text:
How can I judge whether an alternative "impact factor" is from an accepted and genuine source?
So I was wondering whether the SJIF (Scientific Journal Impact Factor) calculation was authentic and accepted.
How can someone identify whether an alternative impact factor is generally accepted and from a reputable source? What kind of things should one look for in evaluating an impact factor metric?

Since we don't generally answer questions about a specific company here (see "Can I ask about my specific situation" in the [help/on-topic]), I've modified the post to ask more generally how someone can determine whether an "impact factor" comes from a reputable source.

related: Which quantitative metrics are there of the quality and prestige of journals, and how do they compare?

They don't even tell you how are evaluated, just a vague list of things that they look at.

One way to judge a journal metric is to look at a few of the journals that are ranked highly by the metric, and judge for yourself whether they seem like important, reputable journals.  (See How do you judge the quality of a journal.)
According to the SJIF metric, this is the publisher of the US-based journal with the highest impact factor. Visit their website (if you dare - it may give you a headache). I think it's pretty clear that this journal is not an important or reputable journal. The other journals ranked by this metric are similarly unprofessional.
Also: here's Jeffrey Beall's list of criteria that he uses for identifying a "fake" impact factor, and a list of metrics that he believes meet those criteria.

That is hideous!

That website looks like it was designed by someone whose only exposure to web design was Geocities sites from the 90s.

Well, that website has certainly made an impact on me!

Mirroring ff524's advice, go to journals that should be ranked highly, and see if they are. Either if their rank is appropriate, or if they're there at all.
For example, the American Journal of Public Health or the American Journal of Epidemiology are decent, society level journals that should be well-represented by any meaningful citation metric that's in the public health or epidemiology sphere. Neither even appears in SJIF's list. This indicates two things:

The journal isn't of the mind that being listed by that impact factor index is meaningful or worthwhile. That's a pretty strong signaling mechanism.
The service isn't attempting coverage of journals that actually represent where scholarship is being done. Which raises the question of what they are making their decisions based on - likely processing fees.

These types of services may (and hopefully should...) disagree on their metrics somewhat, but if the service is reputable, the major journals of your field should appear there in about the order you'd expect them to be in.

I like your first point. Just please note that there are journals which oppose the idea of bibliometrics and are not listed in any of them. But it's an exceptional thing, and while they may be important for the community, the big journals don't adopt this policy.

@yo' That's possible, and while I think I might let "They're missing one or two..." go, but if its a systematic pattern, it's a bad sign.

The first thing to check is what the index is claiming to measure, and how it is trying to measure that. Due to it's name, the Scientific Journal Impact Factor appears to be similar to the traditional Journal Impact Factor (JIF) from Thomson-Reuters. From its name you would therefore assume that the SJIF is measuring some sort of average citation rate of papers published in the journal. However, the list of evaluation critera of SJIF doesn't include any information about citation rates. It also doesn't mention a database of citations, which is needed if you want to evaluate journals based on citation performance. In contrast, the JIF from Thomson-Reuters is using citation information from the Web of Science database while the SCImago Journal Rank (SJR indicator) and the Source normalized impact per paper (SNIP) are using the Scopus citation database.
In fact, the evaluation critera that SJIF claim to use includes just about everything except information about the citation performance of papers. The index is therefore very misleading, since most people probably read it in comparison to the normal Thomson-Reuters JIF. Instead, they claim to evaluate such things as the Editorial Board, print quality, Internationalization, indexation, review quality etc. It is however completey opaque how all these components are weighted to produce their index. The minimum evaluation critera of SJIF also includes that; "At least one issue [and] At least 3 articles must have been published". To me, this shows quite clearly what kind of information their evaluation is based on.
Having said this, I also agree with the other answers that an easy check is to look at the score of well-known journals in your field (if they are ranked at all), to see how they are ranked in comparison to other journals.


text:
License of code accompanying a published article
Given a paper that introduces a new algorithm and upon publication copyright is transferred to the publisher.
Is an implementation of the presented algorithm considered a derivative of the published article, hence falls under its copyright?
Or can someone implement the algorithm at any time making it available under GNU independently of the published paper?
What happens if the author published the code under GNU license before submitting the paper that derives and explains the algorithm in detail?
I guess, on a more abstract level, my question is, how paper and code relate to each other?

Related: http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/14877/8185

FYI: Has the stance on questions pertaining to legal issues changed?

Copyright only protects the expression of a work that is written down or otherwise placed in a "fixed medium." It does not apply to ideas or concepts.
In the case of a published article where copyright is transferred to the publisher, that copyright only applies to the written content and images in the article. It doesn't apply to the concepts in it.
If you write source code based on concepts described in a paper, you can apply whatever license you want to it - the copyright status of the paper is not relevant. (If the idea is patented, you may have to deal with that... but that is not related to copyright of the published article.)
See Does copyright protect the author's creative ideas? for more information.

If a paper presents an implements an algorithm which is already patented, surely (unless the author is the patent holder) there's much bigger plagiarism issues to confront?

@E.P. I'm not sure what you're referring to. Your comment seems to be about writing a paper based on a patented idea. Neither the question nor the answer is about writing a paper, both are about writing code based on an already published paper (whose ideas may or may not be patented, presumably by the author.)

source: Stack Exchange

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sort: votes


text:
Professor told me to organize a lecture course
I am a PhD candidate. My advisor told me to make and organize a lecture course, for which he is formally listed as the instructor, but he has little knowledge about what the lecture course will deal with. I have more knowledge than him.
Students attend class two times per week.

One day, they give presentation about paper reviews related with this course.
The other day, I conduct the class and give them knowledge in order to understand papers. In both days in a week, he does nothing.

I don't think it's normal.
Even though he gives me many thanks for conducting the class, my feeling isn't going well. Even worse, I don't get paid.
However, because of a (de-facto) vertical relationship between him and me, I don't know what should I do.
I am not sure an ethics committee can protect my privacy.

Can be normal, but depends on where this is. Which culture?

@Peter East Asia, South Korea.

What a great opportunity to demonstrate leadership and get to know lots of people.

Can you get the students to protest that their course isn't being taught by the person who is supposed to teach it? (And yes, what your advisor is doing is certainly unethical. If you were in the U.S. I would recommend bringing this to the attention of other faculty, and the department chair.)

Who is officially the instructor for the course, you or your advisor?

At the very least, I hope you can get some recognition for this, so you can include it in your CV.

@ff524 Of course, advisor

And... what's the question? The original post needs clarification, doesn't it?.

@JonCuster No, it's not a great opportunity, if the OP is not officialy recognised as the lecturer. And it's not only something ethically wrong, but it's also something that, depending on the regulations, can put the OP in trouble in case, e.g., of accidents.

You are being exploited. +1 to G-E. If you want to be subtle when talking to authorities, you might ask miscellaneous practical questions ("My advisor asked me to teach his entire course for him without pay, but what should I do if there's one day I can't do it?") rather than directly complain. This is likely to have the same effect, and perhaps not burn bridges with your advisor.

@MassimoOrtolano - Really? The best way to show a university that you can put together courses is, well, to actually have done so. It gives you something to put on your CV, to talk about in an interview, to have put in letters of recommendation. The best way to show that you are ready for a promotion is to already be doing the next job. The best way for a grad student to show they are ready to be a professor is to show they can do the job. This is an excellent way to show you are ready.

@JonCuster The best way for a grad student to show that they are ready to be a professor is to engage in teaching activities, as you suggest, but to get formal recognition for their teaching activities.

@JonCuster Really, because in the situation described by the OP, it's the professor who is considered to be delivering the course, not the OP. And you will have nothing to put on the CV, because a quick check with the university will tell anybody that you have never delivered the course, according to the registers. The best way to show a university that you can put together courses is, well, to actually to do so, with the official recognition of the university, and show them that your courses are considered valuable by the students.

But as a grad student, you are highly unlikely to be officially teaching a course in the eyes of the university. For one, the accreditation bodies won't like that. There are many things that students, young professors, and young staff members should do that will not show up in black and white on their transcript or job description. Turning down growth and leadership opportunities, explicit or not, will always be a career limiting move.

