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Is it possible to finish PhD quicker than formally possible?
I said to my supervisor that I would like to finish my PhD very quickly. He said that formally I can submit my thesis 2 years after starting my degree at earliest, but that I am doing very well and it should be possible.
I verified the institutional requirements and indeed I cannot submit my PhD thesis in less than 2 years. However, I would like to submit the thesis in 1 year and 3 months. But I would like to ask you if this could somehow be possible and if yes, then how and what I should do.
I could talk to my supervisor in person about this, but the problem is that he would find it hard to believe me that much and thus he would be reluctant to help me or what is even worse, I may hurt the relationship with my supervisor. I have been doing my doctoral degree for 9 months in mathematics and some big parts are coming together, yet still there is a lot of work.
I believe that I could finish it in 6 months, but my supervisor would believe me only if he saw everything completed. The problem is that by then it would be too late for me.
Edit: I study in the UK. If I can finish my PhD thesis earlier, and then move to a preferred place for a postdoc, I do not see a reason to delay. I need to know now if I can finish early, so that I could apply for the scholarships supporting my postdoctoral visit. The scholarships I am going to apply require that I start within certain dates and can be applied for only at specific times during the year twice or once a year.
I have fulfilled all the credit requirements already and meet my supervisor every week while formally it is required only once a month.
The specific rule is:
In some cases the graduate board may allow you to submit your thesis early, before the end of your standard period of study. A Postgraduate Research Tutor can only recommend this if:
(a) the thesis is complete and ready for submission and
(b) has been read by your supervisor in its entirety. Your supervisor must confirm in writing that they have read your thesis and that their view is that it is ready to be examined.

The earliest date you can submit your PhD thesis is at the end of 2 calendar years of full-time study.

Finishing a PHD in 1 year and 3 months means that 90% you have zero publications, since a Math journal would require several months for publishing an article. Although publications are not necessary for a Math PHD, many math PHD holders have many publications under their belt. You believe that you can compete with these people for postdoc positions, if you graduate early? Not likely.

I do not understand how this question can be off-topic. I have this real situation in academia and ask for the possible ways I may deal with it.

@anon42: The thing is that you have a situation. It's not clear that this situation is of general interest or that something can be said about it that's not super-specific.

Also - have you brought "research from home"? I mean, is it the case you've done most of your work before your Ph.D. started? Otherwise I don't really understand why you expect to finish so early.

You haven't explained why you need to finish your PhD so quickly- is there some particular reason that you can't complete the PhD program in the normal time frame?
You haven't mentioned what country you're in.  The answer to your question could vary a lot by country.
You also haven't detailed the specific rule that says that two years are required.  In the US system it would be common to have a minimum number of credit hours for the dissertation (e.g. 36 credit hours) and a maximum number of credit hours per semester that you could register for (e.g. 12) that would effectively create such a rule.
When an institution has a requirement like this it is typically not within the authority of the advisor or the dissertation committee to waive the requirement. Rather, any waiver of the requirement would typically require the approval of the Dean of Graduate Studies or some similar official.  You can certainly ask, and especially if your advisor strongly supported your request, it's possible that a waiver would be granted.  However, and assuming that you're in the US, it isn't at all likely that a requirement like this would be waived.

I have edited my question to be more specific. Thank you for your answer and I will very appreciate if you update it accordingly.

The rule as stated seems very clear- you need to complete your thesis and your advisor needs to read it and decide that its ready for review before your advisor can recommend to the graduate board that you be allowed to have an early examination.  So, get writing!

But then in the end it says "The earliest date you can submit your PhD thesis is at the end of 2 calendar years of full-time study." So do you think that if I complete my thesis in 6 months and then my supervisor reads it and thinks that it is ready, I could still somehow submit it in less than 2 years?

@anon42: Read the last paragraph of the answer again.

@NateEldredge So finishing in less than 2 years does not seem as something I could count on.

I don't understand what you want; do you want us to contact your supervisor for you?  We can't find some magic exception in the rules for you.  Either you need to suck it up and accept this won't happen, or you need talk to your supervisor and convince them that this is a good idea.
Let me just add that this sounds like a terrible idea to me.  UK Ph.D.'s are way too short anyways; rushing through one will just throw you out into the cold hard reality of the job market totally underprepared.  You don't seem to have thought about the "If" in "If I can finish my PhD thesis earlier, and then move to a preferred place for a postdoc, I do not see a reason to delay." or thought about what happens at the end of your postdoc.  If you are really finished with your thesis at the end of 15 months, then it's not as though you'll twiddle your thumbs for the next several months; you'll have an incredibly valuable chance to start some other projects, and get a bit of a head start before heading into your postdoc.  That's time you'll never get back, and which you want to strain your relationship with your advisor in your rush to throw away.

"rushing through one will just throw you out into the cold hard reality of the job market totally underprepared" Well, it would still hardly be worse than not having the PhD at all, right? People get jobs with just a Bachelor's degree...

@Mehrdad The job market for people with PhDs is different than for people with a Bachelor's degree.  Employers will expect you to have a lot more skills and to have to pay a lot more for those skills.  Going on the job market with a Masters worth of skills and asking for a PhD salary is likely to be a very bad experience.

@Mehrdad I don't see your point.  A Ph.D. is a minimum qualification for academic employment, but with an emphasis on the minimum.  Getting a Ph.D. as quickly as possible is a huge waste of time; you have to back it up with a lot more than the bare minimum if you want an academic job (as the OP in indicates) especially in the UK, where the market is pretty wretched right now.

@BenWebster: I guess I didn't realize the OP was looking for an academic job.

I was hoping that somebody who once had to solve a similar problem would have replied. Yes, I know that finding a job in academia is much harder than just finishing a PhD. But I have not explained my exact situation in detail as I was asking about something different.

It's time to read the fine print.  At my university, a student can finish under two years if the Dean of Research approves and an independent assessor agrees that the thesis meets the required standard.  This is pretty rare. The work must be ground breaking.
In any case, research is about time and having only spent <2 years is actually a negative. Spending more time means you get to hone your skills, accumulate more papers, and build up a better CV.  This means you'll be extra competitive against other post-doc applicants; some of which by the way may have already completed multiple post-docs.


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How to respond to a citation request which is not relevant?
Often, as soon as I submit a pre-submission paper on the arxiv, I receive a couple of emails from other researchers pointing out their previous relevant work, which in their words is connected with mine and deserve citations.
Sometimes, it happens that their work is really connected with my work, and perhaps even anticipating it. For some reason I was not aware of that, my fault. In these cases, I usually add the citation and even refer to the work in a more extensive way.
However, most of the emails just point to works that are indeed on the same topic, perhaps also very important works in the field, but which are not even similar nor related to my work. In this cases, I really don't know what to do.
I could inflate the reference of the paper, giving credits to papers which really did not contribute in any way to my work. Or I could just ignore it, with the hope that one of the authors of that papers will not end up to be one of my referees...
What is the common practice in this cases?
(see also this question for another point of view)

I would ignore.  The worst is when an editor ask you to include some/all of his/her relevant papers.

