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Coming from an unknown university, is it possible to publish a good research paper in a good journal?
Suppose someone is pursuing PhD in mathematics from a third class university and their supervisor has little knowledge about their own field. Is it possible to publish a good research paper in good journal?

Are you asking whether one from a "third class university" (whatever that is) can write a good paper or if papers from third class universities can get published in good journals?

Possible yes, but in most cases much harder than with a supervisor that knows the field quite well and has published in the top journals.

Totally agree with the previous comments. One more thing: if you are talented, you still need an excellent supervisor to harness your talent and write a paper the right way. If your supervisor is not good “in his own field”, then your only chance is the presence of a third co-author who knows the game. And if your supervisor is not even good at making connections, that’s when things start to get rough.

There is also this thing called "double-blind peer review", if you mind.

I would say it is remote, unless you are Ramanujan; I suspect even he needs some help with academic writing.  Otherwise, most reviewers are likely to reject or dismiss any papers/authors who do not 'speak' their language.

The supervisor has little knowledge about their own field?  Why would they claim it as their field (of expertise) if they have little knowledge about it?

Yes, it is possible. The institution doesn't matter. The advisor doesn't matter. What matters is the content (and correctness) of the paper, along with a judgement about its "novelty". Those judgements will be made by reviewers and editors, independent of where the paper originates.
Good writing helps, of course.

While this answer is logically correct, I expect some perspective about the advantages of having a strong advisor and a good research environment might be helpful.

I applaud the....idealism in this answer, but I think @user129707's might be more realistic.

@Matt, I accepted the OPs characterization of the paper as a good one. I once had a major paper published by TRANS-AMS while affiliated with a noname place in an out of the way spot. I'll also note that diamonds come from coal mines. An editor who bases decisions on the affiliation is an idiot.

I, as a reviewer (physics, journals with IF in the 10⁰ through 10¹ range), don't recognize 99% of the affiliations I encounter. I'd be surprised if someone actually cared about that line apart from curiosity. Of course this could be different for editors.

@Buffy, I belive the main point of contention here is the OP's definition of 'good journal'. If that is to mean 'scientifically well-regarded', then your answer is definitely correct and better than mine. If, on the other hand, OP was talking about 'highly visible, flashy journal', then desk rejections are a thing and high profile affiliations make it easier to get through. Given that editors act in a corporate environment, I cannot even condemn them for acting this way. That being said, the fixation on 'impact factors' in lieu of academic content is a sad thing!

TLDR: It is possible, but in practice it's much easier to get the same paper published with a 'Big Name' university in the affiliations. Coming from a 'Third Rate' university, you will need a glowing cover letter to convince the editor to send your paper into review at all.
What has been said so far is true in principle, but not necessarily in practice. Since the OP explicitly asked about the possiblity, the other answers are technically correct but disregard the mechanics of the publishing process: Not all papers get into the review stage. Before being sent for review (i.e. before the scientific importance even has a chance of being assessed by actual experts), the top journals have an editor vet submissions before sending them out. And by 'top journal', I'm not talking only Science and Nature. Nowadays, even journals with mid-single digit impact factors have desk rejections.
This editor has little time for each submission and also is likely to get into trouble if they send too many 'duds' (papers of poor quality that subsequently rejected by the reviewers) into review, because it can be very hard to find reviewers. If there is a 'Big Name' associated with the submission, there is very little risk for the editor in forwarding your paper into review because if it is a dud, the 'Big Name' university provides protection ("I did have my doubts about this paper, but since it came from 'Big Name', I thought it might be worth giving it a shot.").
If you think you have made a significant scientific breakthrough in your paper, then you may have a chance with a sufficiently strong cover letter to your submission. Make it clear what the contribution is and why it is very important. Don't make it "Dear Editor, please find attached my submission. Sincerely yours,...", but make it "Dear Editor, in the attached paper, I've partially solved longstanding problem X / I have shown that method Y can be extended by Z, making problem X finally accessible" or the likes. The cover letter is a sales pitch. Big Name universities are a brand, and if you do not have such a brand attached to your name (yet), you must sell the paper harder.
If - as is the default - you still get your desk rejection, publish in a well-regarded low-tier journal and watch the paper get cited. The next paper has a better chance of getting through the editor.
Another option is Open Acces journals, which can have a very high impact factor and are a bit easier to get into, because your university has to pay a substantial fee. However, beware of predatory journals (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beall%27s_List).

