text:
How do I get into a masters course in pure mathematics?
My question is as stated in the title and to elaborate more:
I would like to know if there are any standardized international exams to enter a masters course in pure mathematics (besides GRE Math) and available for a scholarship simultaneously? (I'm a graduate in Automotive engineering, 23 years old and don't have a math degree yet).
I have completed 5 courses related to engineering mathematics during my tenure as a engineer.
I've been prepping only on math (topology, differential geometry, advanced calculus, real analysis, etc.) for the past 6 months and am almost ready for an entrance exam.
Can anyone offer me alternate options or solutions on how to go about this?

Also posted on math.SE

Previously posted at http://mathoverflow.net/questions/92440/how-do-i-get-into-a-masters-course-in-pure-mathematics-closed

Because it is tough for me to get into universities in India owing to the caste system reservation adopted by the government.The cut-off grade is higher for me and i have to compete for half the number of seats.Such reservation problems will surely not be followed in an international math qualification exam.And i am applying for a pure math masters course to get a feel of the lectures(i was an engineer before) and then progress onto research.2 German univs. suggested i start off as a bachelor's student in pure math(which is unnecessary given i've taken similar courses during engineering).

To my knowledge there are relative (compared to PhD programs) few masters programs in pure maths in the US. There may be more opportunities in Europe or Asia.

So, how did you do on the GRE Math exam?

Can you get some strong letters of recommendation?  I think that will help open many doors.

There are no standardized international exams for mathematics. Strategies for applying for a masters in Maths is no different from any other program. The best, and possibly easiest, way to enhance your chances for acceptance is to find a means to self fund. Specifics on how to tailor an application are very country and program dependent.


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How is the salary of professors and researchers in medicine?
For university-level researchers and professors, is the salary higher in the medical fields than in other fields? I suppose attracting physicians to teach may be harder, because they can usually get high payments working as physicians. Where can I find data about this in Europe, Australia, Canada and US?

Higher than what?

It seemed to me clear that the question was medicine vs. other fields. I've edited accordingly.

So the problem with this question is going to be one of comparing like with like. I have seen some grants that implicitly assume an MDs salary is higher than a PhD's salary when in the same R01-type grant application, but this usually also involves a comparison of senior vs. junior faculty, which is always tricky. Even comparing "tenured faculty" is hard, because tenure at many medical schools is a much, much more rare thing to have.
I'd say the following generalizations are probably defensible, assuming we are talking about academic medicine vs. "nearby" fields, or PhDs in academic medicine.

Hard money positions in research hospitals for doing research are vanishingly rare.
MDs do have the option of making up for some "gaps" in funding with taking on more clinical duties whereas a PhD might have to take a salary hit, or cut back in other areas.
Opportunities for clinical consulting, to pharma, device manufacturers, etc. are probably more available to clinicians.

For the US, I would have thought the data would be in the AAUP report, but I cannot find any data that breaks salaries down by field.
There is also CUPA-HR. The free data set has a break down by field with "HEALTH PROFESSIONS AND RELATED PROGRAMS" as a field. I would assume that this includes medical doctors, but also nurses. There is also some free data about non-tenure track salaries including "Medicine, Medical Clinical Sciences, Graduate Medical Studies".
In summary, I think defining the "medicine area" and equating job duties and responsibilities is tough. There appears to be a large variation in salaries.

You could mine some of the Collegiate Times public university salaries data, e.g.,
UVA Medicine salaries
vs.
UVA English salaries
vs.
UVA Chemistry salaries
Obviously, you have to make apples-to-apples comparisons (full professor -vs- full professor, asst. professor -vs- assistant professor, etc.), and also realize that the State provides as little information as they have to by law, and there may be other hidden data that sway the results one way or another (for instance, you'll see full professors making $45000, but these might be half-year appointments, sabbatical years, etc.).

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What if a faculty member is not successful in obtaining the summer salary from a funding agency?
I am a postdoc in Physics areas and trying to get myself ready for applying for tenure track positions. However, the US academic salary system seems still mysterious to me.
In several salary surveys, a reasonably close figure for starting salaries of starting assistant professor positions emerge as $75-80K per year. The point is that, as far as I understand it, the salary is based on the calender year basis. However, the contracts for the assistant professors are usually academic year basis (except that probably in the first couple of years they may get this full salary in their start up package).
This means that practically they get $55-60K for 8-9 months. The rest of the salary, called the summer salary, needs to be obtained via applying to the respective funding agencies.
However, funding is obviously not guaranteed every year. So it is obviously out of question that people should be based on the full year salary amounts shown above. Truthfully, their salaries are $55-60k per calender year and if they are able to get some funding, they can get some bonus over the summer.
Now, the first question is: isn't it way too low of a starting salary for a PhD in STEM areas?! Especially, people are normally already in their mid 30s when they get a tenure track position so they usually have a family to support. Sure, there are many people survive with much lower salaries and also the stereotypical argument that you don't enter academia if you want to earn money is also around. But I am talking about skills, experience and qualification. Anyway, it just seems too low salary to me and I would really want to know if there is something crucial I am missing here.
Secondly, what do faculty members do if they don't get the summer salaries, what other options are there for them to compensate the money.

A couple of notes: (1) I'm guessing, perhaps wrongly, that 75-80K is in fact the mean starting academic year salary at the kind of places where most faculty get grants. (2) Summer teaching is often an option. (3) If you think 55-60K is low, you should see what typical humanities Ph.D.'s working as adjuncts get.

Also: At a lot of public universities, including mine at least in the U.S., complete employee-by-employee salary data is public and available on the internet. In all cases I know about, this doesn't include additional external grant funding.

@Anonymous, Thanks for your reply. (1) So, is it true that in the USA most of the times the faculty members (at least in fairly well research universities with a fair enough research proposal) get the summer salary funding, making it effectively the $75-80k salary being the actual annual salary? My impression was that getting funding becoming harder and harder and so getting funding is not always possible unless the proposal is exceptionally high quality. (2) Does the summer teaching pay equivalent to the 3 months' salary?

(3) Yes, but there are quite a few options outside academia for the STEM PhDs compared to humanities. So the free market will pull the salaries in humanities down. This is unfortunate though as I think that they are also equally important for the society.
I am just trying to gauge the situation here. Academic salary-wise, Canada or Australia, in this case may be much better as their universities pay for the whole year roughly  at the same rate, whereas in the US there is always a risk that you would be unemployed for 3 months a year! It is better to apply for jobs there for our family's sack.

You can do consulting during summer months if you don't have summer support.

@Yury, Sure. But it is not possible for all the fields. e.g.,  I don't know what consulting can a theoretical physics person  do for a summer!

@John, I understand that. But I'm afraid that the answer to your question is that you don't get summer salary if you don't get grants. There are very few options and consulting is one of them. Unfortunately, not all professors can find an option that works for them or available in their field, so many people who don't have grants just don't get any summer salary.

Got it. It's just that if I was told when I was starting my graduate studies that after 10+ years of PhD+Postdoc studies I would at most get 55-60k per year as a 'professional', I wouldn't have chosen academic research. Too sad and selfish that the PhD advisers hide such important facts from their students.

Also, I think there needs to be an honest confessions by the universities and academics about their salaries. Assistant professors' actual salaries in the US in a good research university are in the range of $55-60k and not in the $75-80k range. If you get the additional money every now and then, that's bonus.

Just in passing: in France typical researchers in their mid-thirty (tenured, ten years after PhD start say) have a net salary of about 30k€ (in fact, this is probably in the high range).

In my department, and as far as I know in the whole college (Literature, Science and the Arts) that I'm in, when someone has an academic-year appointment, the officially stated salary is for 9 months. Grant support, summer teaching, and other possible summer money are added on separately. I believe, though, that the Engineering College (in the same university) has the opposite convention; they tell you your salary is $X, but you're expected to raise some percentage of $X via grants, so what they'll actually pay you is less.

In the US, salaries for tenure-track positions are usually for the academic year; one might get the summer salary thrown in as part of the startup package for the first year or two.  So your academic-year (9-month) salary of $70K would translate to a full-year salary of $70*12/9 = around $93K.  The expectation would be that you would use those first two years to establish a research program, write grant proposals, etc., so as to be able to fend for yourself after that.
While it's true that grants are getting harder to get, remember that single-investigator grants are not your only option: you can also participate in larger multi-PI and collaborative proposals.  For example, you may be able to put together a collaborative proposal with your dissertation advisor while at the same time striking out on your own -- his greater seniority and track record may make it easier to land such a grant.
Finally, I would counsel against spending a lot of time teaching during the summer --- IMHO you'd be better off spending the time moving your research forward (remember why your initial summer salary was included in your startup package).  One reason (not the only one) is that having a solid record of peer-reviewed external funding greatly strengthens your case when you go up for tenure.

Thanks for your reply. What discipline pays $70k for 9 months?! To the best of my knowledge, $75-80k for STEM disciplines is what you are looking for (unless you are with an exceptionally high caliber or something) for the full calender year - well, for a first year assistant prof position, that is. This means that the 9 months salary turns out to be 55-60k.
Moreover, I have also been told that you can only get at max 2 months salary per summer, out of the rest of the three months. So you are employed for 11 months and unemployed for one month a year!