@JonCuster To organise a protest of exploited teaching staff?

@JonCuster: "But as a grad student, you are highly unlikely to be officially teaching a course in the eyes of the university." That's just not true.  At every university I've ever attended or taught at, qualified graduate students are instructors of record routinely.  Having courses that are officially taught by faculty but are in actuality entirely taught by students would be a much bigger problem.  That would be viewed as scandalous and exploitative on both sides at my big state university, for instance.

@JonCuster But as a grad student, you are highly unlikely to be officially teaching a course in the eyes of the university.   As a grad student, when my department asks me to teach a course, I get an appointment as an adjunct professor and I am officially listed as the course instructor.

@JonCuster: "But as a grad student, you are highly unlikely to be officially teaching a course in the eyes of the university." - maybe two things need to be distinguished here: The person who is officially "in charge" of the course may well be a professor. The person who actually stands in front of the class can be anyone that the person in charge deems suitable, but that person should in some fashion be acknowledged on the official course website or similar.

In my country, the PhD students can give 2-4 hours per week as seminars/classes by the contract.

Main thing here is that you provide work that is not paid.
(Assumption: studying and working in academia is not volunteering or philanthropy. Not quite clear what culture would have to do here. If you feel wrong about the situation, seems that you agree with this assumption, and you're not confusing exploitative situations for real opportunities.)
If that's an opportunity that's offered to you, the local unit/department/centre/faculty ought to offer remuneration for the work you provide, either for preparation work only, or for both preparation and delivery. In other words, the staff member should (have) arrange(d) the practical and financial details for the opportunity.
A 'research ethic committee' has little to nothing to do with the situation you describe, as the situation does not relate to your doctoral research activity. The situation is not about research ethics, it's about professional ethics.
Have you talked to your local administrators/support staff to enquire informally about the affluence of the local unit? Simply, is there money somewhere to cover for the work you contribute? Can they afford to provide you a remuneration that is a fair reflection of the work you provide?
Have you talked to your head of department about the situation? Colleagues might not be aware of the situation, and might disapprove, and help you out, of it.
Last but not least, are there union reps on your campus that you could approach for informed advice?

More troubling than not being paid, is not being recognized officially. It robs the student of the opportunity to get professional credit for this work.

@ff524: I am troubled by both.  It's one thing to agree to a low-paying apprenticeship because of the long-term career benefits.  It's quite another to get conscripted into doing someone else's work for none of their pay.

@ff524: That may be the case, but it's not clear from the question whether this is an actual problem. In some places, the only existing way of "official recognition" for teaching the course is that one is being listed on the official course website. In some universities, it is exclusively the responsibility and duty of the people running a given course to update the course website. If that is the case for the OP, it is simply up to the OP to add their name to the course website.

Here's a different perspective. I'm going to assume that the course you're teaching is a graduate-level course from the description that you've given, but what I'm about to say applies even if it isn't.
I have actually seen this happen in top-tier American schools too. In this case, things were slightly different. Namely, a postdoc supervisor was listed formally as an instructor for a graduate-level course, but when you actually went to the class, someone else would be there to teach the course (and often the professor would not even be present).
In this particular case that I'm thinking about, it happened because of bureaucratic reasons (certain postdocs were not formally allowed to teach high-level courses), and although they were not being paid extra for it, the fact that they were allowed to list this on their CV as a "teaching experience" was enough for the postdocs to get into this arrangement, even without the extra pay.
So if you think about it, things are fairly similar between you and these postdocs. You are both teaching a course that is not credited to your name, and you are both not getting paid. Most likely you are not allowed to formally be an instructor for a course for graduate students if you are a graduate student yourself.
Given the fact that you did not claim in your original post that the advisor is trying to take all the credit for your work, maybe he is trying to give you some solid teaching experience (which is important if you are planning on looking for academic jobs). In fact, this experience (assuming that your advisor allows you to put this on your CV; I don't see any signs of why he wouldn't let you do this) is going to look fantastic in the future. It shows the tremendous amount of trust on your advisor's part, and he believes that despite being junior, you are fit to teach graduate-level courses.
So, it's good to stand up for yourself and make sure that you aren't being exploited, but unless you see true red flags, it is also good to trust your advisor before everything, because if there is one person in the academic world who wants you to succeed the most, it is your advisor.

It all makes sense, but I beg to differ. In the situation that @Sana describes, I would expect, as in the question's situation, the academic to have the teaching material ready to deliver, so that it would be a real opportunity for the student to examine up close the workings of a course - either undergraduate or postgraduate indeed. What rings an alarm bell here is that the student is expected to both prepare and deliver the course, which seems really unfair. Mention on CV is great, but financial acknowledgment surely is not a perk; it's to be expected as standard.

By the academic do you mean the professor? I think preparation of the course is an important aspect of teaching! In the cases that I know of, the postdocs were responsible for every aspect of the course, and as it often concerned their field of expertise, they usually created the course from scratch. It wouldn't make sense to get the student to just deliver the lecture notes that the professor has already written IMO.

When I was a graduate student I co-designed and co-taught a course with my Ph.D. advisor. As far as the department was concerned, he was the only instructor; he got course credit, and I didn't get paid. Still I think I benefited intellectually, and of course it put my advisor in a position to write a stronger letter. But everyone must make their own decisions about this. (I also designed and taught a solo course the next quarter, again without pay or credit, and again I feel this was worth it. But every situation is different.)

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How can reviewers validate work that does not include source code or raw experiment data?
FYI, I am in CS and EE field. Relevant journals and conferences are organized by IEEE, ACM, USENIX and so on.
I've noticed that many paper submission system don't require neither source code nor experiment data.
In this situation, how reviewers tell if a paper under review is forged or not?
I can imagine that a cunning person proposes a novel-looking idea, but their performance  and evaluation is not that good as he/she proposed. Then, I think he/she can forge his/her work slightly so that it cannot be suspected of being forged by reviewers.
Such papers/work make followers have hard time to identify if the work is forged or not.

See Why are papers without code but with results accepted?


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How to anonymize self-citation of source code repository in IEEE double blind peer review?
I am  going to submit a paper IEEE Communications letters.
In the paper, I cited my source code repository to provide an open access:

... For more detail, please refer [1] ...

Reference

My real name, My project name "https://my-source-code-repository", Accessed: 2016-02-17.

However, IEEE Communicaitons Letters is doing double blind peer review and information about authors should be blinded. In this situation, how could I make it blinded?

Anonymize project name
Anonymize repository URL

Reviews might not able to validate the work

Anonymize project committer
Anonymize everything

I think most reviewers for IEEE Communications Letters are unlikely to visit your source code link and try and validate your code. It's fairly unusual in this field (I say this as someone in the same field.) Certainly the reviewers will not expect access to your code. So if you want to anonymize everything, that would be fine.
If you want to preserve the ability of reviewers to access your code (which is a very good thing!) and don't mind going to a little bit of extra trouble, you could always just upload an anonymized tar.gz archive containing the source code (without the version control metadata) to any file sharing site. Then use that URL in the version you submit for review. (When the paper is accepted, you can update the reference to point to your non-anonymous repository.)

Instead of source code, you should provide the executable binary, together with all the scripts to re-produce your experiments. I don't think any reviewer has the patience to read your source code.
In some conference in my field, it is suggested that the authors set up a virtual machine, e.g. a Ubuntu image, and install the compiled tool there.
In order to host these artifacts, you don't need a repository. You only need to put it in, e.g., google drive or dropbox.
Please note that if your repository is in your website, the reviewers will not visit it, for fear of being tracked.

"Please note that if your repository is in your website, the reviewers will not visit it, for fear of being tracked." Smart, thinking about the double-blind from the reviewers' perspective, also.

Distributing an executable binary does not allow reviewers to validate the work the way that distributing source code does. Without source code, all I could say is "Yes, this black box does indeed produce the output that the authors claim for the input that the authors specify".. but I can't say whether the inner workings of that box are valid. (I agree that reviewers are not likely to review source code, but if the author is willing to share code, I would never recommend to only share a binary executable instead!)