Otherwise relevant. But I want to warn the unwary reader of your "impact factor" scale. In math that figure of "merit" works on a different scale. It is possible for a very good math journal to have impact factor 0.8 (1990s calling). The reason: a good math paper, length12 pages, may cite 6 papers only - the ones that are absolutely necessary background without which the contents of the current one simply cannot be understood/verified. Whereas a medical paper consists of 3-4 pages of content and 3-6 pages of citations of "related work" (largely irrelevant for understanding the present piece).

(cont'd) When I started writing papers for engineering journals, the citation culture was already markedly different, and took me a bit by surprise. Still not quite what they do in medicine.

@JyrkiLahtonen The other tricky bit with impact factor for math papers is that it is usually computed by the citations in the first 24 months after publication or something like that. Math papers often have a much longer shelf life and it is not uncommon that most of the citations a paper gets only appear when it is already 10 or 20 years old.

@JyrkiLahtonen you are correct, thanks for clarifying. There are highly regarded journals with an impact factor of less than 1 in my field (theoretical physics) as well. Impact factors on an absolute scale say little about scientific quality of a given journal but a lot about the quality of that journal's marketing department. And of course they depend on the number of scientists in a given field, their quantitative output and the typical number of citations per paper.

Coming from a 'Third Rate' university, you will need a glowing cover letter to convince the editor to send your paper into review at all. - While I agree with the general spirit of this answer, this statement doesn't make sense in mathematics, where cover letters are meaningless.

Yes but your research better be plenty good enough for that journal.
Coming from a poor school gives you a big disadvantage with the quality of your research to start with.   But you could be good enough to improve to the higher level of that journal.

Yes it does not matter where you come from if the paper is good enough (and you can pay the fees) a journal will publish it.
One issue that could arise, if you/your supervisor is less skilled is being able to turn your good idea into a good paper (so that a good journal would publish it). This needs a good knowledge of the subject area to know how to sell the paper, what are the interesting questions in your field, and how your work fits in and improves your field.
Good papers are not just about having a good idea but being able to sell the idea. This is done though the choice of plots, what you discuss (and what you leave out to stop the paper becoming too long), the literature you cite, and the overall presentation of the paper. I've seen many papers that after reading them many times I eventually realize the authors did good work, they just worded their paper poorly and as such the papers end up in lower tier journals.

I reviewed one (CS) paper whose central section was a perfectly sound mathematical proof of a theorem that had absolutely nothing to do with the introduction or conclusions of the paper. It was as if the two authors hadn't actually been talking to each other.


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Should I use a linear function or two linear functions to grade scores?
In Chile, we score from 1 to 7 (this is a legal normative), where 4 is the minimum grade to pass. Thus, the passing grade corresponds to halfway point (50%) of the grade span (from 1 to 7). However, it is common practice to require a minimum score of 60% to pass (e.g. 6 points of 10). This creates a dissonance between the minimum grade and the minimum score to pass.
If we use a minimum score of 50% (4) to pass, we use a linear function to assign grades. However, if we use a minimum score of 60%, we need two functions to calculate grades from scores. In other words, the function breaks at the minimum grade to pass, such that points at the bottom (below 4.0) are worth less than the points at the top (above 4.0).
Having two functions to assess the performance troubles me. In other words, people that have more troubles in the course are being evaluated with harder standards than the ones with better performance.
One solution to this problem would be to change the grading scale. Unfortunately, this is not legally an option in the short term. A second solution would be just to drop the minimum passing score of 60%. But I think sometimes you may need to increase the grading difficulty because of the importance of the content you are teaching.
Under those circumstances, what is the better solution in this case: a single linear function or two different functions to grade scores?