(1) The $70K number was just a made-up example: my point is that (assuming these are US salaries) your university salary is for the academic year -- not the calendar year -- and that you should add in the summer salary to figure out your total annual salary.  (2) The "max 2 months per summer" sounds like a misunderstanding of NSF policies: NSF allows a maximum of 2 months of salary per year from all your NSF grants, but other agencies, e.g., DARPA, NASA, AFOSR, etc., have no such restriction.  So, e.g., you could take 2 months from NSF and 1 month from DARPA or some other agency.

A couple of points on both the question, and comments by the OP above.

As others have indicated, "too low" is sadly not a relevant comment where salaries are concerned. Faculty salaries, like any other salaries, are driven by the marketplace. In a field like CS, where there are many good industrial options, starting salaries might be a tad higher, and in the humanities (as others have indicated), even 55-60k would be considered higher than average. This has nothing to do with the time it takes you to get a tenure-track job, the amount of effort you put in, and so on. It's just about supply and demand.
In most universities, your 9 month salary can be spread out over 12. This doesn't change the amount you get, but it helps monthly income management: you get the same amount each month of the year and can calculate your expenses accordingly.
On the issue of being unemployed for 1 month a year: this is true with the NSF, but not necessarily with other funding agencies. The NSF will not fund you for 3 summer months, but you might (for example) get 2 months of support from multiple grants with the NSF, and potentially (given your area) some money from NASA, or ONR, or...
As Yury mentioned, consulting is another possibility. Again, I wouldn't worry about this right now if you're starting, but theoretical physicists are often hired full-time by financial firms, and so I imagine consulting agreements might be possible with them as well.
on the issue of an "honest conversation", I think you're having one right now. Also, why not ask your advisor/postdoc mentor ? I've explained this to my students a few times already, and not just the "average salaries", but in particular how my salary works (my actual salary is a matter of public record in any case).
in my area (CS), it is common for new faculty to get summer support baked into their startup package (say 2 months for 2 years). this gives you time to get a research program rolling and get some grant money. Find out what's common in your area, and what junior faculty typically do to get summer support.

ONR = Office of Naval Research?

yes, sorry. wrote it quickly.

@Suresh, Thanks for your responses.

The free market theory argument can be used by most other countries such as Australia, Canada, NZ, Singapore, and European countries as well, but they don't! The 9 months salary system is only used in the USA. In fact, the free market theory doesn't apply here since the government more or less (up to the private institutions) has a 'monopoly' in faculty hire! Does a STEM school teacher in a remote town where no one else wants to go would get much more money than the teachers in NYC, due to less supply? Should she/he be paid less due to high supply in NYC?

It is not only about being restricted to 2 months' salary by a funding agency. The universities' new policies themselves are making it harder to earn more than 2 months' summer salaries for their faculty members. The faculty members have to get permission from a higher authority to get more than 2 months' summer salary.

Before you think that I am dragging the discussion to the govt policies... I know that we can't change the system. I am just saying that in that case, there are obvious significant financial benefits in Australia/Canada  etc. 3 months' salary a year more than the USA!

About 'honest conversation'. I didn't mean individuals only. The fact about yearly 3 months' unemployment must be reported clearly in all the surveys etc. so that the students know what they are aiming for when they make their decision about their careers and choosing a final (geographic) destination.
Yes, start-up packages are indeed there to negotiate in theoretical physics as well. But again, as you said, 2 months for 2 years. So officially the new hire is going to be unemployed 1 month per year!!! I would certainly not like to be unemployed, after getting a 'job' !!!

@John, I'm not sure you saw the point about market driving faculty salaries. In fact, the US competes with Aus./NZ/Canada/Europe for qualified university researchers. If you find better opportunities in those places, take them! In fact, passing up "arbitrage" opportunities like that just contributes to an imperfect market governing US academic salaries. ;)

@wsc, I have already responded to the argument of 'market driving faculty salaries' above:  "In fact, the free market theory doesn't apply here since the government more or less (up to the private institutions) has a 'monopoly' in faculty hire!"

@John, my point is that even if "the government" was able to control faculty salaries in the USA in some coherent, unified way, it cannot control the salaries paid by universities in other countries. If you think any other country's schools conform to a better salary system, get a job there! This will apply a market pressure to raise salaries at US universities (or the other possibility is that we're less hot a commodity than you think).

It's news to me that the "government" "controls" salaries of faculty at public institutions. Public institutions have pay ladders and ranges, but there's a fair degree of flexibility in that range.

@Suresh, what I was saying is: the government has all the power to create a faculty position, deciding (at least a range of) the salaries. Almost all, if not all, the funding for the academic research comes from the government agencies. So it also ridiculously heavily influence the job market as well as the salaries of the private universities.  Moreover, in all the universities (pvt or state) the summer salaries are always given by the govt agencies.

All quoted academic salaries are for the "academic year" i.e. 9 months, unless otherwise specifically stated. Sp your 70k would be for 9 months (perhaps paid over 12 months), but you would be free to do any other work (consulting, paid summer grant research, etc) over summer with no work expectations for the university. So why is it called a 9 month salary - because you do not have to show up over summer -vacation in Tahiti, or work in 711 for extra income, or consult for a million dollars if you like. My first AP job paid 70k, 9 months (paid over 12 months), and I taught 2 extra classes over summer for which I got paid 5K apiece.

And my field is marketing, and such starting  AP salaries were quite common 9 years ago at even lower comprehensive 4 year univs

Please take a closer look at the other answers: they clearly indicate that the salaries are "academic year" salaries.

I'm skeptical of this advice.  It's my impression that, at least at R1s and maybe beyond, research expectations for tenure are such that it would be very hard to satisfy them without spending most summers on research.  So if you don't have summer research money, yes, in principle you can teach or vacation or whatever, but in practice, you must spend it doing unpaid research, or you won't get tenure.  Is this impression inaccurate?

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Electronic Assessment / Submission for questions where each student should have a different correct answer
I am looking for software that will automatically assess the output of student assignments, or at least the numerical parts of them. This is for a large class of >100 students and multiple assignments. As part of a scheme to avoid plagiarism each student obtains different correct numerical answers to their problems. Thus if student A should get 2.56342 for question 1, student B should get 3.42975 and no two students should obtain answers that are identical. The method of calculation is the same in each case, but students have different input parameters that change the solution. (I should add at this point that the numbers cannot be obtained with simple or complex formulae from the input parameters: a significant amount of work is required to generate each answer; I have written a piece of software that generates these answers.)
I am wondering if it would be possible to use an existing software package that could handle the submission of student answers/assignments and also mark/grade the results for at least the numerical parts of the assignments. So far I have looked at Moodle, Hot Potatoes and Question Mark, but none of them seem suitable because I cannot see a way of the same question having different answers for different students. It maybe that I need to try to develop a custom built system for this, but before putting that effort in I would be very grateful to hear of any suggestions of existing systems that might be able to handle this task.
I have tried to check if this question has been asked before and looked at this question on use of automated assessment of programming assignments, for example, but I could not find a previous question that covers the question I pose here.

As a professor of computer science I'm pretty certain you're going to need some custom software for this.  Having said that, have you looked at Wolfram Alpha?

@DaveKaye - thanks for the reply, yes that is the conclusion that I have come to myself - something like QuestionMark or Moodle is ok to collect the data, but processing needs to be proprietary. - I will look at Wolfram Alpha, thanks for the suggestion, I was not aware of that as a possible option

Ooops, what I meant to say was Matlab.  But maybe Wolfram Alpha could work too.

Google Apps for Education?

There is WebAssign, started at North Carolina State many years ago and now an independent company )http://webassign.com/corporate/about-us/), which provided
versions of problems from standard textbooks in physics and other fields with random inputs so that each student would have individual numerical inputs
(I had some experience with these in the early days -- the inputs were generated from Perl scripts with input constrained to be physically reasonable).
I have not been involved with courses that used these for ten years or so, but one issue that arose then was the appearance of spreadsheets that had the algorithms for solving the problems coded into the spreadsheet, so that students could simply plug their numbers into the spreadsheet and come up with the answers.
Your question suggests that you are using more complicated problems than those in elementary science courses, but perhaps you could use scripts (using Python, Perl or whatever) to generate unique inputs for each student.

Along similar lines to MikeV's answer is WeBWork, a free open-source online homework system.  Students interact directly with the software's web interface to see their assigned problems and submit their solutions.  Each problem on the assignment has a Perl script that is run for each student to generate the question and validate the result, so that each student can get their own random numerical values, and you can do arbitrary computations to check whether it is right.  It also saves a random seed per student, so that a single student can (if you decide to allow it) attempt their own version of the problem repeatedly.
Most users of this software just draw from a pre-written bank of questions, but if you know some Perl you can certainly make your own (there may be a learning curve, of course).  Depending on how involved your validation code is, you can either rewrite it in Perl or use some mechanism to let Perl call your code in its native language.
WeBWork has a fairly specific paradigm for scoring, student records, etc, so it may or may not fit neatly into what you have in mind for your course, but maybe it is worth a look.


