text:
Should a post doc recruit and supervise final year undergrad students when PI is getting older and wants to reduce involvement?
I'm a postdoctoral researcher in a small research group in Europe. My PI is advancing in age, and taken a step back from running the group personally. We have an admin assistant who deals with day-to-day things like signing purchase orders and booking rooms/coffee, and the lab itself is run by me and another post-doc.
The PI who I work for recently "asked" if I'd be willing to supervise a final year undergraduate student for the upcoming academic year (I'm fine with this, its a good opportunity to get an extra pair of hands to try some interesting experiments). This is common in the department I work for. What is less common is that she (the PI) refuses to meet/interview these students herself, and instead insists that I do this myself.
In some ways, this makes sense– she doesn't have much to do with the lab on a day-to-day basis, and almost certainly won't take an interest in the undergraduates process. This does leave two issues, however:

All of the other PI's meet students personally. This means when I do meet these undergraduates, they already feel like they've been passed off to 'some random post-doc', but also raises concerns for them that she isn't really going to be very supportive during their projects.
In previous years, after this process of a post-doc meeting all of these students, she has basically ignored their recommendations as to whom to hire, and just chosen based upon how they perform on paper (i.e. taking the one who's had some experience in a lab of someone she's a fan of, or taking the one who aced her course in the previous year etc.)

Since last week, she has been forwarding about 5 emails a day from interested students, requesting that I meet them, go over their CV's/research experience, and quiz them on some general physics to make sure that we're not taking anyone incompetent.
Whilst I obviously should meet the students, I feel like its a complete waste of my time. Interviewing 5 students is taking at least 3 hours since they also have questions, and my PI insists that we meet every student that applies, despite already having personal dealings with some of them/knowing they're truly not cut out for lab work. The time isn't a huge issue, but generally due to the small size of our lab and my teaching commitments, it is meaning that I;m basically not at my bench for most of the week.
Questions

What would be the best course of action?
Agree to do all of this, on the condition that she doesn't then overrule my opinion when it comes to actually choosing?
Or insist that since she's going to make the final decision anyway she should just suck it up and meet these students herself?

I tried to make title accurately reflect your general question, feel free to edit further.

There are two basic problems here.

The interviewing process is too time-consuming.
You are being given a responsibility without the corresponding authority, i.e. the grunt work is being delegated to you, without the decision-making authority being delegated to you along with that.

If you "ran the zoo" (I'm quoting the children's author Dr Seuss), in other words, if this were your project entirely, I think you would organize the application process in a more streamlined way, that would take up much less time.  For example, you might develop a list of questions each applicant should answer, and you might send the questions to the applicants via a google form, so you can easily compare the responses in a spreadsheet.
It could seem to you like a waste of your time to find out interesting things about the applicants in the in-person interviews, for the PI to just ignore all that anyway when making the selection.
You might want to assert yourself politely with your PI:

Explain to the PI that you want to support her decision to step back from the day to day running of the lab. Let her know that you find this assignment intriguing and helpful for you in your own career growth.  Explain that if you take this assignment on, you would like to have her blessing to handle the whole assignment autonomously, from beginning to end.  Ask if she would like you to submit a final report on the decision(s) you came to.

Project confidence.  (No complaining about how much time it will take you.)
It will look good on your CV.


text:
Masters Student in Math: Picking an Advisor
I'm a masters student looking to graduate next school year. I've picked a masters adviser already, who's doing some things in number theory but more on the analytic side (not quite my cup of tea, but close enough). I found out recently that there is someone doing algebraic geometry in my department (which is what I ultimately want to do when I pursue my PhD). Would it be in bad taste to switch advisers? Nothing with the original adviser is set in stone, just a verbal agreement and he gave me a paper to start reading.
Also, more importantly, is the closeness of a masters project to what you eventually want to be studying all that important in terms of applications to PhD programs? That is, if I do a project in something I'm not going to pursue further in PhD, would that look weird to PhD programs I'm applying to? The reason I ask is that the professor doing algebraic geometry at my school is not a very friendly guy. Thus I may not be able to get a good rec letter from him, let alone have an easy time working with him.
[Just for some perspective, a masters project at my school mainly consists of reading a paper by someone else, studying it thoroughly, and then presenting it.]

Related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/72289/will-an-off-topic-masters-hurt-my-chances-of-a-phd-place

Don't judge a book by its cover.  See if you can find some students or alumni who can tell you more about the gruff guy.  Maybe his letters of recommendation are just fine.  Also, why not start to get to know them both a bit more before you decide?  In other words, test the relationship a bit.  The nature of the relationship might end up being the deciding factor for you.

If nothing is set in stone yet, it would be reasonably to explore the possibility of switching advisor.
However, I don't think it's necessary. You are not expected to be doing exactly the same thing for a masters as a doctorate. Or indeed, even anything massively close. Within the UK at least, many doctoral students will come through the MMath rather than a stand-alone masters, and in theory may not have done any sizeable project. My project was completely unrelated to my thesis topic.
Indeed, personally I would suggest not switching topic. The way you are describing things, the topics are close enough that having the additional breadth will actually help your doctorate. You should develop an understanding of material around your thesis topic, not just the exact question you study.
But also do start talking to the potential doctoral adviser, and start to get a feel for whether the two of you are happy to work closely together.