I would include, unless truly unrelated. I simply don't see any harm in "inflating" references. On the contrary, it just helps the reader to know the literature. Again, assuming there is relevance to your work. My experience is opposite coincidentally: I find many authors treating their reference with extreme stinginess, as if they lose something by citing others.

If you get requests for citations to irrelevant publications, just ignore them.  Seriously, that's all you need to do.  I get suggestions/requests for citations all the time.  Sometimes they are relevant things that I overlooked (in which case, I add them), but usually they are not.
I don't even usually bother writing back to the people sending the requests.  It's rude of them to ask you to cite their irrelevant work, and so I feel I am under no obligation to write back with a polite demurral.  The people grubbing around for these citations are extremely unlikely to be leaders in the field (the kind of people who might makes things difficult for you if they think you are being rude to them); the real leaders do not need to waste their time drumming up undeserved citations.

I agree. But what if these people end up to be a referee? I just want to have a "friendly" and professional relation with competitors, and I don't want to have to pay consequences because in their opinion they deserved a citation.

@sintetico:  That problem has never (so far as I know) come up for me.  Hopefully, there are enough people in your field that you shouldn't need to worry about it.

But what if these people end up to be a referee? — Then in your response to the referee report, you write "We have decided not to add the citations requested by referee #2, as we do not see any direct relevance to our work."  And then you let the editor handle it.

@JeffE: How would you know the referee who recommended rejection is the one who told you earlier to include their work?

@user111388 Referees typically include both their recommendations to the editor and their comments to the author in the same report.

@JeffE: I know, so what? No malicious referee would write "I recommend to reject it and hey, by the way, I previously wanted the author to include my not-related work and they declined, so I am recommending rejecting now."

I'm sorry, I misunderstood your comment.  Of course you have no way to know if the person who sent you an unsolicited request to cite their work later became a referee.  (Chances are pretty good that they would repeat the request in the referee report, or at least complain that you have significant gaps in your bibliography, but you still have no way to be sure it's the same person.)  But why would you care?  Cite the literature you believe is relevant, make your case to the editor, and move on.

Opinions vary, but I think it is very important to acknowledge prior art, that is, priority. To leave important prior (strongly related) work out of a bibliography is to communicate the idea that there was no prior work. Indeed, one can "cultivate" lack of references to one's competitors by carefully not looking at their work, thus, seemingly having no obligation to cite them (or otherwise acknowledge their existence!?!) But this is inappropriate, as it would convey a false impression to your readers, as well as being unfair to your competitors or predecessors. That is, it's not only what you use or rely on, but works that came before yours.

Of course, there is no question that one must include important prior strongly related work. But my question is about a citation request about a paper which is not related, but only on the same topic. One cannot cite the entire literature of the field.

If these other papers are not really competitors in any way, (and if you didn't use their results in any way), it would seem that the people are just fishing for citations for themselves. But/and if they view themselves as your competitors, while you ignore them, it's awkward. Maybe get a subject-specific "unbiased opinion" about whether or not the papers are any sort of competitors... It is possible that one doesn't quite recognize "competition" because it comes in a different guise.

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Can a promising graduate turn into a crank? How should their advisor react?
I have noticed from time to time that some PhD students at good, sometimes top, universities (who must have shown promise at some point) start to act as if they're gone a bit crankish.  Say, they speak cryptically about how they are working on [insert famous research problem here, like quantum gravity or the Riemann Hypothesis].
As an advisor, how would you deal with such a student? Clearly there is a risk for the advisor's reputation if this gets out of hand (e.g. the student suddenly posts a patently wrong preprint purporting to solve that famous problem). But how long to wait, and how much efforts to do, before thinking seriously about terminating their contract?

Can you clarify the extent of the evidence that the student has “gone crank”? Just “speaking cryptically” about working on the Riemann Hypothesis etc does not convince me that the student is incapable of doing genuine, serious work (and if they are successfully doing that then I don’t care what they’re thinking about the rest of the time). So I feel like answering your question would require understanding better the severity of the problem and how it would affect my ability to work with the student.

Related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/56220/40589

@Dan Romik : I implied to mean that the student has not published anything else yet, and asks questions which show a lack of the type of knowlege one would expect from someone serious (on technically easy steps, or is unaware of key references). I hope this clarifies the type of situation I was thinking about.

In my opinion, every smart theoretician should take a crack at the major open problems in their field, at least for fun. Often the key to "solving" such problems is to not actually bang your head through the same wall everyone else has been stuck by, but to change the perspective or cheat the problem somehow. Even if you aren't smarter than everyone else, perhaps you can think of an outside-the-box idea others haven't. And as John Conway put it, we aren't as smart as we think we are. If I remember correctly, he said this when interviewed about Fermat's last theorem, which was unsolved at the time.
Of course if someone actually is "smart" enough to continue in research, they will be able to tell if they have failed. And they will be able to make a rational assessment of risk versus reward in pursuing such a path where the likelihood of funding and career success would be low. Hence pursuing such problems isn't all that different from pursuing other very-high-risk ideas. Just a little farther out on the spectrum.
One situation where this risk-reward assessment breaks down, of course, is mental illness. A manic person might think they are superhuman, for example. And there are some professors that I really wonder about. But mental illness is beyond the scope of sites like this, and I'd note that people with diagnosed illnesses can still function normally (or better) and be very successful in research.
The short answer is if you can't prove (rigorousy) they will fail, you can't prove they are fools for trying.

I assume that you mean that they turn into a "cranK" prior to graduation. There are some famous cases of this happening later, though the seeds may have been there before graduation. One famous case is The Unabomber who holds a doctorate in mathematics from University of Michigan. Had his "career" as a crank been started earlier, the proper response would be to contact the police.
But in the more common situation, people can just drift away, not needing action from the advisor. Large universities usually have some sort of counseling available and people drifting into abnormal behavior can often be referred to them, though privacy laws might prevent that from happening. It is available if the person her/himself notices it.
And, don't forget that some "crankish" graduate student might just succeed in solving some long standing important problem someday, though the likelihood in individual cases is small.
Also being crankish takes many forms. Some are benign. Everyone is different. Your crank may be just my brilliant, but socially awkward, sister.

