getting hard to publish at least some research papers while other countries are publishing many productive research papers.
It is not a reason that there are fewer Ph.D. researchers. In fact, there are enough Ph.D. researchers in India. But most of them are published in low-quality or secondary journals.
I want to know the key and broad reason(s) for such phenomena. I am guessing three main reasons related to academia. One is less grip/expertise among the student community on the areas at the fundamental level and another reason is their less or no familiarity with the English language and publication skills. The last reason is the lack of funding, infrastructure, etc.
But I'm interested to know whether any study or statistics give reasons or insights on this. Is there any study that explicitly comments on the lagging of Indian Ph.D. students in top-tier publications compared to the leading countries?

I would say English language skills in India are considerably higher than in some other countries that do have many publications. I would also point out that there are many Indian scientific journals and some researchers/institutions might prefer to publish there. Let us see if someone comes up with some stats...

just to make sure. This is a reference request right?

This is too broad - the list of reasons can be long...

@BoatyMcboatface yeah.

@SolarMike But I am asking for key reasons only.

I think one thing you missed is academic migration. Many of the best Indian students are no longer in India. After all, why do your (PhD-)studies in India if you are exceptional enough to get a place at a more prestigious and better funded university in Europe or the US? This is of course related to the other points, but sadly it is also self-reinforcing as it leads to Indian universities being perceived as second rate places filled with second rate people, so future students have a further incentive to look for other options. I'm not sure where to get good data on that though.

Compering to China and US or EU. India have lowest budget for research

The question is also oddly phrased: PhD students are not the only ones conducting research

@Spark I am interested regarding PhD students only.

So just Indian PhD students? Or PhD students in India?

@Spark PhD students in India.

Then your first sentence makes no sense. How is it evident? Do you know percentages of publications by Indian PhD student lead authors? Also the entire question presupposes that students are the main drivers of research in India, which is really not obviously true.

@Spark yeah, I haa statistics of some reputed journals in which almost no Indian University has papers in it...

The lack of research funding as SSimon mention seems to the most likely reason for a poor research culture and hence Indian based journals. There is a well worn track of academics being trained overseas and returning. This approach however means that there is a poor academic culture based in India probably.
India’s investment in research is a measly 0.62 percent of GDP.
Also from the report, there is an emphasis on the lack of undergraduate research resulting in only 0.5% of the student progressing with further PhD studies.
There seems to be an increase in the growth of high quality publications from India, especially in the area of chemistry - Nature Index Report 2014.


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How do superwomen find time?
There are a lot of activities and responsibilities for women in both professional and personal life. I can list few of them.
Academic related: Lecturing, content creation, discussion, floating assignments, studying, research, dealing with interns, meeting seniors (attending seminars), administrative tasks, and miscellaneous tasks
Personal: Parenting, cooking, home maintenance, elderly care, periodic cycles etc.,
Although the list seems small, it takes up a lot of energy, time, mood and (some times) aspiration.
Although all of the academic activities are common to men also. I hope it is well known for most of us that personal activities for women are relatively high.
I want to add one more factor that may be relevant: finance control. Women who are in academics may not able to get enough money to automate the personal tasks.
In this context, I am wondering how do superwomen find time to deal with academic activities?
More context: I am updating after this answer in meta.
How is it related to academics: Some research scholars does not get income from PhD. Some get less amount (25,000 - 35,000 rupees)  and very very few gets more stipend (Rs. 55,000.00 to Rs 72,800). Many of the remaining professions get much more than this along with several benefits. It is higly infeasible for a researcher to hire maid or for automation. You can read these source 1, source 2
How is it related to gender: You need to do a survey on this. There are more responsibilities for woman in my country compared to men. You can read these: source 1, source 2
It's not clear what sort of answers are possible: Answer can be from the experience of people who work under responsibilities or those who know about the standard practices of such females.

From experience and studies I have seen, university women have on avarage less kids than the avarage. At a certain point, it is "kids or career" for women (in general, of course there are exceptions) while men  can have kids even if they are older and have a fixed position..