I talked to the geometer today. I told him my situation and he understood. His advice was that the project specifically doesn't matter too much, but having said that it may look odd to present a specific research paper in analytic number theory and then write in my application that I'd like to study something else. If I do decide to work with him, he suggests just getting a good grounding in AG using Hartshorne and some other books, and then defending in the Spring (after I would apply to PhD programs in Fall) with something more specific.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
How do I ask for a few extra days to consider an offer of a PhD postion?
I emailed professor X some weeks ago. They had no PhD position open but told me they would get in touch again when and if some grant were to be approved (they might have a position then).
He now contacted me, the position was approved and he asked me if I was still looking for a position. In fact, I am, but I wish I could wait one more week to let him know to wait for a likely better offer to materialize.
Do I tell this professor the truth, to take time? Or will this drastically decrease my chances? If so, what is a sensible way to gain some days?

What would your reaction be if your invitation to study under you were met with, “Please give me a week because I’m likely to get a better offer from someone else“?

Do you know all the details you need to know, for example about the project, when to start, contract/funding details etc.? If not, you can always ask for a meeting to discuss such issues, and there is a realistic chance that the meeting will take some days at least to actually happen.

@PaulTanenbaum Some other answers in slightly different cases suggested that this was a good idea. That's also why I was asking

@Snijderfrey Yes, I know almost everything. Any other idea?

If you expect a different opportunity to materialize within the week, then presumably it's a specific opportunity that you expect to have materialize within the week.  Could you contact that group, explain the situation, and ask them what your chances are looking like?

@BenBarden Unfortunately no. It is an opportunity from a Company. They are waiting to speak with a reference.

What is the time frame on the professor's side? Have they asked you to accept the position immediately? May there be other candidates? When will you have to sign anything official? Maybe the process takes a few days anyway and you can still easily get out if the other opportunity materialises quickly?

@ChristianHennig Timeline for professor: I don't know (I'm in Europe). I have not been asked to accept the position, I have just been asked if I am still looking for a position. Is "yes" a valid answer? I think I should say something more. Especially since I know pretty much all the details already.

@ChristianHennig Also, don't you think that, since I know all details from past discussions, then I cannot so easily get out? Also in the spirit of not burning bridges

@hahn76 There is a formal and a psychological aspect. You may well be able to stretch the time frame (or it stretches itself) so that you don't have to definitely agree before you know whether that other offer stands even if you now say yes you're still looking for something. I can't comment on any possible future implications if you get out after first having said something positive. The relevance of the "burning bridges" issue is certainly related to how likely it'd be that you'd still want to use that bridge at some point in the future.

For sure you can say "yes, I'm still interested; what'd be the further procedure?" Being interested doesn't mean that you commit to taking the job.

@ChristianHennig Thank you. In view of your comments I guess I'd rather remain on something neutral. "Yes, I am still interested. By next week I should be able to give a more definitive answer. I hope this is compatible with your timeline". Do you see anything bad with such an approach?

Not sure whether I'd comment on when I can say something definitive at a point at which I haven't yet been asked to do that. But I'm not the best authority on such things, so I'm not in the position to tell you what to do.

Replying "yes" to the question "Are you interested?" doesn't imply acceptance of an undefined offer. You can say yes and ask about the position, its requirements and its benefits. You might even be happily surprised with the response.
I'd guess that the discussion, especially by email, would take quite a bit longer than a week. You don't need to reply to any email the minute you get it. It is reasonable to say that you are evaluating any offer and will get back "in a few days".

I think there is not much purpose to being overly "strategic" in these circumstances. You certainly don't want to undermine yourself, but let's consider some scenarios:
First, let's say that the professor believes you're a great candidate for the job, someone they'd really like to have in their lab. In this scenario, in their mind you're also a great candidate for other positions. They previously told you they could not offer you a position, so of course they would expect you to pursue other opportunities.
In this scenario, any reasonable asks you have for more time (though, as others point out, you haven't been given any demand for an immediate final response) should be granted. Ultimately, there will have to be some balance (the professor can't wait indefinitely, they will need to look for other candidates if you go elsewhere), but if they respect you, value your best interests, and also truly believe they are making you a good offer, it will be worth a wait for you to make the right decision for you. In this scenario, they'll also understand that many factors go into choosing a PhD position or any job: sometimes these decisions are made based on family or living conditions rather than purely the work (project, supervisor, institution). Far better to make the decision that works for you rather than get in a situation where you are unhappy and leaving early.
In this scenario, you might as well be honest. You don't need to say explicitly "you're not my first choice", and it doesn't even seem like that's the case. You can simply say that you're considering other opportunities, would prefer to make a decision once you have all possible offers to consider, and ask for a deadline for a decision ("I'm applying for other positions and would ideally like to have all the possible options before making my decision; when do you need a definitive answer by?"). Of course, all of this can happen after you've taken Buffy's advice to inquire further about the position.
In the second scenario, there may be some overlap with the first scenario, but there are some caveats. It could be that the professor believes they are the most beautiful and talented gift to the world, and that anyone willing to consider working elsewhere is a fool. Perhaps they're surprised you even applied to other positions when they expected you to sit and wait for them to contact you. Do you want to work for this person who will continue to think this way in all your future interactions with them, including when you eventually finish working with them and apply for a job somewhere else?
Alternatively, they could fear you will go somewhere else and are willing to apply salesmanship tricks like pressuring an immediate decision to manipulate you to choose them before you get another opportunity. Do you want to work for this person, who doesn't actually think they are making a good offer?
I guess in these scenarios it may be worth playing some game if the end goal is to get a position, but I'd recommend thinking about longer term goals like having a good PhD experience that carries you to your next position. In that case, I think the short-term benefits of winning a game are not actually helpful and may be counterproductive.

