text:
Nonpaid, volunteering position in a lab
I already have a BSc degree from an unknown school in outside the US. I have convinced a professor at a top US school to let me join his lab to work on a project that he will propose and conduct experiments at his lab. In return for learning and having access to the lab and working on a project, I am supposed to help the lab with programming their machines. However, there is no pay, that is my title would be "Volunteer". Therefore, I have to work in part-time or night jobs while working there (I have work permit).
Is this common in US, that is to work in a lab without getting paid and working on a part-time job outside the lab to pay for living expenses?

I know a bunch of friends, who had unpaid stays in US or Canada, usually for 1-3 month summer internship (technically (or rather: legally), I do not know if they where internships, or some other things).
Sometimes there is no funding for non-US students; very often such short stays are beneficial mostly for the student (as it may be mostly time for learning techniques). In any case, it makes sense only when both sides consider beneficial, or at least, acceptable.

@PiotrMigdal if these friends were students at the time, the possibility of a legal unpaid internship becomes much more likely. The OP is not currently a student, and generally reputable places only allow students to be unpaid interns (bec of legal issues)

@ff524 I assumed that he is pursuing MSc or on some kind of break/holidays. If, however, it happens instead of studying, I agree - it may be fishy.

@PiotrMigdal  even if OP is a student, the description of being "allowed" to do research in exchange for programming work makes it sound like this is NOT an educational internship.

@ff524 Most of academic internships I know (whether paid or not) are based on learning by working for others (with various degree of freedom - from "here's your desk, look at these papers, look if you can push it further" to ones focused mostly on doing technical stuff in group's project). I don't see how the ratio of hours in in one's own project to contributing to other projects make it not an internship.

@PiotrMigdal It's not about who owns the project - when you hire a student for his/her educational benefit you say "You're doing to do research with us on some projects." You don't say "I'm going to let you do research here in exchange for doing programming work." The fact that the research is presented as the "reward" and not the goal makes me very wary.

@ff524 Thanks for your answer. I guess I should make a clarification. I stated that "I am supposed to help the lab with programming their machines.". This was my own suggestion to the professor. In other words, I told the professor that I can do that, and the professor said that they need someone to do that. I don't see it as an exploitation. I was just curious if it is normal to do nonpaid internship at labs in the US.

@user-friendly Are you a student in a university right now? Unpaid internships are not uncommon for students, but for non-students they are unusual and often legally questionable.

@ff524 I am not a student now. I am assigned an interesting project. And I guess if I do well I may get paid later on. So I think it is beneficial for me.

It may be beneficial to you anyways, but it does sound like the professor should be paying you. (It is not legal to use an unpaid internship as trial period for regular employment in the U.S. If you are led to expect to be hired as a paid employee after you do a good job for a while, it is illegal.)

@ff524 Thanks for your comment. Not actually, that's just my hope.

It sounds like you should talk to this professor some more about what you are going to do there, what he expects from you, and what you should expect to gain from the experience. (Also, talk to his current students when he's not around about what it is like to work there!) Good luck :)

Several of the research groups I have been affiliated with have a strict policy of not having unpaid help in the lab owing to the potential for later lawsuits (such things have been won in the past in the US). On the other hand, I did do unpaid work in a research group while I was an undergrad, so these things vary.

@dmckee Yes, if you are a student there is a lot more room to claim "educational internship," which may legally be unpaid. I'm not aware of any research group that allows unpaid work from individuals who are not students at the time!

Your description of being "allowed" to do research work in exchange for programming work sounds off to me. Learning and running experiments for a research project proposed by a supervisor is basically the job description of a research assistant. It's work in its own right that people are typically compensated for in some way, not a reward for doing other (programming) work.
The arrangement you describe is not common, and it might also violate U.S. labor law. Under U.S. law, it's illegal to let someone work for you for free unless they meet specific legal requirements to be considered a "volunteer" or "intern."
"Volunteers" according to U.S. labor law are individuals

who volunteer their time, freely and without anticipation of compensation for religious, charitable, civic, or humanitarian purposes to non-profit organizations.

Your intent is clearly not religious, charitable, civic, or humanitarian in nature, so you do not legally qualify as a volunteer.
And to be classified as an "intern" you must meet the requirement that

The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the intern; and on occasion its operations may actually be impeded.

(among other requirements). That is, the employer cannot expect to be dependent on your work for normal operations. I don't think you meet the requirements for an unpaid intern, though it's not possible to be 100% sure from your description.
The usual interpretation of the U.S. labor law is that an internship has to be part of a formal educational program (e.g., you are enrolled as a student and get credits for the internship, or write a report which you submit to your home institution) or a formal apprenticeship for it to be legally unpaid. In fact, if you search for unpaid internships in the U.S., you'll find that most listings say that only current students who can earn college credit are eligible. It doesn't say in your post that you are currently enrolled as a student somewhere.
This is not to say that there is no legal scenario in which a U.S. lab can allow you to participate in research there without paying you. (If the entire experience was supposed to be for your educational benefit - including the "help the lab with programming their machines" part - then my answer might be different.) But from your description, I don't think the scenario you describe is acceptable or normal.
I personally do not allow anybody to do work for my lab unless they are paid or doing a personal project (like a thesis) for which they earn academic credit. I've been told it would be legally problematic. For example: suppose I have an M.S. student working with me for academic credit. He graduates in May and has a job starting in September. I'm not allowed to let him keep working in the lab from May-September unless I can pay him (according to my university lawyers).
(Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer)

The university is very likely a non-profit organization, and scientific research could be considered a "humanitarian purpose".  But I agree it's a stretch, and as far as I know it's not normal.

@NateEldredge I think the lawyers at my university would LOL if I made a case for taking on unpaid research assistants as "humanitarian" volunteers :)

First they would LOL, and then (when they figure out that you are serious) get really angry, because (at least in Switzerland) that sounds like the stuff that legal actions are made out of.

Why do you think that OP's situation is neither of a volunteer or an intern?

@PiotrMigdal I updated the answer to elaborate on these issues

I think that one of the main points is: do they need you? If they do, well, ff524's answer is true and honest. But if they do not, if their experiments already have all staff needed, if they gain nothing they need by letting you in and they will need to use some of man-hours to teach you and make sure you don't cause trouble, then it looks fair. You say you had to convince a professor. So it seems likely that he already had all the research assistants he thought he needed - and probably was also afraid you will use their time to learn (that's why you do it, isn't it?) so he wanted something in return.
It would be safer for professor and better overall for you if you could find a research assistant job where you are needed, not convince anyone to let you in where they seem not to need you.

I think they need him, this is because he got the offer. But they wan't/can't pay him. It seems for me as a trial period: if he works well, he will get a better offer. If he didn't, he will be already in the U.S., and thus he will have much better opportunities to get a wellpaid U.S. job. But... they know this. The real question is, if he want to go in the U.S. or not. If he want, I accepted this in his place.

IMHO the real question is that it is an exploitive offer, or it is a good possibility. My opinion is probably the second, although a little bit of exploitation can't be closed out, a research job in the U.S. can have this price.
It were an exploitive offer if you had (or will have) alternative opportunities to get an U.S. job. IMHO this isn't the current situation. If you want to get a real, paid U.S. job, first you should be already there. Out of the U.S. it is much harder (nearly chanceless), even if you have a work permit.
Your boss (professor) probably knows this, and it has to be a big chance, that you will get a much better (=paid) offer from him, or from any other, if you are already in the U.S. In this case it isn't an exploitive offer, but an opportunity, and you can see this volunteer-time as a trial period.
If you are sure that you will be able to get better offers, then you should reject it, but I don't think this is the case.

That sounds like actively bad advice.

@xLeitix Any explanation? Nothing?

It's an exploitative offer, and if you want to be exploited, you can find an offer along these lines any day of the week. It's not a "never returning possibility" in any way. There are two other answers (both for and against taking the offer) that explain the thought process in much more detail. Yours is just not a good answer.

@xLeitix It is an exploitive offer if he has (or will have) alternative opportunities to an U.S. job. IMHO this isn't the situation, if he want to get a real, paid U.S. job, first he should be already therein. His boss (professor) probably knows this, and it has a big chance, that he will get a much better (=paid) offer from him, or from any other, if he is already in the U.S. . This is because it is not an exploitation.

@xLeitix I extended/explained my answer. I hope, the downvote/delete request is already groundless.