(See this story for example: "When I look at the part of the project which should process the general_input_file, there is a statement which looks like this: if the name of the given input file equals specific_input_file, then return specific_output_file. This is a file inside the project. Otherwise, try to process the generate_input_file and generate general_output_file. At this point the software breaks.")

Just because the executable binary works on one computer doesn't mean that it will work on another computer (say, the reviewer's computer), which could be a completely different architecture.

Would a typical reviewer really be so lax about their security as to run random executable binaries? (I am afraid the answer is yes, but I'm still shocked at the suggestion of distributing executable binaries to someone who doesn't know your identity and has no good reason to trust you.)

@Joshua, ShreevatsaR: yes, that's why I said it is recommended to run on a virtual machine, which you can do all the setup.

Though it is good to add your source code reference to your manuscript, I don't suppose citing it in its full form is encouraged as per the double-review guidelines of IEEE Communication Letters. One alternative would be to store it in a temporary cloud location as @ff524 suggested and then cite it anonymously (with Author1, 2... as in the guidelines). Once accepted, you may relocate it to a proper location with appropriate citation in the paper to be published.
Having said the above, this question is better asked to the publisher for a better clarification.


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Seeking undergrad research position at another university: is it OK to email PI and copy lab member? What if there's no response?
I am an undergraduate research assistant in a laboratory at my school. Starting last year's fall semester through the summer and up to now, I have been working in the same laboratory, and I am hoping to gain additional knowledge, skills, and exposure by working in another research lab this summer. I have been looking for opportunities in different schools, but it appears that they encourage me to contact the labs directly.
I am thinking about emailing the lab's PI and copying one of the lab members on the email. Is this an appropriate action as an undergraduate student seeking internship? Also, if I do not receive a response within a reasonable amount of time, is it okay to contact another member in the lab?

See How to approach principal investigators for internship/job positions and How to contact a prospective supervisor for undergraduate research at another university?


text:
How can I appropriately bring up topics of agenda to my professor in a meeting?
I have been working as an undergraduate research assistant in my professor's lab for about a year now. I've enjoyed working under his supervision, and though I wish I am acquainted with him more, I haven't been able to have much engaging discussions with him due to his tight schedule and partially due to my inability to start conversations with him.
I will be meeting with him in a few days in preparation for my presentation for the summer research project at school. He's been away for a couple of weeks due to personal reasons, and I wish to take this opportunity to bring some agendas to the table.

I want to take about a week off before the semester starts to see my family and to visit my country's consulate for official reasons. He seemed a bit hesitant, though he agreed, when I previously asked for a leave, most likely due to a very late notice.
My professor met with me before his leave and informed me that my funding will be paid out in time for the beginning of another research project around mid-August. However, my money is dwindling dangerously, so I wish to ask him specifically when I can get paid.
I have been working on the research project that my professor and several other professors and PhD students have contributed to over the past several years. My primary adviser, a PhD student, encouraged me to take my role as the lead author on a conference paper. He told me that it would be up to the professor to decide what conference (level of recognition) I will shoot for. Before his leave, he briefly mentioned that I should be the coauthor for a tier 1 conference and support my adviser who will be the lead author,but the decision has not been finalized yet. While I do not want to sound too greedy, I want to express my desire to work diligently as the lead author and aim for the tier 1 conference. I also feel the need to talk about this as soon as possible because the deadline for the submission of papers for the tier 1 conference is less than two months away.

I am not well informed of the culture of the academia, so I am not sure how to bring up these topics to my professor or if the topics themselves are too arrogant for me to mention. How should I approach him about these topics? Also, how can I let him be well aware of my wish to continue to graduate studies when he seems to be occupied most of the time and doesn't have much time for conversations. Thank you.

Send him/her an email reminder that you will be meeting and there are three things you want to discuss:

The week I will be taking off before the semester starts, what is expected before, during, and after?
When funding will be paid for _____.
The ______ project.

Have the email open and mention these "tag lines" if it gets off topic. Professors are usually busy, so I wouldn't beat around the bush with this. Just be direct and to the point, but cordial and understanding.
Whenever I do this before going into a meeting, even if we get off topic, we always tend to at least hit the email points before ending. It also makes it easier to talk about funding since it's much easier to do it via email, and now the email will force it to be a topic of conversation.

Depending on how organized the professor is, it may be useful to bring a couple of printed copies to the meeting, and hand one to the professor. Check off items on your copy as they are covered.


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Is it acceptable for a graduate student to use their university email and affiliation in furtherance of a commercial interest?
I received an email from a graduate student at a well-known university in the UK. The email is a marketing email for a campaign run by a company the writer of the email is affiliated with. The campaign is about something that may possibly be of interest to people in academia, so I bear no ill will to the writer for sending me such an email. However, I have concerns about the way the writer presented him/herself. The email starts roughly as follows:

Hi [recipient's name],
I am a PhD student at [name of university] and I am writing to tell you about [the campaign]
  [... long marketing blurb ...]
  [... request that I forward the email to other people.]

and ends roughly with

Sincerely,
[writer's name]
  PhD candidate, [name of university]
  [name of department]
  [university-affiliated email address]
  [link to the company's website]

The things about the email that got my attention are:

The writer presents him/herself as a PhD student in the opening and signature of the email.
The email is sent from the writer's university email account.
The email is about a campaign run by a non-university entity (a for-profit operation, to judge from a look at the website linked to at the bottom of the email) that the writer is affiliated with.
The writer does not explicitly explain his/her connection to or affiliation with said entity, except indirectly by saying things like "we believe ..." and "our mission is ...".
In a later short email exchange I had with the writer, (s)he seemed fairly polite and well-intentioned (specifically, I emailed the student to say I will not be forwarding the email to anyone at my department since it is not relevant to them, and (s)he emailed back apologizing for the inconvenience and promising to remove me from the mailing list). So, my impression is that although the details above may may make it sound like this is a very shady and dishonest attempt to create the impression that the campaign is originating from the writer's university, it is possible that using the university email and affiliation was done out of naivety and lack of thought rather than out of an intent to deceive.

My questions are:

Is it acceptable for a graduate student who is involved with a non-university entity to use their university email to send marketing emails for their non-university campaigns?
Is it acceptable for graduate students to send mass-distribution emails of any sort from their university email accounts? Does this violate any standard policies university IT departments have, particularly in the UK?
Is it acceptable for a graduate student who is also involved with a non-university entity to represent themselves as a PhD student in connection with a marketing email that they send out? (Note that this is a separate question than questions 1-2 above; i.e., assume that the email is sent from a private email server but that the writer is mentioning their status as a PhD candidate at a well-known university, e.g., in an attempt to gain credibility. Is this okay?)

To clarify, by "is it acceptable" I mean that I am interested in these questions from several different angles, such as: are such behaviors ethical? Are they legal? Do they violate any standard policies that universities, particularly in the UK, have? Do they violate any cultural norms within academia or the larger professional world? If I complain about the student's email practices to their department, are they likely to get in serious trouble? Etc.

Note that it is possible to send e-mail with a university address using a third server (e.g., private or ISP). In general, it is possible to send e-mail from any address using any server.

@fkraiem good point. However, what troubles me (and I'm wondering if it would bother the university) is not only the student's use of physical resources such as the email server, but the use of the university's brand name in connection with an unrelated commercial enterprise. This would be an issue even if they used a private server to send out an email that only appears to come from the student's university email.

I would forward the said student this thread...

Well, I'd start with university technology-use policies, which this student is quite likely to have broken. Where I am, policy contains the following stipulation:

Commercial, Political, and Non-University Activities
Users may not use University IT resources to sell or solicit sales for any goods, services, or contributions unless such use conforms to {university} rules and regulations governing the use of University resources. They may not use University IT resources to represent the interests of any non-University group or organization unless authorized by an appropriate University department.