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


text:
Copyright-free maps for journal figures
I am writing an epidemiology paper for an academic journal, and would like to have a figure showing the map of a geographical region of interest.
My current map was generated with OpenStreetMap data, from the get_stamenmap function provided by the ggmap package in R.
However, such maps have copyrights, and they won't be accepted by most academic journals I am interested in publishing in.
Does anyone know some good tools to produce pretty, copyright-free maps and possibly programmatically? Bonus points if they are produced through R.
I would also appreciate any other map-related hints or suggestions.

You can google "copyright free maps".  Are there features missing from these that you must have?

Thanks for the answer! I would like to add some pins to the maps at  custom (latitude, longitude) cohordinates. Ideally this would be done programmatically, but in the worst case scenario I could manually add them

Having to credit someone is very unlikely to be a bar to publishing. I would make sure this is actually the case

I agree fully with @NicolasFormichella - OpenStreetMaps tells you what you do to use a map generated using their data. You credit it in a footnote as they state. Perhaps you should (a) see how other people's maps are created/credited, and (b) ask the journal how they want it handled.

There is even an example in the copyright page, on how to fullfil the credit requirement for printed works

Thank you all for the helpful feedback. I may have misunderstood the copyrights requirements from the journals and will ask them if using OpenStreetMaps is fine.

As noted in the comments, this is a non-issue because Openstreetmap allows reusing maps with the only requirement to add a notice, for instance in a footnote or in the acknowledgments. So OP can continue using those maps, and they will be accepted by academic journals.

Leaflet is an OpenSource JavaScript Library to make and publish maps. You can use Leaflet through Python using folium library or with R.

Leaflet will still need to source data, so attribution/copyright is still an issue.

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


text:
Are citation mistakes and mistakes in paraphrasing considered plagiarism?
Are citation mistakes and mistakes in paraphrasing considered plagiarism?
I read opposite opinions on if this could be considered plagiarism or it is simply something else.

What do you mean by "citation mistakes" or "mistakes in paraphrasing"?

considered by whom? to me they would be simple sign of being extremely sloppy ==> another category than plagiarism, but similarly negatively charged.

Possible duplicates: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/111706/wrong-citation-what-should-i-do https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/186785/is-my-citation-error-considered-as-plagiarism/

I mean when you miss the point while paraphrasing or something like that. I have read articles with such mistakes, just wanted to check how people would qualify it.

I don't understand what "miss the point while paraphrasing" means relating to a citation mistake or plagiarism. Do you mean that some paper by Kittey et al says "Lions are cats" and you write in your paper "Zebras are cats (Kittey et al)"? How would you possibly relate that to plagiarism? Do you think it's only bad to do this if you can label it "plagiarism"?

Something like that. For example, I have read an article where authors said something was significant, but didn't mention in which case it was significant, because those who proved the significance explained conditions.

"Proved the significance"? What does that even mean? Plagiarism is "the fraudulent representation of another person's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions as one's own original work" (from Wikipedia, emphasis mine) - how does what you're asking about have anything to do with plagiarism at all? What's the purpose of asking this question?

Why do you want to know?

Bacause I want to find out more about what could go wrong in research to make sure to prevent it if I decide to publish anything in the future. Thanks for help.

This is a very clear-cut case.
Taking someone else's work and presenting it as your own is plagiarism, full stop. No amount of paraphrasing could ever save that, and teaching the connection between paraphrasing and plagiarism is quite terrible, honestly. These are two separate things entirely - one is proper credit attribution and another is an ability to synthesize and interpret information from different sources.
Misrepresenting others' work is also bad, of course, but it is yet another topic. Going by the example by Bryan Krause in the comments:

Kittey et al says "Lions are cats"

Proper representation: "Lions are cats (Kittey et al)".
Proper representation with paraphrasing: "Lions are large cats of the genus Panthera (Kittey et al, wiki)".
Plagiarism, naïve: "Lions are cats" (no attribution).
Misrepresentation, benign: "Lionesses are cats (Kittey et al)" (may come from misunderstanding, errors in translation etc.).
Misrepresentation, severe: "Zebras are cats (Kittey et al)" (Kittey et al would likely be offended at the very suggestion they have ever stated that nonsense).
Plagiarism and misrepresentation combined: "Lions are cats of the species Panthera" (no attribution).

Only two of the above are acceptable.
If the last one could be traced to its origin with a high degree of certainty, this is a pretty serious offense of trying to steal others' intellectual work and cover the tracks. There is also being too sloppy to do so convincingly, probably for the better.
If anyone makes mistakes in citations out of the desire to paraphrase in order to avoid plagiarism, they need to go way back and understand what plagiarism is. And also figure out why are they even paraphrasing in the first place.

An action needs to have an element of will for it in order to constitute plagiarism. A honest mistake

"cats are lions" (Kittey et al.)

is not plagiarism, nor is an accidental citation error

"Lions are cats" [5]    -- when it should be [4].

They still reflect negatively on the writer and they run the risk of being taken for plagiarism as many engaged in plagiarism talk excuse their bad action by a "honest mistake".
There has been at least one high profile case where an academic committee decided that an action was not plagiarism because the idea of someone else made it through iterative versions of lecture notes through years of teaching, evolving, and finally being made part of a text book. Somewhere along this line, the author forgot that it was not his work only. That is an exception, but shows that in practice, plagiarism is usually not so well defined.
Another source of confusion is the rediscovery of certain facts. It is quite common in the Engineering field or in Mathematics to rediscover the same fact. Some well-known theorems suddenly get different names because of this.

This is a much better, and more nuanced, answer than the accepted one. Plagiarism itself requires intention, though that may be difficult or a reader to judge. Careless scholarship is an entirely different issue.