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Big switch of field (from synthetic biology to cosmology) of research from PhD to postdoc?
I am pursuing a PhD in synthetic biology in the EU. I will finish my PhD in approximately 11 months.
I feel my PhD has been mediocre. I should end up with:

3 first name research articles (two on a ≈3 IF journals, one on a ≈9)
1 middle name research article (≈9 IF) and 1 review (≈3 IF)
couple of courses I taught and, hopefully
Chapter for a book from Springer.

I am tired with my field. I want to continue in academia, but not doing wet lab research. I have become interested in cosmology after reading some books on cosmology.
Should change fields because of my changing interests?
Would I ruin my career? I also would like to remain within the EU, but I can also move to the US.
Does anybody know of specific fellowships for such extreme cases? I was looking into the Human Frontier Science Program but they would still require me to work into something related to the life sciences.

How would you answer: "Are you moving towards one field or away from the other?"

Well I don't know much, but the outcome of your PhD (3 main, 2 co-author, a chapter) seems A LOT above the average of a normal PhD student...

@AnderBiguri I think for biology this is about average in many places.

I think it's going to depend a lot on the specifics of the field that you are switching to.  You're actually doing a bit of a surprising direction of shift---I've known a number of people who made radical shifts in the opposite direction, from highly unrelated fields into synthetic biology, which works pretty well because it's a young and rapidly expanding field, both inside and outside of academia.  Cosmology, on the other hand, is much older, not particularly growing (to the best of my knowledge), and without a large non-academia research sector, so it may be significantly harder to transfer into that field.
That said, if you're going to transfer, postdoc is the right time for "retraining."  The key question is to look at the skills you have, and try to figure out how they can be remapped into something "close enough" that it will give you a chance to shift.  You might want to consider looking at ESA or NASA, who have both cosmology and biology and where they may be close enough to help move from one to the other.  If you do the shift, you should also expect a fairly long period of postdoc, probably multiple postdocs, while you retrain and build credibility for your new field.
Finally, speaking as a synthetic biologist, I might urge you to consider that your view of the field may currently be quite limited.  Synthetic biology is an extremely wild frontier with a lot of things you might be interested in.  Are you sure you are tired of the field and the wetlab, or are you just tired of your particular lab and how it uses its wetlab people?  There is a wide variety of labs and cultures out there, along with a lot of non-lab companies with good positions for people with prior lab experience. Unfortunately some academic labs have rather toxic cultures and treat their graduate students like underpaid lab techs, rather than investigators in training: if this has been your experience and what's driving you out of the field, consider that it may be much better elsewhere.

Very useful reply. I am totally happy with the lab I am currently working into, and I have been free to pursue my research, but still I would like to move away from this field because (i) I think that here has been sort of an happy island, and I am quite scared of ending up in a situation such as the one you described, and (ii) because I am starting to question the principle that lies at the core of Synthetic Biology (let's call it the whole engineers approach). But definitely I will try to broaden my horizon.

Going into details would be a bit off topic here, but as its a particular interest of mine, please feel free to email me and I'd be happy to compare notes and share my own perspective directly.

Cosmology is very very far from synthetic biology, in the sense that most of the expert skill a biologist has will not be useful in cosmology. The only exception if your background has a very strong physics/math component (which is unfortunately not the case for most biologists).
For this reason, I don't think you have a chance to get a postdoc in cosmology without a PhD in a closely related field. In fact, if you only have classical biology training it might even be difficult to get into a graduate program. But if you are serious about cosmology, you will probably need to get a relevant PhD.
Two other suggestions:

I very much agree with jakebeal that synthetic biology is a very exciting field at this time. There are huge opportunities for creativity and ground breaking research. I suggest you go to a relevant conference to broaden your perspective of the field and hear what is being done.
Have you considered a postdoc in astrobiology? This would be a natural way for you to combine your new interests with your current expertise. I think synthetic biology approaches will be a very important tool in this field in the future.

I would heartily agree with point 2, except that the OP said (s)he doesn't want to do wet labs anymore. There are of course non-wetlab components to astrobio research, but while the shift will still be less drastic compared to cosmology, the amount of transferable skills would also be not very high. On the other hand, this opens an avenue for a more gradual shift: enter an astrobio lab for wet research and slowly move out of it.

If your question is

Should I change fields because of my changing interests?

It is much much more desirable to invest effort in the next 5-7 years and enter a career you actually like, compared to committing yourself to an academic job that you don't enjoy doing just to make a living. (If you just want to make a living: go in industry, they typically pay much much better.)
On the other hand, if your question actually is

Should I invest the next 5-7 years to switch to an unfamiliar field?

my answer would be: are you sure you want to do that? This is the same question I would ask of someone who tells me he or she wants to go and do a PhD, in any field. A PhD, with an eye toward academic employment, is a particular life choice and include a certain degree of commitment and sacrifice. Just reading a few (popular science?) books on the subject is generally not enough information for you to decide whether the field is really for you. The fact that you have committed once and are now having doubts should be a flag to you that before you make another commitment in a drastically different direction you should perhaps seek out someone already in the field (in this case, cosmology), and talk to him or her and try to find out if this career path is really good for you.
Further more

Would I ruin my career?

A drastic change of research directions is not common, but also not unheard of. If you do good work you will not ruin your career. But you need to be aware that

Cosmology is very, very different from synthetic biology. If you are into more observational astrophysics, with a decent scientific background you should be able to get in to the field with some hands-on training (provided you find someone willing to invest the time in you). If you are however into theoretical cosmology, unless you have an exceptionally strong and diverse undergraduate training, you will almost certainly have to earn a second PhD if you want to continue in academia in that direction.
Regardless of whether you earn a second PhD or not, the re-training required to take on a new field will necessarily take several years out of your life.
You will, of course, have to field questions about this drastic change whenever you interview for early career positions; the "I got sick of it and want to do something else" response is unlikely to sell well.

I think finding a postdoc in a field so far afield is going to be very difficult.  In many fields of academia, there are a lot of PhD students being trained.  If a P.I. is hiring a postdoc, and they can choose between someone with a PhD in synthetic biology vs. someone with a PhD in cosmology, the latter will be preferred.

I also agree with the above answers. Getting a posdoc in cosmology without a PhD in a related area will be almost impossible. You maybe have a non-negligible chance if you try working with groups which basically do data science, provided you have a good computational background.
On the other hand, I don't understand why you consider your PhD mediocre at all. In cosmology you would be glad to come up with 4 papers and a book chapter on Springer after your PhD.
Cosmology has become a very specialized science where half of the people are always trying to come up with different models that are still not satisfactory at all which try to explain the data and the other half of the people are trying to understand how to produce and process larger and larger amounts of data.
If by cosmology books, you mean popular books, then you will be entirely dissapointed once you start doing real research. Real life is much more complicated. In order to understand the literature of cosmology nowadays you need a strong background in General Relativity, Quantum Field Theory and Statistics. (I am not mentioning here all the astrophysical background which is certainly needed in some fields.) This will cost you at least 4-5 years of your life. I doubt that someone would pay you to do that.
I am myself doing a PhD in Cosmology and it is a very competitive and fast-changing area of research. I know many good people with strong mathematical and physical backgrounds and very good PhDs which have had a very hard time finding a posdoc position. Especially if you consider Europe, which is almost saturated already.
So, I would recommend you to find something completely different to do.


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How to say “thank you” to a professor who has written a recommendation letter for me?
I recently asked two of my professors to write me recommendation letters and they promptly and kindly accepted to do that. It is now two weeks since then. I want to send “thank you” notes to them. Is it enough to send e-mails? I have heard that it is more polite to send a written letter by US post, but it is a little bit weird when we are all in the same building! Isn’t it? Can I send them some kind of gift on a special occasion?

possible duplicate of How can I thank a senior faculty who's written me a good reference which helped me land a desirable job?

@DavidRicherby I think this is not duplicate because it is about the etiquette of thanking long before the outcome is known.

If you feel it's more polite to use a hand-written letter than an email, then go ahead and do that but there's no need to involve the postal service to move a piece of paper within a single building.

@jakebeal The answers to the other question say that just saying "thank you" would be fine even with the knowledge that the reference helped you get a nice job. That answers this question because anything more than just saying "thank you" can't be needed before the outcome is known.

Possible duplicate of On giving gifts to LOR writers

Don't worry about it too much, just say thank you.  In person or over email are both fine: getting a good recommendation letter is a big deal for you, but writing recommendation letters for good students is a part of normal routine for a professor.

+1 A simple "thank" in person or by e-mail is wonderful. I have sometimes received handwritten notes or cards, or very, very rarely received small gifts. It's touching, but totally unnecessary.

Giving small gifts for writing a recommendation letter could set a dangerous precedent.

Recommenders also like to hear the results of the process.  So one way to thank them (in addition to a written or emailed thank-you note) is to let them know which programs/jobs/schools you got into on account of their recommendation.

I'm being facetious, but what if you don't get accepted anywhere?

Good question.  Obviously, you don't want to bring it up as if to say "Thanks for nothing!"  It could be a starter for seeking some advice about what to do next.  Or, you could just never bring it up.  The recommender will probably not track you down to ask what happened.

You shouldn't blame the letter writer for not getting a position. They should be called reference letters, not letters of recommendation. The letter writer is under no obligation to recommend someone for the position.

@jonescb "Thank you for writing me letters of reference. Unfortunately, I didn't get any of the positions I applied for."

@Moriarty I don't think anybody's suggesting the letter writer should be blamed.