I flag it as not an answer because the OP is asking whether this is common. He did not ask whether he should take the offer.

@scaaahu IMHO he explained clearly his dilemma, and his question goals clearly this dilemma. Your algorithmic interpretation greatly reduced your understanding.

@TaraB I accepted gman's edit, because I think he wants to help. But I also thank you your advice, I edited my answer further. Hopefully it will be enough to remove the downvotes and the deletion intent.

@PeterHorvath even if it is a trial period, U.S. labor law explicitly forbids using an internship as an unpaid trial! The fact that the OP is very eager to get U.S. experience makes it more exploitative, not less.

@ff524 Yes, but if he is a volunteer, it is not an internship, only a money-free cooperation. If he get a job offer, he will be able to work there with his work permit. It seems to a be a little bit of play with the law, probably it didn't break it. And the alternative is that he didn't get in the U.S. And he need to survive this only short time, maybe for some month.

I understand that the OP may be "desperate." Using someone's desperation to get them to do work that should be paid (by law; the OP doesn't meet legal definition of volunteer) is the definition of exploitation

@ff524 Why? The difference between the volunteering and the trial period is only the intents of the participants, and these intents can't be measured by law. And I can't see the clearly exploiting intent from a department on a university. What I see is that they don't have the money to pay him (or the prof can't let his department to pay him).

@PeterHorvath In the U.S. you're not allowed to let someone work for you for free just because you can't (or don't want to) pay them. I understand that labor laws may be different in other countries; the OP asked specifically about a U.S. lab.

@ff524 Maybe he could work for a nominal wage?

@PeterHorvath if paid minimum wage (according to U.S. and state law for whatever state the OP is in), it would not be illegal - but that's not the offer!

@ff524 I really wonder why gave an U.S. University such illegal offer. They aren't an illegal slave importing company, but a wellknown university. Maybe they know some lawful possibility, which makes this type of work possible?

I'm dreadfully curious to know what visa the OP is going to apply for so s/he can work for free at this US institution without being an employee, an intern, or a student.

@Irwin He already wrote. He already has a work permit, he don't need to apply. He needs now a job.

I re-worked my post. I think (and as the vote counts also show) it suites much better the site profile. But there is 2 delete votes - maybe it the actual version of the post already deserves survival, maybe this actual "delete"-votes could be revoked/removed, please?


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Contacting potential advisers before deadlines
I am applying to PhD programs in physics in US. Majority of the deadlines are in one week from now. My question is, does that help at all at this time to contact potential advisers and let them know that I am applying and am interested in their research? (At least one place requires me to indicate potential advisers in the online application form).
If contacting can help my application at this point, what should I do if there are more than one potential advisers whose interests match my experience and interests in a given department? (For example in one case I am even asked for naming three potential advisers in the application form)

Note that there are related questions on this board. You should be able to see "Related" in the right column on this page. They are very useful information.

Thanks, but I didn't find questions about effectiveness of a late contact.

I believe you will find some info in http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/5330/546

Related:http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/924/contacting-professors-for-phd-vacancies

It is definitely helpful to contact potential advisers for many reasons.  In my experience, one important reason is that a professor for whom you would like to work may not have space or funding for you.  Sometimes those things can be overcome, and sometimes they can't.  If there is only one professor whose research interests you in a given department, and that professor isn't taking students for some reason, that could make your decision for you.  It's not a pleasant situation, but I have seen it happen several times.
You might also find that, after talking to a potential adviser, the focus in their research isn't quite what you thought it was.  Of course you can find that out by reading the recent publications, but a conversation can also be enlightening.  They might tell you about one or two specific projects you would likely be working on, and if those projects don't interest you, you might want to move on.
If things look like they could work out, it is still an excellent idea to stay in touch.  If someone on the admissions committee gets to know you somehow, that will really set your application apart.  The chair of the graduate admissions committee at my undergraduate institution even told me that, more than once, he has admitted a student simply because he or she was calling or emailing and expressing real interest and desire to become a student in the department.  Don't be annoying, but a couple of emails and/or a phone call or two never hurt anyone.
If there are several potential advisers in one department, that is great.  It likely means that department focuses on research that interests you.  Don't be afraid of getting in touch with more than one professor.  The more people that recognize your name, the better.  Just be sure to be polite and respectful and leave a good impression.
Good luck!

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Research experience not backed up by recommendation letter
I have done a three months independent research at a national lab in US with guidance from a scientist who was working there, but he is very busy and not much time is left to ask him to write a recommendation letter (RL) since the application deadline is coming.
I want to include this experience in my SOP, and wonder, in general, how is the reaction of graduate admission committees to research experience which is not backed up by a RL?

I believe the research experience with a national lab would be very helpful to your graduate school application. You should do your best to ask that senior scientist to write the recommendation letter for you. And he should understand it's part of his job to write recommendation letters.
In the worst case he will never have time to write the letter, my suggestion is to ask the human resource department of the lab to write a letter to certify that you had worked at that lab. This is, of course, not the recommendation letter. But, at least the certification letter proves that you did work there. How the admission commitee will react is another story. You have no control over it. You just need to do your best!

One of the duties of a researcher who takes on a mentor role is to write letters of recommendation for his students. Your advisor will understand this responsibility. You may want to read the answers to this question regarding writing your own recommendation letter, as this may be relevant to your situation, but you should always be willing to ask for a letter.

You need a letter from the senior person under whom you did the work! If you don't have one, this is like getting a bad letter. People know that they have this responsibility to junior people, so, although, yes, it involves some work on their part, it would be irresponsible to shirk it. You need that letter, I think, or people will wonder...

But senior scientists are even busier. What if, as I said, the letter cannot reach the deadline even one week later? And do people cheat that often about their research experience that not having a RL to back it up raises eyebrows? (I have to mention that I have other extensive research which is backed up)

I think better to have the letter be late than not at all. But such things depend on circumstances, I suppose, as in whether a file will be considered before all letters are in.

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Are student records accessible by university officials?
Application forms for graduate school usually contain some vague statements regarding the extents of usage of one's social security number.
Some people believe that educational records at other institutes are private information and the universities should have access to the educational records that the applicant would disclose to them ONLY. (Regardless of potential consequences and/or ethical justification for actions of either party.)
My question is, having the applicant's social security number, can schools see which schools/programs the applicant has attended, for how long, and the courses that were taken in the past? If so, is this a common practice? That is, do graduate offices commonly check with social security information to make sure that the records from each previously attended institute is included in the application?

Such issues in the US are governed by FERPA; you can read more here.

Thanks. But main part of my question is about accessibility of information, including name of the previous institutions and programs attended by the applicant that were not disclosed in the application forms. For example, consider the situation where the applicant has not included any information about one or more of the previously attended schools in the application forms/materials for a program at another institute. Are universities able to obtain any of these information?

Having someone's social security number is more or less irrelevant here.  There's no good way to look up educational records using a social security number, and it doesn't give you any more access than you would have without it.  In the U.S., Nate Eldredge is right that FERPA is the relevant law.  I don't know exactly what it allows, though.  (It allows disclosure of records without consent to institutions "where the student seeks or intends to enroll, or where the student is already enrolled so long as the disclosure is for purposes related to the student's enrollment or transfer.")

It's not clear to me how far this loophole extends. I don't think it is something to worry about, and I've never heard of a university trying to request a graduate student's old educational records directly from the other schools.  On the other hand, if the application asks for a complete list of prior schools, then it would be bad to get caught giving an incomplete list.  It's reasonable to leave out information that hasn't been requested, and you could try explicitly declining to provide requested information (I don't know how that would be viewed), but getting caught lying is bad.

Your degree certificates and official transcripts are usually required material.  The school can't force you to disclose all education record, but if you don't your chance of admission can be significantly lower.  If you don't say which college you graduated from, almost no grad school will admit you at all.

@XiaoleiZhu I can imagine a situation where a student attended School A and was kicked out for an academic offence (like plagiarism), had their transcripts 'branded' and wanted to break free of those chains and to do so, start all over at School B. So, the question could be, would anyone be able to find your records at School A if you never disclose it.

@earthling I see.  I believe in that case one's only option would be reapplying for a different college as if just graduated from high school, and graduate from there, then apply for graduate school with that degree.  I will be hard to come up with an explanation for the missing years and once any of that knowledge is unearthed, a student can be immediately expelled even if he/she has already successfully entered the program.  Maybe should try to go to a different major or maybe even a different country.