I'm not sure what kind of answer you are expecting here. Do you really think there is an objective answer or a lifehack that does not include "by overworking themselves" or "by not actually doing all these things simultaneously"?

You might also want for non-Indian readers to write into the question what Indian women are expected to do. Are they nowadays, de facto, expected to do more child care/parent care/household than men?

@xLeitix I am expecting answers from working women in academics about  their time management. Because I don't have any clue of dealing with these.

@user111388 Yeah, they do exist in reality, for a married women. I am not exaggerating anything here.

If someone can improve the question, please do it.

The successful younger women I know "just" successfully communicated with their partner, that they need to participate in running the household. I put just in quotes, because that is not easy. It is also more of a ongoing process/struggle, rather than a one-time talk. The older successful women, just choose not to have children.

It is completely unclear to me why this question is focused on women; every point listed (except the period) holds just the same for men in many cultures. I have to admit I'm not very familiar with Indian culture, but I think this question would be greatly improved without the restriction on sex/gender.

On a separate note, it also seems to have little to do with academia; the exact same question (with the exact same anwer) goes for any career.

@Servaes how can it go for any career? Software employees get at least 2 times the salary compared to academicians. They can hire maids for many tasks.

@Servaes I request you to please make a short survey on Indian culture. You can search responsibilities/duties of Indian women/(housewife)homemaker .

Just one comment on the cultural aspect: A culture that expects women to exclusively take care of parenting, cooking, home maintenance, and elderly care does not expect women to make career. So, it is a bit weird to frame all of this in such cultural expectations, and assume them as strict. You might also find it interesting to read this.

@xLeitx with some elaboration, that could be a good answer.

@Servaes only in part, namely high-commitment, high-workload careers.

By not being with a man that expects them to do all those tasks while he does nothing.


text:
My supervisor blocks the submission of my paper to a journal
From the start of my PhD (applied mathematics), I had many disagreements with my supervisor on the research topic (no funding) she gave me. This made our relationship bad and collaboration unpleasant. In the last year before my thesis defense, I asked for a separation, but she was against that. Then, I stopped doing research with her earlier than the expected time, and started writing my PhD thesis, which was approved by the department. This annoyed my supervisor apparently, and now she is very slow in giving me feedback on my PhD thesis.
After submitting my thesis for defense, I extracted a paper out of the thesis, co-authored with my supervisor. She has agreed to revise it and then to submit it to a journal, however, she has held  the paper for more than one month, without any comment. I write emails to her several times for appointments, but she does not reply. I have a feeling that she did it on purpose as she wants to make my academia life after PhD difficult.
Is it an ethical issue to hold a student’s paper like this? I need the paper to apply for post-doc. In such a case, if the student insists to submit a paper to a journal, is there any ethical problem?

I asked for a separation, but she was against that. Then, I stopped doing research with her earlier than expected time. Why did you not find another supervisor?

This question has so many inconsistencies. "In my last second year". What is "last second year"? Any serious math PhD would require at least 3-5 years. "stopped doing research with her earlier than expected time and started writing my PhD thesis". So, your advisor did not approve your thesis? And you still got a PhD, despite of that? That makes no sense.

I downvoted the question because there are many inconsistencies. pointed out by @Alexandros and me. Please explain those inconsistencies and I would be more than happy to vote to re-open the question.

@Alexandros So, your advisor did not approve your thesis? And you still got a PhD, despite of that? That makes no sense. – The question says nothing about the asker having finished their PhD (I assume that the thesis is still under review) or the supervisor awarding a failing grade (she just disapproved of its early submission). But even if the supervisor wants the thesis to fail by all means, the rest of the department may be able to let it pass (which would be unusual, but apparently the department sides with the asker here). That being said, a bit more information would be helpful.


text:
Is the name of this institute acceptable?
Perhaps it is more a question of translation than an academic one, but I think it cannot be wrong to get opinions from people here because the question has a relation with higher education anyway.
A China-based college is officially named (translated into English, to be exact) Guangxi Vocational and Technical College of Communications (广西交通职业技术学院 in Chinese), and the business of that college mainly focuses on knowledge, skills, training, majors or programs in strong and close connection with transport (or transportation) which includes roads and bridges engineering, auto engineering, navigation, traffic control, etc. Guangxi is the name of the place where this college is situated.
So the name in English doesn’t sound so clearly defined or even confusing because communications might contain the meaning of transport, but the word is now more related to telecommunication, media outlets, broadcasting, performing arts, etc.
Technical and Vocational College does not seem a common name found in mainstream higher education of English-speaking countries. Polytechnic can be the substitute, can it?
My alternative for the above name in English is Guangxi Transport Polytechnic. Does it sound acceptable to native ears?