@MatthewLeingang I was reinforcing what you said - Obviously, you don't want to bring it up as if to say "Thanks for nothing!"

@Moriarty Thanks for clarifying; I wasn't entirely sure.

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text:
What is my institution when submitting to journal
In the time between submitting the first draft of a paper to a journal and submitting the third and final version (now), my institutional affiliation has changed.  Should I indicate my original affiliation on my (latest) submission, or my current affiliation?  All the work for the paper was done while I was at the previous institution.

Ask the editor which they prefer, but (IME) the most common approach is to give your old institution (the one at the time of submission) and add a footnote saying "Now at...". An alternative would be to give two affiliations. Omitting your old affiliation entirely would seem strange.
(Bear in mind this may well vary substantially between disciplines, as with almost everything else! Again, if in doubt, ask the editor. It's their journal, after all...)


text:
How to refer to a university that changed its name?
More than 10 years ago I went to University A School of Engineering, in the USA and used this name on all resumés, etc. Now, I am applying to attend this same school again (for another degree).
Over a week ago, the university changed its name to University B School of Engineering (due to a hefty donation). Even the name outside the University (I pass by it everyday) still says University A School of Engineering, and so do places like LinkedIn, but the University website changed its name.
My question is: How do I address the school on resume, essays, etc? Do I say University A School of Engineering or University B School of Engineering? Because by reflex, I still say University A School of Engineering, because that’s its name for over 100 years.
By the way, my references already uploaded letters of recommendation to the university’s online system, and they referred to it as University A School of Engineering.

Always use the name of the school that was correct at the time when you were doing something. So, if you mention your first degree, use University A and when you mention your current activities, use University B. If there is a chance that whatever you are writing is read by somebody from outside this university or who joins this university years later and could be oblivious of its past name, use footnotes or parentheses to indicate the name change like this:

University A School of Engineering (now University B School of Engineering)
University B School of Engineering (formely University A School of Engineering)

Furthermore use pronouns and referrers to avoid confusion, when both of them appear close-by, e.g.:

I apply to University B School of Engineering because I already did my BSc at this institution and this was a positive experience.

Unless the university failed to make all its personell and students aware of the change, I do not see a reason to mention the name change on documents that do not leave this university like essays and applications. (In particular the administrative staff is probably rather annoyed by the name change and prefers to be reminded of it as little as possible.)

I used this solution in a paper that included a reminiscence about one of my undergraduate teachers (for a memorial collection in his honor). In the body of the text, I referred to the school as the University of Detroit, and I put in a footnote "Now merged with Mercy College and renamed 'University of Detroit Mercy'".

You should write "University B School of Engineering (formerly University A School of Engineering)", or possibly in a footnote instead of parentheses. Leave it like that for a year or two until you can be sure people reading your CV are familiar with the new name, and then drop the parenthetical remark.


text:
Does a person enter a PhD from a masters program, or is applying to PhD a separate process?
Right now, I work full-time and am applying to electrical-engineering grad school (part-time) for next Fall.
Does a person apply to master’s program, earn the master’s, and then they are eligible to work on Phd?
Or is applying to Phd a separate application process?
I am in USA.

One of the things that drives this is the workplace demand/expectations for each degree level.  Engineering jobs exist where either Masters or PhD is better suited, so Engineering tends to have a lot of flexibility as to how you get to either degree.  At least when I was in graduate school, a major like Psychology was very different.  All "Psychology" jobs required a PhD.  People who couldn't cut it left early with a Masters, which was like having a Liberal Arts degree.

The answer to your question is highly dependent on the context, in particular, the country and/or the specific institution. A typical way is to apply to a Ph.D. program, having completed (or almost completed - often termed early admission) a master's program. In addition to the early admission, which is focused on students in their later stages in a master's program, some schools have a transfer policy, which, vice versa, is focused on students in their early stage in a master's program (for an example, see this page). Having said that, there are institutions that allow people with bachelor's degree only to apply directly to a Ph.D. program. For more details on this topic and/or some anecdotal examples, see this Quora discussion as well as this question and this question. Finally, it is even possible (though quite rare!) to enroll in a Ph.D. program without having even a bachelor's degree. See this discussion on Academia.SE for details and inspirational examples.

@Ghost: Well, obviously, I simplified the description of potential routes for a compact presentation. Plus, the description is most likely not complete. Please feel free to add other options either as a comment, or as an answer.

@Ghost: Thank you for your kind words (and upvote :-). Even if you would be critical, that would have been fine with me as well — for us, people in, from or around academia, constructive criticism is a totally natural concept, isn't it? As for your experience, perhaps, it was not as bizarre as you think — as I said, I might be not aware of or have missed some options.

@AleksandrBlekh Oh wow Finally, it is even possible (though quite rare!) to enroll in a Ph.D. program without having even a bachelor's degree.! I'll check out your links.

I more than agree with the first sentence here; the answer might depend not only on the country and the institution but on the particular department within the institution.  In my department, the majority of Ph.D. students arrive with just a bachelor's degree, but I'm not at all sure that the same is true in other departments at my university.

@SohniMahiwal: Feel free to check the links, but keep your enthusiasm on the subject limited.

@AndreasBlass: Thank you for your support and the clarification.

@AleksandrBlekh Of course, going to PhD needs to be thoroughly thought of. I was reading the links and other posts. Seems you must have your heart in it, no matter how difficult. And it's better to build foundation of knowledge first.

@SohniMahiwal: Thank you for kind words. I certainly agree with you on preparation etc. and wish you best in a program of your choice. Nevertheless, I feel that you misunderstood my words on limiting enthusiasm - I referred that not to going the Ph.D. route in general, but rather the "no bachelor's, no master's" route.

Ahhhh .... only few people have that capacity to do PhD right away. Once I decide the subject for PhD, I'll certainly do masters in that subject first (I have BS and MS in Computer Science)

In my Mathematics program in the US, you could (with a Bachelor's) apply either to the Master's program or the PhD program directly.  You could also (I think, though it's not what I did so I'm not sure) move from the Master's program to the PhD without reapplying, or get your Master's from the PhD program as an intermediate step.
However, while all of these were options, you were best off applying directly to the PhD program no matter what your intentions were.  You were more likely to be offered funding if you were pursuing a PhD.

Very interesting. Have to think several times before deciding what subject to pursue (based on all these posts)!

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text:
Prepare presentation for Ph.D. Interview in Germany
I have been invited to the second round of interviews for a PhD position in a research programme in Informatics. I haven't submitted any research proposal, but now I have 2 and a half days to prepare a 15min presentation on the potential topic of my research "How to use X models to evaluate Y systems" (allow me to disclose some information) and do it via Skype - the panel will include my future supervisor, the director of the group and the programme coordinator and 3-4 other people.
The thing is I don't know much about the X models that will be used in the research, I only know them from a course in my master studies. My potential supervisor is aware of this since I have admitted it in my first interview. I have practiced many methods of evaluation in many kinds of systems, hence the acceptance to the second round.
I would really like any tips and suggestions on what to include in this presentation. Naturally,  I can't learn everything in 2 days for X models.
I have thought the following points:

outline how X models work
include limitations and strengths
examples on how they have been used in the Y field/ other fields
a potential methodological approach (how to do it will be difficult since I lack technical knowledge)
Expected findings

I also believe I should showcase the ability to think critically and that I can focus on the main frame.
Should I include my research experience/skills and how they relate to the work?
Any other advice?

No your don't have to know everything, first of all that's impossible to do in just two days, second of all you could not talk about every aspect of the topic in just 15 minutes.
15 Minutes is really short If you want to talk about your experience/skills don't include this into the talk. I guess they want to hear you talk about the topic on the first place so use this time to do so. This is the second round of an interview so the persons not knowing you will ask if they want to know something. Of course you can create slides to do so but I would keep them independent of your main talk.
"A Potential Methodological Approach" Don't talk yourself into trouble here. If you are not familiar with the topic and they even know that I would not risk too much at this point. Just talk about stuff which you are absolutely sure that it's right.
"Expected Findings" This seems quite bold if one keeps in mind that you are not familiar with the topic. Of course everyone can dream about some nice results but without some knowledge of the field this point seems a bit too much. Just say what you want to do.
Other Idea You could include some quite new results. If you have read some papers about the topic maybe there have been some recent results. Just mention them to show that you are trying to get into the topic. (Again just do so if you are sure).
Other than that just try to give a nice introduction to the topic and explain what is known and where you want to tackle open problems. You are not giving a talk about an/your research proposal.

Thanks flo! They actually sent me a small guide yesterday and I will have to include my CV because the people in the panel will not know me (Did it like infographic to make it interesting), my research questions, what are the challenges in the area, how can we use the models to tackle them and potential research method. I will include basic info for each one and I expect lots of questions to elaborate on my ideas. Good thing is I have read much of their work since I first saw the position and the first interview made things more clear for me.


text:
Is referring to a textbook solution considered academic dishonesty?
There are weekly homework assignments based on a textbook. We will finish each problem set and hand that in every two weeks.
Since the assignments are straight out of the textbook, it is very easy to get a copy of the textbook solution manual from online sources.
As an undergraduate student, if I try the problem myself, and then refer to the solution manual only for comparing the final answers, am I committed of academic dishonesty?
Since I have referred to the solution manual, it is very likely that I will receive a good score on the assignment. If I also have a very good score on the exam, does my score reflect that my homework wasn't copied from the solution manual?
The homework is only worth 10% of the overall grade.