I am aware of only one case when a university used applicants' SSNs to get information about applicants from other universities: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/28/nyregion/files-searched-on-yale-site-included-those-of-lauren-bush.html

I believe your question is really about the existence of some sort of central database where all student records can be searched, if one has a key like a Social Security Number (SSN).
I do not believe any such system exists as I have never heard of it and if it did exist, it would likely run afoul of FERPA mentioned in the comments.
Basically, the only way one school would know you were at another school is if you (or someone else) tells them. Having your SSN does allow people to find out information from you but that is mostly from credit reporting agencies. If you borrow money from the school and they report it to the agencies, someone might be able to find out some information that way, but I can't imagine they would find out the program you were in.

I basicly agree with you. However, I am wondering about student loan, research assistantship and scholarship. If the school has those info, they may know where the student had attended another school previously. Is this a possibility?

That's a good question @scaaahu

Despite serving on graduate admissions committees for many years, I don't recall ever seeing information about how the student paid their undergraduate tuition, except in the students' own statements.  Similarly, I have never had access to any financial records of undergraduates at my own university (except for students I've hired myself, and even then, my information is limited to the job I hired them into).  Your financial history is simply not part of your educational record.

The answer provided by earthling is excellent. I would like to tackle this question from another angle.
I don't believe any school will purposedly leak or illegally obtain student information. You are in the US. You are protected under FERPA.
However, accidents always happen. For example, what if one of the professors in the school you previously attended just transferred to the school you are applying. He would know you were in another school and the program you were in. Or your current advisor met with your former advisor in a conference. Academia is a small world.
I would not worry about the SSN issue if I were you. Just focus on your application and your study. Put aside your past. Pursue the future.

I agree with this completely. There are many ways that you could be discovered but these are basically by chance like friends at two schools just happen to talk about your situation or a teacher from one school you attended come to a new school you are applying to...there are many potentials but none of them really involve your SSN and it's really better just to focus your energies on doing your best from here on out.


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How high should I rate a good student for PhD admission?
I am a relatively young faculty member. I was asked to provide a reference for a student of mine so he is admitted in a PhD program in Sciences in UK. The student is probably one of the best students I had in a couple of years in terms of academic potential. I firmly believe he will do well as he is bright and hard-working.
I have to fill in an online form rating him. My problem is that the form's scaling is very strong.
How can I honestly say that someone was outstanding (3%) and not exceptional (1%)? Even the third most positive option is unusually good (rated at 10%) which I feel as a characterization in itself should be strong enough for someone to be at least considered for a PhD.
My classes are never above 40 to 45 students and I believe that simply "lumping" all the students from my past couple of years in one sample is ineffective and unreasonable. I would probably be unable to single out one of my students as the single best student I've ever had so that I can place him in the top 1% interval with certainty and not top 3%.
As I said, I want to support him and I worry that simply putting him down as outstanding would harm him as other referees might be tempted to "max out" everything. On the other hand simply rating him as exceptional in almost all aspects would be just grade-inflation.
Could someone provide me with some advice on the matter and what they would do? The scaling I have come across before topped at 5% which I found reasonable but here this not the case.

1% and 3% are probably more difficult to perceive than thinking if the student is about 3 (about .2%) or 2 (about 2.5%) standard deviations above the mean in a normally distributed situation. If he is really way above everyone by a lot, then I don't see why not say exceptional. I'd also ask the student for a copy of CV and examine if he has anything such as being on dean's list, scholarship, and awards to go with my recommendation; I wouldn't want my recommendation to appear overly optimistic or biased.

@Penguin_Knight: I agree completely. After all if a recommendation letter appears biased it will work against the person it recommends.

The question of gauging inflation in these situations is both serious and important. It affects peoples' lives!
The difficult task of the letter writer is to visualize what other letter-writers will say, their degree of effusiveness. "Being brutally honest" is obviously stupid and naive to the point of destructiveness.
The operational issue is about achieving the desired effect. And, in particular, if your recommendee is fairly exceptional, it would be a grievous error to praise them "modestly". Yes, the problem is to discriminate between "fairly exceptional" and "exceptional" and "truly exceptional". And these are not things that can be rationally discussed about young people by committees...
Thus, consider the noise in the system into which you put your information...

This sort of system needs to change.  Exceptional (1%) should mean just that, not relative to what you think a random set of other people will determine.  Unfortunately this is easy to say and difficult to execute.  I just hate these types of metrics that seemingly lose its value based on an ever-shifting, subjective scale.  Can't we just have a metric that says 1.) Yes, I recommend this person for the program or 2.) No, I do not recommend this person for the program?

@LordStryker, I agree, this inflation/corruption is distressing. One aspect of the problem is the usual human-nature aspect that some people will hype their own proteges beyond reason, by comparison to which a sane, modest recommendation sounds pathetic and weak. Unfortunately, to "protest-vote" by behaving "modestly/rationally" in such a context dis-serves the students...

Thank you for your answer Paul. It will take it into consideration.

Further to the above comments, you could consider the ranking scale presented to you as effectively a binary yes/no question, given you can be fairly sure other letter writers will rank their applicants in the "exceptional" category, who will most likely reason in the same way. This, of course, makes a nonsense of such an extreme scale. You then write a letter which sets out your recommendation according to your actual perceptions of the student's ability - one which you can stand by as a professional, and not be embarrassed by either over-praising, or faintly-praising.

Suppose I am in your position,
I have a student and I have to rate him. The rating in my mind is top 2%. I need to make a choice between top 1% and top 3% when I fill in the rating form.
I would choose top 1% for the following reasons,

There is really no significant difference between 1% and 2% or between 2% and 3%. I only know his past performance well. I can only firmly believe his future will be bright  (I am not a superman. I cannot predict the future.). I want to give him top 1% rating because I want to let him have a better chance to succeed. I know top 1% is a little bit grade inflation. But, this is not my fault - there is no place for my real rating, that is, top 2%. I would not feel guity for the inflation.
  I would not know what others will do. I am just performing my duty as his professor.

First, find out, independently of course, what percentile, 1 2 5, this "science" committee requires for admission into their hallowed PhD programme, and give them what they want. Of course your students are in the top k% -- why would be recommending them otherwise?
Second, and this is very important for the future of our planet, you need to convince the world that this "science" committee is made up of complete idiots, hypocrates, clowns, and fools who are doing all they can to help aggravate the UK's STEM crisis.
(OK, I'm being a wee bit cynical, but I provide this as a separate answer because I fear the other folks, while sympathetic to your plight, just have not come down hard enough on the ridiculously high "standards" that are being set.)


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How much work experience should be included in Statement of Purpose for Master program?
I'm wondering how I should put my internship experiences in my Statement of Purpose for Master program. The internship experiences (mainly building java web applications) are not quite related to my research interests like distributed systems, real-time computing, etc.

Well It really doesn't matter much whether your research subjects are related to what you have done internships in!
To make it more clear. Internships depicts that you are inclined and willing to work along with your regular curriculum. I would suggest you to relate your  internship with research subjects. As we all know that all subjects in Computer Science are inter- related so try to find out any open source concept that you can relate to or willing to work for it. This much is enough. No doubt Research is most important aspect for admissions but you should know to combine it with your life. Give small Instances (backed with Proofs) where you can prove your point. Speaking about Number of years to show for experience is all depends on your profile, show max possible and make sure that you have salary slips.

Any relevant experience is valid subject matter for an application for a program of study.
In your case, your internship experiences are well within the same field of endeavour and I would include them, if space allows.
A researcher who has a particular interest in developing a java web application to interface with a real-time computing solution, might therefore be very interested in your particular skill set.

While I think that any relevant work experience should definitely be included in your resume or cv, I am not sure if its place is in the statement of purpose.
If your internship in some way inspired you to get your master's degree or to pursue a certain area of interest, then I would include it; however, mentioning it for the sake of mentioning it doesn't make sense to me.


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Name of a college career
At my school, we call a list of courses (or classes) a semester or a term - as in Spring 2014 semester that includes 5 classes.
I'm looking for a word that means "list of semesters", whether it has been completed or not, for the actual degree. I've heard this called an "undergraduate career", but I think that can get confused for one's actual employment career. Does anyone have another word for this that would specifically refer to their college career?

"coursework" is one possibility.

May that be a "syllabus"?

It would seem that "degree" is the word. But this really is a question about [elu.se]

curriculum? studies? plan of study?