Another possibility may be called something like "non-academic misconduct" (to separate it from "academic misconduct" such as plagiarism or cheating) or an "honor code violation."
If you care to pursue either of these avenues, you'll have to hunt down appropriate chapter and verse at the student's institution, as well as instructions for reporting.
If you don't care to be this formal, and if you know any faculty or staff in the student's department, a "what the actual heck is this and did you folks know about it?" email might be the way to go. Where I am this would certainly be grounds for at least a stern conference with the student, and at worst, non-academic misconduct charges.

There's an outside chance this is social-science research of some sort? But I have trouble imagining how a study of this nature would be deemed vital enough by the ethics committee to permit deceptive email.

No, it is clearly not social-science research. Thanks for the answer - I googled the email usage policy for the institution in question and it does appear that the student is violating a clause forbidding the use of email to send out commercial material and mass emails.

The first sentence of the quoted policy reads to me as circular (and thus empty): "Users may not use resources... unless such use conforms to.... rules and regulations governing the use of University resources".

Yeah, it's a prudent punt to other relevant policies, which as best I know would not excuse the email the OP received.

In my institution (not in the UK) the relevant policy has two parts. First, the burden is put on the user to establish that an act is allowed, because users are responsible for ascertaining what authorizations are necessary and for
obtaining them before proceeding. Use of university IT resources is not prohibited but is frowned on, specifically "personal use of university computing resources for other purposes is permitted when it does not consume a significant amount of those resources, does not interfere with the performance of the user's job or other university responsibilities, and is otherwise in compliance with this policy". However, specific units may also impose further restrictions if they want. My department ran its own mail server, so it could impose an absolute ban on sending emails that attempt to drum up business. In lieu of such a ban, an action to punish the individual would have to be based on showing that it consumed a significant amount of resources or interfered with the person's university responsibilities. It does not sound as though this persons use would cross that threshhold. There are also policies against "claiming to speak for the university", but stating that you are affiliated with a university does not constitute claiming to speak for a university. (Professors frequently make public political statements and list their affiliation, without running afoul of the "claiming to speak for the university" rule).
So, indeed, you would start with the university policy.

As @D.Salo already said, university IT use policies typically do not allow commercial ads to be sent out.
But there are scenarios where such use of the university IT and even the university as affiliation is OK or even wanted (from the university/funding agency point of view):

Obviously, whenever the university approved this use.
One reason for the university to do so is: The company may be a spin-off of the university.
As one example, one of the conditions of the "exist" business founding support programs for university spin-offs in Germany is that the university has to support the company (or company-to-be) with resources including use of university IT.
So such a spin-off may be using university IT resources like the university email server or even university IT hosting their company web page.
That being said, from the company point of view I'd always try to spread the company email address as much as possible (as they have their own website, there should be email addresses as well - who technically provides these services is secondary).
It would be a marketing nightmare if people remember the university email instead of the company...
As for whether it is acceptable that a marketing email writing PhD student points out they're PhD student: as long as they really are the PhD student they are allowed to tell whomever that they are.
Whether it is smart to point this out in the email is again a completely different question, where the answer would depend very much on how tightly the field of the thesis and the marketed product are related.
(Similar to my thoughts about the email address, I don't think a "PhD student" signature is a smart move for the company. Depending on the product, it may be good to state the profession, though)


text:
Is patenting based on theoretical findings possible?
Imagine one, as part of their academic research, makes a theoretical finding of a new material with interesting properties based on a computer simulation. The method used in the simulation is sound and has been proven to provide reliable results.
Can the discoverer file a patent based on this theoretical work or does one need experimental confirmation that the new material indeed has the predicted properties before being able to file a patent?

Ask a patent attorney in your jurisdiction.

What is it you want to patent? I am pretty sure unless it is already protected, or in the public domain, you can patent using a material for some purpose regardless of if it has the desired properties.

@StrongBad I am just wondering at this point, there is nothing to be patented yet.

This question appears to be off-topic because it is about patent law in some unstated jurisdiction, not academia.

Just in case, somebody did not know: There is a site on this network called Ask Patents.

The relevant concept here is "reduction to practice," which means that a concept has been sufficiently realized to make it believable.  Where, exactly, this bar lies depends on which field and which country you are dealing with.
The United States, for example, used to have much stronger requirements for working models, but has recently introduced a notion of "preliminary filing" which lets one start the patent process before demonstrating a working model.  In some cases, particularly mechanical devices, the device (fortunately) might never actually have to be demonstrated in action.  In others, such as many types of biological invention, the science is considered so unpredictable that you cannot be considered to have reduced the idea to practice unless you have an actual working example.
For your particular question of computational material design, I do not know where the boundary of "reduction to practice" currently lies.  It is likely to be field-dependent (e.g., is this a mechanical macrostructure like a fabric, a simple atomic structure like a new alloy of steel, or a complex organic structure like a protein agglomerate), will depend on jurisdiction, and is likely to move again in the future as patent offices slowly come to accept the validity of more classes of models.  Thus, the overall answer is "it depends" and "talk to a patent lawyer."

Since your university probably owns the rights to the invention from your employment contract (or if not, it will be happy to argue that it does!), the university probably has a department that's happy to help there. If you want to argue that you own the invention, see your own lawyer.

I haven't encountered cases like patenting a theological findings. If the findings was a result of a research or a thesis, it would be easy to compile it and have it copyrighted under your name. Note: you can only patent a research study if the creator is you.

There are a few issues here: 1) Do you really want to say theological? (I really would be interested in that example.) 2) Copyrigthing is not patenting.


text:
What is the most elegant way to let the recruiting committee know what the applicant has done to make it to the interview?
I live in country "A" (in Europe) and, a couple of months ago, I bought a round trip flight ticket to the US, for family reasons (not tourism).
A couple of weeks after I bought the ticket, I was invited to a job interview for a postdoctoral  position in country "C" (also in Europe) by a university.
This interview was scheduled a few days before my planned travel back from the US to country "A." The tone of the email they sent me was such as to make me think that there was no room for moving the interview by a few days (or even by a few hours...). They just told me the date, hour, and room. In my experience this is unusual: I have been invited to interviews from institutes in other European countries (both tête-à-tête interviews and Skype interviews), and I was always given a few alternative dates from which to choose. Bear in mind that Europe is not a country--and is not the US, there are very many different ways to communicate, which caused my uncertainty in how to interpret their message.
Perhaps, if I would have explained my situation, they would have understood and re-scheduled the interview...or perhaps they wouldn't have bothered, whatever their reason might have been.
So, instead of asking the university to re-scheduling the interview, I have bought a new one way ticket back from the US, so that I could make it on time for the interview. (I am not asking judgement of this action)
I am very interested in this job, and I think I should let them know what I have done to make it to the interview. (I am not asking whether I should let them know it or not. I am asking opinions on how to let them know it to obtain a positive effect; if you believe there are not, please, go to the bottom and read the tags to this question: I repeat, this is not in the US and I am not American.)
What is the most elegant way to let the recruiting committee know--on the day of the interview--the what the applicant (me) has done to make it to the interview? (this is the question)
[I am literally marking as useful all of your answers, however opinions from people from different European countries are very appreciated. The reasons being the different nature of social interactions compared to the anglosaxon world.]
[NOTE: I believe now the question is precise, I would appreciate if you answered the question, and not judge everything else]
[NOTE 2: I have changed some tags in this question, with the hope that future commenters or "answerers" could benefit from it. Remember this thing: what is normal or not in your country might be non-normal or normal in another country. E.G. in the US it would be extra rude for the interviewer to ask the candidate a question about his/her family, however this is not true elsewhere: it was one of the first questions I received in an interview with a french university. Please, before commenting - answering with a pretentious / sarcastic / paternalistic tone, be aware that the world is big--and it is not the US. The question is not flawed. I give you another example of how the world is big, beautiful and rich of differences and how lack of knowledge about the existence of such difference in social interactions might appear clumsy. E.G.2 Say we are in the US and a Texan asks to some people at his BBQ: "What sauce should I put on the cow steak?" and a random guy from India who was walking by answers: "You should not eat cow in first place, it is very inappropriate". It is a legitimate answer to be respected, but it is out of context. I feel like the Texan guy reading some comments and answers.]
[NOTE 3: Given all of the above, let me stress that I appreciate all of your answers, but please try to answer / comment only if you have something appropriate to add. Also please, pretentious, sarcastic, judgmental, paternalistic comments or answers do not add anything useful, if not create tension. Moreover, answers that says somethings along these lines: "I am Australian, but am being living in South Korea, so I know I know the right answer to your question" are basically flawed, and the reason is to be searched in the European context that I am picturing in my question.]
[NOTE 4: A comment made me realize that some details in my question might sound like anti-American, I apologize for that. You have to know that it is not the case. As a matter of fact, I have been several times in the US, and I have relatives from there. The claimed reduced interest for answers from Americans is simply related to the non-American situation I am picturing.]
[NOTE 5: Let me provide other examples of how not-so-straightforward social interactions are, where they are carried out in different countries. I was speaking with a German colleague who worked in Italy for a few years, she studies management and was totally captured by the radically different ways to start a meeting in these two countries. In Germany, it is considered professional to start the meeting exactly on time and jump to the point, because this is considered professional to respect the established and clear rules of the game. In Italy, it is considered professional to start the meeting a few minutes late, with a coffee and talks unrelated to work, because this is thought to decrease tension and develop bonding that will ultimately easy the conversation at the meeting. What surprised me the most, is that later on I have discovered that in Sweden (which is not a Mediterranean country) they do the same as in Italy! Another example, this time from my own experience. I have never read that within the context of an academic interview, Americans ask about sport activities, perhaps this is considered too personal and unrelated to the job; on the other hand, in my last interview, I was asked by a Luxembourgian about my sport activities, my understanding was that he wanted to know whether I am a team player or rather an individualistic person.]
[NOTE 6, WHAT HAPPENED: In the days immediately before the interview I was travelling and found my self in a place with no internet connection, which limited my ability to prepare to the job interview. I travelled back--earlier than established--and passed the interview. For obvious reasons, I did not perform well at the interview, but I have been honest, and I said that I have travelled back to Europe only for that job interview. Guess what? My honesty and dedication have been those characteristics that helped me stand over all the other applicants and I got the job. As I said many times in this post: not everywhere works as one may judge based on information limited to a fraction of the world labour market.]