Ask your instructor if he/she permits looking at the solution. It's his opinion that matters, not that of strangers on the Internet. (P.S. You said that you refer to the solution manual to "compare" your final answer. You haven't said whether you will change your answer before you submit the homework, if it's different from the one in the solution manual.)

One might think in this day and age that the instructor should realize that answers to textbook problems are readily available (often in the back of the student's copy!). Although, those of use who haunt other SE sites see many attempts by students to lure us in to doing their homework for them.

No, it's not academic dishonesty, as I understand it.  If you can justify the final answer and show your own work, you should be fine.  Copying solutions will land you in trouble, however.

In one of my classes, I had a hard time doing the homework and asked the professor if I could look up information online. During our meeting, my professor explicitly told me that he was OK with me finding solutions to the problems online and directly paraphrasing them, as long as I cited them in my homework submissions!

I agree (as usual) with @ff524.  Consulting an outside source is not academic dishonesty in a global sense -- academic culture does not prohibit students and faculty from reading academic sources! -- but it may be academic dishonesty in a local sense: i.e., it may be against the rules of your course as set up by your instructor.  You can find out whether you are being "locally academically dishonest" in this way by consulting your instructor.
Two further points:
1) Since the homework grade is only 10%, unless the homework is wildly more difficult than the rest of the course, a student who consults answer books to do their homework is unlikely to gain a competitive advantage against other students.  In fact, as you hint at, it is more likely that such a student would miss the learning opportunity the homework is designed to provide and this would show up in lower exam scores.  The old chestnut "You would only be cheating yourself" seems to apply here.
2) Although consulting an outside source is not academic dishonesty, as ff524 brings up there is still the question of what happens after you consult it.  If you do the problem, then look at the textbook, then change the answer if it doesn't match, and never mention that you consulted the textbook, then yes, you are at least in danger of having committed plagiarism.
Overall, you should talk to your instructor and find out whether it is permissible to consult the textbook.  If it isn't, then obviously you shouldn't do it.  If it is, then it really is and you should mention in your homework when you do so.  To an undergraduate student this practice may seem strange, but it is really the right thing to do and I would expect your graders and instructors to react well to it.

On the professor side, I tell students to do their work in one color, and when reviewing their answers with the textbook, show it in another color. The OP could potentially also do this and just note that the bright orange ink is their corrections, and the original pencil is purely their work.

This is probably dependent on the field but when I taught math I would have actually preferred if the students took the time to check the answers against a solution manual. I graded the work rather than the answer anyway and if they bothered to check they might have figured out what they did was nonsense. Of course all too often students decide it must be the answer book that's got it wrong (this is not helped by the fact that occasionally the answer books do get it wrong much less often then the students think though).

Hmm, @DRF, this brings up a possible counterstrategy. The prof could spike some websites with subtly wrong solutions, to find out who doesn't bother to activate their own judgement in developing a solution.

The instructor knows that the solution could be found out from the text book itself. But still he/she gave you the assignment. The expectation is that the student would be honest with self to learn something. At the end what matters is "what you learned in the course" rather than "what score you got in the course". If you solved the problem yourself and then tried to verify and learn something from it, then its good. And, as per me, it is not academic dishonesty. However, if you feel so, you could have a word with your instructor.


text:
I am looking for a way to remotely teach a class
So I am a single individual and do not have access to any university schemes related to my issue.
I would like to be able to use my wacom device (an pen that allows me to write down on the computer) so that I am able to handwrite equations etc to my students.
I also need to be able to conference with more than one student, but typically less than five.
Last but not least while video conferencing I want to be able to handwrite (like in a blackboard) so that all the students will be able to see in real time what I am handwriting on the "blackboard"
If possible (but not necessary in case it excludes solutions you may have in mind) I would like that black board to be interactive so that students can draw on it as well.
Also since I am a single individual the software or service has either to be free or at a "consumer service" price I am not able to spent e.g 300$ a month for such a service.

There is a selection of online whiteboard services. Have you tried any of them? Do they solve your problem?

@Dmitry Savostyanov English is not my native language and I struggle to find such a service especially since most of the ones I found are either described very vaguely and require you to post an inquiry or are very expensive obviously aimed at institutions none of the ones I found  mention this "blackboard" functionality they may have it but I couldnt see that feature explicitly stated in the website that's why I tried my luck here :)

I use https://whiteboardfox.com for collaborative hand-writing.

Zoom has such a functionality (they call it "whiteboard") and it is not too expensive (14€ per month or 140€ per year).

For the video conferencing software, I recommend Discord.  It was started in the gaming community. When we all went online in March, several of the students in one of my classes suggested it, and I went with it.
It's very good for low-bandwidth voice channels, and also allows screen-sharing.  The only downside is that it only allows 25 people to see the screen share at once.
To get around that, a colleague of mine streams his video feed to Twitch (another gaming site).
As far as drawing, I use Microsoft's OneNote software. Its drawing allows my to use my Wacom tablet to write on top of PDFs that I upload into it.
Below is a still from one of my video lectures, showing my (awful) handwriting on top of a PDF in OneNote. This was streamed to YouTube for recording purposes, but most of the students were watching live.

Thanks a lot for the response, this would be my plan B (I thought something similar with OBS and twitch) since it does not allow (at least as far as I understand correct me if I am wrong) for the participants to e.g ask a question while I draw something on screen.
As for the number of the participants it wont be an issue I think since usually I have classes of less than 5

@papajo Yes, I use Streamlabs OBS to compose the display (the icon in the top left and the mini-me in the bottom right).  That also lets me stream directly to YouTube. The main reason for that, as I said, is for recording purposes. Some students need to miss lectures, and this way they get to review them afterwards.

Note though that Discord can be very confusing to people who aren't very technical. A great suggestion for a math or CS department, but it might be more challenging with other students

@AzorAhai--hehim I find Discord less confusing than MS Teams to use, and most institutional users (business) go the Teams route....

@BrianTompsett-汤莱恩 I've never used Teams, I don't know anyone who does. So I can't speak to that. But among my friends, it's clear the gamer-y and CS types find Discord much easier to use than my non-techy friends.

I agree with Peter K and also have used Discord in a teaching situation, but also MS Teams which my institution uses.
I use the video and screen sharing capabilities of these in conjunction with OpenBoard which is free and designed for online teaching and should work well with  the tablet.

Ooh. I might have to look at OpenBoard.  Thanks for the tip! :-)


text:
Is it proper to use google map image in scientific paper?
I have used a google map image as an illustration of street map within my study area. And I have submitted the paper containing this figure to a journal owned by Elsevier.
Meanwhile, the reviewer questioned about the copy right of the basemap which I have also concerned on.
Is it proper to use those maps from Google maps or Google Earth. I'm not familiar with the legal issues of the terms of use for Google Map/Earth.

Sure, this question is relevant to academia, but it really is about image rights in a specific contexts. Have you tried other sources?

The Google query "image rights Google maps"  took me here: https://www.google.com/permissions/geoguidelines/ Voting to close.

@Dirk you can change this to an answer though it is surprising that an academic as OP did the search him/herself

I would rather not, as I don't think that this question belongs here. Also: It seems like the real answer is "You have to ask Google following the instructions from the linked site."

Consider using Open Street Map: would be easier permissions-wise. https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright


text:
How to reply to editor's comment such as 'Such a revised paper may be refereed and there would be no guarantee of acceptance'? Is it necessary?
I am preparing a detailed explanation of how I have dealt with all of the reviewers' and Editor's comments for a manuscript. The editor's comments are as follows:

I regret I am unable to accept your paper for publication in XXX, at
  least in its present form. I should, however, be prepared to consider
  for publication a substantially revised version that takes into
  account the suggestions of the referees. Such a revised paper may be
  refereed and there would be no guarantee of acceptance. The three
  referees agree that you have obtained useful results. They raise a
  number of issues you should be able to solve relatively easily.

Is it necessary to reply to editor's comment like this? How to reply to editor's comment such as'Such a revised paper may be refereed and there would be no guarantee of acceptance'?

Is it necessary to reply to editor's comment like this?

No. This is just making sure that you understand that revising the paper does not guarantee acceptance.
You may wish to write an introductory paragraph for the editor before you address the specific reviewer comments. Here, you may wish to thank the editor for acknowledging that the reviewers consider your results to be useful, summarise the main improvements, and conclude that you feel the manuscript is substantially better for the reviewer suggestions.

Thanks ! I found at the end of editor's letter, he point out that  ' When you revise your paper, you should prepare a detailed explanation of how you have dealt with all of the reviewers' and Editor's comments.' Is it necesary to reply to editor's comment such as 'The three referees agree that you have obtained useful results. They raise a number of issues you should be able to solve relatively easily.'

At least some of this text will be automatically generated. If the editor has added their own comments on the manuscript itself, then you should certainly respond. Other comments are at your discretion, but comments like in my example above remind the editor that they thought your work wasn't too bad, and hopefully sets the tone for their eventual decision.

This. All of that text is boilerplate.