I've tried to tighten the grammar/wording a bit. Please feel free to edit/roll back changes if I accidentally changed the meaning of anything!

I think your math is wrong. If 60% (of 7) is 4.2, 50% is 3.5, not 4.0.

@Glofindel, now makes sense. I had to edit some previous editions that changed the question. The 60% corresponds to the possible score not to the possible grades.

@niklai in English, approve is to accept something. The translation of "aprobar" is to pass.

"people that have more troubles in the course are being evaluated with harder standards than the ones with better performance."  Surely the two segments meet at the cut-over point, resulting in a different marginal return, but not a different slope across the whole range.  Which implies that everyone is held to the same standard on the easy questions.  Then in practice the harder questions (which the poor students likely won't even attempt) are worth more, although due to sloppiness some of the better students might lose a few points on easy questions.

Many courses end up having whatever curve results in separation of failing, merely acquainted, competent, expert, and outstanding students into the corresponding grade ranges.  Whether you do this by changing the curve or changing the difficulty variation matters little; the end result is quite similar.

You should focus on getting the grading correct for students who do much better than just passing, who score within the range where you would personally draw the line between who is an expert who has completely mastered the subject and who is good but needs to study a bit more to be considered to be an expert. This line is not usually at 100% because you can make minor errors even if you are an expert, it's more typically somewhere between 80% and 100%. You then want to assign some grade, say 7 to students who are at or just above that boundary, which mans that the boundary percentage should be mapped to 6.5.
The goal of teaching is to assist students who do their best and may go on to embark on an academic career, it's not about catering to students who for whatever reasons end up not doing well. The students who are not doing well risk getting into problems; if they score sufficiently low they'll not "pass the course" but it's just a total waste of efforts to figure out how to draw the line for that.
Your attitude should be that someone who scores well below, say, 85% has de-facto failed the course, but in the gray area between, say, 60% and that 85%, they are not going to be deprived of a diploma just because they didn't do well on your exam. Whether that 60% becomes 50% or 65% should not be of any concern to you. That uncertainty should make your students who are not studying hard enough worry a bit more so that they end up studying harder.

I would tend to just follow the prescribed rule and call 50% (or 4) passing. My students generally have trouble enough meeting that threshold.
On the other hand, you don't need "two functions" (nor a piecewise function) to do the task of transforming 60% -> 4. For example, y = 2.5x^2 + 3.5x + 1 does the job.

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In research paradigm's post-positivism can I prove the hypothesis instead of falsifying it?
In research paradigm's post-positivism can I prove (verify) the hypothesis instead of falsifying it?
Guba, E.G. and Lincoln, Y.S., 1994. Competing paradigms in qualitative research. Handbook of qualitative research, 2(163-194), p.105. says, that in the methodology
positivism's experimental/manipulative methodology
that focuses on verification of hypotheses;

postpositivism' s modified experimental/
manipulative methodology invested in critical
multiplism focusing on falsification of hypotheses;

But, can I just prove (verify) the hypothesis instead of falsifying it? I don't want to fully be on pure objectivism and don't want to be in pure subjectivism so I'm considering the nature of knowledge to be in post-positivism ..
Mainly, I want to gather data and do both qualitative and quantitative analysis and then triangulate the data to come up with a conclusion and prove (verify) the hypothesis. If I do that does it comes under positivism instead of post-positivism?

When dealing with statistical data, you can only reject the null hypothesis, with certain confidence. For example, you cannot prove that two variables are totally uncorrelated, you can only show that if they are, it is smaller than your sensitivity.

@Davidmh : you mean I can't "verify" it with post-positivism. some how I should reject either the "hypothesis" or "null-hypothesis"
and you mean, if I want to prove the hypothesis, I should consider the nature of knowledge as "positivism" instead of "post-positivism"?