@EnergyNumbers that's actually where I went first, and they deemed it most necessary for Academia. No one wants this question. :/

I have always used the following words:

Program - as in "our undergraduate finance program"
Course - As in an "international finance master course": WARNING: This can be confused with an individual class/module

I would avoid the use of the word degree because it can be confused with the piece of paper one gets at the end. I would also avoid the use of coursework as it implies the subjects one will study. However, to be fair, I have heard both of those words used quite frequently and one fun thing about English is that it gets modified by common usage, even when that usage seems wrong to some of us - we must go with the flow.
Another reason to be cautious about using the word degree is the common separation, by some, between a certificate (short duration), a diploma (medium duration), and a degree (longer than the other two). Using the word degree could cause confusion to some who might be looking at a certificate or diploma program.

It may just be a difference in our separate areas/schools but I've always heard "course" used interchangeably with "class".

@NathanFrancy I do see that often is the case on this site so I have edited my answer to clarify.


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Managing letters of recommendation
I write many letters of recommendation for students applying to graduate school, fellowships, or faculty positions.
Some universities have a letter service, where the letter writer can upload a letter to the service and the service takes care of uploading the letter to each individual school/fellowship/etc. that the student chooses to apply to.  However, my university does not.
How can I make this process as efficient as possible?  Or, are there external companies that provide this service?
(I realize that most universities and fellowships have moved to online submission of letters.  However, it still takes some time to upload my letter to each university and fellowship's individual system, so it would save time if there is a service to help with that.)

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


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Where to submit an article of applied maths for physics
Working in physics, I recently discovered a mathematical identity useful to solve a partial differential equation. I have generalized the idea and found several other identities but I do not know yet whether they apply or not to other PDEs. These identities have, though, a physical interpretation and feature interesting symmetries. As it is not my research topic, I did not spend too much time on this work but still think it deserves to be published. I have tried to submit it (to J. Phys. A and J. Math. Phys.) and it was rejected by the editors without review. I have no more idea where it could be submitted and I would appreciate any suggestion. A previous version of the paper is accessible at http://arxiv.org/abs/1311.3140.

A slightly off-topic comment: I took a quick look at your posted pre-print. One reason that your paper may be a bit off-putting to a mathematics journal is that your exposition does not conform to the usual "Theorem - Proof" format of papers in mathematics. For lists of journals in mathematical physics, Google is perfectly capable of pulling up some sites such as this; you should feel free to ignore the "ranking information" and just use it as a list of "what journals are there".

Remember that J. Phys. A and J. Math. Phys. are quite top journals and they reject lots of reasonable papers not because they would be off-topic but because they are "not good enough for them" (whatever that means).
IMHO, if you feel that your identities are something completely new to the world of maths, you should find a reasonably good math journal, because they are likely interesting to math people as well. On the other hand, if you feel that the results are interesting only to (theoretical/mathematical) physicists, go for a journal in this branch.
I don't know any mathematical physics journals personally.
For math journals about identities/symmetries in PDEs, you can check the list of publications in MSC class 35B06. For the mathematical physics journals, I suggest trying to find the proper MSC class in the MSC catalog, there you can see which journals would be suitable.

Thank you for your answer. Unfortunately I do not have access to MSC. I should probably shift the question into the physics section of SE.

Most of the universities have access to one of the good indexing databases (MSC, ISI WOK, Scopus), so you should be able to get there :)


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Obtain a secondary school teaching certificate?
I am currently taking a year off to reapply for PhDs. My ultimate aim is to work in academia. I am currently teaching secondary school biology as a way of filling this year. My government presents the opportunity of obtaining a teaching certificate by taking weekend classes in addition to the teaching. I was wondering whether a secondary school teaching certificate would be in any way valuable in obtaining a lecturing position after completing my PhD. I know that there are specific university teaching certificates which might mean that a secondary school teaching certificate is useless?

In the big picture, having a secondary school teaching certificate probably won't make a difference in the hiring process for lecturer positions at the university level. Your teaching experience is what will count (to some extent--really, teaching at the collegiate level will be more important), and you will have that to put on your CV. I highlighted my high school teaching experience (and degree, certificate, etc.) on my CV when I applied to teaching positions, and in the interviews I had it was clear that it helped me land the interviews.
That said, if the certificate is something that will give you a fall-back plan if the PhD doesn't work out (i.e., you can transition directly back into the secondary teaching more easily), it might not be a bad idea to get it.
Either way, having the certificate won't hurt you when applying for future collegiate teaching jobs, and if you have the time now it might not be a bad idea to go ahead and knock it out.


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Advisable to visit other labs?
Is it advisable to do a short (2-3months) visit to a different lab at a different university while doing a PhD? I would think that it would be good for setting up collaborations, but would a PhD supervisor be against this due to the time that would be lost doing so?

Related (other side of the coin): http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/8256/4249

Relate: http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/21490/6984

I am actually currently just preparing for such a collaboration/internship/exchange (leaving after summer). From day 1 of my PhD (both) my supervisors said that we should definitely look for such an opportunity during my second year.
Both of my supervisor think it is not a bad idea, moreover, they both think it is something very important given several restrictions:

that you do it around the middle of your PhD.
This is important because in the beginning, you're still new to the topic and trying to get a grip on everything important. You can not "give" almost anything back to the lab you are visiting, so it is not a fair exchange.

the project (3 months in my case), is something directly related to my PhD
Not just "has similarities", but maybe a sub-problem of the research direction I am currently on anyway due to my PhD. It is also important (mostly, for the grants), that it is something that the target laboratory is better suited for/equipped/has more experts than your own institution.

that it is around 3-4 months
The point is, much shorter than that, and it becomes a purely social / networking visit where you can possibly present your research in person and have other people present theirs, but not much more. On the other hand, more than 4 months will indeed be too long, as I am not expected to spend much more than that on a single idea even when I am working in my lab.

So, these were the restrictions. The benefits, however, are much more numerous:

obviously, networking. Especially if you plan to stay in academia, developing your own network of contacts as soon as possible is very important.
exchanging ideas. In addition to papers, presenting your own (and your labs) work in person is another way to disseminate ideas. Also, being exposed to different people, different approaches and different ideas might just jog some clogs that would otherwise take much longer to click in place.
strengthening the collaboration (between the participating laboratories): in a sense, you became an "ambassador" from your own institution to the host institution. A successful internship will be good for you, but it can also hold a lot of benefits for both institutions (that includes your supervisors) as if it goes well, they will be more likely to collaborate (more) in the future.
international experience. Where I am (France), people who plan to stay in academia and reach a permanent position are more than strongly encouraged to have an international experience. Basically, at least a few months internship abroad is a must for a permanent position, a year-long post-doc position or two abroad are much better. It is not a requirement, but always a person with international experience will get picked over the person with none.
both of these boil down to: post-doc. If is not unheard of that such an internship might actually be "vetting" the place for a post-doc. And this goes both ways: your host institution/professor sees if he likes working with you, and you see if you like it there.
specific benefit of the hosting lab. I have mentioned that there is many benefits of generally working in a different research environment and with different people for a while. But, specifically, there might be equipment, or test data, or an expert in the hosting lab that you just do not have in your institution.
diversity experience. If you have decided to stay in academia only on the basis of your PhD environment (as I have), you might not see the whole picture yet. Seeing different research labs, different environments, can only be a benefit.
publication While 3 months is not always enough to make a publication, you do want to get the most of the internship. Thus, most people get a publication out of it because they put a little bit extra effort (maybe not even consciously). And, your new publication will have a name of somebody other than your supervisor on it, which speaks to your ability to be able to work with different people successfully.

Now, of course, funding might be one obstacle. But other than that, if adequate funding is found, I see no reason for supervisors to object to such an idea.

I would add: it's important to go with a clear direction, i.e. know a priori what you want to do during the visit and what you should accomplish by the end of it.

I also disagree somewhat with one point; I think even a short visit can be beneficial. (I just spent June in a lab in another country, and am now doing July and August in yet another; both of these visits have been very productive)

@ff524 I am not saying a short visit can not be beneficial, it's just beneficial in a different way. It is more to exchange current ideas between the labs and establish contacts, or possibly discuss a collaborative work that was only in correspondence form by now. While these kind of visits might be great for networking and further inspiration, it's a balance of usefulness versus time in France: we have exactly 3 years to finish our PhDs. In 3 months you can produce immediate results, a shorter visit might be better when you fulfilled all your PhD requirements and have some "time to exchange"

My one-month visit had literally all of the benefits you list here, except that the publication isn't finished yet (instead, we will continue to work on it over Skype during the rest of the summer). So I think it's beneficial in the same way (at least for me)

I'll add that you also get to visit another country for free (most of the time). I can not agree more to all the other points mentioned in this answer.