@Buffy Indeed, this is something I have struggled with conveying with a short example. Thomas gives a good one here. If I get inspired by Kittey et al and write "Zebras are cats", introducing substantial changes, it becomes an original research idea at some point. Mens rea is not just unprovable in this case, I may well believe I am conducting original research (although even if I grew to believe Kittey et al have basically nothing to do with the result by then, I still should be providing supporting evidence and appropriate credit). Maybe this line of thinking is what traps people.

Thank you for answers. So, bottom line is that these mistakes aren't plagiarism even though they are serious?

Exactly. If done with sufficient frequency, the work has become so poorly done that a degree based on it could be revoked.


text:
Received three letters of recommendation, but decided not to attend PhD program
I was planning on attending a Ph.D. program at my undergraduate alma mater, and I requested letters of recommendation from two professors and a previous employer. All three of them wrote and submitted letters of recommendation on my behalf.
However, as it gets closer to the time I need to submit my application, I realize I'm not having positive feelings about getting a Ph.D. It makes me anxious to think about it and has slowed me down in preparing some documents.
I like the people that wrote letters for me, and I want to keep a good relationship with them. I feel terrible that they used their time to write sincere letters for me, and ultimately I've decided not to attend.
Should I tell them that I've decided not to attend after they've submitted letters? Are they expecting a follow-up from me? Will they be insulted that I've used their time for no reason?
I was auto-accepted into the Master's degree for the same program, which feels like a much more reasonable commitment to make, given where I am in life. I'll likely see the professors when I attend my Master's courses, too.

Yes, I suggest you tell them to keep the lines of communication open. Just say you are exploring other opportunities and thank them.
Note, however, that in the US, you normally pay tuition for a masters and don't for a doctorate if you have a position as a teaching assistant (TA). Think about the cost/benefit and other things before you jump.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.


text:
I got rejected from MSc program, should I tell my supervisor about the decision?
I was sure my application was going to get accepted but unfortunately, it wasnt.Should I email my research supervisor to explain to him that I will not be his future student? Is there a way that he could fight for me?
Added information in comment:
To be honest, my supervisor received an email from the committee asking him why they should accept me. I am 100% sure he forgot to send them the letter explaining why he wants me as a MSc student. Otherwise, they are unreasonable for rejecting because we already formulated the research proposal etc. How can I email my supervisor about this?

Yes, email him and explain and ask if there's anything he can do. The answer might be 'unfortunately not', but what if it isn't?
A very similar thing happened to a friend of mine (paraphrasing from an old email here). She was in touch with a supervisor she really wanted for a master's degree, and applied to the program. One of her reference-letter writers messed up the online submission form by uploading a letter but not clicking 'submit'. The application was incomplete, and Friend of Mine received a letter of rejection. She wrote to Prospective Supervisor and asked what could be done. Prospective Supervisor wrote back unaware that Friend of Mine had received a rejection letter and said she'd go talk to the committee about the incomplete application. She argued for putting Friend of Mine on the waitlist, and the committee agreed. A sufficient number of people turned down the program in question that Friend of Mine got in...and ended up doing both the master's and a Ph.D. program with Prospective Supervisor.
It's not going to happen like that everywhere. Each department, school, country is a bit different, and admissions committees vary widely in terms of how much input a separate faculty member can have. But you never know.

Sorry to hear. I'm afraid there's no way he can fight for you once the official decision's been made. You should book a time to sit down with him or talk to him about it though. In addition to letting him know you didn't make it in, you can ask him for pointers on what the committee might've thought you were lacking, and what steps you should take next, especially if you're thinking about applying again in the future. Chin up, and good luck!

I'm afraid there's no way he can fight for you once the official decision's been made -- Not so fast; perhaps OP applied to a school where a potential advisor could vouch for a candidate to help get them accepted. The point is, we don't know what the policies are at this particular institution.

To be honest, my supervisor received an email from the committee asking him why they should accept me. I am 100% sure he forgot to send them the letter explaining why he wants me as a MSc student. Otherwise, they are unreasonable for rejecting because we already formulated the research proposal etc. How can I email my supervisor about this?

@Emma: I am 100% sure he forgot to send them the letter explaining why he wants me as a MSc student. -- Perhaps I'm reading too far into this, but that might be a warning sign.

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


text:
How much does rigor and time commitment of a math PhD correlate to prestige of the program?
My question is the extent to which the prestige and rank of a PhD in mathematics correspond to the rigor of the program. I'm absolutely not worried about working hard, but I'm recently married and I want to factor in time with my wife when deciding where to attend.
To expand, what are the levels of rigor corresponding to schools with
a) a big name and a well ranked math program (like Penn and Princeton),
b) a big name with a not-as-highly ranked math program (like Carnegie Mellon or Dartmouth),
c) a smaller name but a well ranked math program (like CU Boulder),
d) a smaller name with a less highly ranked math program?

There's such wide variation in "time commitment", even within a single program, based on a student's advisor, field of study, interests, chosen project, etc, etc, that I think any correlation with the prestige of the program will be lost in the noise.

@NateEldredge thank you so much, that's very helpful!