@BenLinowitz, his math was fine. But "being crankish takes many forms". And in the sense that you and perhaps the OP  intend, people just sort of disappear and don't finish, despite some advice and/or counseling. But being disjoint from reality can be a symptom of many things.

@BenLinowitz 's comment is implicitly pointing to an important distinction here. We have procedures if students have mental health issues or if they have become a danger to self or others (discussion of how effective those policies are or whether they strike the right balance is secondary). Often cranks don't have any standard mental health problem, except maybe some topic-specific narcissism which isn't something in the DSM. How one should respond to a grad student trying to prove the Riemann Hypothesis seems substantially different than responding to one with mental health issues.

@Roland, I think that part of the question is implying that it is becoming obsessive, or at least to the detriment of their other, more likely to be successful work. I agree that crankish behavior is much more common in people who aren't experts in a given field. When it is someone in the field, it is sometimes more difficult to tell where to draw the line as genuinely crankish behavior.

@JoshuaZ, and others. Back when I was a math student (50 plus years ago), we all (more or less) spent some effort on the four color hypothesis (now a theorem). We all failed in a proof, of course, and we are mostly all dissatisfied with the proof that eventually did arise. But to prove something that is genuinely hard you need to be obsessive about it. At least a bit. So, I question whether being obsessive about the Riemann Hypothesis is a flaw or a virtue. But dangerous for a student to be obsessive about any truly hard problem - especially to the exclusion of all else.

@Buffy , Right. one thing that students need to understand is that if they are going to work on some big unsolved problem they should make sure that they are aware that they aren't likely to solve it and make sure that whatever they do is likely to produce good results even if they don't solve the problem. Some of my own work has been on some a big unsolved problem, but that work has all involved results about things we'd care about independently of the problem.But  given OP explicit description of the students speaking "cryptically" it seems like the students may not be that reasonable.

Also, during his college years Kaczynski was seriously abused by psychological experiments (that are believed to be part of the MKUltra program undertaken by the CIA).  That is a case where there was an exogenous force impacting upon the person, rather than merely in internal descent into strange thinking.

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Is it possible to access referee reports for investigating scientific history?
Do most journals keep archives of referee reports and would historians of science be able to access them? Perhaps after some delay?

I would imagine that most journals these days keep archives. Among other things it helps with potential future retraction investigations. On the other hand, the archives are not necessarily complete. For example, the archives of Physical Review apparently don't contain any editor-referee communication from before 1938.

I suspect, but don't know, that most publishers would prefer not to make these available for a variety of reasons up to and including potential liability. There are privacy and confidentiality concerns, competitive positioning concerns, etc. Just not embarrassing a reviewer for the occasional mis-statement is a consideration. I think it might take an extraordinary process to pry them loose. Perhaps highly sanitized versions might be made available, but not be very valuable for historical research.

I think this question is a duplicate, but I can't find specific enough search terms to locate the earlier one. Someone else may have more inspiration than me.

See here for a case where the veil of referee anonymity was pierced, in order to provide insight into what happened in a historically important case:  https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.2117822
However, revealing in the information was considered a big deal.  As the article states:  "Blume’s release of the logbook records—a decision made because 69 years have passed and no one involved is still living—confirms the identity."

All reputable journals today use web-based manuscript management systems that keep information about each manuscript, its various revisions, who was asked to review and what their reviews were, as well as editor decisions. So yes, this information exists in these systems at least as far back as the introduction of these systems (at least ten years ago). As the editor-in-chief of a journal, I can look at all of this data for every article in my journal.
But I suspect that it will be exceptionally difficult to get at this kind of information if you're not the editor-in-chief yourself. To do research on this means that you're doing research on human subjects, with all that implies: You'll have to have IRB [1] approval for your study protocol, you might have to anonymize the data (which I suspect would be exceptionally difficult in itself), and/or you might have to receive informed consent from the reviewers, authors, and editors (all of which are involved in the decision making process).
I have a suspicion that few publishers are interested in going to this level of trouble. On the other hand, I have no doubt that such studies have been done, so I would expect that it is possible to get at the kind of data you're looking for -- it's just very difficult to do this kind of research.
[1] In the US, IRBs (Institutional Review Boards) are the bodies tasked with overseeing research that involves human subject research. All human subject research has to be approved by an IRB before the data so gained can be used for publications.

Web based systems are not universal in the humanities and arts.

...exceptionally difficult to get at this kind of information if you're not the editor-in-chief... Publishers can access these reviews easily too, although it's also very unlikely they'll make them available, especially without editorial board approval.

@allure: Yes, of course -- everyone with administrator access to the web system. There are probably a dozen people at least for each journal who have the appropriate permissions.

@StrongBad -- that boggles the mind!

IRB approval is not generally needed to analyze data that was collected for purposes other than research.

@Buzz That is strongly not true in my location, in the US. Consent may not be required by the IRB, but that doesn't mean IRB approval isn't necessary.

@BryanKrause Your institution's policies may differ, but most U.S. universities (following federal funding guidelines) only require IRB approval of secondary data analyses if two conditions are met:  The individuals involved are potentially identifiable, and the data was not expected to be disseminated publicly.  That would make an analysis of referee reports exempt, if the identities of the referees are not included in the data set; with the referee names, it might need IRB approval.

@Buzz The names may not be necessary for the reviews to be identifiable. The IRB likely decides whether or not it needs full review.

@Buzz Bryan is correct, you need IRB approval to be exempt from IRB approval.

I'm skeptical of this answer because the question asks about research by historians.  I thought historical research typically did not require ethical approval, and that historians don't get consent because the people they study are dead.

I'll second @AnonymousPhysicist's comment: Research that is in the "exempt" category still requires IRB to determine that it is exempt. It's not up to an individual researcher to claim that it is exempt.

@AnonymousPhysicist we need to be careful. For human subjects research, the IRB needs to make the determination that the research is exempt. The IRB generally does not need to make the determination that research is not human subjects research or that an activity (e.g., process improvement) is not research.

Requests to review for The Astrophysical Journal, published by IOP Science, come with the following note:
"7. If qualified historians wish to use your report, we will ask you or your heirs. If you wish us to destroy your report, then please inform us."
I also have a vague recollection of a request for my consent to release my reports after a suitable delay (20 years?) for historical research, but I can't find the message, or recall which journal & publisher it was.

Many journals use open peer review - the reviews are published alongside the paper. See e.g. Biomedical Central, BMJ Open.
So this isn’t just for future historians - you can see the peer review comments now.
(The weakness here is you can only see reports for accepted papers - the rejected papers aren’t published, so neither are the reviewer reports)

Seems to me that - as alluded to in some other answers - the big question is over anonymity of reviewers and confidentiality of the review reports. I think that any historical study would have to address these issues. The two likely ways of doing that, off the top of my head, are for,
a) Studies of historical science, where everybody concerned is dead. Probably not enough time has gone by since review systems were computerised for this to be relevant yet.
b) Statistical studies, where robust efforts have been made to anonymise and aggregate the data.