For instance, suppose I'm going to prove "medical practitioners have issues with co workers" hypothesis .. so I'll do a questionnaire survey as quantitative and interview them for qualitative data. ... so, must I consider the knowledge as "positivism" instead of "post-positivism"? .. Can't I consider it as "post-positivism"?

@Pretty_Girl I am almost sure that the best you can do in the medical practitioners example is you can reject the null hypothesis (which is "medical practitioners don't have issues with coworkers").

I do not think there is something strict system called "positivism" for proving something. However, yes, in computer science, we can find an alternative proof to a certain theorem using the concept of "proof by refutation".

@Pretty_Girl your survey may reveal that they indeed have issues, and then there is no doubt about it. But what if you don't find them? Maybe it is because they indeed don't have them, or because you haven't asked enough people, or you only asked in a hospital with a particularly good environment that doesn't generalise to others, or... Statistically speaking, you can easily model the null hypothesis (they don't have issues), and you can find evidence that rejects it (they do), or a whole lot of evidence that doesn't (and then you have more confidence that it is true, but it gets tricky).

In short, post-positivism takes the stance that answers will change with more data and therefore prefers to reject standing assumptions rather than accepting alternatives. Instead of accepting your can say failed to reject. This leaves it in the realm of tentative working belief until more data is presented.
In length, if you are viewing the world through the lens of post-positivism then you believe that though there is a Reality out there it is not perfectly knowable. An example of this is in the moment of this writing there were an exact number of grains of sand within a given radius of the center of the planet. The quantity however is unknowable. Though it is unknowable we can easily reject the hypothesis that there were exactly ten grains of sand within a thousand kilometers of the earth's center. We have rejected a hypothesis without accepting any alternative. Let us say that an alternative hypothesis was put forward that there were 1 * 10 ^ 15 grains of sand. This alternative though certainly not accurate is much less easy to dismiss. Though I imagine a few quick calculations would be sufficient to reject it as well. We allow to stand a hypothesis that we can not bring enough evidence against to reject but we do not ever say that it is the final and true answer.

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Should I get a letter of recommendation from my mother, who is a famous researcher in my field?
My mother is a quite famous researcher (she has a PhD) on the field I want to do a PhD in. She works on the industry (not academia). I helped her on successful projects. She knows more about my work than my professors since we have worked much longer together.
Is it a good idea to ask for a recommendation letter from her? Since our personalities are very similar she can point out the high probability that I will be successful like her?

You should write about the work you have done in your personal statement. But you need to emphasise your skills, not argue on the basis of what your mother has done.

If you helped her on successful projects, than you have certainly met and worked alongside her colleagues. They would be perfect for a recommendation letter.

"Since our personalities are very similar she can point out the high probability that I will be successful like her?". This is completely wrong. Life isn't deterministic.

There are several similar questions on this site which can be found by a simple search. Such as this one or more generally, this one

@EricDuminil How is pointing out that life isn't deterministic supposed be a rejoinder to a probability statement? Probability is based on the fact that life isn't deterministic.

@JohnColeman: Okay. What I meant to say is that it's impossible to know where her success came from. It might have been intelligence, perseverance, connections or simple luck.

@JohnColeman In fact most measures of "intelligence" etc show reversion to the mean, not the inheritance of very high (or low) individual performance. In any case, why do you assume (with no proof) that you inherited your own characteristics from your mother, and not your father? "Helping one of your parents" seems a very long way away from "independent research" IMO.

@alephzero "why do you assume ..." I assume nothing. I was just somewhat pedantically pointing out that the nondeterministic nature of life doesn't undercut probabilistic statements since the latter presupposes the former. Regression to the mean is quite relevant and makes it likely that OP would be less successful than their mother, which is consistent with the fact that being the child of that mother suggests a high probability of better than average success. Children of professional athletes tend to be more athletic than most, though few are themselves good enough for the pros.

"My mother is a quite famous researcher (she has a PhD)" It would be extremely unusual for a famous researchers not to have a PhD.

Even asking her would put her in an extremely difficult ethical position.  It's tantamount to emotional blackmail as well.  This is not a good start for someone who should be trying to make a name for themselves.