In the UK, an HE college generally cannot award degrees (they award A Levels, BTECs, NVQs etc- mostly vocational qualifications), whereas polytechnics were all converted to universities and therefore now award degrees. I would suggest "Guangxi College of Transportation".

Bear in mind that if you use an unofficial denomination, people might not recognize it. Moreover, if you are an employee of said institute, your administration may want you to use the official denomination, whether you like it or not.

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because the question is unrelated to academia. An institution should know how to represent itself in English.

I very much doubt that any native speaker of English would assume that "communication" meant "transport" rather than "communication".

@FredDouglis Please, this is a forum open to the whole world, not every visitor or user here is from English-speaking countries. When English is easy to you, it is very difficult to others. Thank you for your understanding and being kind to a non-native speaker of English.

@DavidRicherby Please, look carefully, the word used in the above question is "communications", "-s" should not be left out, and you are kindly advised to check a dictionary before giving your constructive reply.

I'm saying ask the institution,  not us.

@NanningYouth I'm sorry for getting the name wrong. Actually, the part I misread was that your college, unlike any native speaker, is using "communications" to mean "transport" which I agree is confusing. But, please, watch your tone: telling native speakers to look up common words in a dictionary is pretty rude.

If the body itself (with its employees and executives included) has the competence or English proficiency like a native, do I need to make such big trouble to ask for help here by losing my own face since I am the president of that agency? You are only your self only, so please don't say "us", because "us" includes many other warm-hearted friends who wish to offer their help. If you do not want to help, there is nothing wrong, but don't make judgment on others, thank you very much.

@DavidRicherby Sorry if I made an offense, it was due to my low level of the language, but not my disrespect, sorry, again, have a nice weekend.

Interesting question- here in the UK, we don't use the term polytechnic anymore with technical and vocational training being pursued in further education colleges as opposed to higher education universities.
So, if you were speaking to someone from the UK, it would be appropriate to say:
Guangxi College of Transport.
Does that help?

Thanks. Does it mean that the word "polytechnic" does not have the implication that this school is an institute of higher education? It is merely a school for secondary-level vocational training without diploma or degree?

The term polytechnic is no longer used in the UK. All polytechnics were rebranded as universities and provide higher education degrees and postgraduate qualifications.
Further education colleges are probably the closest thing to polytechnics now, offering vocational training in a range of subjects that can lead to higher education university degrees.


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What are some of the issues one should keep in mind while choosing between a fully funded offer and another with no funding?
I have been offered a place for a masters program in 2 places. One which is fully funded and another one where there is no aid that has been offered at the time of admission.
I guess if the everything else was the same between the two then the answer is obvious, which is to go for the funded one. But the problem in my case is this:
In the fully funded case I have been offered a place in a research group I have no primary interest in (and no previous knowledge of) and something which I would not have definitely chosen if I was given a choice. So in sum, although it comes with a lot of money, the work is something I'm unsure if I will enjoy.
In the second case, there is no aid. The tuition fee + living is something which is not completely unaffordable for, I hope to manage those with loans and some family money. Aside that, I feel there is a lot of flexibility (or at least some flexibility), as I can choose my domain of work and my advisor once I have enrolled, and maybe been through a semester. Also the coursework here is a lot more closer to my preferred area of research.
Additional info: Comparing the two universities as such, the second one (the one without aid) is higher ranked than the other one (with full funding).
So given all this, how do you think I should make a decision and what is your opinion on the same?
Edit: Both programs are research-based and require a thesis.

Do you plan to go to Academia or industry after you get the masters degree?

Always go with the funding.