To my mind, the problem with this question is less of subjectivity, than the fact that it is rather open as to possible tactics you could apply. The answers will need to contain a dose of subjectivity. Anyhow, please find my (honest... but subjective) take on it below.

There is no elegant way to tell the committee about the situation once it was too late for them to chose a remote interview or a change of date. If they were going to be informed at all, it should have been done when they still had options.

Please hold of on any further edits to the question. If people have questions they will ask them here in the comments, but otherwise they'll answer the question as stated. You do not need to continually modify the question in hopes of getting a specific answer.

I have modified my question several times because I had understood from some answers that the question was not clear. A question on HOW to do something essentially differs from one on WHETHER to do something. Many answers clearly focused on the latter, providing evidence that the question was not clear.

In this form, the question is rather like "What is the best way to write a program that will determine accurately whether any input program will terminate, given unlimited memory?" or "How should I build a space ship to go faster than the speed of light in a vacuum?".

@PatriciaShanahan If I ask how to prepare pesto sauce, and the answer is "do not prepare pesto," it is a legitimate answer, but not the answer to my question. When I do not know how to appropriately answer a specific question, I do not answer. There might be cultural and linguistic differences that intervene and cause these misunderstandings.

You ask how to address a topic in an interview setting, and the answer you were given was that you should NOT address this topic in an interview setting. The premise of your question is flawed, and multiple people have tried to point that out in their answers.

@eykanal please, read the example 2 in note 2. As you think the premise of my question is wrong, I think the premise of your answer is wrong. I repeat: the question is to be interpreted within a non American contexts. Also pretentious, sarcastic, judgmental, paternalistic comments or answers are not welcomed by me. And I stand on my interpretation of the situation even if 1.000.000 answers from non-europeans will maintain my question is flawed? Why? Again read the example 2 in note 2

There are many Europeans here as well, and so far none has told you that you were right and the big nasty Americans were wrong.

I have never said anything about big nasty Americans, I apologize if it sounds like that. I have also explained I am going to the US for family reasons, that should demonstrate that I do not have absolutely anything against Americans, au contraire mon frère

I am a Chinese born in Taiwan, received high education in the US, worked and retired in the US, now living in Taiwan. My short answer, if you would like to hear, is to keep quiet on this issue during the interview. The whole thing could be just the department secretary's fault. She might have made it sound like the schedule is unchangable unintentionally. You took it seriously and bought the ticket on your own. Again, my advice is "Don't mention it." unless they ask you. You don't have to like this short answer. Just let you know, this is from a Chinese's point of view.

I am taking home from this discussion two facts, that I think may be important: (1) Local academic culture specifically in Mediterranean countries (e.g. Spain, Italy) may be tolerant of (or even welcome) personal considerations that would be totally out of place in a general setting. Fact: people act differently in different cultures. (2) The importance of having a good relationship with people who are perhaps neither teachers nor students, but can give a hand in tight situations (secretaries etc.).  My own experience has been they are usually happy to assist if they can.

@Fuca26 Perhaps if your question was re-worded to specify a clear geographic context and leave out some of the secondary considerations, it would be possible to attract more consensus among users - and better answers addressing your real concern. ;-)

Thank you very much! This is a very considerate suggestion :) I was thinking of doing it too, but then I was concerned about the questions / comments already written (they would seem almost unrelated to the new version of the question). Probably it would be easier to re-write completely anew the question following your suggestions (and also tagging more properly the question from the beginning and giving a more concise and title).

The answers telling you to preferably NOT try to demonstrate motivation by telling them you shortened a family trip apply to European institutions all the same. I don't see where you gathered that it was any different than in America. Also, all your edits made your question less and less legible. I would suggest rolling back to the initial version.

I have given examples as of why I thought (and am still thinking) there could be differences. See for instance NOTE 2 and NOTE 5, where I mention different experiences within the academic context. I have also thought to roll back to the initial question, but then where is the utility in having users commenting on that question?

Also, so far I have noticed that most of the participants to this post have a different background from that I believe is more appropriate for providing a credible answer to my question. So, I could revert your statement: I don't see where you gathered that it was the same as in the US, on this specific topic.

I think you may be assuming posters are American, without knowing their actual background.

That's a fair remark. However, many posters have chosen to voluntarily disclose related information on their public profile on stackexchange. Although it is not possible to associate precisely the upbringing to the different identities, it is still possible to obtain a good idea. E.g., if someone works in the US and has an English sounding name, I infer s/he has an American upbringing. I know it cannot be precise though.

You could try making a quick mention of the fact on a humorous tone.
Often, at the beginning of an interview it can be appropriate to make a quick, inoffensive, joke just to break the ice. That would be the moment to say something on the lines of: "Sorry I'm so clumsy with the projector today. I must still be jet-lagged from the flight from the US. Actually, I had to cut short a family re-union to be here in time." Then, quickly change topic and go forward with the meeting.
If the interviewers want to take the circumstance into account, they will. But there is no need (and it would be useless) to belabor the point further.

@Fuca26 You are of course free to accept whatever answer you want, but I caution you that just because that is the answer you wanted to hear does not make it a necessarily a good answer (no offense Alan). I am European, also a postdoc, and I still stand by my answer that you really shouldn't mention it at all during the official parts of an interview in Europe.

As someone who has conducted many, many interviews, I think this is very bad advice. Comments like this convey the message "I went through lots of hoops to be here, so you should be appreciative of that". You are the one who chose to apply; the hoops you have to jump through are entirely of your choosing. You may get empathy, but you won't get sympathy, and it is much more likely to come across negatively than positively.

@xLeitix And none taken. But I still think mine is the best answer here ... taking into account the circumstances the OP would have needed to specify in the question but did not (telepathy at work, if you wish ;-)). In a more general perspective, it seems quite clear from the postings here that such mention of private circumstances should not be made in most academic environments. That's also fine by me, and good to know for the reader.