While the data probably exists, referees in an anonymous review process are entitled to anonymity.  I suspect that journals would not release the data out of concerns for the reputation of their processes.
They may be more willing for historically important papers when all concerned are no longer with us.


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Is it rude to ask your professor to NOT put you as co-author of a paper?
I am working as a research engineer for my professor. He told me to write a conference paper from the master’s thesis of one of his graduate students, since I am working in the same field. After reading the thesis and analyzing the student's results, I found that most of the work is of low quality and does not justify a publication. I told my professor that there are several inconsistencies in the results and several misleading claims, but he told me to continue writing the paper to the best I can given that “I have experience with paper writing and that I can present the work in a light that could get the paper through peer review”.
Now that I am almost done with the draft, I don’t want to be an author of this paper given the facts. How can I talk to my professor asking him to not put me as an author without sounding rude?

Thanks for your commend Roland. I will confront him about at least not wanting to become an author. If he still submits without me, hopefully the reviewers would reject the work given we are aiming for a relatively good venue.

To elaborate on the comment by Roland.
If you wrote the paper and analyzed the results, you have a strong claim of ownership on the paper (along with the graduate student who got the initial results). Depending on the depth of your analysis you may well be the lead author so it’s your call by right.
If your professor is pushing for the result to be published then your name has to be on it. If you refuse it can’t happen. If they choose to publish without you it’s ethical misconduct and grounds for retracting the paper from wherever it’s submitted to.
The only diplomatic avenue here is that you push to correct the issues and then submit. Otherwise, politely say that you think the paper is not ready and that it is not publishable in its current state.

Thanks for your comment. I do not want any ownership of the work as I don't think there is any novelty to begin with, the validity of the claims and inconsistencies in the results comes last. I will confront the professor about this and ask him to publish without me. If he proceeds with the submission, I will hope that the peer review process can run its course. Unfortunately, I have to submit the work to keep myself in good graces of the professor since I've worked with him for several years and need his endorsement to progress in my career.

I understand your situation, if he submits without you then I question his moral compass

Let me suggest something a bit different. I can't, at this distance, suggest whether it would be successful or even recommended. But, consider the following.
Suppose that you were the student's professor instead, seeing what you now see. What would you want to do ethically and properly? Suppose that you give the student a draft of a paper, but include in it (using a distinct typographic "callout") all of the problems you see in the paper and the work. For example, when you mention a result, you could include a parenthetical comment that the foundation is experimentally weak or flawed. These can be done inline or, perhaps, as a summary. Inline is probably more dramatic.
You could, then, as the professor, suggest that the student address all of the flaws in the paper and then suggest s/he write a sole-authorship final paper for publication, using whatever they like in the draft.
A professor could do this properly, of course. I don't know if you can. It is a serious matter to oppose your professor as he has a lot of control over your future and (as an employee) over the present.
This "draft" with suggestions can be sent to both the student and your professor who can then make a judgement. You might be able to make it clear to the professor that the work isn't ready for prime time.
But, you need to judge whether it is worth the effort and the level of risk it entails. The latter depends on the personality of the professor, I think.
But if the student takes your draft and does the right thing with it, all will benefit.

As to your topline question, it is only "rude" if the professor thinks it is rude, and, again, that is a matter of personality. Ideally, raising objections to the content and your association with it shouldn't be seen as rude.

Thanks for your suggestions. The student has little interest in publishing the paper since he has started working in the industry, so asking him to solve the issues with the paper is out of the question. This is simply my professor pushing for a publication. That being said, I am working on improving the students work from the ground-up, from approach to results. Hopefully this will be a completely different paper when I am done. I don't think its worth it for me to push the professor, risking my career over a research paper. Thanks!


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Does building a Python library fall in the category of research?
If a Python library is built can it be turned into a research paper? Will it be accepted?

Building a Python library from scratch, no matter how difficult is it (if it's too complicated it's not a feature, you should blame the developers!), is not doing research unless you wrote the library by yourself and then you can publish it for example here: https://joss.theoj.org/ . Otherwise, merely building a software library is not research...

Thanks for the link. I felt that it might qualify for it. There's got to be an investigation that led to building it while conducting the investigation. Does that apply to programming languages? They too can't be considered as research?

There seem to be two possible interpretations of this question: 1) Can you publish a peer-reviewed paper about a Python library? 2) Does this qualify as research? — The answer to Question 1 is a clear yes (I have done so myself and any example suffices for tis). The answer to Question 2 is somewhat opinion-based and philosophical. Probably neither question produces answers that actually help you. Please consider [edit]ing your question to address this. (Or ask a new question if the existing answers would be invalidated by this.)

@Wrzlprmft Actually (1) is the question asked ,only that this time it will be built by the individual before a peer review that will be published. Do you have any links to published works on libraries. You can add yours if you're okay with it.

@user12075410: only that this time it will be built by the individual before a peer review that will be published. – I fail to make sense of this. How could the library be written after the publication? Also, peer reviews are usually not published (and even if they are, this does not seem to be what you are asking for). You can find my publications and software on my profile.

"build" is a confusing verb to use here, because it has a second common meaning of converting source code into runnable software. I suggest writing "creating a Python library" instead.

The point of research is the production of knowledge. If, after you take away all the code you’ve written and the datasets you’ve collected, there’s nothing left, then you’re not doing research, you’re doing development.
So, if you want to do artefact-oriented research like this, the question you have to ask yourself is this: what is the new knowledge you’re producing? Are you testing a new, better algorithm? Are you applying an existing algorithm in a new context and determining if it works there? Are you investigating how a complex system functions, or how it interacts with humans and/or the environment? What is the research question that you’re answering?
If you do determine that you’re doing research rather than development, however, there are a number of artefact-oriented research methodologies, such as the Design Science Research Methodology. You should be able to find more information on it with Google Scholar, if you’re a member of an institution that gives you access to their research journal subscriptions.

It was the research and publications on ai.google that led me here.Thanks for the answer.

It can and has been done.
Consider PonyGE2, a Python framework for Grammatical Evolution. It has presented at GECCO '17, a leading conference on genetic and evolutionary computation.
It's not strange that it was accepted; it was devised as a research tool, allowing other researchers to also experiment with GE using a common framework. So while it's perhaps not so much entirely novel research, it's more a "utility publication", similar to a publication describing an interesting dataset or benchmark set.
Note that the Github page tells you how to cite PonyGE2 if you use it in research. A utility publication that accompanies a tool that gains wide adoption can actually result in a lot of citations.