In my role as an editor, I get fully prepared template, which I only edit, if  necessary (e.g. if there are certain aspects of the reviews that I really want to point to the author). So, you don't need to reply to a robot, in a sense. But, appropriate response to this would be a polite thankyou to the editor and the reviewers.


text:
Visiting assistant professor position vs Post-doc position
I have couple of offers for a visiting assistant professor (VAP) and for post-doc positions. I'm debating which to choose. I'm finalizing my PhD now at a top 50 R1 school in engineering. The VAP positions are at top 20 private liberal arts colleges. The two post-docs positions are one at my current university and another one at a top 30 R1 university. To be honest, I started applying for tenure track (TT) positions two months ago in February (I know it was already late! But I had some serious change of plans). I'm debating whether to go for a VAP or post-doc (at my school, since my research area is very new) position. I feel that I will get a better chance of getting some interviews during the next cycle of applying to TT positions (when I start applying in Aug/Sep.).
Here are few facts that might be useful;

My goal is to go for a TT position (R1 university).
Publication record is high (about 3 times higher than the average number of publications for a fresh PhD graduate in my field)
My current advisor is famous (he started my research area), basically I feel that my recommendation letters are good!
I'm not worried about salary/benefits (since both positions are not TT)
Received multiple awards/fellowships during my PhD
Proposal/Grant funding writing abilities - average (not very experienced)
I have heard from multiple people that getting a VAP for 1-2 years might look bad/questionable on a CV on the contrary to having a post-doc.

Any help/comments/experiences/suggestions shared will be much appreciated.

"TT" == "tenure track"?

Why are you not considering the second postdoc at the other R1? Its the logical choice.

This question is just not specific enough.  The job titles are pretty meaningless (I would call a VAP position a postdoc); what actually matters is your responsibilities, the research environment   etc.  So, forget the job title and evaluate the jobs on their own merits.

@faisceaux I agree, however the school with the higher ranking does not have a facility where I can do physical testing. Basically, if I chose to go there, I will end up using FE simulation a lot! In my school, we have both physical testing facility, average numerical capabilities and very good advisor. I should have added that to my question.

@BenWebster The post-doc is solely research oriented. The VAP is mainly teaching (3-3) with no start-up package or apparent possibilities of collaboration with other faculty. Basically, they want a teacher.

@Ric Yes! "TT" == "tenure track"

@ChrisWhite I understand that. I have 3-4 very good referees. I don't think getting the letters is an issue (I know for a fact its not). But, thanks for pointing this out!

A letter from someone who knows you very well will necessarily be taken far more seriously than from someone who knows you less well. For this reason it is usually advisable to work under several different people, so that more people can really vouch for you.

If your goal is to get a TT job at an R1 university, you would be a lunatic to choose a job with 3-3 teaching load with no research support over one that is research focused.  I'm extremely confused about why you're even asking this question.
EDIT: To specifically address "if getting a VAP job for a year would enhance my resume (to be able to compete for a TT position) over having a post-doc,"  the answer from everything I know is a resounding "no."  It will just look like you couldn't get a decent postdoc.  Maybe teaching 1 or 2 classes if you can arrange it with one of the postdocs would be a net positive, but the VAP job you're describing would be a disaster for your research, and that's what gets you the sort of job you say you want.  Maybe you're extremely productive and in a very in demand field, but if your research is good enough that you can take a year off (effectively) and still get a TT job at an R1 university, then you can potentially get an even better job (or be in a better negotiating position, or be in a better position to get tenure) if you keep your research up for another year.  Certainly very few people are so productive that they can afford to take such a huge risk.

Ben, I'm asking if getting a VAP job for a year would enhance my resume (to be able to compete for a TT position) over having a post-doc. In other words, I feel that my research ability is good (based on the number of publication compared to others in my field). The point of the question is, will having a teaching experience in terms of a VAP (not a TA which I have been doing for the last 2 years of my PhD) is needed. I'm asking for input and suggestions, hence I posted this question.

@TheFireGuy Your "research ability" as you put it, is not only "Has published some papers" but "Continually publishes research work". You're essentially suggesting you stop doing that for a bit. Consider that, if you are as ahead of your peers as you think you are, what you are doing in effect is letting some of them "catch up" and then compete with you on equal footing. Your goal should be to widen your lead.

You are in engineering; you want to get a TT position at an R1. This means that you need to build your research portfolio a lot more than you need to build your teaching one. // Also, between the two Post-Docs, you should choose the one that is not your current university. That is even the case if the other university were ranked lower. For various reasons it does look better to not do your postdoc at the same place you completed your PhD. @TheFireGuy


text:
Question about APS Ethics Case Study
The American Physical Society Ethics Case Studies presents the following case study:

You are a faculty mentor for a graduate student in your department. The student is taking some classes in another department that requires written essays. He asks you to read his essay before he submits it.
  You routinely google his work and discover that large parts have been lifted, verbatim, from the web with no quotation marks or citations.

What should you do?
Is there a way to monitor this student’s future behavior without irreparably damaging his career?

Unlike many of the scenarios, this one has no discussion. What are the answers to the questions?

@TobiasKildetoft - Personally, I'm on the fence here. On the one hand, this question sure looks like homework. On the other hand, it's very on-topic for this site. It doesn't look like we've discussed homework questions being posted to the site on Meta yet. I just posted this question for discussion, feel free to discuss there.

@StrongBad this question does in fact have a discussion on the next page in the PDF. Here it is on the APS website

@ff524 while I tried... I guess the APS answer would be a good answer to this question.

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is a hypothetical of unclear motivation, copied from another website.

Even if this question is on-topic, it (IMHO) deserves a downvote due to lack of effort.

"Your paper looks like it has some citation problems.  Do you have any questions about when and how you should cite the work of others?"  Provide help if asked.  (There's a lot on the web.)
That ought to be enough warning.  After the due date of the paper, contact the professor in the other department, explain that you counseled the student about correct citation, and volunteer to look at the final paper.
If the student took the hint, that was a teaching moment.  If not, and the student's career is "irreparably damaged," well, he did that to himself.
You can expect that the professor in the other department will watch future papers closely, which is probably all the monitoring you can do unless there are similar essays in your own department, in which case, talk to your colleagues.

Perhaps the "graduate" student does not know the proper use of referring and citing others' work (especially if he is just started his studies). Hence, he is providing you with the (copied) essays to review them!
However, I doubt that since almost every school teaches the importance of ethics in the academic field. Keep in mind that there is a section on plagiarism in almost each syllabus and undergraduate/graduate handbook. Still I'm not familiar with this student's background, so maybe different institutes (outside Europe/ US) do not explicitly discuss plagiarism (I doubt that but maybe?)!
If I were you, I would confront him/her and explain that this is not the right way to write essays. After all you are a "mentor". I will explain the concept of plagiarism, citing and referencing. To be honest, I would have done this the first time I found out that some of his/her work was copied from somewhere else.

I'm not an expert on Academic penalties so maybe somebody more experienced can provide a better insight on how to address this issue (either documenting it in his/her record, or providing him/her with a second chance). Keep in mind that a graduate handbook should provide the official procedure.

Good point about not knowing. IME this is somewhat common with students from China, where the educational system heavily values memorizing and almost worshiping the words of famous leaders, philosophers, etc. On the old Imperial exams, it was expected and normal - if Confucius wrote about X, the "correct" answer to "What is X?" was to simply regurgitate verbatim what Confucius said onto your exam paper. Citation? The examiners were not ignorant - they knew what Confucius said, and telling them was arguably condescending.


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How to reduce the distance between academics and students?
While this may appear a quite open-ended question I think it is quite pertinent for a large number of subjects.
Considering undergraduate classes, particularly for students who are coming straight out of school, there is typically an expectation among students that they should not contribute to a class unless specifically asked to do so, that they are there merely to receive information, that academics are "the enemy" who can fail them, and that unless they are trying to curry favour with an academic, or attempting to gain marks that will specifically affect their GPA, that there is no reason to do any work.
This, of course, is entirely counter-productive in university. While it's clearly not within our power to change the Western schooling system that generates students that are like this, I am interested in what we can do to specifically reduce the "otherness" of academics to students within subjects that we teach: to make them realise that an academic is not an opponent that must be surmounted or avoided.
So when I say "how to reduce the distance between academics and students" I mean the psychological distance. Through this, I hope, that the actual reason for being in university might become more apparent to students, and that it might be conducive to their performing better.
This question is complicated by the fact that certain academics like and encourage this distance to reduce workloads for themselves. Disengaging from students, making it a challenge to be contacted, and maintaining an image of authority are aspects that I have seen deliberately pursued by (generally weaker) academics.

Do students really have such expectations?

You mention that "certain academics like and encourage this distance to reduce workloads for themselves." This can be resolved by administrators placing manageable workloads on academics.

@user2768 without a shadow of a doubt. Even I must admit that I wouldn't talk to an academic until I was a postgrad unless I absolutely had to. Probably meant I was missing out on tapping potentially valuable resources during my research.

@Stumber I can't relate, my experience was completely different

Not enough for a full answer, but some faculty require students to come to an office hour or other appointment  once within the first month of classes in order to build a rapport. I have also seen people put up one slide per class that is a “get to know me” item. I did this once with photos of my newborn-it was actually a subtle way of getting students to understand when I was not responsive during “off” hours.