To be honest, I would avoid mentioning it at all, especially if you're going to use the word 'sacrifice'.  It may not demonstrate commitment and enthusiasm so much as complaining about what you had to do and looking for praise.  It may also come across as passive aggressive and what will you do if they ask why you didn't simply ask to re-schedule or conduct the interview over Skype?  Saying that the tone of the email made it sound like you couldn't will make you sound overly sensitive and timid.
As Alan pointed out, how one comes across in interviews will be highly subjective and maybe a bit of humour will help, but if I was the interviewer and a candidate tried to sneak in some sort of 'look how much I've gone through to get to this interview' comment, it would turn me off.

The term "sacrifice" is in the title of the question, I have not said I would use this word and asked for suggestions on how to express it in a way that could produce positive effects on the listener: I agree with you that mentioning it would have a negative effect. "Saying that the tone of the email made it sound like you couldn't will make you sound overly sensitive and timid." My question was not about that, I did not ask an opinion about it.

Perhaps, now the adjusted title is less misleading.

I explain my comment on yours: "Saying that the tone of the email made it sound like you couldn't will make you sound overly sensitive and timid." This is also something that I would not say, but I said it here to provide all the readers with some useful background (but I guess that it might create some confusion too about the point of my question). Thanks for your comment though.

Why my comments to this answer are not visible anymore? They were necessary to make people aware of what the real point of the questions is.

@Luca - Your comments were flagged as "obsolete" due to your editing of the question, so they were removed. I have put them back. However, please do refrain from making numerous edits on the question, as it makes it difficult to tell what is being answered.

I wouldn't mention it. I sit on these interview committees, and I really couldn't care less whether you came from 5 minutes down the road or another continent to get there.
(Indeed, if I found you'd bought another ticket without contacting us about interviewing by video/phone I'd think rather less of you. I've done quite well with remote interviewing, and would be happy to do so again)
For context - UK Russell Group University.

In my experience, they do care about WHERE you come from and what you did. The reason for that is mainly related to their budget and to the adjustment period required by the candidate (this is particularly true for foreigners).

Ceteris paribus, the hiring committee is more likely to invite for an interview someone who won't require them to spend much (e.g. imagine they would have to interview 20 applicants and spend 1,000$ for their travel), someone they won't have to sponsor (e.g. imagine the responsibility nowadays to sponsor someone who needs a VISA), someone who possibily has the same linguistic background (e.g although research is in english, meetings and teaching are in the local language).

Sure, if we focus on an handful of large and wealthy institutes or in institutes in english speaking countries, (some of) these remarks won't apply.

I realize I'm joining a chorus of similar answers, but I want to word it in a way that directly answers the question (at least as worded in the title),
The most elegant way to let the recruiting committee know ... is silence.
I state this with complete sympathy for your predicament.The most elegant thing to do is not to mention it at all, because of  there is no reason to explain it.  Unless the travel is academically relevant to your field, then it has no connection to the content of a job interview.
So if you are Indiana Jones and have just gotten back from raiding the temple of doom, sure. Or if you're an aerospace scientist recently returned from the ISS, nonchalantly slip that into the interview if needed. If your a medical doctor recently returned from treating ebola, that too might work.
But generally, the hard time you had getting there is not meaningful information to the interview. Imagine:

A: How do you see yourself fitting into the program? OR what are you future research plans?
B: Well golly, I had take three flights to get here and I had to cut my vacation short.

effect = this guy/gal is going to be really annoying to work with.
(I'm American-born and -trained but working at a university in Japan. I didn't think it was relevant but apparently to the op it is. I also lived in Germany for three years).

To me it would be a very logical thing to do, which shows commitment and absolute interest in that specific job position. I cannot see how other people could interpret it otherwise. I understand that cultural differences might be the reason for having different answers, but I cannot understand why in many answers the content displays a lack of such an awareness. This is why I have specified that I am specifically interested in answers from people with non anglosaxon background.

Your answer does not answer my question. I have not asked whether I should talk about it or not. I have asked suggestions on how to talk about it.

@Luca please reread my answer. You asked what the most elegant way is. I said silence. I think you should rethink your logic. Surely, it would show commitment to say that you murdered the other applicants, but I doubt it would get you the job. This sort of commitment, i.e. flying back early from a family thing, is also a type of commitment not relevant to your potential future peers.

Note also, I don't judge your motives in my answer. I just tell you the most elegant way to include this.

I do not agree on the answer. If I ask what the quickest technique to climb a mountain is, an answer is not "do not climb it."

yes, but it would be completely fair to say "wait until spring" in terms of "what is the fastest way to climb a mountain?" Once they are your coworkers, share it as an anecdote one day.

As I said above, if I ask how to prepare pesto sauce, and the answer is "do not prepare pesto," it is a legitimate answer, but not the answer to my question. When I do not know how to appropriately answer a specific question, I do not answer. There might be cultural and linguistic differences that intervene.

@Luca surely "There are none" is a valid answer to "What is the most elegant way to do [awkward thing]". If you were asking "What is the most elegant way to tell my sibling her/his Christmas present is the most expensive I bought this year" you would agree that the answer is "Don't say it". People here are giving you good advice, suck it up and focus on the science/teaching aspects that make you a good candidate.

However, I have added new tags in the questions. Hoping to improve the understanding of my question.

(I am assuming this is about faculty interviews - for PhD applications, my answer may be less applicable)
All the faculty interviews I had so far were somehow split into an official and a much-less-official-but-still-part-of-the-interview part. At least in Europe, the official part is indeed a very formal Q&A, and there is very little chance to point out your circumstances in a way that will not come across as heavy-handed or clumsy. The less-official part is usually something like a joint dinner the night before or after, and you will certainly find a spot in the conversation to drop this.
The other question is what you hope to achieve - I assume you want to show "dedication", but honestly I have very little hope that the fact that you needed to re-book a private trip to make it to the interview will impress anybody.

Honestly I think there is no elegant way of saying this kind of stuff unsolicited.
From my experience people from recruiting committee are used to this sort of manipulation from students, and they don't like it.
Especially since it should (probably) not be taken into account for the outcome of the interview.
Moreover, and that's just my opinion, they might even think something like "why did he buy another ticket since we would have accepted doing the interview on skype with those circumstances?". But on the other hand they might not.
In my opinion, the best way to do what you want to do is to previously call them, and ask for a reschedule under exceptional circumstances, and if they say yes, that's good, if they say no, you buy another ticket (and they know what you did, and will account for it if needed).
Other than that, in my opinion, don't unless there is the perfect opportunity to say it ("did you have a safe trip?" for example), otherwise it will come out clumsy.

I presume this is about faculty interviews. Those are rarely via Skype.

In my experience the arrangements for the interview and visit to the campus are made by administrative or clerical staff, for example a departmental secretary. They are usually the ones asking you about dates and times. Sometimes there are opportunities to communicate this information when you are making arrangements with them. In my experience they do pass on background information informally that they learn whilst making the arrangements.
However I am aware that many institutions have formalised the process through an HR department. They do this to deliberately insulate the applicant from the academic department precisely to prevent these informal back-channels from having influence on the process. In that case what other respondents have suggested is more appropriate.

It was a postdoc position in a public institute, where unfortunately there is not a departmental secretary--unfortunately. All the arrangements were done by myself and by the boss of my research department (this is the only research department in the entire statistical institute, which usually works on non-research related issues)

If one of the interview questions were:

Why (or) How much do you want to work here?

I would mention that as soon as I received the confirmation email, without hesitation, I booked myself a one way flight from the US, as I perform better in face to face interviews.
I think that type of initiative shows enthusiasm, a certain economic independence, and a no-fuss attitude. What's there not to like?
P.S I live in Italy.