There might be research that leads you to build such a library, but coding itself, isn't research. But compilers, for example, were built on a ton of research prior to any coding beyond the experimental.
One often, in CS, does some research first and then builds something to validate the conclusions of the research. But the paper produced is about the research findings, not the code. Code optimizers fall in this category as do many aspects of operating systems.
But note that it starts with the research, not the code.

Also vice versa - one might write code to enable research. One might then release that code as a library to help other people's research.

Have a look at this page:
https://scikit-image.org/
They give a source they would like to be cited when using their modules. I have seen similar things for other libraries (I cannot remember where, unfortunately) not only for Python. So obviously there is a realistic chance to have a paper published if you have a library that is really helpful to many people. It might not be research when being strict, but it does not have to be to be useful. And if your library contains new algorithms or the like, it will also be research.
It is probably best to have a look at the paper cited in the link above to get an impression what is necessary to be published.

It really depends on what library you are building. If building your Python library involves innovating in software engineering methodology, generating new insights to how software works, developing and implementing a new algorithm, or tackling a previously difficult task elegantly, then surely it is a valuable research project. Building Tensorflow, for example, is definitely research; building Flask, while also a venerable task, is probably not research.


text:
Academia options as an autodidact?
I've been spending the past three years as an autodidact for computer science and physics, in lieu of a degree. Main reason for this being that high school classes bored me, so I did poorly in them, and there were no CS classes available at the time. I decided at the age of seventeen to begin learning CS and pursue an equivalency instead, which I have.
However, now I am starting to see that I'd like to branch into observatory astronomy and integrate my data-science knowledge, as I notice an ever increasing necessity for people with both these skills. However, the space community seems to feel a lot more strongly about having a degree, more specifically a PhD (which I personally disagree with but that's getting off topic).
My question is, what possible options do I have? Should I continue being an autodidact and try to prove myself without a degree? Or suck it up and pursue one? If lack of a doctorate is out of the question, what's the most efficient track to a university with the competency level appropriate for me? My biggest problem is time. I want to do as little side tracking as possible, and stay on track with my current competency level.

what possible options do I have? — Option 1: Get a PhD.  Option 2: Don't work in astronomy.

Suck it up and pursue a degree. You may not agree with the current status quo, but on that same token, you will not be able to single-handedly change all of academia by yourself.

Where are you living? Do you have the resources to pursue your education in a different country?

@Patricia Shanahan, I am an American. Studying abroad would probably be incredibly difficult.

Option 3: earn a giant fortune doing something else so you can build and buy your own astronomy research center and possibly your own radio telescope array in Chile.

You haven't said what it is you want to do with astronomy. If you want to do citizen science for fun, you don't need any degree. If you want someone to pay your for your work, you need to identify what the typical requirements are for the specific job that you want. We certainly can't tell you about the requirements of a job when you haven't even said what job you want...

@virmaior I have to buy an entire observatory to search for extra terrestrials? I wonder if the aliens are laughing at us for taking so long to find them.

@ff524 I guess Data Science doesn't narrow it down a whole lot. search for habitable planets I suppose. Though it seems very black and white in regards to requiring a PhD or not regardless of what I do with it. Didn't think what I'd do with it would matter if one would be required. Are there astronomy fields that do not require one? Having astronomy as a hobby is starting to seem more viable to me. However my question leans more towards If I must obtain one, what is the most efficient track to achieve it with my current situation.

I don't mean "what field of astronomy", I mean "what job title." You might be able to e.g. get a job as a lab tech without a PhD, but you won't be doing terribly interesting work. You should [edit] your post to explain what kind of career you are looking for.

related: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/69746/do-i-have-to-have-a-phd-to-get-a-post-doc-position/69749#69749

also related: http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/46890/19607

Do you have an undergrad degree? From what I can see, the standard career path of a researcher (I mean someone who is paid salary to do research) requires obtaining first a BSc dergree (then maybe an MSc) and then an PhD. This is included in the standard hiring procedures, where you'd be expected to have some degree certificate (e.g., BSc or MSc to get accepted as a PhD student) and a couple of academic references. There do exist some vacancies for people with BSc/MSc, but without a PhD, but there are not too many.

You are seriously handicapping yourself by not earning (at least) a BSc degree. A simple look on your SO profile (something that most employers do anyway), shows only elementary understanding of Java. That reveals three unfortunate things a) that you are very far from having the knowledge of a mediocre CS BSc degree holder b) that you do not have the necessary tools / preparation to deal with data science (even average CS BSc holders do not) and c) you are vastly overestimating your own abilities (a common issue for autodidacts). Please, for your sake, get a degree to advance your career.

@Alexandros My ability to obtain a career in programming is not in question, it is my ability to gain one in the physical sciences, more particularly Astronomy.

@Alexandros I am not sure you can judge computer science knowledge that way. I've asked some basic questions when learning a programming language, even with decades of experience and a computer science PhD.

@PatriciaShanahan I will have to disagree. Every recent average CS graduate is capable of doing a "hello world" app in Java. Not knowing basic Java and expecting to excel in data science (we are not talking theoretical CS) where you may need to know R, python, Matlab, Hadoop, Java and etc. is not really an option.

@Alexandros I agree with you, but you have missed that knowing OOP, C++ and Java is sufficient background level for anyone with a BSc to pursue anything related to programming, e.g. web programming, design, job related, big data,...since most programming languages are only non-trivial extensions.

@Alexandros I am not a CS 'graduate' I am three years in, and those questions are based off my intuition from a year ago. I've hardly touched Java or asked an SO question since then. Your argument is like telling a third year student they cannot expect to obtain a BSc, because of the intelligence level they had as a first year student.

The problem with academic outsiders is that you cannot judge their abilities. Having a Ph.D. does not mean that you are good, and having none does not mean that you are bad, but there is a strong correlation between degrees and competence. If you have neither a degree nor published work I have only your word that you actually know anything about CS or astronomy. At the same time for every position there are dozens of applicants with a degree, publications, and recommendations, so your chances of getting this position are practically 0.
So the first question is whether you need the income from a position, or do you have some other job providing you with a sufficient income? If you need the money, you almost certainly need a Ph.D. The only exception I could think of would be that you publish remarkable results. But then you can turn these results into a Ph.D. at no further costs anyway.
The second question is how much resources you need for your research. In mathematics and CS a lot of serious research requires nothing but a computer for typesetting. In astronomy you might be able to run over existing data or do simulations without much costs, but it is more likely that you need computation power beyond your financial means. If you need access to observatories, you run into serious trouble.
So if your planned research requires some outside input, and you do not get a degree which allows you to successfully ask for this input, you have to become known in some other way. Start with problems which require no resources, publish results, give talks at conferences, talk to people privately at conferences. Once you earned some respect, it should be a lot easier to get help with your projects.