@scaaahu right now, I have plans to continue for a phd after my masters which is one reason I'm particularly worried about the kind of work (as in the research area) I will be doing. As I have mentioned, the lab I have been assigned to in the funded offer is not in my area of interest.

There are four outcomes to your master's program:

You don't complete the program.
You complete the program and can't find a job dependent upon the degree.
You complete the program and get a job dependent upon the degree.
You complete the program and continue in academia.

If you take the position with support, you will be better off in case (1) and (2).  Case (4) is a tie -- you can shift research groups for your Ph.D., and you will be better off financially, but you have to spend 2 years doing things you don't entirely like.  Case (3) is the only case that's a clear win for the no-support degree; you'll have 2 years of chasing your joy, and a fairly small debt that you'll pay off soon in a high-paying field.
What's left is to evaluate the relative probabilities of the four cases.  You need to be objective here, and use the evidence you have: the expert judgement of the graduate programs to which you've applied.  Admittedly two data points is quite few; it would be helpful to know if you applied to other programs, and what those results were.  However, in the opinion of the more prestigious program, you are not one of their best candidates (or else they would offer you support).
In summary, choosing the no-support program is a large gamble.  You should take it if you're confident that the program made a mistake in not offering you funding -- you have tremendous talent that for some reason has not been revealed in your record.  Absent such a situation you should take the support.  You might change your mind and decide you like that sort of work.

Thank you so much for the answer!
About the more prestigious program, I think you're very right when you say that I may not be their top candidate, despite the fact that they don't offer any sort of aid for masters student (except full aid for,I think, 3 of their candidates).
As much as I agree with all your points, I find it extremely difficult to make up my mind with the immediate question being- what if I don't end up liking the work at the funded place at all?
Also regarding shifting groups for PhD, don't you think a completely different background would be a disadvantage?

If you don't like the funded place, then you leave and have no debt.  2. Shifting groups has advantages and disadvantages.

I would personally choose the funded position.  Most of the grad students I knew when I entered didn't graduate with the prof that initially funded them.  Once you enter the program, you'll be able to find an adviser that fits your research interest more closely.  Without any debt, you'll also have more choices at graduation time.


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Thoughts on Business Ownership Experience in the Academic CV
So, I'm on the job market, preferably a liberal arts university (I'm an economist). As part of that, I had three discussions with members of my committee about my job market packet.  There is quite a bit of disagreement of the importance of one item of my CV, my business.
I started a software company where I developed an SaaS CRM and project management tool (not to mention all of the marketing, documentation, videos, etc.).  This company has existed for over 10 years, it put me through my undergraduate degree, and meant that I wasn't living on "my stipend" during my PhD.  And probably more to the point, I consider my own identity intimately tied to the company: after all I decided everything it did and did all of the work and I'm passionate about the products I made and how they are different than the competition (why they "deserve to exist").
When it came time to put my CV together, I said to myself, screw the normal order.  Everyone has a PhD applying for a given job, why should that be first?  So my order was:

Business
Research
Teaching
Presentations
Education
Everything Else

I went and talked to a committee member who is more of a friend than anything else, he thought it was strange, but probably good.  My chair thought it was fantastic idea.  Then I spoke to another committee member, she thought it was just wrong -- and she has been on many search committees.
Not only just wrong, but deserving of no more than a bullet point under "industry experience", she compared it to working for a company (like working for a company and running a company are the same thing).
Now, I have a huge amount of respect for all three of these people (I'm unusual in that I actually like my committee).  However, what I think happened is that the first two people understand what my company does.  They get that product development is really hard and is very similar to research (and in fact harder than research in some cases).  And a huge reason that I've been a productive researcher is because of the skills that I gained from the business (not to mention the "real world" perspective).  However, when I explained that to the third person, she didn't buy any of that.  And I think it is quite possible her reaction is more representative of someone who doesn't know me.
I get that the most important thing is research (and I have more research than most of my cohort, so I'm not suggesting this is a substitute).  But people list absurd things on their CV.  They list their community service (which I have as well, I just don't list it).  Or not real awards (like travel grants).  In fact, in this same conversation she suggested I list some extremely minor volunteer work for a grant she applied for.  Certainly, the thousands of hours of work involved in my business has to be worth a lot more than that!
So this is my current thoughts.  I list the "standard" order, but I still have a good half page on my business, albeit on page 5 of the CV.  Thoughts?  Does this really not matter at all?