Exactly, that's important! I do not unederstand why I have gotten so many negative answers--I still mantain that there is lack of openess to different behaviors (and cultures) in many answers I have received (we need to conduct a study!!) :)

@Fuca26 it's also connected with body language, and tone of voice. If you look and sound irritated, and you begin the interview by pointing out you  booked an expensive flight that will never come across well. But if you wait until the right moment, then the anecdote about the journey appears spontaneous and shows the interviewer that you care about the position. Obviously, in isolation, it's not enough to secure an offer but it should leave a lasting and positive impression.

eventually I mentioned that I had interrupted the family trip to conduct their interview, and that, according to their words, it was positively appreciated (they said they were greateful). And I got the job!


text:
As a discussant, should I discuss my points with the presenter beforehand?
There is a good question about how to be a discussant here, but it does not cover my question.
I was chosen to be a discussant for an upcoming seminar (actually, it was proposed to me by the same author I am discussing). I have several comments to make about the work, which I will put on slides. Should I talk the author through them before my presentation, or perhaps send him/her my slides beforehand? Or is it well understood that discussions are "surprises" and presenters should be able to address the discussion "on the spot"?
I have no intention to put the presenter into trouble, but perhaps, for the sake of the audience, it is better if I send the slides/discussion beforehand, so the quality of the answers might be higher. But I am not sure this is standard. Any ideas?

After having the event, I can share a few learning points. On the positive side:

the presenter gave very good answers to my comments. I doubt the quality and extent of the replies would have been the same if she would have not received my comments beforehand. I think this is to the benefit of the audience.
the presenter (because of earlier schedule delays) finished late. This means, I could save some time for everyone by focusing my discussion on the key points that I thought should be addresses, and that the audience would find relevant too. The presenter already had the other points, so she did not mind that I made my discussion shorter. The organiser of the seminar (and hopefully the audience) was very pleased with this. This benefit is of course an eventuality, but late schedules is very common, in my experience.

On the negative side:

albeit this did not happen to me (the presenter was reasonable enough), it could be the case that the presenter changes the presentation after she received my comments, addressing some of them that she felt were very important but left out. This would make some of my comments redundant, lowering the (perceived) quality of my discussion.

So, as a summary, I would say, yes, send it, but not very much in advance.

I would go with the second option; send the slides to the author beforehand. This will help the following:

The author would be prepared in terms of the questions and topics he is going to get the questions from. He would think on a lower level and add more clarity to his answers.
Give the author a higher confidence to defend, if there seems to be any surprise.
If he feels, he can ask you for additional clarification beforehand.


text:
Shall I inquire about the status of my application?
I had a skype interview a week and a half ago. I believe that the interview went well. I had a brief e-mail exchange with the head of the search committee on the 26th.
How long does it take to move from Skype interviews to campus interviews?
Shall I email them to ask about the status of my application?

We don't know the schedule of skype interviews for this particular institution, or the review process that happens after skype interviews and before candidates are invited to campus.  In my recent experience of chairing search committees, the top candidates got invitations for on-campus interviews within a week of the end of the skype interviews (which typically took us about a week to do.)  It's obviously in our interest to do this as quickly as possible.  However, this process could be delayed by administrative indecision (e.g. if the administration is uncertain about whether or not they'll have enough of a budget to actually hire someone.)
It's quite possible that the search committee has sent out invitations for on-campus interviews.  If you contacted the search committee chair he/she would probably tell you whether or not this has happened.
Even if the initial round of invitations have gone out and you haven't gotten one, don't give up hope yet.  It's possible that some other candidate will decline the chance to interview on campus and you'll get an interview later.  In the past I've had to say to candidates something like "We sent out invitations for on-campus interviews to three candidates earlier this week, and we're still waiting for responses from two of them.  We may be sending out additional invitations."  This doesn't tell the candidate anything specific about whether they might be next on the list or much further down (or even off the list entirely due to a bad phone interview.)
I can't think of any reason not to politely ask the search committee chair about the status of the search.  You could also start checking the institution's calendar for seminars to see if anyone that looks like a faculty candidate (or is explicitly named as such) might be scheduled.

Thank you for your reply. I just sent a polite email asking about their timelines and the status of my application.

Emailing will not help anything. They haven't forgotten about you, and are undoubtedly either (i) deciding who to interview in person, which could take any amount of time from a few hours to a few weeks depending on how many people are involved in the decision, or (ii) starting on the in-person interview process, in which case you'll find out if you've been selected.

Or, (iii), still doing the skype interviews...


text:
How do you keep up motivation during individual doctoral research projects in the short run
I always have been extremely motivated in my research area and project. My team and I have been writing our current paper over the last 6 months, and since we stumbled upon bugs, the process became quite long, also given my supervisor is involved with other major projects, I think I miss on the time and attention that our project should receive.
It seems now that we are in the last lap of writing our paper, and should be done in 2 more weeks. Even though I have followed every development diligently, I suddenly feel tired of this prolonged process. It seems monotonous and unrewarding. Any thoughts on how to take care of oneself and keep being motivated in this scenario?

I took the liberty of changing the title to avoid overlap with this: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2219/how-should-i-deal-with-becoming-discouraged-as-a-graduate-student

@henning--reinstateMonica thanks for the nice edit, this question is different than that, and I would not have liked this to be closed because of the similar title.

Perhaps you are just pushing too hard and getting frustrated. If you try to force your mind to work, it can get bogged down in the detail letting you miss seeing the bigger picture and options that might let you go forward.
Often the best solution is to take a break and do something different for an hour or three to let your mind clear itself out. Aerobic exercise, even if mild, is good for this. So is going to the coffee room and chatting with colleagues about trivial stuff (not work). "How about those Mets?" (Sorry NYC allusion). A game of Chess, perhaps.
Many people have the experience that when they awake in the morning they have solved a previously impossible problem in their sleep. The mind works even when you don't push it to do so, and sometimes more efficiently.
I can't guarantee that this is the issue, but I'll guess, at least, that it is more related to frustration than motivation.

My own trick, back then, was fifty mile bike rides with a couple of friends.

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What are the exceptional key points of a CV that attracts the research grant commette's attention?
I need to provide a CV in maximum of 2 pages for a research grant application. I understand that such CVs varies largely from person to person and mostly depends on the requirement. But I am wondering about the exceptional key points which attracts reviewer's attention, apart from the common points found in all CVs.
As per the experts' comments below, CVs vary according to the grant, the agency, country and the academic credentials. Does really it vary?
My understanding may be wrong, a CV represents a person. It never tells us what the applicant is looking for. For that purpose we provide cover letter, motivation letter, statement of purpose etc etc..

Same as for a resume: Edit. Reformat. Rephrase. Repeat that sequence . There's no magic here, just a deadly focus on discarding everything that doesn't help you enough to be worth keeping. Some would advise one page, depending on where you are in your career and what the grant is; I don't have a strong opinion.

Which agency in which country? NSF, DoE, NIH, etc, in the US have specific formatting guidelines that are required, and NSF has a recent reputation for returning some grants without review for egregious violations.

To second the request for the country: If I am not mistaken, many of the things you are listing here would not be considered to belong into a CV at all in certain countries.

Your updated version makes the question too broad. The key points depend on the type of the grant, the agency, your country and your academic credentials.

@scaaahu , Thank you very much for your comments. I can't understand how CVs vary according to the grant, the agency, country and the academic credentials? I may be wrong, but In my opinion, CV represents a person. On contrary, CV never represents a person what he/she is looking for. For that purpose we provide other documents like cover letter, motivation letter, statement of proposal etc. etc..

Since I had recent experience related to the subject, I would advise the following measures:

Remove sections: objectives, current position (instead, several most recent positions should be listed in Positions Held or Professional Experience section), schools/events participated, personal profile, declaration.
Remove/compress most/enough details from the other sections to fit content appropriately.

Specific advice for removing/compressing details:

research interests: make this section brief by mentioning high-level domains of interest (detailed discussion of your research interests IMHO should be presented in your research statement document);
research experiences: make this section brief or consider getting rid of it for good (more/all details can be provided via either research statement, or application/cover letter);
publications: list only your most important publications (rather than most recent);
education details: this section should be brief just to cover essential information;

scholarship and awards: very brief, just titles and amounts;
technical skills: brief;
invited as speakers/guests: very brief (select most important, if many);
professional memberships: brief (select most important, if many);
professional services: I suggest removing this section, as not relevant to grant applications;
papers presented in conferences (selected only): select from the selection, if needed.