Thank you, I appreciate some insight aside from an expensive piece of paper looking fancy. I found it odd that you could prove yourself as an autodidact programmer, but not an astronomer, but I guess the observatory point makes sense. I'll just take the PhD route and start off with a community college and work up from there. All my CS knowledge is still very much useful, so it doesn't put me behind, plus nothing is to stop me from studying the normal subjects I am currently doing anyways.

There is another aspects of degrees that drives the need for a PhD. This has to do that the main property of a PhD is that it is a philosophical doctorate, it teaches you how to think and approach problems in a very particular, highly structured way. Masters and BSc degrees do this somewhat, but to a much lesser degree.
While it is reasonably easy for someone very talented to learn to think in a BSc way, it is much harder to do so independently for a doctorate. It is possible, but uncommon, and most cases involve people who dropped out rather than never started.
Note that this says nothing about subject skills. Subject skills, such as programming, can very well be self-taught, although guidance is very helpful, especially to gain more conceptual understanding faster. Data science often involves a large amount of trial and error with well-defined tools. Large aspects of that are primarily skills (but do require some degree of advanced understanding).

I agree with the prior answer, but have some further points on the relationship between programming and astronomy, and on the community college route.
If you wanted to do paid, supported research in computer science, you would need a PhD just as much as to do paid, supported research in astronomy. A PhD is the easiest way both to learn to do research and to demonstrate that you can do research. Programming in itself is different because it is a practical skill distinct from research.
After retirement, I took a community college Latin 101 course just for fun, and I volunteer with a community college robotics group. The good news is that you will have some bright, motivated, fellow students. The bad news is that you will meet some students who are just going through the motions, and are not really trying to learn.
You may find some of the courses you have to take boring, but you are presumably more mature now than when you were in high school, so you should cope better. Aim to do work at a much higher standard than is demanded for the course. That will help you concentrate, and equip you for transfer to a four year school.


text:
What is the average waiting time for a paper deposited to an open archive such as HAL?
I recently deposited a research article to the HAL open archive, and I am waiting for a PDF version of this article to be reviewed and made available online through this archive.
It seems as if papers which were deposited after my paper was deposited are now being uploaded, so I’m concerned that I might have somehow uploaded my article incorrectly.
So it is natural to ask: What is the average waiting time for a paper deposited to an open archive such as HAL? Also, when should I start to make inquiries to HAL concerning when my paper will be available online?

Usually, it seems that the waiting time for a paper between the deposit and the availability is one or two days. I remember a period one year ago in which I waited more than one month, but there was an uploading of the site. I do not know whether the statistics are available.

As commented by Davide Giraudo, the waiting time is typically one or two open days. I think submissions are manually checked by a team in France, so if you submit on Saturday Australian time, you'll have to wait at least until Tuesday. If the team is very  busy, it can take a few more days.
Not asked but maybe worth mentioning: to check whether you are allowed to upload your article to an open archive such as HAL, type your journal name on RoMEO to get something like:

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
Is making non-culture-related exam questions culture-specific ever a good idea?
So far I maintain the position that an exam question for a subject that is not related to culture should not be culture-specific. By that I mean a question should not contain any "jargon" only known mostly to the Americans. But I am not sure if it is just I am too cautious about such a topic that may possibly touch some discrimination issues.

You are not being too cautious; academia is diverse and local culture is not part of common experience. (I've seen my share of exercises that assume the rules of soccer and baseball competitions to be well-known; I would have at the very least asked for clarification if I had encountered such an exercise on an exam.) If you want to include it, you have to explain it.

@darij: Even if you explain the rules of soccer excellently, soccer fans will still be at a significant advantage because they don't need to spend exam time to understand them, and they will notice instinctively if the outcome is wrong somehow. And that's before considering the likelihood that you explained every relevant detail in a concise and easy to understand manner.

Assuming that the class is not on American culture, you are essentially asking if it is ever a good idea to evaluate students on the basis of knowledge that was not taught in class and that they could not have any reasonable expectation of needing to know.
(Example: I wouldn't expect to need to know how american football scoring works when I went to sit an electronic engineering exam. At minimum, for a question that uses the setting of a score counting machine, someone who's watched football games in the past would need much less time to understand the prerequisites, and likely notice discrepancies in the machine's behaviour more easily. For fields like sociology, a cultural context might be unavoidable. In that case, the class should also contain this cultural context, so students can know what to expect.)
If your goal is to evaluate how well students have learned the class materials, then no. It is never a good idea.
If your goal is to measure how well-integrated they are into american culture, maybe? I'm not sure what kind of exam that would be, though.

Thank you. Also reminds me of completing my specification of question.


text:
Are there any negative consequences associated with asking your former advisor about the status of a joint paper collaboration?
I coauthored a paper with my former advisor and he sent it to an expert for review before submitting it to a journal. A couple of weeks have passed by and I would like to know the status, but I have not heard anything new from my former advisor about the paper.
I thus am wondering:

Are there any negative consequences associated with asking my former advisor about the status of the paper?

Simply put, I am afraid that my former advisor would feel that I am being pushy or something similar.
Moreover, if there are no negative consequences, I would like to know how to properly formulate such an email.

If you co-authored the paper, this is definitely a harmless and reasonable question. Just send your former advisor a brief email, asking whether he has heard back from the person he asked to referee it. Something along the lines of
Dear Prof. X,
I was wondering whether you have heard back from Prof Y about our paper yet.
Could you please keep me updated when you do?
Kind regards,
Z

(Since you're afraid to ask I've guessed that you have a formal relationship with this person, but off course replace "Dear Prof." and "Kind regards" with whatever you usually would use to address him.)
Note that a couple of weeks isn't a very long time for reviewing a paper, as it's the kind of job that people tend to put off until either right before the deadline or until a magical time when they will be less busy, so it's very likely that the other person just hasn't gotten back to your former advisor yet. Especially if they didn't give them some sort of deadline.

Thanks for taking time to write. May I know what title of such an email would be most appropriate?

You shouldn't overthink the title of an email. Just something like 'paper status' will do.