I like your compromise proposal.
It is important, when writing a CV, to demonstrate knowledge and respect for the process by which you're evaluated. In my mind, that strongly suggest putting the "standard" stuff first.
But I also heartily endorse your decision to highlight your work experience. It sounds quite impressive, actually. Just do it after you have assured your prospective employers that you have the credentials and skills they're looking for.


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How do I write the referee report for a paper where the main result is a very complicated formula?
I am currently reviewing a mathematical paper that presents its main and sole result as an extensive formula. This formula relies on the notation defined in another paper, and the formula itself spans nearly an entire page.
I am unsure about the appropriate approach for writing my referee report on this paper, as it seems burdensome to fully restate the entire result. Would it be acceptable to provide a summary such as, "The main result presents a precise formula for something (without explicitly writing it out). This generalizes..."?

In cases like this it is worth stepping back and asking, “What is a review for?”.  The principal purpose of a review is to tell the reader of the review whether it is worth investing the time in reading and understanding the paper - because you don’t get refunds for time spent! Focus on that entirely and you will find the task easier.

As an aside:  When I'm presented with a complicated formula in a paper I'm reviewing, I type the thing in Maple and test it on a good number of cases.  I estimate that half of the time the formula doesn't work as promised. Usually it's a typo, but sometimes it's something like "doesn't work on perfect squares."   It's simple and it makes me look like a really smart and conscientious reviewer.  But maybe this formula is too long(?)

This "reiview" is a review of an already-published paper?  Or it is for a paper submitted to a journal (or conference) and your review is to help the journal decide whether to publish it?

@GEdgar I use "review" for things we do on an "already-published paper", while in my understanding, "referee" is for the other thing that you mentioned.

Sure, the review is not meant to be a test of your ability to restate the main result of the paper, and there is no benefit to doing so when the result is a long formula. It is fine to summarize the result or even refer to it in broad terms as long as you include a few salient points that explain what area of study the result relates to and why it is interesting.
Your suggested language sounds fine. You can include a reference to an equation number or theorem number from the paper if you want to be more precise.
One thing to try to avoid is a review that can arouse suspicion that you haven't actually read the paper or that you only looked at it enough to get a very superficial understanding of what it's about. This can be frustrating both for the editor and for the authors. So saying something like "This paper studies a question about knot invariants" is much too vague of a summary. On the other hand, going to the other extreme and quoting the main theorem verbatim also doesn't necessarily inspire confidence that you understand what the result is about, since quoting doesn't require any thought or understanding. For this reason, when I write reviews I prefer paraphrasing (or a combination of paraphrasing and summarizing) the main result in my own words.


text:
How to stay calm on days of no progress?
I'm a math PhD student working in Pure Mathematics. I guess, everybody is familiar with those days when you make very little progress or no progress at all. As the title suggests, I would like to know how do you stay calm and relaxed on those days?
Every time I have such days, it makes me very anxious and I feel like I wasted my time. It makes me feel very unproductive.

Have you seen these question? 1. How should I deal with becoming discouraged as a graduate student?, 2. Why is my mood dictated so much by how well my research is going?

"Every time I have such days, it makes me very anxious and I feel like I wasted my time". You didn't: http://vigeland.caltech.edu/ist4/lectures/Poincare%20Reflections.pdf


text:
How to prepare tables which collect results from other articles?
I want to know how the authors of a review article prepare a table of other articles' results. Actually I want to know the process of collecting other articles' results. Do they do this by collecting results of articles one by one or do they use software for collecting data of other articles all together?
Thanks for any suggestions.

I have to guess that there as many "methods" as their are authors.

Welcome to our community! However I think you'll have to provide an example, if you want a good answer.