The purpose of a PhD is to prepare you for doing independent research, and this will usually not be at the same place you did your PhD.
As such, having seen how they do things other places will better prepare you for how they might do things where ever you end up, so visiting another lab (or just another university if you are in a subject that does not use labs) will likely have a very positive effect on your PhD.
In fact, in Denmark, it is not just encouraged to visit another university as part of your PhD, it is mandatory (I am not quite sure what the minimum duration is, but 6 months is the most common).
At a recent study of the quality of the PhD programs at Aarhus University (http://www.au.dk/fileadmin/www.au.dk/kvalitetiphd/KVALITET_I_PHD__UK_.pdf), 60% answered that their stay abroad had strengthened their research project to a high degree, and 24% answered that it had to some degree. Essentially the same percentages answered that it had been worth the effort compared to their professional benefits (the part about the stay abroad starts at page 45).
Personally, I spend 6 months at UGA as part of my PhD (I do mathematics), and that stay has netted me a collaborator with whom I have recently submitted a paper, and with whom I will certainly do a lot more research in the future.

I did several months over summer and winter breaks at a US Department of Energy national lab during my PhD. It was my advisor's idea. I worked on things of mutual interest to us and the lab. It certainly didn't slow me down. I didn't end up working for the lab, but I keep those connections to this day.

The other answers are already very good. I'll add just one aspect that I haven't seen. I agree that visiting other labs for a couple of months is very useful... for people who plan on staying in academia. If you already plan on leaving academia after your Ph.D., the benefits that, e.g., Penelope lists are much less convincing compared to losing time - after all, what will you do with your improved academic network you will likely never use again?
Of course, that doesn't mean that such an external stay can't be productive even for people who leave for industry after their Ph.D. I'd just say that they might be better advised to either finish their Ph.D. quicker, or even try to spend some time in industry instead.

what will you do with your improved academic network you will likely never use again? — Use them as references in your industry job search.

@JeffE: point taken. I'd still say that references from time actually spent in an industry environment (my last sentence) will be more helpful.

I would object: -Learning to cooperate and be useful rapidly in a foreign environment is an extremely important skill outside of academia. A short lab visit teach you exactly this.  -Extending your network is never useless, why would. If you leave industry of the same discipline, you still can use those connections. If you change career completely, than any time you don't spend in your home lab is well spent.


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List Unrelated Degree on Application
I am currently in the process of applying for PhDs. My question is whether it is frowned upon to have done a degree in a subject completely unrelated to my main studies. I just completed two masters at top universities concurrently, one in biology and the other in English literature. I did the literature degree to please my parents, my real passion is in biology. I steered my English degree somewhat towards the biology by writing my dissertation on the representation of tropical diseases in literature. I am wondering whether I should list this degree on my CV or just leave it off? I thought that it might prove how hard-working I am to do two masters concurrently. I also scored the highest mark out of my class in my biology master, so the other master did not affect my primary  master.
Any advice would be appreciated.

As Damien have stated you should list both and for the reasons provided in that answer. In addition, I think it is worth thinking about how well you can second guess how anyone on the receiving end will percieve your CV. Basically, you cannot know. It is therefore important to list everything and in cases such as that about which you ask, provide a brief account to honestly describe why you did it. If you managed to do a masters with flying colours ina topic you do not like, that is a very strong show. I am impressed and so will others. So look through your CV, list everything that indicates stamina, effort, ambition, perseverance etc. and where you think things can be misinterpreted, add some sentence explaining why you claim it is a plus. You can easily do this in a short narrative that summarizes your CV and strong points. You can then put everything in the light in which you want them to be seen.


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Does a PhD give you global mobility in the job market?
I am thinking of doing a PhD in Condensed Matter Physics at the Indian Institute of Science, which is not a bad place to graduate from as far as I've heard.
The downside is I'll be a little on the older side by the time I graduate, and in India, there seems to be a starting faculty preference of 35 years. I would like to know if I'd be able to practice physics somewhere else in the world after getting a PhD in the area.
I've heard the US is pretty open in terms of hiring foreign candidates, but Europe is not. What about other English speaking countries like Australia, New Zealand, Canada, etc? Does a Phd open up career opportunities world-wide?

Not PhD but good research (which comes through PhD usually)

I think Europe is very open to foreign candidates, at least judging from the amount of foreign colleagues I had during my PhD and postdoc in the Netherlands.

I've heard the US is pretty open in terms of hiring foreign candidates, but Europe is not — I strongly disagree.  Research groups I am aware of all have at least 50% foreigners, and the one I'm working in is more than 90% foreign.  In some fields, 100% foreign is not uncommon (I have experience in Netherlands, Sweden).

@gerrit I notice that the OP is from India. How many in your group are from Asia?

@scaaahu In our group, three are from south Asia (none from the rest of Asia, but we previously had an Iranian member as well).

@gerrit Thanks. Although the sample size is tiny, at least we have counter proof to what the OP claims.

It may depend on the country and the field.  For example, it may be difficult or impossible for a PhD student from Iran to research nuclear physics in France, Netherlands, or elsewhere — although that might be the same in the USA.

@gerrit: In your comment, does "foreign" mean "from a different country" or "from outside Europe"?

@NateEldredge It means "from a different country" (than the institute location).  The percentage from outside Europe is smaller.

How many Phds in physics from IISc have landed up with an academic job outside India? I don't think many.

There are two aspects to this question: the hiring process within an employer's institution, and the immigration policies which allow a foreign worker to move to another country and begin employment.
I think with respect to the first question—the hiring process and preferences of an individual employer—I think that in general, employers are looking for the best-qualified candidates, regardless of their origin. There are certain obvious exceptions to this (for instance, a foreign national will have a hard time getting a position at a National Nuclear Security Administration facility in the US), but otherwise, people will want the person best-suited for the job. I think this is true both in the US and Europe.
The other step is the national immigration policies. This is where things become more complex. For instance, if you are a non-European Union citizen, then your employer will need to certify that your experiences uniquely qualify you for this position, which can delay the hiring process somewhat. Similarly, employers in the US have to wait for you to obtain an appropriate visa, which can delay your start date significantly. This makes it sometimes less advantageous to hire foreign employees. (But this is a "speed bump," rather than an insurmountable obstacle.)


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Is international collaboration with an academic possible if I am not an academic myself and don't have a PhD?
I don't have a PhD, and I'm not a researcher who is affiliated to any academic institution. However, for the last few years, I have been working on a simple and promising looking model in Web Science that seems to resolve a lot of problems with webmasters' incentives on the Web. A while back, I came across a paper from a supposedly prominent research professor who, in the paper, uses almost identical starting assumptions as mine, but stops short of the model which I have developed. I believe the problem that he was trying to solve will actually be solved by my model. Moreover, I watched an online presentation given by him in which he was explaining that he was planning to explore ideas that would have landed him squarely in my model's territory. However, that presetation was given 10 years ago, and I don't see any publications by him in this area subsequently.
Now, the issue is that in the world of academia, I'm literally a nobody. Should I even bother emailing him, with the thought of a collaboration, given the huge asymmetry in qualifications?

Yes, it’s most certainly possible.

I do not see how contacting this person by sending an email could hurt you. Worst case scenario, you will not receive a response. Good luck!

Right. But just to slit a hair in two, there might be a chance the the professional researcher behave unprofessionally stilling the idea. This is just a remote possibility.

@Alchimista Unfortunately, you are right (but you cannot start all collaborations believing you will be cheated).

Agree. Just the current situation is a bit more critical. But I agree, it is the same answer I would have given. Corrige: slit reads split.

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How do I work on research independently?
I have a few good ideas in the area of evolutionary economics which I would like to discuss with an established researcher. How do I go about doing this? I live in Bangalore, India, where there don't seem to be any researchers in this area.
Do I just put it together as best as I can and email it off to whichever professors in the United States that are accessible on the internet?
The big problem is I don't quite know "the lay of the land" in terms of previous research, how my ideas fit in, and exactly how valuable they are, although from my initial survey, I have a hunch that I'm on the right track.