I see no problem with such a question.  Just phrase it in a non-pushy way, like:

Hi, XXX: I just wanted to check in on the status of our paper, since we sent it to YYY for input a couple of weeks ago.  Do you know if YYY has gotten a chance to review it yet?


text:
My paper was withdrawn from predatory journal after publication, what should I do?
I am currently in a very embarrassing situation.
I have a paper (forgot to say, this paper takes no more than two pages) submitted to a journal. The journal accepted my paper for publication and I saw it online. But today I found that my paper disappeared without notifying me! I emailed them, and a staff member replied that a reviewer asked them to withdraw my paper. The reason given for this was:

Your paper does not meet the requirements for publication.

And I then tracked the publisher and the editorial policy, I found the journal is nearly a predatory one. First, it is a new journal, published only for one year. They require no publication fees only this year, from next year on, they do require! Second, the publisher is in the famous list of predatory publishers. Also, it took only two and a half weeks from submission to acceptance.
On top of this, I may face problems because I have used this paper to apply some scholarship.
What can I do?

I am seriously considering to give the name of this journal. Though the journal requires no publication fee, its act shows significantly that it is a predatory one.

Yes, certainly.. You cannot withdraw a paper, based on quality concerns once it has been taken in for review and eventually accepted for publication. I am not sure what you can do, against them, but I would blow the whistle on the publisher, and avoid them in the future. Good luck!

So, is there any serious journal that could possibly do so? Any precedent? I would say, NO, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS REGRET AFTER PUBLICATION, ABSURD!

@shane: Usually, someone accusing another of something implies the accusing one has such thoughts...

@posdef of course you can. It's called "retraction" and journals do it all the time for all kinds of reasons.

New journal, doesn't require publication fees for first year so they'll build up a publishing history... sounds familiar

So you didn't pay anything and your paper will not be published in a fake journal. What is the problem? Submit to a legitimate journal and move on.

@CapeCode: Right, ...

@CapeCode ummm, copyright transfer and scholarship applications seem to be two obvious problems.

@ff524: you're part right, but when a journal retracts an article, it issues a retraction notice next to the article. Removing an article from the list of published papers after the fact is an extremely serious breach of publishing ethics. It breaks the publication consistency (what if someone had cited the paper?) and can, as here, make the author look like a liar. Last, a retraction notice must specify the reason for retraction. Having one's paper retracted is also embarrassing, but in a rather different way.

@Kurt I do not think giving the name adds value and I think the community agrees: http://meta.academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1297/should-we-name-names-when-talking-about-bad-publishers-and-researchers

@StrongBad: Thanks. I was on the verge of naming the name of the journal, but I have chosen to forgive so that I can move on :)

The most important thing you need to do is figure out the copyright status. If you have given them exclusive rights to reproduce the work, then you may not be able to publish it anywhere else. It is likely that the copyright transfer was part of a publication contract where the publisher has agreed to publish your work in exchange for the copyright transfer. Hopefully, the publisher will given up the rights you transferred to them. If they won't, you may need to get a lawyer to explore your options.
Having listed the paper in a scholarship application is problematic. Paper-based journals and journals that generate DOIs create a permanent record of the published papers. In your case, it seems a published paper has simply disappeared. I would write to the places you have submitted an application and explain the situation. something along the lines of

The paper XXX, which I listed on my application, was published by YYY. Unfortunately, YYY is a known predatory publisher and has since made the paper unavailable. I still stand behind the research; attached is a copy of that work. I am currently working towards resubmitting the manuscript to a reputable publisher. I am sorry for any problems this causes.

Predatory journals are often "open access", and at least reputable open access journals usually don't require you to transfer the copyright. Rather, you just grant them a permanent non-exclusive right to distribute, or release the paper under a Creative Commons license or similar. So if this journal emulates that aspect of a real journal, this issue may actually be okay. Of course, one has to check.

I think it is possible to have both free as in beer and free as in freedom reputable open access journals. The freedom ones will use a permissive license like CC and allow access and reuse, but the beer ones will only allow access and generally not reuse.

Ok, my experience is limited and perhaps not representative.

@NateEldredge most fake journals have confusing policies regarding copyright, and only a fraction use CC licenses (or sometimes they claim to do so, but still ask for copyright transfer). They seem to know as much about publishing as they do about science.

Thank you so much; now I just want to keep myself away from being in any relation to such effing junk journals... I don't want to be connected to all those contaminating journals

Well, if the paper eventually got rejected by the journal, for whatever reason, then the whole contract, including the copyright transfer, should be invalid. But it depends on how exactly the contract is written.

It's hard to give objective advice without knowing more about the case, especially which journal, but this journal's behavior is surprising. Usually fake journals will publish anything as long as you pay for it.
Some have as strategy to generously offer free publishing to 'high quality papers' (which tells you something about the papers that don't fall in this category by their standards...) or to Western authors. In the later case, the goal is to give a false appearance of international recognition to cater for the needs of (mostly, but not limited to, India- and China-based) authors to publish in 'international' journals. Of course they have no real strategy to archive the work that they receive, they probably have no data management or backup strategy, nothing. I suspect some operate from internet cafés. It's frequent that entire journals just vanish without a trace, and without reimbursing the APCs, obviously.
In your case, why would they not publish your paper is mysterious, but is probably not unrelated to the fact that you didn't pay anything. It's possible that they actually evaluated it and found an issue with it (plagiarism, ethical concerns, blatant off-topic, etc.) or that it didn't serve their purpose of legitimating the trash that they accept for a fee, but only you can know if this is an option.
Or, they have bad intentions, from which I can think of a few:

They will ask for money to publish it.
They will want to sell you back the rights.
They will sell the content to some unscrupulous scholar who will publish it as his/her own.

At any rate, brace yourself, anything is possible. I would recommend, in the short-term, to upload a pre-print on your personal website to give access to it to your scholarship committee, even if the copyright contract prevents you to do so. Fake journals rarely have the firepower (or enough legal notions) for seriously fighting over copyright issues. You should also tell your story to Beall, at least for the sake of warning other scholars.

I don't think it is my problem. The paper takes no more than two pages and how can any problem not to be detected before publication? Moreover, if they "suspected" there is some issue in the paper, then they should contact me first, instead of withdrawing it sneakily without notification.


text:
Can being free of publication charge be an indication of being a non-predatory journal?
Though some serious journals charge publication fee as well, to a certain extent, can being free of publication charge be an indication,
albeit not a sure indication,
of being a non-predatory journal?
Since a less known journal suffers from being confused with a predatory one, if I want to make some of my publications free from being belittled, would declaring the journals publishing my papers are free of charge be a wise action?

Related: How do you judge the quality of a journal? and How to identify predatory publishers/journals

Also related: What are "fake", "shady", and/or "predatory" journals?