I think a more productive way to factor your considerations for your spouse and your family life into your choice of program would be by considering things like:

your spouse's preferred climate (temperatures, rain, snow, etc.)
how isolated vs. how easily connected your spouse would be with others -- there are two aspects here -- both people of your spouse's nationality, if your spouse is originally from a different country than the country where you hope to study, and also people not of your spouse's nationality (in the U.S., international trailing spouses sometimes find it rewarding to form friendships with other non-U.S. citizens, who are not necessarily of the same nationality)
how easy and quick it would be for you to pop home for dinner before getting back to school for some evening work, or for your spouse to stop by your department to spend some time with you in a study break
possible employment opportunities if that is something your spouse is interested in


text:
Letters of recommendation only from employers and managers
I am looking to apply for a professional masters program in computer science (M.E. in Computer Science). This program is designed to for the working software engineer and thus not advised for those interested in doing computer science research in academia.  As part of this, I am going to need to submit 3 letters of recommendation. It has been a few years since I graduated with my bachelors and I did not have a significant relationship with any of the professors in my undergraduate program. Thus, I would not be comfortable asking them for a letter of recommendation.
I am now working and I am highly regarded at work. I am confident that I could get very strong letters from various managers that I have worked with at my company. Will 3 strong letters of recommendation from these individuals be enough? How will they be weighed against a less strong letter from an undergrad professor?

For a professional masters, I could see it being fine to get all your letters of rec from people in industry. You don't need a professor's opinion too much since you're not going to get involved with research.

Agreed, this should definitely be fine.

If it's "designed .. for the working software engineer" they probably get LORs from managers and supervisors all the time.

I have only been an admission committee member in the biomedical field so I cannot say too much about your field. For us, here are the concerns.
Generally, the pattern we have seen is applicants who returned to school after a long period working in industry face a harder time. A few factors include age difference (harder to find study partners), technology gap (unfamiliar with online learning platform or software), and anxiety related to assessment (examinations, tests, etc.)
While I understand it's a professional degree, a professional degree is still a degree given in an educational organization. There will be assignments, due dates, evaluation, course load management, study skill application, group work, etc. It will not be free of academic features. Admission committee would like to know if the applicants are ready for that.
If you have had a strong relationship with any professor I'd recommend go get his/her letter that would highlight your abilities as a student, but too bad you haven't had one or it may be too long a gap. This is not to say you should give up one strong co-worker's reference letter in favor of a weaker one from a former professor. Instead, a second best approach would be to ask one of your reference persons (preferably the one who trained you or someone who holds an adjunct professor title elsewhere) to highlight your good properties as a learner, and (if he/she also teaches) provide an estimation on your ability to thrive in an academic environment.
Another possible step to take is to ask the admission/recruitment staff. They can perhaps also let you know what the general patterns are and if your combination of reference letters would raise a red flag.
Good luck!

"ask one of your reference persons (preferably the one who trained you or someone who holds an adjunct professor title elsewhere) to highlight your good properties as a learner, and (if he/she also teaches) provide an estimation on your ability to thrive in an academic environment." I feel like this is the 'best' part of the answer, but it is a bit buried in the other text.

Agree with Hobbes comment - if any of your professional references can speak to your personal proclivity towards professional development, that might be great too: "When our team didn't have any experts on warp drive technology, Andrew was able to bring us up to speed without prior knowledge in the area" sorts of statements, and anything else they can say to support that you are up to date on any new developments in your field that a modern BS in CS would unquestionably know.


text:
Who decides a university's stance on a topic?
To illustrate what I'm thinking of, this page by UCL on Brexit says:

Are EU students welcome in London?
Yes. In the words of Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London: "To the almost one million Europeans living in London ... you are welcome here." UCL fully endorses this statement.

There are tens of thousands of staff and students at the university, so it's statistically unlikely that they all endorse the statement. Who, then, decides that UCL indeed fully endorses this statement? He or she is speaking for the entire university. Does he/she know if indeed the majority of staff and students at UCL endorse the statement? If so, how?
If I had to guess, I'd hazard that the Vice Chancellor decides for the university as a whole, but I don't know if it is a solo decision, if the Vice Chancellor conducted a poll of the permanent staff (presumably not the students), or if the Vice Chancellor simply assumed that the university needs EU students for revenue so they had better endorse the statement.

Since your question is "who endorses that statement" rather than what the consequences are, I'll rather add this as a comment. A policy or a topic such as this one which is "fully endorsed by the University" means that all the staff have to respect that and act accordingly in all their professional communications. I'm sure there is University employees who think Europeans / women / some other minority should not be welcomed at their institution, however the key is that while they're free to privately share that with their partner, publicly they have to reflect the official University position.

@penelope Should be an answer. It's very good.

@penelope It's an interesting question whether tenured university staff "has to" publicly agree to the positions of their employer. In this specific case probably yes, but I could imagine that many other topics would be covered by freedom of research / teaching.

@penelope For instance, my (private) university has some time ago signed a high-profile agreement with a company that included an understanding that we were not to collaborate with specific competitors of them. Many senior staff very publicly opposed this, relying on their legally granted right to freedom of research.

@xLeitix - in this particular case the example is UCL, which is a British university, and there is no tenure or legally granted right to freedom of research here - so your rights fall under British employment law same as any employee at any company.

@IanSudbery Actually my experience is different - my School recently encouraged us to attend a funding event centred around arms producers (note: not University-wide, just School); a colleague responded to those (internal) e-mails saying why he opposes the University involvement in such things, and when called out by the admin people, dug out the appropriate sections from his contract and the Uni policy where his academic freedoms were explicitly mentioned and explained.

I'm not saying that individual unis aren't different - I meant that there is no legal protection. Uni's might have policies/contracts that say dissent is allowed; although I guess very few would have policies/contracts that would cover the example used.

On that note, there are various polls and news pieces from 2016 when the referendum was a hot topic suggesting that the vast majority of UK university staff (>90% in some cases) did not support Brexit, so its not just the "boards" opinion, but a widely shared one.