Could you describe what does "evolutionary economics" means? Some people here can also find it interesting?

Sorry, I'm not familiar with that in particular, but it's generally a good idea to start by reading what's been done so far.  That's so much easier to do now, with the internet.

Do you have a relevant PhD, or a PhD in general? These days, it is almost unheard of to be contributing to academic research without a PhD - with the exception of masters students that sometimes publish their work with the help of senior researchers or PhD students (and to a lesser degree, Bachelors students). In all of these cases, there is an established relationship between the less experienced researcher and more experienced researchers.
So, my advice is quite simple, if you do not have a PhD then go and apply to a relevant PhD program! That would help you gain the knowledge you feel you lack.
If you already have a PhD in a different area, then my advice is slightly different. Hopefully, your current area of research (if there is one) has some relation, in which case I would suggest trying to publish similar research in that area and then use that to get a research position with relevant experts in "evolutionary economics". That is, try and switch fields.


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Publishing an intuitive idea from outside academia
I've written up an idea about how the web can be better organized that I think is an important one, and which can be grasped at an intuitive level. However, I lack the resources to conclusively prove its validity and utility, given that it is in the field of Web Sciences, and I don't have access to the necessary tools and techniques to go about experimentally verifying my idea.
How do I best go about pushing out this write-up? My options, as far as I can tell are:

Contact a full-time academic researcher who lives in the same city as me, and who works in this field
Try and publish this on my own (but where?)

Because of the intuitive appeal of the idea, I may not do too badly by pursuing option 2, but I'd like to know the pros and cons of pursing each option before I take a step either way.

The key point to note is that ideas on their own aren't research - you have to do the hard work to verify your ideas before anyone in academia will take them seriously. If you don't have the resources to do that work, finding someone else to help with that may not be a bad option (they'll want authorship, assuming they think the idea is good enough to spend their time on), but there's little academic value in simply publishing unverified musings (you thinking it's important doesn't count as sufficient verification). Outside academia, you can of course put what you like on the web :)

Thanks for your input. I guess option 1 makes more sense then.

Yes, probably a good plan - as a suggestion, you may want to put together some decent initial justifications for why you think it's a good idea before you go and talk to them. Most researchers are very busy, and there's rarely a shortage of good ideas in academia, so you've got a sales job to do (you're basically asking someone to drop their project in favour of yours, so yours had better be good). The more work you can do on it yourself before trying to sell it to someone else, the more credible it will be.


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Does an engineering paper have to improve on the state of the art quantitatively in order to be publishable?
In most engineering papers, I see that the authors justify their research by displaying how well it performs against the state-of-the-art methods or algorithms, in a quantitative sense. To put it loosely, this is usually stated along the lines of "Our method is faster/better/cheaper than existing methods, and here are the charts and graphs to prove it".
However, what about papers that are putting forward a more visionary approach that would take time to justify using quantitative means? For example, it is conceivable that there is an idea that performs moderately well, but needs work by the entire community in order to reach its potential. It is also conceivable that this idea is a more fruitful one than existing lines of research.
Does a piece of research have to beat others in a measurable way in order to be publishable, or is there also a qualitative, holistic way that papers are evaluated?

Try doing some theoretical proofs that can be used to show some method is superior for some set of conditions.

You'd still need to put forward a case as to why your research should be of interest if you want a journal to accept it. How you state that case, is up to you.

No but it helps to get published in a better journal.

Have you thought about publishing your idea at a conference that publishes these sorts of results? What about a letter paper?

If someone designs a hypothetical thing that has unrecognized conceptual flaws and is thus useless, but their analysis mistakenly believes it to be an improvement, does that count?

@Nat: I'm actually working on some theoretical ideas in Web Science, so I'm struggling for way to show that it is an improvement over the existing dynamics of the web. All I have are intuitive arguments. I'm using some ideas from economics, so I seem to be facing all the difficulties that an economist would face.

In order to be publishable, a scientific work needs to provide evidence that it advances the state of human knowledge.
Direct quantitative comparison to the state of the art is a relatively straightforward way of doing this, but there are many other alternatives.  For example, one might also provide mathematical proof of a difference in expected scaling or demonstrate a qualitative property that is not present in current systems.
The key in every case, however, is that there should be clear evidence provided of some sort of value that other investigators are likely to find to be of interest.

"In most engineering papers, I see that the authors justify their research by displaying how well it performs against the state-of-the-art methods or algorithms, in a quantitative sense."
That's true for most papers. But a "visionary" paper represents an improvement in the "qualitative" sense.
An important part of engineering is "design." If you have come up with a new "configuration" of inputs, that could be original enough to be published. The fact that that "it would take time to justify using quantitative means" gives you an "excuse" not to publish quantitative results. But if your approach is sufficiently original, you would still be doing the community a service.


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Is it mandatory to have published papers while applying for PhD?
I've heard from people saying that while applying for PhD, you need to have past experience in researching something and should have international publications. I was like more concentrated towards practical experience and have't had any publications. If I am aspiring to do PhD and want to apply, it would be impossible if such a criteria exists!

I take it this question mainly comes up in STEM-related fields... In humanities and much of the social sciences, even applicants who already have MA degrees are pretty unlikely to have any publications.

Is it mandatory to have published papers while applying for PhD?

No.
However, if you have any research experience (working in a lab, research you've done for classes, undergraduate thesis, capstone project, etc.), you should highlight that on your application, both in your personal statement and on your resume / CV.  More importantly, your letters of recommendation should discuss your potential for research. Your recommendation writers should know this, but it would be worthwhile to highlight this in any material you provide to them when you ask them for recommendations, and when you discuss it with them. Trust me, the more information you can give your letter writers, the better their letters will be. I explicitly ask students what their goals are when I'm writing letters of recommendation so I can tailor them appropriately, and you should make sure your letter writers understand that you're applying for a PhD and what your research goals are.

I was like more concentrated towards practical experience and have't had any publications.

If by "practical experience" you mean that you worked on an unsolved problem, then that counts as research. If you simply re-applied knowledge in order to learn how to become proficient in that field (e.g., you programmed a microcontroller to turn lights on and off via voice commands), then the research angle is harder to spin.  But, do the best you can to highlight on your applications why you believe you have the preparation to do quality research.

I agree with Chris Gregg here, and I would like to detail my personal situation, as it might be relevant here.
I am about to get my Master's degree in CS and will start my first year of PhD in October with only a four-month experience in R&D (and not really research per se) during an exchange program and with no publication. In my opinion, there are three points that played in my favour while applying :

Four-month experience is still experience, and you should highlight it in your resume and cover letters. In my case, this experience was at the roots of my choice to get a PhD; reading articles, getting to learn of tons of great ideas on a single subject, then trying to develop your own idea and finally publishing it are the reasons why I have decided to get a PhD. But more importantly, thanks to this experience, I got to know what it was like to work in the industry (through internships) and to work in research, and it allowed me to justify my choice more easily.
You have to narrow down the subjects that interest you, as a PhD is a long-term engagement. During my applications, I have specifically targeted the Human-Computer Interactions domain (HCI) and have been lucky enough to find a subject on Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) that is related to HCI and to learning sciences (which is great because I want to be a teacher, eventually).
Choose wisely your recommendation writers. They have to testify your ability to work in research and academia. I have been accepted for a subject only because the contact knew a PI who wrote a letter.

So the answer to your question is no, but prior experience in research and clear future career goals have to be emphasized in your applications in order to get not only what you want, but also what suits you.

I think a general answer to your question is "no, it's not essential (but it won't hurt!)".
It's important to bear in mind that this will be more true for some disciplines than others. In a lab science, for instance, it is fairly common for undergraduates to show up on the publications of group leaders on whose projects they have worked during some kind of internship. This is in stark contrast to a discipline such as economics, in which most students do not have any publications even at the time of completion of their PhD! Try to find out what the norms are in your discipline of choice.


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Code in journal papers
Most papers do not specify a separate license for the source code, so presumably it would be licensed under the same terms as the rest of the paper. Typically, this means that the copyright lies with the publisher. Then,

As a reader, do I need permission from the publisher to use source code contained in journal articles?
Would using the source code be considered fair use in the US? What about countries that do not have comparable laws?
As an author, what should I do if I want the code I publish to be freely usable by others?