As a "famous researcher" with a PhD, your mother presumably has a good idea of how things work in academia, and what is ethical/recommended. What does she say about the option of writing you a rec letter?

The answer to this  depends  on how many other people you intend to ask for letters.  If you can show half a dozen letters of recommendation from highly respected academics in your field, then it would not be appropriate to omit the one  who knows you best.  But if you are going to show somebody a single letter, and it happens to be from your mother, the impression will be that the only person who you can get to recommend you is your mother - and that's certainly a negative recommendation, not a positive one.

Probabilities and statistic nitpicking aside: Genetics and inheritance only give potential and/or possibility. Personal history (Vita), intrinsic and extrinsic, is what forms you. E.g., there has been a certain potential of me becoming a stone sculptor (my father was a stone sculptor at the german degree of "Master Craftsman"). Yet, a small piece of used electronic device containing a 386 CPU, which was actually a present to my sister (but which she then did not use), hooked me into a career at the screen, progamming all kinds of stuff.  Looking back, a really unprobable & unforeseeable event.

@DavidRicherby: "It would be extremely unusual for a famous researchers not to have a PhD": Now I am nitpicking. But a PhD is not the only doctor-graded degree in worldwide context (the question also seems unspecific regarding country). But your statement generalized, I agree, it's not the norm; yet, an autodidact and self-learner myself, I have an urge to point this out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_autodidacts

@phresnel You're just making my point for me: being a famous researcher without a doctorate is so unusual that they made a Wikipedia page about it. Also, a large fraction of the people in the scientists section are from the days before doctorates became near-universal among academics and when a lot of research was done by enthusiastic amateurs.

Yes you should.

@DavidRicherby: Yes, of course. I phrased it a bit dumb and that page was not to counter your argument, but (as you already say) to add to it and to provide anecdote and heads-ups to us autodidact multipotent rebels. As another anecdote: I just learned that a doctor's degree is not a requirement to become physician (according to Zeit, about 20% of doctors in Germany are not doctors) :)

@phresnel OK, no worries.

No it is not a good idea. If she is well known and well connected there are much smoother ways you could do that.

It's perfectly OK for your mother to support your application, but (a) you must disclose the relationship, and (b) you need a recommendation from someone independent in addition.

Even in a situation like William Henry Bragg (father) and Lawrence Bragg (son), eventually sharing a Nobel prize (Sir Lawrence just 25 years old), or the elder Pierre Curie and Marie Curie followed by Frédéric Joliot-Curie and Irène Joliot-Curie (all four at least one Nobel prize), they likely did not started to argument of "... but I'm a relative of ..." but were able to find references outside familiy.  Professor Sauer unlikely applies for research grants in line of "... on recommendation by my spouse, Chancellor Merkel", either.

I would say no, this is a very very bad idea. Your mother going on about how likely you are to succeed will probably not carry much weight. What else would your mother say? If you were unlikely to be successful, would she say that? (even if she would, the perception of the people reading the letter will be that she would not)

Why do they even know that it is his mother? Is Phd. Anna Barley the mother of Bob Barley?

@Mayou36 I think it would be very unethical to write a recommendation for a close relative without disclosing the relationship.

@Mayou36 Moreover, academia is a small world, and should they find out the relationship by chance, the applicant can say goodbye to the position, and their mother to a piece of her reputation.

This answer presumes that a recommendation letter is meant to say that the candidate is "likely to succeed". While the point of a recommendation letter is to help gauge the potential success of the candidate, the letter itself should state facts about the candidate's work. For example "I know that this person is smart because they solved hard problem XYZ", or "I know that this person works well on a timeline because they completed projects A and B simultaneously on a six month deadline".

Or, in trying to be fair and honest, over-compensate and undervalue her child's contributions.

@PatriciaShanahan, sure, but it could be a small sidenote. It is not the important part. I agree on the general findings that "likely to succeed" or "having similar personalities" (as stated by the OP) is of course nothing you want to write in a recommendation letter. I presumed the letter contains, as AFAIK a good recommendation letter should, only some facts about the person and why (or because of which abilities or performances) the author would recommend the student.