Women are not a minority.

@Marianne013 In many places, they're legally considered one, regardless of their numbers, because "minority" is code for "historically oppressed group".

Another recent example would be the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) signing a letter to the US government that suggests taking an anti-"open access" stance, without asking their members. After considerable pushback, ACM eventually sent a second letter, expressing regret to have signed the first letter.

Universities work like any organization. The stance of the organization is the stance of its leadership. It can be the president, the chancellor, whatever you call it, it can be the board of directors, it can be the faculty assembly… It can even be a university-wide poll as you suggest. It depends on how the university is governed.
The statement "organization X has position Y" is a very common one in English. For example, "country X is a friend of country Y". "Statistically", it's unlikely that every single inhabitant of country X is actually a friend of every single inhabitant of country Y. Saying that a group of people does something is not the same as saying that every single member of that group does something.

In practice, a university often has a group of vocal activists who take over such things. The board often has not thought about such things, or not carefully. So they are often unsure and not confident, and so willing to go along with what some loud activist advocates.  A few well placed newspaper editorials, a concerned call from a donor who has been manipulated by the activists, and suddenly there is an "official" policy.

Universities have a governance structure like any other other institution, company or country. For issues of this type, most universities have a committee for diversity and inclusion (example 1, example 2, example 3). The people in this committee design (suggested) policies and measures on the topic. Depending on the university and on the extent of the measure, most nontrivial changes of policy will have to be approved by the governing body of the university. The names and tasks of the different governing boards vary by university. For example, information about the governing structure of UCL can be found here.


text:
Minor revision- Editor implied to do the experiment, however a rebut would clarify the issue
We recently received comments from the reviewers after revision. Comments were positive, one reviewer asked us to do an experiment. EES status says its minor revision, editor's email do not say it's a minor revision and he insists we do this experiments. Ending the email, he writes we would be glad to reconsider the revised ms. Though the reason given by the reviewer to do the experiment can be rebutted, it's more of clarification issue.
Should we rebut or do the experiment; Also, does the minor revision mean it's a in principle acceptance?

As an editor who recently had the questionable honor of rejecting a paper after minor revision, I can tell you that it (a) happens that papers are rejected in the minor revision phase, and that it (b) is no fun for anybody involved.

If you won't mind could you tell was it because of incomplete experiment? Or Something else? Also, I was wondering if it possible to reject a paper on readability. In my case, the experiment's outcome would not change the conclusion of the paper. I bit worried now. I have started doing experiments.

It was because of the author's complete unwillingness to implement even simple, uncontroversial changes recommended by the reviewers.

One of my paper was rejected even after minor revision.

Answer: Contact the editor and ask if they would consider a rebuttal.
Reason: Had a very similar situation: one of three reviewers wanted an extra experiment and the editor indicated we needed to consider running another experiment. We contacted the editor and asked if they would be willing in principle to consider a rebuttal rather than running an extra experiment. They said that they would consider it but would give us no guarantees other than that. We were successful: the reviewer backed down.

"Minor revision" only means "in principle accepted" if it's an "accepted with minor revisions". However, these minor revisions are usually seen as a must, and the paper can indeed be rejected if the editor or the referees (who may or may not get to see the revision) think that the points are not properly addressed.
Of course you can try to not do the experiment and write a rebuttal. It is possible that this will work but nobody can tell you what will happen.
If I try to read between the lines, it sounds like the editor is not totally positive about the paper yet, but I am not particularly good at reading between the lines. In the end it depends on how convincing the rebuttal is.

Now I am a bit worried. Anyway, we have planned the experiment to address the reviewer's comment. He wrote "I am pleased to say that they are positive about the paper in principle, but Reviewer #1 has several additional questions that would be good to address prior to proceeding with the paper."

See, I am not good reading between the lines… This sounds much more positive. But anyways, you started the experiment so why not finish it.

In a journal, "minor revision" can mean anything. Only "acceptance", not "conditional acceptance", "could be accepted", "address minor comments before acceptance" is really acceptance; any of these can be turned into a rejection, and I've seen that happening, both rightly and wrongly.
So, either have a very good argument why you do not need to do the experiment, or, if you can do it, then proceed to demonstrate convincingly that you took the comments seriously.


text:
Coming up with a PhD Research Topic after 10 years away from academics
I am looking at going back to University after almost 10 years in the Corporate World (I am exploring a PhD in Business and Quantitative Methods in Spain...line of Research is in "Innovation, Organization And Strategic Management").My MSc/BSc are relevant, only I bagged them in 2004.
I am really trying to figure out how to come up with a relevant topic. Applicants for Spanish PhD are required to write a thesis describing their topic. This becomes a bit difficult for students who have been away from the Ivory Tower for such period of time. Any suggestions?

The part of your question asking for programs is off topic here: "Shopping" questions, which seek recommendations or lists of individual universities, academic programs, publishers, journals, research topics or similar as an answer or seek an assessment or comparison of such, are off-topic here - so I have removed that part.

Oh..i am not allowed to solicit or shop on this forum? Or do i need to ask it as a different question?

"Shopping" for programs is off topic on this site. See the [help/on-topic] for details.

If you're able to, reading up on the current literature of the field should give you a good idea of where people are spending their time.  Most likely there will be a lot of things to pick from.  A lot of articles (at least in my field) will include 'future research' sections in the conclusions or discussion.
I would also look at faculty member's web pages or university pages.  They will usually list areas that they research.  If you see anything interesting you could reach out to that professor and have a conversation about the details of their research.  I bet they would be able to come up with 5 things on the spot that they don't have time to research but are interesting to them.