It might seem odd, because your three questions are on the same topic, but this Q&A system works best if you just post one question at a time. (oh, and by the way, the assumption in your first sentence may well not hold in most cases)

A much more interesting question is: as an author, can I use the code I have published freely? As far as I understand, the way things work now with most journals, the answer is no. After the copyright transfer agreement, the code belongs to the publisher, like the rest of the paper, and there are significant restrictions to what I can do with it afterwards.

@dgraziotin Here, for instance, supplementary material is explicitly included in the copyright transfer agreement. It might seem far-fetched and unlikely that publishers go after authors for this, but the times are changing.

@dgraziotin are you talking about code snippets enclosed in the journal article, or are you talking about entire programs/scripts enclosed as supplemental material? I would be interested in answers for either. I was mainly thinking about snippets in the main text. Especially older papers sometimes include extensive listings.

@EnergyNumbers oh, and by the way, the assumption in your first sentence may well not hold in most cases - Which part? Do you think that, for example, listings in the body text would automatically be under a different license than the rest / not included in the copyright transfer agreement?

I think the codes available in papers are provided as materials for several purposes, including

Help reviewers and journal's board to efficiently evaluate the work and identify its technical merit.
Enable readers to better grasp the algorithm/method proposed
Enable researchers to utilize the code in their future research to avoid duplication
Help (novice) researchers to play with the code for educational benefits
Provide opportunity to peers to further improve the proposal

However, you may contact the author(s) if the want to use the code for

Commercializing the algorithm/method
Use the code for activities that generates money
Register patent using available contents

In my institute, I see lots supervisor ask their master students to read recent papers and identify a small research problem to alleviate during their project work. Students either use the given code or contact the authors for code, which authors usually provide the code.
So, I think you don't need to explicitly state the code copyright in the paper. But, if you are really interested to do that, you can have a footnote in the first page allowing readers to utilize the code in full, if the EiC does not mind.
Hope it helps

I think your analysis of the purposes is spot-on. My question mostly concerns 3-5. If the code is included in the copyright transfer agreement with the journal, the publisher now owns the code. So contacting the authors would be useless, as they cannot legally give you any rights.

There is something you need to consider. If the author gives copyright to the publisher, it doesn't mean himself does not have any right. No one can ever takes away the ownership from the author. The copyright the author gives to the publisher is to the version that they provide and still you have your own version (in most of the cases). In majority of journals, including IEEE and Elsevier, you can upload ur own pre-accepted file anywhere author likes, on his web page or other public repositories like Arxiv. If u r using code from the copyrighted file, cite it & this is what publisher needs.

Those copyright agreements explicitly allow the author to post these versions. If they did not, it would most likely be illegal.

Most of codes are free if you use it for research purpose, you just
  need to include right citations
If a code is commercial or GPL license then you need permission, for
  that you can contact the author directly and discuss the same
If you want your code to be freely available just make it open source
  licensed that's it.

Each country has different rules for patents and stuff, so be careful where the code is available etc. So discussion with author is the best thing to do. The license is usually specified on the website where you get the code from and also in the .cpp or .h files header.

for that you can contact the author directly My understanding is that journals typically require the author to sign a copyright transfer agreement. So the author does not actually own the code in that case, and cannot give me the right to use it.

"Most of codes are free if you use it for research purpose" surely that will depend entirely upon how it is licensed? And how it is licensed is the point of this question.

Thanks Flyto. I edited my response a little to include your comments.

Mangara : Are you sure about this, According to me the code is owned by author and the paper or the idea is not, because the copyright transfer agreement is signed for the idea but not the code.

I an not a lawyer, but I should perhaps also point out that AIUI, if the code is GPL-licensed then you specifically do not need permission (at least, not from a legal point of view. You'd still need to cite it from an academic-ethics point of view, and it would still be polite to talk to the author about it). Also, while you have stated that the license is found on the website where you get the code or in the file header, the question was asking about code included within articles. Not wishing to be harsh here - just a topic I'd like to see a good answer on :-)

@ArminMustafa I believe most copyright agreements cover only the literal text of the publication, not the ideas. Unfortunately, the text would include any source listings in the paper.


text:
How does one cite WHO apps?
The World Health Organization (WHO) has a number of apps, I felt I should keep the question rather general in order to prevent people from attempting to close this question for being too narrow, but I really am interested in how I would cite the diagnostic criteria in ICD-10 in Vancouver style.

There is nothing special about The WHO. The WHO releases the ICD-10 as an electronic book, a printed book, and a website. you should cite the version you used.

As Daniel commented, "there is nothing special about The WHO." As with any source, cite in accordance with the citation style  you are using. For Vancouver style, two online guides are here and here. Find the section relevant to the source you are using, (electronic book, print book or website), and use the recommended format.


text:
How does one reference work in Oxford Style for a Website without an Author or a Date of Publication?
How do you reference work, Oxford Style, for a Website without an Author or a Date of Publication?

For material found on a specific web site:

Australian Bureau of Statistics, Building approvals, Australia, cat. no. 8731.0, ABS Ausstats, 2004, retrieved 3 November 2004, ‹http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs%40.nsf/mf/8731.0? OpenDocument›.

This can be found at: http://www.deakin.edu.au/current-students/study-support/study-skills/handouts/oxford-docnote.php

What's the cat. no. 8731.0, ABS Ausstats? Is that the 'Name of site sponsor'?

That's the full description of the online citation. It seems to be the name of the site's sponsor which is australian statistics.

I am not familiar with the "Oxford Style" guide and therefore do not believe that there is a single "standard" style. I think Oxford style has a footnote in text citation and a reference list. This makes it similar to Chicago style. While I do not have the CMS to check, Prudue OWL has a nice comparison of MLA, APA, and CMS (all of which have comprehensive and standardized style guides). In CMS it doesn't seem to be a problem since you are using a footnote for the in text citation and the reference list doesn't require an author or date for webpages.


text:
Do you place endnotes (in vancouver reference style) after colons or before?
I have some references I would like to tie to all the dot points I've written after my colon and hence I thought it would be a good idea to put the relevant references after the colon, in endnote form. Here is an extract from the text I am putting together that illustrates what I mean:
These acute attacks are typically triggered in genetically susceptible individuals by at least one of the following:2-4
•   Stress
•   Medications (especially sulfa-containing antibiotics, barbiturates, synthetic oestrogens, certain antiepileptic drugs and a few others. See http://www.drugs-porphyria.org/ for details regarding safe and unsafe drugs)
•   Dietary changes (high protein diets, low-carbohydrate diets and fasts are especially notable for causing acute attacks)
•   Endocrine factors (fluctuations in the levels of the different hormones present in the body; usually the sex hormones such as oestrogens and androgens [e.g. testosterone, dihydrotestosterone]. Acute attacks are often triggered by the hormonal changes that occur in the different stages of development, e.g. puberty, menopause, etc.)

This is a relatively minor point, but in standard American English usage, footnote and endnote numbers would go after a punctuation mark, not before one. Usage in British English might be different, and individual publishers may have their own guidelines.
However, one might also ask why you aren't citing each item in the list separately; it might be more informative to the user rather than doing an all-purpose citation at the top of the list!

Depends on the reader. This guide I'm writing is for the laymen and since the purpose of all this referencing is rather to give them things to refer to and to give the writing some authority I didn't deem that necessary.


text:
Publishing a conference version of a journal paper at the same time ? (copyright issues)
This may be a question repeated many times, but I want to know your opinion.
I submitted a journal paper for an algorithm (Computer Science). Fearing that the review process take too long, I decided to submit a short-version conference paper, while the long version is under-review. I received the journal review comments, and re-sent the modifications to the journal. Meanwhile, the conference paper was accepted. But the camera-ready is not sent yet.
The problem is that both papers are about the same idea. There is also some copy-pasted parts in both papers. But:
1) the editor of the journal was not informed about the conference paper (I heard that I should tell the journal about any published papers - but note that the conference paper is not yet published - not even the camera ready is submitted),
2) the organization organizing the conference, is not the same that manage the journal. I have been told that there are conflicting copyrights.
The proposed solutions (that colleagues told me about):
a) submit both as is !
b) submit both (but with change in text).
c) do not submit the conference paper (but I heard this can be harmful)
d) tell the editor now (but honestly, the journal is way more important than the conference).

Short answer: Don't do that. Most algorithms conferences have a clause in the call for papers specifically forbidding simultaneous submission. If the journal editor / PC  chair finds out, you risk having both papers summarily rejected.

Indeed, don't. And next time, send to a conference first—they answer quicker. And in CS they often count more. You can send to a journal later.