One approach that I have seen (but I don't know how common it is) is to use a qualitative data analysis tool like MaxQDA. Basically you would store all papers in the QDA library and use the tool to highlight relevant text fragments, then to (more or less) inductively group them into categories, and then to compare them along categories and to explore their relations.

It will obviously depend on the particular review, and what type of data they are collating. Data published in academic papers doesn't tend to be in a standardised format, so scraping it automatically wouldn't really work.
On the other hand, if the data is all in a central database then it will be easier to write a script to collect the data. For example, if the data was DNA sequence data in GenBank, there are set fields where the data is stored and scraping it using software is more straightforward.


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Can I apply to international internship 3 month early?
I am a 2nd year masters student here in Morocco. To get my diploma I have to enroll in a 6 months internship from January to the end of June.
I found in the website of a well known company which is active in the field of my master an internship opportunity titled "Intern, Software Engineering" but based in Austin, TX, U.S.
My questions are: should I apply now? Or should I wait until December?
Should I specify that I need a 6 month internship starting from January?
Remark: The offer page contains only two buttons, "Apply with Linkedin" and "Apply Now". I didn't find any contact information to get more info.

Figure out the contact info of someone who works in HR and ask them. You can probably use the company website or LinkedIn to do this.

This should be migrated to workplace

A January start requiring a visa seems quite optimistic, to put it mildly. On top of that, frankly, the chances of landing (any single) internship opportunity is likely small, so counting on this particular one is unwise.

I think you need to apply early as there is some delay in getting things set up properly before the internship begins. However, the question about whether you can start the internship early can only be answered by your current institution, which has made the rule. If they say it can't be started early, then the question becomes whether the employer wanting an intern is willing to wait for you to start and whether it will be sufficiently long for your needs.
But you need to start asking those questions at the appropriate place (not here) immediately. Don't wait until December to start the process.

Indeed. Things take time, especially if you need a visa.


text:
Unpublished PhD work and unresponsive advisor
I finished my PhD two years ago. However, my advisor left academia one year before I defended. I finished my research and successfully defended it (obviously), and have a good draft of my paper, but my advisor is completely inaccessible and has seemingly no interest in it (otherwise he would have answered me or contacted me). Is this work lost forever, meaning I cannot publish it without his consent?

In what ways have you tried contacting your advisor? If he deserves to be a co-author it's worth trying a phone call, and not just sticking with a work e-mail address he might not have access to anymore.

We had some contact after he left . His wife (a professor too) helped me shape the manuscript but it came to a point she was ok with the result. However, he does not answer his email or phone. Many people try to contact him but they end up contacting me since they know i was his grad student. He is the kind of person who cannot be bothered unless he wants something. I could deal with his wife but I need an answer from him.

In that case I'd probably take Buffy's approach, and also CC his wife on the email.

Especially since his wife has had some part in helping you to this point she seems like quite a reasonable person to contact about this, particularly if all you need is his approval.

Unless he is truly a co-author and collaborator, beyond supervision, then you can publish it on your own. Advising doesn't automatically imply co-authorship in most fields. If he must be a co-author for ethical reasons, then prepare the paper with him as co-author and send a copy along to him stating that you intend to submit it to "xyzzy" unless you hear any objections. Of course this gives the advisor a sort of veto, but a co-author would have that in any case.
Within the paper, thank him for his help, as well, I think. Thank him when you send the paper to him as well, of course.

Thanks. I do consider him a co-author since he provided the funds after he left to continue this research and he provided the isolates I analyzed, and did some intial work with them. If I send him a request to find any objections and he doesn't reply, is that enough for me to take the lead and submit it for publication?

@J.Doe Note that funding a project does not alone constitute being worthy of authorship in many cases.

@J.Doe, say it nicely, but just inform him that the paper is about to be submitted without objection. One thing he might object to is co-authorship. In that case, just submit under your own name. But wait a bit before submitting. You can always make changes later as part of the publication process.

@Vladhagen. It is a little more complicated than that. Having funding for a project usually means that the (general) ideas of the research were contributed by the person who got the grant. This is often worth more than the people carrying out the research care to admit, but of course it is hard to say if this applies in this case without further information.

He did indeed conceive the project in general, he wrote the grant and was awarded the funds.