You've been in the corporate world for 10 years. You know better about what is going on 'outside' there, what is current practice, challenges and problems, trends etc. This is a very valuable experience when you delve into your PhD later.
Pair this up with your previous postgraduate experienced (MSc) and I don't think you will have such a big problem to figure out about relevant topic. Approach any potential supervisors (or their postgraduates students) in your field and briefly discuss about topics that relate with your experiences. Really, you've been in corporate world and you must seen much about innovation and management (and problems arise) first hand.

Not quite, Max. Thought it worked that way....until a proposal i had written was deemed not "theoritical enough".


text:
What are interests of a country to fund international PhD students?
I would like to understand positive and negative effects for a host country and for a home country of a student.

An interesting question in the title - could you please expand on the question body?

I'd love to give an explanation as to why, but some of the reasons are not positive, and I don't want to get down-voted to oblivion for giving an unpopular truth. You really want to know why? Go find an institute with mainly foreign students, and ask a local why they think their institute predominantly hirers foreigners.

OK - I know from overhearing directors at my place of work that foreign students are favoured because they depend on the work far more than natives. They don't speak the language, so they are more likely to stay focused. They will get kicked out of the country (lose their visa) if they screw up. They sacrificed a lot just to be there, so they are internally motivated to perform at a high level to make it worth it. There are also positive-selfish reasons too, like increasing the international rep. of the institute/profs/work, and bringing in grant money specifically for collaborative science.

For the home country, there are pros and cons, but strictly speaking they are not a player in the game, since they cant deny someone to go and work abroad. Yes the student might come home and share their new-found knowledge, but they're just as likely to go somewhere else or stay abroad after meeting their new husband/wife. Many countries try to keep the talent in. Honestly, big science institutions and universities don't accept people who don't fit in culturally as some sort of charitable exercise. They want their pound of flesh.

The question is not currently clear. Are you asking about why a host country would fund an international student to do a PhD? or why a home country would fund a student to go overseas to do a PhD? Or are you asking both questions. Please clarify

A country doesn't fund international students coming to it for studies. The hosting university (or the student) does, and it is per lobbying of such academic institutions that the country will issue necessary (and typically restrictive) visa. The question, as spelled out in the title, is thus not even correct - at least not in the U.S.

@J.J I don't know in which corner of academia you ended up, but all your comments and contributions I have read so far seem to indicate that you got a crap deal.

Yeah i'm probably on the sh**tier end of the satisfaction spectrum, but I don't think it makes what I say any less true. Yes, certainly the PhD experience is very different from place to place, and year to year, project to project - however, i think in general things are getting worse. More PhD students for less total grant funding. The senior people in the system directly benefit from the cheap and plentiful labour, so they propagate the myth of the independent-research PhD. I do almost all of my work after my daily 10 hours of mindless pipetting. But I get to publish in Cell/Nature. Lucky me

I received a Close Review request and voted to close as too broad because I think this question is indeed too broad. There are close to 200 countries in the world. Please specify the host country and the home country.

To the host country:
Positive:  A host country that is able to import top talent from other countries has a greater chance of keeping them in the country after graduation.  This, undoubtedly, is an effort to promote national interests in a specific field (typically, scientific).  Often, importing students to to do research is low cost (in comparison to hiring full time scientists or professors) and typically yields lots of deliverables (e.g. research papers) in a short time.
Negative:  A host country takes a lot of risks when it invests in a foreign student.  There no guarantee that student even graduates, much less that he/she remains in the country after graduation, or in any way promotes the host country's national interests.
To the home country:
Positive:  A home country that can produce top talent gains a reputation international level for its education system (for better or worse, regardless of whether this is actually true or not).
Negative: A home country has the potential to lose its top talent to other countries, which is often counterproductive to its national interests (especially scientific interests).
In addition to the countries, i feel it is important to discuss the benefits and risks that this presents to the student as well:
To the student:
Positive:  The student can gain a high quality education, typically with no strings attached.  When they graduate, they are free to choose their destiny (assuming that they even have the option of staying in their host country).
Negative:  The student effectively becomes low-wage, indentured migrant labor to the host institution.  Students are often not promised jobs or citizenship in their host country, but are often led to believe that "it is possible if you work hard enough".  This will often lead to foreign students out performing their domestic counterparts, but sadly offers little pay, benefits, or guarantees to the foreign student.  As J.J. points out, if a foreign student screws up in some way, they lose (potentially) their only chance of a better life outside of their home country.

At my university (in the US) international and domestic students have the same stipend and health care plan. I do not understand why international students are "sadly offered little pay, benefits, or guarantees" as compared to the domestic student.

@Drecate:  All graduate students are offered little pay for the same workload compared to professionals.

in which case low pay is not a problem uniquely associated with international graduate students and is thus irrelevant in the comparison.

@Drecate: Incorrect:  the stakes are higher for non-citizens.

Well, so what's your solution? Reverse discrimination?

I disagree with your statement that "the student effectively becomes low-wage, indentured migrant labor to the host institution" – this seems overly broad and harsh. For example, foreign PhD students in the Netherlands who are employed (as opposed to bursary students) are in some ways better off than Dutch nationals. They get the exact same contract and social security benefits but are usually entitled to significant tax breaks. I'm sure there are plenty of other countries where many foreign PhD candidates get the same rights and benefits as the locals do.