Well, on the other hand, if the recommendation is bad, then it will be taken seriously. It's a one-way ratchet.

Your mother is not a suitable person to write a letter of recommendation. Even people who know her professionally may not know whether she can write a really objective letter about you. One of your mother's collaborators might be a good letter writer, if they both know your work and are sufficiently independent of your mother to not have any conflict of interest.
Failing that, you can still discuss the projects you worked on with her, and perhaps indicate that you do not have a letter of reference for them because of the conflict of interest.
Although your professors have not worked with you as long, readers will put more trust in their objectivity. They have presumably worked with you as much as they have with other students at a similar stage for whom they are writing letters. They are better placed to know how you compare to your peers.

Not only would a letter from mother be discounted, it could have a negative effect.
It would simply beg the question "Why can this person not find someone independent to write a reference?"

TL;DR: Nobody in their right mind would accept your application, as it could ensue considerable damage to them.
I want to add the perspective of the decision maker to what’s already been said.
In all of this I assume that there is no explicit rule against recommendations by close relatives – because otherwise the situation is very clear anyway.
Also, I assume that this happens in a country where nepotism and cronyism are frowned upon and not common.
If I had to make a hiring or admission decision and the application contained a recommendation from the applicant’s mother, I would probably reject it immediately (even if I did not read a single word of the recommendation).
If it were my job to formally process applications before they get to those who actually make the decisions, I would ensure that they never even see that letter.
Also, if the recommendation was authored by somebody with a name and biography making it likely that they are related to the applicant, I would check.
The reason for this is as follows:
If somebody finds out that I made a positive decision based on an application containing a recommendation letter by an obvious relative, I can be accused of making a bad decision, ignoring a blatant conflict of interest.
It doesn’t matter whether I carefully took the conflict of interest into account; it doesn’t even matter if I actually read the recommendation – because in such a situation the burden of proof is primarily on me.
Possible repercussions include lawsuits, the end of my career, and similar.
The only way to avoid this problem is to reject your application (and the fact that you used a recommendation by a close relative will give me sufficient argument for this).
And just to be sure:
Hiding this conflict of interest is not a good idea either, because it shifts the blame for this almost entirely to you (not that you would be in a good situation if you had disclosed and were hired).

No, don't ask for a letter of recommendation from your mother. I doubt she'd write one for you, anyway.
Letters of recommendation from close relatives are not accepted, because they can't be trusted to be objective. It's quite common for application forms to explicitly say that referees cannot be close relatives.


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Two different papers with the same title, how to split them up in Google Scholar
A friend of mine ended up in a weird situation that they're looking for advice about: they published two different papers under identical titles. Google Scholar lists both papers with the same number of citations, and with the citations listed being the combined list for both papers.
What should they do? One solution might be to change slightly one the titles. They might do this by adding "a review" at the end of one of the papers, as it is a review paper. Are there better ideas?

Has anyone tried to delete articles from Google Scholar and add them again - as suggested  ? - What about the titles - in my friend's case these are identical but all the other details are different.
.
The review paper (2017) has no citations yet, but the research/journal paper (2014) has already got 5 citations. Google Scholar lista the papers one after the other with the same number of citations but the review paper got this number stricken through.
Is there any risk involved in deleting both items and adding them again ?

No risk in deleting and adding them again, but the same problem might persist.


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Is it okay to suggest a Professor Emeritus as a mentor when applying for US mathematics postdocs?
Consider a typical mathematics postdoctoral position in the US that is assessed at departmental level and open to applicants from all research areas. Suppose that applicants are required to indicate one faculty member whose research areas overlap with those of the applicant. What would be the effect on the candidate's standing, if any, upon suggesting a Professor Emeritus particularly if the professor has the best fit concerning research interests compared to existing faculty members?