I can't relate with the description you have made for both, students and academics. Maybe this is culture related.

Can you edit this for clarification. I'm tempted, but don't want to defeat your purpose. However, all but the penultimate paragraph is extremely negative. We don't all experience this, so it is a bit rant-like. Also, you might want to say whose responsibility this is and who should act.

@Buffy well it seems a bit superfluous on a three year old, locked question!

Actually, I think the core question has merit. An edit can result in it getting reopened. The up votes suggest I'm not alone.


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How should I plan my course schedule given that my wife is due to give birth during the semester?
I have been teaching for a few years at my university,
and have mostly gotten into the rhythm of teaching and doing research.
This semester, I am teaching two courses.
What is different this semester is that
I am faced with the happy but unfamiliar circumstance
that my wife is due to give birth during the semester.
Question: How should I plan my course schedule around the birth of our baby?
Here are some of the issues that I have considered:

The unpredictability of the birth date.
We are expecting that our baby will be delivered naturally.
While we were given an expected due date by the doctors,
we don't really know when the contractions will start,
when we will go to the hospital,
how long the labor will be before the baby is born, etc.
The day of week effect.
I am teaching on Mondays and Tuesdays.

If my wife goes into labor on Saturday, Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday,
I will probably be needed to help my wife give birth or recover,
so I plan to cancel class.
If my wife goes into labor on Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday,
we will probably be in a good enough situation
that I can teach on Monday or Tuesday.
But should I cancel class regardless?

What to communicate to students.
If my wife suddenly goes into labor,
I may have to suddenly cancel class.
This could happen shortly before the class starts,
or even possibly in the middle of the class.
Should I communicate any information about my wife's pregnancy
and the baby's expected due date to my students beforehand?

I would appreciate wise advice about
how to plan my course schedule
in a way that balances my family's needs and the students' needs.
Response to comments
Question: Can you arrange paternity leave/cover?
Answer: I'm asking Human Resources about the paternity leave policy.
Both of these courses are course which I developed,
so none of my colleagues in the department can teach them well
without investing a significant amount of time.
So I don't think I can find a colleague in my department to cover the course.

Can you arrange paternity leave/ cover?

@astronat See my edited question

Your colleagues don't have to teach the course; they only have to handle a couple of days.  If, throughout the critical time, you've prepared a couple of days ahead, it will not be hard for someone to cover for you.  (Preparing a lesson for someone else to teach is harder than preparing for oneself, but not that much harder.)

One possibility is to record a lecture or two, particularly if you can find somewhat independent topics.

Yes, I would say that at the beginning of the course. In my case that was received positively, and when the day came they were very flexible in handling any schedule changes (much more so than students normally are).
I would also discuss this early on with your collegues. In my case they were very willing to help out (people are much less irreplacable as we like to think we are...)
This is definately something to discuss with HR, as there may be all kinds of policies and programs that you never heard of and could really help you balance your new family life with your work (as a colleage told me: however you will measure it, your life will change significantly (We both teach statistics), and he was right)

+1 for getting your colleagues involved, especially. Also, look at the concept of "Pay it Forward" which can easily apply in this and similar situations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_it_forward


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As a lecturer, can I use the same problems used in another course in my own course?
I will be teaching a new course for the first time.
Fortunately,
I found a massive open online course (MOOC) on edX
which is similar to the course that I want to teach.
However, the difficulty of the MOOC is significantly higher than
the level of the students at my institution.
Consequently, I will be teaching
4 basic topics which I will develop own my own,
in addition to 4 topics which I will adapt from the MOOC.
For the 4 topics which are covered both in the MOOC and my course,
I am thinking of using some of the same or similar material
(e.g., ideas + slides + assignments) from the MOOC.
There are two advantage's of this approach:
It will lessen my workload,
but also reduce the chance that something will go wrong.
Are there any (copyright / ethical / other) issues with this?
Edited in response to comments

[Karl] claims that "There's surely nothing wrong with borrowing some problems like you say in your original question, but just using a complete existing course is very low. How big do you think the chances are you will have time next year to put more work into it?"
I have edited my question to make it more clear that
I am adapting the existing MOOC rather than copying wholesale.
However, is there a problem with using very similar material
for the topics which are covered in both the MOOC and my course?
Brian Borchers
mentioned one potential problem which is
"that students can find solutions to the problems in the MOOC and submit them in response to your assignments. Mixing up the sources of your questions is one way to stop this kind of cheating."
To complete the assignments,
I will ask the students to submit both the code as well as the answers.
I could also change some of the problem parameters
so the answers are not found directly in the MOOC.

No offense, but if you want to be a good lecturer, you will benefit more by making your own questions (or at the very least adapting and then answering existing ones). You have a great responsibility: to teach others a subject correctly. You should therefore be an expert in the subject you are teaching, and given that you think "something might go wrong" I deduce you are not. This is fine because it is your first course, but you will learn nothing form stealing/borrowing questions. Make your own and become the expert you should be. Use the opportunity to learn something!

@louic Thank you for your opinion. I have thought about this issue before. I think the safer option is an incremental approach, where I use an existing course in the first year. In subsequent years, I can tweak the course slightly each year to make it more my own.

There's surely nothing wrong with borrowing some problems like you say in your original question, but just using a complete existing course is very low. How big do you think the chances are you will have time next year to put more work into it?

Re copyright issues -- check the site's information carefully and if in doubt write to them. // I think this would be fine -- I see this as analogous to following a textbook closely.  But do make sure to work through any problem you're thinking of assigning, anticipating difficulties students might have.

One problem that you'll probably encounter is that students can find solutions to the problems in the MOOC and submit them in response to your assignments.  Mixing up the sources of your questions is one way to stop this kind of cheating.

@Karl I've edited the question in response to your comment.

@BrianBorchers I've edited the question in response to your comment.

Check if the MOOC has a license assigned to it. If it is for example Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) you are allowed to use the questions as long as you give a reference to the original creator. You don't need to ask the MOOC in this case. CC-BY-NC (non-commercial) might be a difficult case, because you teach this course as a business and earn money for it.
A second option is to directly ask the MOOC creators.
Adapting the question significantly is a third option, as long as you don't copy directly texts from the original question and just base it on the general idea this would be fine.

"some of the same problems" - fine and then you add others, re-work some to highlight some specific parts of the course and before long those ones you started with are in the minority...
You can even mention, if you want, where some problems come from - if the solutions are not supplied in the book or maybe that is an advantage... That all depends on how you see the students working - copying / regurgitating existing solutions by rote or having to apply themselves...

Keep going downvoter - lots of my answers you have missed... will you run out of points before I do?


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Funding situation if I have passed GATE but lack CSIR-JRF NET
I have finished my M.Sc. in Applied Mathematics in 2016. I wish to pursue a PhD. Currently I am preparing for GATE (Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering, a master’s-level national entrance exam in India). In this respect, I have a few questions.

If I only have a valid GATE score but no CSIR-JRF NET qualification, will I be eligible for the 25 k funding?
If yes to above, is this funding available for any NAAC-accredited university (public or private) in India?
Is there any written statement from the government which validates this?

How about explaining what all these acronyms mean?

@aparente001 : GATE is an acronym for Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering which is a masters level national entrance exam in India. CSIR, UGC, NAAC are governmental bodies which deal with higher education, research and university accreditation in India. NET stands for National Eligibility Test which is a PhD level national entrance examination in India.

I have never seen any written statement, but so far I have learned and experienced the below.
Through GATE (Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering) score, you can take admission for PhD program with 25k p.m. scholarship in
IITs/NITs (Indian/National Institute of Technology),
IISc (Indian Institute of Science),
IISERs/NISERs (Indian/National Institute of Science Education and Research)
and some other Institutes in India.

Through GATE, you can also take admission into PhD program with about 2000 SGD p.m. scholarship in
NUS (National University of Singapore)
and NTU (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore).

To answer your question:

If I only have a valid GATE score but no CSIR-JRF NET qualification,
  will I be eligible for the 25 k funding?

Yes, but not everywhere. Please visit the webpage of the Institutes/Universities and check their instructions about scholarship or inquire via telephone or email.

If yes to above, is this funding available for any NAAC-accredited
  university (public or private) in India?

Not sure, may be available, but very limited.

Is there any written statement from the government which validates
  this?

I have never searched such written statements.

Thanks for your effort and answer. As of now, +1.. I will wait for some more time to accept this answer. Its only because, I want this thread to be open for some more time.

Although I admit that I am not fully aware of this area, here is my 2 cents on the matter based on my limited understanding:

As far as I am aware the GATE exam, is a masters level entry exam. It usually fetches you around Rs.12.4k per month of government funding during a masters degree. While it may be used as an entrance test for a PhD in India, the funding by the government is not available during the a post master level degree. Having said that, universities might sometimes have intakes on individual project based PhDs (where basically they fund you off that project) which might not check if you have a NET score. Again, I say might.
Passing the NET examination indeed does make you eligible for the aforementioned amount in terms of government sponsored scholarship. Ofcourse, you have to send a project proposal to the actual CSIR or UGC to actually get the scholarship.
Funding is usually not restricted by which university you belong to, as long as it is accredited. I am not sure of any written statement that validates this however, but it should be the case.