By applying the above-mentioned steps, you should be able to create an appropriate two-page CV (see horizontal rules above for a suggested layout). Good luck with your grant application!


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What is a "diploma mill"?
I recently deleted a response on Academia.SE because many people thought my response was supporting the idea of a 'diploma mill'.  My understanding of the matter was that a diploma mill is simply a business that provides a piece of paper, and possibly some kind of shady verification service, for a fee.  That's it.  Money in, diploma out.   This does not seem to be the case for many of this community, however.
I've done a bit of research, cursory to be fair, and the most clearly defined line that I can find between a "real" school and a "fake" school is that of regional accreditation.  Beyond that it appears to be a subjective melange of opinions, ultimately boiling down to the idea of 'second class schools'.  Clearly, I am out of touch with the general consensus on this matter so I put it to you SE.
What are the defining characteristics of a 'diploma mill'?

In addition to my response, I wanted to add that I think you had the correct definition all along--although the academic standards at legitimate for-profit schools could be questionable, they are definitely not the same as diploma mills.

Judging from what I have heard from many different people, the definition of "diploma mill" is "a school that I feel is not as good as the one I attended". So, for Harvard graduates, Penn State and UCLA are "diploma mills". For Penn State and UCLA grads, ITT Tech and DeVry are "diploma mills". For ITT Tech and DeVry graduates, a "diploma mill" is an unaccredited school that requires actual coursework or exams. For graduates of unaccredited schools, a "diploma mill" is an institution that mails out automatic diplomas in exchange for cash payments without requiring any work.

We should start with the Wikipedia definition:

A diploma mill (also known as a degree mill) is an unaccredited higher education institution that offers bogus academic degrees and diplomas for a fee. These degrees may claim to give credit for relevant life experience, but should not be confused with legitimate prior learning assessment programs.

If a student doesn't have to do any academic work for a degree, or the student is given credit based on "life experience," it qualifies as a diploma mill.  Another key indicator is whether there are actually any teachers that work for the business.  While it is probably not illegal in most cases to claim a degree from such a company (and I deliberately do not use the term "institution"), there have been many cases of employees being disciplined or fired for using the degree to either get a job or to obtain a higher salary based on claiming a degree from a diploma mill (esp. teachers whose salaries are based on the level of a degree).
As the Wikipedia article notes, there are legitimate schools that have a system for awarding credit based on other formal education, such as military education obtained while on active duty or in the reserves (see, for instance, this guide to transferring credit).  This type of credit transfer is rare for graduate work, although certain rigorous post-baccalaureate programs in the military, such as the U.S. Navy's Nuclear Power School, may qualify for some post-B.S. programs.  This type of credit should not be confused with work obtained at the military's post-graduate schools, such as the Naval Postgraduate School or the Air Force Institute of Technology.
Diploma mills should also not be confused with for-profit education, such as the infamous University of Phoenix.  Arguments over the merits of for-profit education are not really within the scope of academia.stackexchange, but for what it's worth, degree-granting institutions of this type do require students to follow a curriculum, take actual classes (many times online), and give grades based on assessed performance (and charge a good bit of money per credit-hour).
Bottom line: if you have to pay a nominal fee for a "degree" that requires no official classes or research, you got your degree from a diploma mill.

Great response, Chris.

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Does "minor revision" mean "accepted with minor revision"?
I just received a decision letter from a journal editor (after three rounds of major revision). The letter shows that the reviewers "have asked for some other minor revisions". After getting the minor revision letter, I immediately completed the revision in accordance with the feedback from the reviewers (the suggested changes just involve adding a few sentences) and immediately resubmitted the revision to ScholarOne. A week has passed since I submitted the revision, but the status in ScholarOne remains unchanged. Is this normal? Can I assume that this basically means "acceptance with minor revision"? Thanks for your insight and sharing.

What do you mean by assuming this means acceptance with minor revisions?  If you mean believing this yourself, then that's reasonable, but it would not be reasonable to describe the paper to others as accepted if you haven't formally been told that.

Minor revision usually implies that the reviewers (and the editor) think that authors can correct the paper in a way that will address all of the concerns, and the reviewers not need to see the paper again before publication.
From the reviewer's standpoint, "minor revision" means "authors should fix this and this, and don't bother me with the review again, the manuscript is ok otherwise".
However, if the author fails to address the concerns when revising the paper, the Editor may send the paper to another round of minor revision, and in extreme cases, to the major revision (for example if the minor corrections start to reveal bigger problems with the papers as originally envisioned).

Yes, characterizing revisions as "minor" strongly suggests that if you make those revisions the paper will be accepted.  Editors may prefer not to explicitly say that the paper is "accepted with minor revisions", because authors may make "minor revisions" that don't correct the problems, and then feel that they've been promised publication in spite of that.
Depending on the journal, the editor, and the revisions, the manuscript may or may not go out to re-review once again, and even if it doesn't a one-week delay from submission to re-evaluation is not surprising.  In my field (biology) I wouldn't be surprised to hear back about acceptance anywhere from 1 day to 1 month after re-submission.

In my field (Linguistics), it's getting rare and rare to get "accepted with minor/major revision". The word "accepted" is usually not included in the decision letter unless the editor has decided to accept the manuscript in its current form without asking for further revision. Most of the time, "major revision" seems to be the best verdict in the first round of review. I am just hoping that the revision does not have to go back to reviewer in my scenario (minor revision verdict).

Yeah, I think I am seeing it less and less too.  I don't remember seeing it on any of my recent (last 3 years) papers, even when it's obvious that the editor actually means that it will be "accepted" with the minor revisions.

I don't think there are fewer minor vs major revisions, though, just the way it's communicated (not as likely to say "accepted" with ... ).  Looking over the 12 papers I've published in the past 3 years, I'd say that only two required "major" revisions, which is about the usual ratio for me.

The answer depends on the associate editor, and mostly on you. Imagine you drastically change your manuscript at this stage, not taking into account the suggested minor revisions? The editor would have the right (and power) to withdraw your submission, which would be fair...
Suppose now you play the game honestly. After three rounds of major revisions (which is huge), I suppose the journal has bet on you paper (or has surrended). My opinion: chances are your paper is going to be accepted.
But you never know for sure before you get the final acceptance letter (or the publication, which could be withdrawn for outer reasons).
I suggest you to comply to the minor edits as soon as possible. Allow at least one week for the editor, editorial staff to check the last minor correction, or possibly a little  more, for instance if the editor decides to ask a picky reviewer to do the job.

Sorry that I did not make it clear in the original post. After getting the minor revision letter, I completed all the revision in accordance with the feedback from the reviewers (the suggested changes just involve adding a few sentences) and resubmitted the revision immediately. A week has passed since I submitted the revision, but the status in ScholarOne remains unchanged.

Depending in the journal, of course, I consider one week is OK. Time for the editor, the editorial staff, or even (possibly) one picky reviewer to check if your minor revision is okay. After three weeks, I would consider asking for an update (I have edited the answer based on your updated precisions)

No, minor revision doesn't mean accepted with minor revisions. Strictly speaking, for truly minor revisions, it's possible that the editor accepts your paper and leaves you to make the remaining changes during proofs. Since the editor didn't do this, it's still possible your paper will be declined. I've also sent minor revision decisions which were effectively "Sorry we can't understand your paper, please get it proofread by a native English speaker", in which case the real peer review hadn't even started yet.
One can say the paper is more likely to be accepted than not, but the paper is not accepted until you receive the acceptance letter.

One week is not too soon.  The Editor is a professor too and may be away for the week at a conference.  Or, depending on the time of the semester, may be grading a big stack of tests or projects.  Or could be out sick for a few days, they are people too.  After 3 weeks, email to politely check on the status.
Minor Revision isn't the same as "Accepted" but means it is very likely to become Accepted.  But don't claim it until you have that email that has the wonderful word, "Accepted."

Minor revision means that your paper accepted by about 70 % but not final acceptance until you fix further comments. Time varies from journal to others, but within one month.

-1: it does not make sense for a paper to be 70% accepted.