@Moriarty "the student effectively becomes low-wage, indentured migrant labor to the host institution" though it is not normal, but it happens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Planck_Society#Discrimination_controversy

@d.putto I'm not saying that it never happens. Just pointing out that internationals do not always have worse working conditions. "Indentured migrant labour" is one hell of an exaggeration.

To add to the previous answers: the host also wins by having ex-students in positions of influence, presumably favourably disposed to the ex host.

Home country positive: Sometimes the students come home to teach and do research after earning their degree bringing knowledge, expertise, and maybe prestige with them to help build programs back home. In some of these cases, the home country pays for them to go, earn their degree, and come back, and the student is under some form of legal incentive to come back (contract, release from compulsory military service, denial of departure if they ever come home for a visit, etc.). These kinds of things can occur in areas of research that are of national importance.


text:
Where to upload/publish gigabytes of experiment data
I have conducted experiment that had unexpected result which goes against  consensus in my community and I worry whether it will be accepted by other researchers. For that reason I would like to make all my work public - the resources, the programs, the results.. Is there online service where I can publish the data for free and obtain DOI number that I can reference in my paper?
It makes over 2GB when packed.
I have heard that such services exist for people in biology and medical research but I work on transportation systems which is rather different (we do not produce so much data usually). I plan to submit the paper to journal published by IEEE.

Have you asked IT in your department or institution?  Surely this won't be the viral download of the year...it's a large payload but given the small number of people who will want to d/l it, it may not be unreasonable to host it on an FTP server at your institution.

PLOS One provides a long list of data sharing options which makes me think this is a big list type shopping question.

"I have conducted experiment that had unexpected result which goes against consensus in my community". Uploading the data or not, you should make a valid case in your paper, why your results make sense when they contradict the related community. No reviewer will have the chance to test the source and datasets while reviewing. So, you should probably worry more why the results were unexpected (bug?, weird test case?) and how to explain the results theoretically before anyone has the chance to check your source code...

@Alexandros As I read the question, it's his experimental data that goes against the consensus, in which case releasing it would make sense. In any case, my personal preference (and yours may be different) is to flip the burden of proof and ask why not to release the data relevant to your paper - it makes your work reproducible by others and is as such good scientific practice.

@Alexandros I am not an autority in my field and I didn't imply my results are necesarilly correct. I tried to kill it, but failed to find the problem. So, I want to publish my work and my data for others to dissect it and/or reproduce it. Isn't this how science should be done?

This question has been asked and answered on OpenData SE.

You could also use Zenodo, which I personally prefer over Figshare since it is an open platform run by a scientific institution (the CERN) instead of a for-profit (compare the privacy policies of zenodo and figshare to get an idea on why this matters). They also guarantee that, should they ever shut down, they will migrate your data to another platform (and until then, your data is on the same infrastructure as the data created by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)).
Their size limit is 2 GB per file, and you can add multiple files to a single dataset upload (which means you may not even need to pack your data, if it can be sensibly split into multiple files of <2 GB - and if you need more space, you can contact them). Finally, you also get a DOI for your data (which will be updated to point to the new home of your data if they ever shut down). Right now, it can be used free of charge while they develop a sustainability plan (later, they may charge you for uploading larger datasets, but there will always be a free tier with reasonable sizes).

Nice. I didn't know that Zenodo is run by CERN.

Figshare:

Files up to 5GB
20 GB private space, unlimited space for public data
Get a DOI

Thank you. However, it doesn't come with guarantee that the data will not be deleted once published. From their terms and conditions: "Company will not be liable for any errors or omissions in any content, and may delete, modify, or reformat any materials, content or information Submitted by you."

@student That's a standard TOS clause; I highly doubt you'll find any web publishing service that doesn't reserve the right to delete content they are hosting.

You do make a good point but notice that it defeats the purpose of such service in a first place: I want to publish it there so the data are permanently accessible in the same way the paper is..

@student It is permanently accessible exactly in the same way your paper is. IEEE also reserves the right to delete any content on its site in its TOS.

@student You can't guarantee that anything is permanent. The best that you can do is to have redundant distributed copies of the data. I also encourage having a "home" for the project that you control, such as a domain with a simple web page, then you can update the link to the data if it ever changes in the future.

Why not upload it in the mentioned service and write in your paper that in case of problem during downloading the data, they can contact you under your email (maybe one that doensn't expire as soon as you leave the institute...so maybe your private mail) and you can upload the data again and tell those who contacted you, that all should be fine again. Of course you'd need to have all saved on some (external) hard disk.

There's a difference between putting it in a library or other archival system who budget for and plan for long-term storage and archival and a for-profit dot-com. I'm not sure which one FigShare is.

What about dropbox and split the data such that they fit into the free storage capacity (2GB) of two accounts?

@Lucas Dropbox limits total downloaded volume per day. Not the best option.

I added another answer for a service that guarantees to migrate the data if it ever shuts down - that's about as good a guarantee for permanence as you will realistically find, although they probably also reserve the right to delete your stuff should you upload anything illegal.

@student: One of the key things is to get a DOI: service providers who assign DOIs to datasets have a contractual obligation to DataCite, who administer the DOI system for data, to keep the data available in the long term. So if figshare or Zenodo closed, they would have to transfer the data to another host or pay damages of some kind — that's not a cast-iron guarantee but probably the best you'll get.

@benjamin: figshare is a private company, part-owned by Palgrave Macmillan (the publishing giant), though see my previous comment about DOIs too. Worth at least asking your institution's library if they have advice, as most offer some support these days.

See this link for an explanation of how figshare attempts to ensure permanent archiving: https://figshare.com/blog/Ensuring%20persistence%20on%20figshare/25