The problem is that you have painted yourself into a corner.
You have made a very serious mistake by submitting simultaneously to a conference (with formal proceedings) and a journal. Most likely both the conference and the journal have explicit rules forbidding this, and in any case any kind of simultaneous submission is highly unethical: you are abusing the peer-review system.
No matter what you do, someone will be upset.
If you are a student, perhaps the best approach is to play stupid. Contact the conference organisers, apologise sincerely, explain that you were not aware that simultaneous submissions are not permitted, explain that you are just a student, apologise again, and withdraw the conference paper.
The conference organisers will be upset. But maybe this is much better in the long run than proceeding with the publication of both versions, in which case you will make your mistake public and anyone is able to see it (conference submission & acceptance dates are public information, and journals typically publish the submission & acceptance dates of the articles).

Its not simultaneous submission. In computer science it is common practice to publish conference (short version) and journal (long version). The reason is obvious, the field of computer science is changing rapidly while most of the journal review time is very long sometime take 1.5 years. The only thing author need to do is explicitly mentioning in cover letter and citing the conference paper.
However, here the situation is a bit different author has submitted a Journal article and now submitting a conference article.

I know that other way round is common practice i-e, 1st conference and then journal. But I am not sure if it is allowed to submit journal first followed by conference. In fact I have same question as well.


text:
Order of authors in an engineering publication
Recently, I was involved in an engineering research project where I significantly extended the main functionality of the work. As my other team-mates were not involved in that aspect of the project, I thought I would leave them to do the write-up. I don't want to complicate things but lets just say their contribution matters less, at least according to my advisor.
This work is now being readied for publication and there's the matter of ordering the authors. Initially I thought we may be doing things alphabetically, but on the recent draft the order appeared to prioritize those who are doing the write-up, listing them first. My advisor raised no objection to this. If we are going down this road, it seems to me those who have done the most work should be first authors (i.e. me), rather than those who are doing the write-up.
I'd like to avoid any potential conflict with the people involved, and so I wonder if one acceptable compromise here is to specify the contributions of each author in the paper. Alternatively, we can do the alphabetical thing and make explicit mention of this as a footnote. I don't have any problem with either of these options.
First, am I correct in thinking that the ordering here is misplaced?
Second, are the compromises I list reasonable enough to propose?

Did you discuss the order issue with your advisor ?

You must discuss this issue with your advisor and all coauthors as soon as possible.  The right time to have the discussion would have been before the first draft is started, but unless you have a time machine, you have to have it now.  Since there are differing opinions, and the outcome matters, conflict is inevitable.  Welcome to adulthood.

And when discussing, keep in mind that some journals allow for shared first authorship. Perhaps this might be a solution for you.

I thought I would leave them to do the write-up

In my experience, the person who writes the initial draft is first author when the author order depends on contribution. There may be discussions/"fights" over who deserves to write the initial draft, but it is generally understood that this person becomes the first author.

I have been in the situation where I have been the primary author on a few papers where others have been the primary personnel involved.
In one of those cases, the PI was the primary worker, and therefore allowed me to be first author. In the other case, the primary worker was still the first author, and I was the second author. I was fine with this, because I was getting the credit in exchange for making sure the work got published.
However, I do agree that the primary person whose work is being presented should be first author. At the same time, if you do not have an active hand in writing the manuscript, the claim that slightly less scientific work plus more work preparing the manuscript could be persuasive.

Author ordering is a common source of friction and is very tricky.  In science and engineering most big universities place critical emphasis on the intellectual contribution over all else.  The standards for authorship, and the ordering, do vary somewhat by discipline and institution.  In Computational Geometry (a branch of Computer Science), for example, it has been commonplace to list authors alphabetically. In most of the rest of Computer Science, authors are usually listed by the "size" of their contribution.
If the paper has a very "big" important idea then conceptual contribution will be relatively more important.  If the paper describes a fairly well-understood concept (which means it might have limited impact) then the author ordering may depend more heavily on other factors like doing the writeup.  If team members made very different kinds of contributions it can be very hard to determine the ordering, but then the relative positions aside from first and last are likely to matter less.
In my opinion, doing the actual writeup is usually not the most important factor, but it sometimes becomes the dominant factor since it is easy to measure as a contribution, come last (which makes it easy to remember), and because the people doing the writeup have the initiative and control of the manuscript.  Since it is such a delicate and awkward issue, the writers who put the names down in the document first often manage to set the precedent.  Notably, the most important positions in the author list are first and last position (both are generally seen as good).
To quote from the Harvard Med School authorship guidelines:

"Examples of authorship policies include descending order of
  contribution, placing the person who took the lead in writing the
  manuscript or doing the research first and the most experienced
  contributor last, and alphabetical or random order."
  Harvard

The IEEE authorship guide states:

Typically, the first author listed is the person who has taken the
  most responsibility for the work. Other authors are listed in order of
  the level of their contribution.

IEEE link, PDF file
(which doesn't actually help you much since the definition of "contribution" is not apparent.

IEEE link has moved: http://ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org/wp-content/uploads/How-to-Write-for-Technical-Periodicals-and-Conferences.pdf

Ordering names in publications is a very delicate matter and should always be discussed among the research team before submission.
Typically, every co-author needs to have taken part in each part of the research:

background research
methodology
experiment
analysis
paper writing
proof-reading

The importance of those elements determines who will be the first author. The most important parts are definitely the experiment itself and the paper writing. Whoever didn't take part in both of those can hardly be considered an author. This might be considered a bit controversial sometimes, but other researchers who only took part in a small part of the process should be added in the acknowledgements instead.
Now, in many cases nowadays not everybody takes part in each part of the research process. This usually creates ambiguities, that should be solved in the best way, asking for advice from a research authority, with the enough experience and information to judge on the situation.

In my opinion, whatever the order of authors, the contributions should be individually stated, as it is common in some fields and journals. This avoids problems like yours, and also (real cases):

The first author just provided the research money, but did no actual work.
The first author is the PI in a collaboration. He overseed the research and gave orders, but the bulk of the job was done by his PhD students.
Someone is important in the group, so he gets to be amongst the first authors, even though he did nothing. Students that actually did work have their names after him.
The data was processed using a program that has been in use for three years. The programer was not involved in the paper, or finetuned the program for the purpose of the particular study, but he gets to coauthor.

But also, situations like:

Three or more researchers designed independent critical steps, all of them equally important to the results.
Multidisciplinary collaboration, where new analysis techniques suggest new experimental techniques, that are implemented for the first time.

Where they all deserve large credit, and it is impossible to order them fairly.

I think it is very strange if people "who didn't do the work" get to do the writeup. Whoever did the research is intimately familiar with the methods and results, and is in best position to make the judgement calls of what to include or leave out, were exactly the difficulties and successes are, what is the real contributions are and what is incidental. Sure, somebody periperally involved can look it over and do proofreading or editing, but not structuring and initial writeup.


text:
Recommendation letter from a research supervisor who was not satisfied with my work
Is it beneficial/harmful to get a letter from a research supervisor who was not satisfied with my work? (I wasn't interested in that topic, but I kept working in the lab for the money).
Or forget about that and instead focus on people who were satisfied with my research experience only?

I wasn't interested in that topic, but I kept working in the lab for the money — Note to others: Don't do this.

and for the visa.

Yeah, don't do that.

Was that research supervisor your advisor?

Talk with your advisor about this. Depending on your relationship with your advisor, you may still be able to get a decent letter. Use the following formula:

Decent letter > No letter > Bad letter

If your advisor cannot write you a decent letter you will have to find someone else who is. Do note that not having a letter from your advisor will be a huge red flag; you will have to come to any interview with a ready explanation as to why your advisor did not feel comfortable recommending you.

How about those sticky situations where the advisor has a long-standing policy if never telling you if the letter they write is in your favor or not (nor will they let you read it)?  I've seen that happen unfortunately.

@LordStryker - If that happens, then your advisor is a jerk, and you will have to suffer the consequences of having a jerk for a boss. (Substitute in your epithet of choice for "jerk" if that term isn't strong enough for your tastes.) I cannot think of a good way around that.

"jerk" suffices. :)

Get a reference letter from your supervisor. Inspite of the fact that the letter may not be that great, it plays an important role.
But apart from that OK letter, you can also get a very good letter from the people who were satisfied with you.
So in the end you will have two letters with you to show and will give a fair opinion about you.