No. A journal that does not charge publication fees can still be a predatory journal.
Generally, the motivation for publishing a predatory journal is to make money. Since the product they create (the journal) is too low in quality for them to be able to sell subscriptions and earn revenue from readers, they often make money by collecting publication fees from authors.
However, predatory journals may also have reasons not to charge publication fees. For example, when starting out, they may offer publication free of charge in order to get authors to submit to them, so they can build up a publishing history to look more legitimate. As another example, an individual might start a fake journal so that he and some of his friends have somewhere to "publish" (for career advancement), and accept submissions from other authors without fee so as to make the journal appear legitimate.

Ah ha, thanks. What I feel is: Since there is no universal criterion for being a predatory journal, I would adopt for convenience the criterion of charing publication fee or not. Yes, of course, that is not a sure sign. In the present days, many long-existing journals would be therefore innocently deemed as predatory ones...

@Omen: May I know what are the significant characteristics of being a predatory journal? I found on the internet that someone has published a list of predatory publishers.


text:
Is it safe to give all the papers mentioned in my statement of purpose in my writing samples?
I am applying to US doctoral programs.
I have decided to mention especially four papers in my statement of purpose, so I have to present them in my writing samples. As a consequence, my writing samples take almost a hundred pages. Nevertheless, I make them into one pdf file.
Then my concern is if lengthy writing samples would instead hurt my application?

Have mercy on the review committee...

Writing sample. If the four papers are qualitatively equivalent in terms of writing skill, then sending one would have shown them as much as four.

@Compass: Yep, then how can I mention the papers that I consider representative without presenting them somewhere in my application?

Your writing sample isn't supposed to be all the writing that you consider representative of your work - it's supposed to be just enough writing to demonstrate what you're capable of. If you need 100 pages to demonstrate your writing ability, you're doing it wrong.

@ff524: What I want is to show the committee my own research. I want to exploit writing sample space to do this. If this is improper, then where may I put them in?

You list your research papers (including the URL where they may be found) in your CV, so the committee can look them up if they're interested. You don't abuse the writing sample for this. A student who can't follow instructions in filling out an application is not an attractive candidate.

To point to a specific program at a top ranked school (whose requirement I happened to know off the top of my head), Stanford's Political Science admission requirements specifically state that the writing sample should be 20-35 pages (double spaced).  Additionally, you can submit more than one sample if you don't have a longer essay to submit.  For example, two 10-15 page papers instead of one 20-35 pager.
https://politicalscience.stanford.edu/graduate-program/prospective-students/phd-admissions
I don't know how strict they are about the 35 page upper limit, but I think 100 pages is going to be far more than any department will want.
Of course, this will depend on the program, but Stanford is a good example of a top-tier school with top-tier expectations.
Also, Stanford is the only program I've seen that even suggests submitting more than one writing sample.  Most application forms will likely only accept one document, so unless you condense multiple documents into one, you're not going to be able to submit multiple samples anyway.  I would suggest just picking your favorite and submitting that.

The writing sample is to show a sample of your research.  Just because you mention multiple papers or projects in your statement of purpose does not mean you need to include them all in your writing sample.  Pick what you think is the single best paper and include that.  (As jonescb suggests, if the application guidelines give a page limit, and you have several short samples, you could consider including more than one, but only if their total length is less than the stated page limit.)
Do not (as you suggest in your comment) "exploit" the writing sample to stuff in as much of your research as possible.  If you have published, that will show up in your CV.  If your samples are not published but were, for instance, written as class papers, that will show on your transcript in the list of classes you've taken and how well you did in them.  The writing sample is not supposed to be "proof" that you've done everything you talked about your SOP; it's just a sample of one thing you've done.
Even if the ocmmittee does look at your overlong writing sample, it will probably be perceived negatively.  A person who tries to stuff the sample may be perceived as unable to focus on a single topic, or as trying to show off how much they've done.  At the least, you will probably be perceived as someone who did not pay attention to the application directions (which, in my experience, usually use the world "sample" in the singular and give a rough page range), which never helps.

Yep, it is a showcase man. Moreover, schools who holds such point of view do not suit me. Fear intelligence? Of course not.

@Kurt: Fear intelligence?  Not every opportunity to showcase some of your intellectual accomplishments is an opportunity to showcase all of them.  A conference presentation, for instance, is absolutely a showcase --- for one particular set of research findings.  You wouldn't get up in front of a conference audience and start cataloguing every project you've ever done.  A graduate school application is much less a showcase of what you have done and much more a preview of what you will do while in the program.

Thanks. Yep, I know. But my choices are NOT all of my serious works. I just choose four of them to represent that I have both theoretical and applied works in my field and I also have works in another field. What I want to convey is my academic literacy. Moreover, is not it a rational prediction that someone having some accredited records is more likely to have more in the future? Plus, always people tell you "too much of this" or "too little of that".

I would not put more than one in a writing sample, and I would even attempt to avoid that at all costs. If they are published or are working papers available online, then you should include citations and/or links in your statement of purpose and resume/CV. Otherwise, I would not include them in your application at all.
Though this is with the usual disclaimer that the answer probably varies by field. This is mostly from an economics perspective.


text:
Will showing disinterest in stakeholder engagement affect my offer of admission?
A PhD advertisement mentioned that there is scope for engagement with stakeholder groups based on student interest.
I do not have previous experience of stakeholder analysis. There is so much information on the web regarding stakeholder communications plans, engagement plans, management plans. As I do not have previous experience of working with primary stakeholders, I feel this procedure could be exhausting.
My potential supervisor wants to know my attitude and approach towards communicating with stakeholders. If it is essential for my PhD funding, I will build interest in working with stakeholders. But, can it negatively impact getting PhD admission with full funding if I show a lack of knowledge or enthusiasm to engage with stakeholders?
As a side note, I have experience working in research collaborations and I do not have a problem working as a research assistant to fund my study.
But is it really exhausting to engage with stakeholder group?

Sounds like an excellent opportunity. Is this a communication or language concern?

Any position you take in your life will require ‘stakeholder engagement’ unless nobody cares about what you do. Seems like a great learning option and way to rapidly build a professional network.

I have no idea what "stakeholder engagement" means in an academic context.  Can anyone translate?

@TerryLoring, OP names WHO, which I imagine is the World Health Organization, as an example, but maybe it’s best if he or she elaborates on what the expected engagement is.

I suggest honesty with your potential supervisor. If you have no prior experience (as few of us do at that stage) say so. If you are willing to explore it and participate, say that also. A doctoral program is fundamentally a learning experience, not a professional position in which you are assumed already well qualified.
Your potential supervisor seems committed to this path. I would probably do you no good to resist it. If you really don't want to get involved in such things (a valid position IMO), then you should look elsewhere for a position as the potential conflict with a supervisor does you no good and can lead to failure.
Make a choice, but be honest.