Please do not take my word as gospel because I am from an Engineering background and things might be slightly different in my area.


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How to find an arXiv endorser
I have recently completed a manuscript and I want it to submit to the arXiv. But there I find that there is an endorsement requirement. But since I am quite new in this field (and this is my first time wanting to submit to arXiv), I don't know how to find an endorser myself. I have mailed the admin also but in reply they also told me that searching for an endorser is a responsibility of the author himself. So, can anyone help me regarding the process as to how to find an endorser?

If you go to a paper on the arXiv (for example, this one of mine: http://arxiv.org/abs/1312.7357), at the bottom, there is a link that reads "Which authors of this paper are endorsers?"  If you click through, you'll see something like

Ben Webster: Is registered as an author of this paper.
Can endorse for math.AG, math.AT, math.CO, math.CT, math.GR, math.GT, math.QA, math.RA, math.RT, math.SG.

which means I can endorse submitters in algebraic geometry, algebraic topology, combinatorics, category theory, group theory, geometric topology, quantum algebra, rings & algebras, representation theory and symplectic geometry.
Presumably you know of some papers on the arXiv related to yours, so look at their authors.  If you don't know of any, then maybe you should rethink whether the site is a good fit for you.
EDIT: I wanted to comment: I've now received several emails now based on this post asking for endorsement (maybe 1 a year or so), but never for fields I can actually endorse in.  So, please, pay attention to that detail if you are going to send someone an email and ask for endorsement. Try looking at papers which are in the correct subject area.

Feel free not to answer this if you don't want to, but...have you in fact ever endorsed someone on the arxiv?  (I haven't.)

Once, as a graduate student, I endorsed a fellow student.  Not since.

@PeteL.Clark, I did endorse someone for an arXiv submission once. Meanwhile, I got an email a few days ago requesting an endorsement, evidently one paper on Goldbach, one on Pollock conjectures. I have not replied. This guy is polite, but I don't see how I am involved; I have not answered or requested the papers, which are not in my area.

The following order of steps seems reasonable to me:

Do you personally know any other researchers in the endorsement domain? Consider in particular former colleagues, former advisors, anybody with whom you communicated about your research.

Check whether any of these people already can endorse. To do so find an ArXiv publication by them and check the Which authors of this paper are endorsers? link at the bottom of the page.
Check whether any of these people may become an endorser by claiming ownership of their publications. If somebody co-authored Arxiv publications in the endorsement domain in the last five years, all they may need to do is claim ownership (which is comparably easy) to be able to endorse. Note that the number of required publications depends on the domain. (More details here)
Check whether any of these people may become endorsers by publishing one or more existing peer-reviewed publication on the Arxiv. Again the publications must not be older than five years and they must be published in a journal whose copyright agreement allows this. Be aware that preparing papers for Arxiv publication might involve some time and work. Therefore this would be asking for more of a favour than just endorsement. On the other hand people who personally know you do not have to read your paper, so you might still cause less work than asking somebody else for endorsement.

Is there anybody with endorsement capabilities (see above) in the direct vicinity of your topic, i.e., somebody who might be particularly interested to read your work and can easily read it? Consider people whose work you cited or whom you would suggest as reviewers for your paper when submitting to a journal.
Finally, consider other people who can endorse in the respective domain. The closer they are to your subject, the better. Also you are probably more successful with lower-ranking academics as they are less flooded with requests and have more time on their hands.

In all cases, heed the Arxiv’s guideline not to “email large numbers of potential endorsers at once”.

If you are a registered student in a recognized university or institute, you can register in arXiv with your school email address, then you do not need endorsement. After submission, the moderator takes charge and decides if acknowledging your paper to publish.

From arXiv Endorsement : "In most cases, automatic endorsement is given to authors from known academic institutions and research facilities. arXiv submitters are therefore encouraged to associate an institutional email address, if they have one, with their arXiv account (see author registration help). This will expedite the endorsement process.". Please note that they state "In most cases"

Would that be ... registered student or researcher in a 'recognised' university or institute ... then you may not need endorsement


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As a student, how to deal with low quality tools in lab assignments?
In a lab today we were working with electronic circuit boards (kind of like old-fashioned Arduinos). I had done the prelab but I had a great deal of difficulty trying to get my circuit board to work in the way it was supposed to. Slowly, everyone in the class left. The next class arrived and I continued to work. I consulted the TA for help several times and eventually I was able to prove that the board I was working on was faulty. It was very difficult, as it seemed to work as expected with one micro-controller, but given multiple some funky stuff started happening. The TA emphasized that it was important to understand the basics and advised me to come back tomorrow to make sure I understand how to use the circuit board. I already missed a class staying in late today. This is very frustrating especially considering I pay lots of money to be in the class and half the labels on the chips are so faded you're not even sure what you're putting in.
My question is, could I have done anything differently (and not missed my next class)? I find it nonconstructive to blame things on the equipment, but it does really happen sometimes. Should I have pressured the TA more for help? It was 1 TA for a fairly large class but she almost never looked at what I was personally doing and just gave general advice. What would be fair for marks? An omission or an extension?
This was embarrassing and frustrating. After the TA told me how I had to be able to do this, I thought about dropping the course. It would have been unfortunate if it was because I happened on a defective board.
Should I have put more pressure on the TA to help me or make sure my equipment was working properly?

I understand your frustration, but I really don't see how anyone outside of your environment can tell you what to do - it's so situation-dependent.

if you want to see the bright side: these kind of things are not particularly rare when actually developing a new systems... Drivers contain bugs, circuit boards are imperfect, etc. Debugging is probably one of the skills you REALLY need in the industry. (But yes, this is not ideal for a beginners course...)

You probably learned far, far more about real circuit board work identifying and proving the problem with the circuit board than you would have learned if everything had worked perfectly. One thing you could have done is to swap boards with another student to see whether the problem follows the board or stays with the student.

Defective equipment is unpleasant. Someone suggested to switch equipment to prove your point and I agree that this is the fastest way to make your point.

I dropped out of this course due to the poor quality equipment we had to work with. It's not really fair we pay lots of money to learn and the equipment doesn't even work.

The answer for your question is based on three cases.
Case 1 -- Inadequate instructions: If you feel that you did not have enough tutoring from the instructor. You ought to request for a demonstration of the exercise. The instructor is obliged to answer. Otherwise you could try consulting a peer for help; one who knows enough to do the exercise.
Case 2 -- Defective equipment: Once you are able to follow up with the instructions then you should be able to detect faults, if any, with the given equipment. If defect is suspected, have the instructor inspect it. Then she would be obliged to set you up with a new set of equipment. If such an arrangement is not available, then report to the department regarding the defective equipment.
Case 3 -- Inadequate knowledge: If everyone is able to execute the exercise without any issues, then you want to contemplate on your prior knowledge of the practicals. You should have clarified your doubts in the pre-lab session. The solution: ask the instructor in her free time to catch up with the basics. Although the better option would be learn it yourself if the TA is really not approachable as you describe so.
If your problem is a mixture of the above three cases, then resolve in the order case 3, then case 1, and then case 2.

It turned out case 2 was really difficult to detect, or at least prove.


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What are “ad hoc” reviewers/referees for journals?
What are “ad hoc” reviewers/referees for journals? Is this a different role from (regular) reviewers/referees? If yes, how are they different?
I see some people use the term ad hoc somewhere in the referee-service section of their CV, and some people don’t. Is there any difference? What is the proper practice?

Ad hoc might be used in the context of conference review where reviews are usually done by the members of a Program Committee and an extra (usually a specialized expert) reviewer is brought in for one or two papers which require careful review beyond the capability or capacity of the PC members. I haven't seen it used in the context of a journal.

authors: شیوا پاساراد


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“Authors Response” or “Authors’ Response”?
Recently, I received a decission letter from an IEEE journal. When I prepared my response, I became confused. The demand from editor is as follows:

Please start your paper file with an authors response to the review of [paper ID number] which  contains how you responded to the reviewers comments.

My confusions are:

Which of the following titles should I use for my response?

An Authors Response to the Review of Paper XXX
  Authors Response to the Review of Paper XXX

Should I drop an or not?
Which of the following should I use?

Authors Response to the Review of Paper XXX
  Authors' Response to the Review of Paper XXX

Should I add an apostrophe at the end of authors?

The editor does not seem to be explicitly ask you to title a section anything, but given the editor's poor grammar, they will probably not be too stringent.  In any case, titling a section with proper grammar seems a reasonable thing to do.  (Your last option is gramatically correct, if you weren't sure about that.)

@Kimball Is it not only correct if there is more than one author? (or it should have been author's).

@TobiasKildetoft Yes, though authors' is also okay as a generic statement (e.g., the editor could use authors' as part of a generic email in cases of both single-author and mutiple-author papers).  The OP did not list the singular possesive author's as an option, so I didn't get into that, but from a submission point of view, this is all less than crucial anyway.

I really doesn't matter: all of these are close enough to one another to be clearly sensible and have plausible arguments for why they might be reasonable. More importantly, none of them will make it into the published paper: they are merely a transient piece of communication between you and the editor and reviewers which will later be deleted.  As such, any of them is reasonable enough.
That said, personally, I would just say "Response to Reviews" and avoid the whole question.