If you know that the emeritus professor in question remains very active, or he/she has specifically agreed to work with you if you are accepted, then this might be a good thing. Otherwise, this will probably indicate that your interests are not the best fit for that department.

We can't give you a generic answer. I suggest explicitly checking in advance with all parties involved that this is ok.

@Anonymous - Suggest you put this in an Answer.

Here is roughly the way it works in my department, and I imagine this is fairly typical for math research departments in the US.

People apply for postdocs.
The faculty review applications.
Faculty who are interested in certain candidates push for them.
Some committee and/or the chair decides on a ranking of the candidates individual professors are excited about.
Offers are made.

For 4, typically getting a postdoc for an emeritus professor will have very low priority, and unless the emeritus prof is active, they probably wouldn't push for you anyway.  I believe that emeriti typically don't even have permission to look at applications.
However, I think it's a little weird that they require you to name one faculty with common interests.  I don't remember ever seeing this when I applied.  (Is it exactly one?  If not, you could mention regular and emeritus faculty.  If so, maybe that is to assign that faculty member to review your application.)  My suggestion (say if you can only name exactly one) is to choose a regular (non-retired) faculty member, but possibly mention the emeritus professor in your cover letter.  If you think the emeritus professor is still active and would be interested in having you there, maybe send them an email to let them know you applied.  Then they might discuss your application with other faculty.

In actual fact, they do not demand exactly one, but I just wanted to ask in this hypothetical way and to consider this case on its own.


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How much effort does it take to record video courses?
MIT's OpenCourseWare has many video courses. They are very helpful, but compared to the majority of MIT  curriculum they're only a small part. So, how much effort does it take to record video courses?

You can also consider a screencast. You can get away with a decent tablet pc ($700 will be enough) or graphic stylus tablet ($100-150 for an entry-level one, but worse results), using free software only. Check out the answers at http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2853/device-for-writing-a-lecture-with-a-stylus-for-video-lecture-recording/2855#2855

For some reason I am reminded of the "Establish 'Hella-' as the SI prefix for 10^27" movement.

I'm in the middle of recording lectures for a class now, and I'm doing all the work (recording/processing/uploading) myself.  Luckily, I like doing the technical part of it, because it is rather time intensive.  I've also taught a course that had dedicated software to take care of the entire process (BB Collaborate).  I'd walk into class, log into the system, push "Record" and lo-and-behold the videos (with everything I had on my computer desktop at the time) were uploaded to the site a few hours after class (and were available live to the students who wanted to watch and participate remotely).  So, the effort varies depending on what situation you are in at your school.
If you have no supporting system (like BB Collaborate), plan on at least an hour or so per class of your time (not to mention render and upload time, which can take many hours depending on the length of your class and your Internet bandwidth), and this is once you get everything figured out.  Oh, and that doesn't include editing bells and whistles; I basically put raw class footage online and take as little time as I can for post-processing and editing.
For a self-built system, you'll need a number of things:

A decent Camcorder ($200-300 will get you one)
Flash based media ($25 for a 32GB card)
A tripod ($25)
A remote microphone ($150 for a decent one)
Video editing software (I started with iMovie on my Mac ($15) and have since graduated to Final Cut Pro X ($300) and Compressor ($50).  I assume you already have a computer, but you'll need that, too ($500-1500).)
External hard drive with a fast connection (Firewire or USB 3, $100 for 1TB).  This isn't strictly necessary, but you'll find that you may run out of disk space quickly without one.
A YouTube account (free), with a relatively fast internet connection (I'm currently faced with a molasses-slow upload speed in Djibouti, Africa, so that hasn't been fun).  Make sure you verify your YouTube account so you can upload videos longer than 15 minutes.

Once you get the equipment (total cost ~$1000 without the computer), you'll need to learn how to use everything.  You have to remember to record all your lectures, and plan on spending five minutes or so setting everything up before class, unless you have your own classroom.  I simply focus the camcorder on the board and me, with a bit of room on the sides for me to move around.  If you want panning and zooming, you'll have to rely on someone else to do it.
Getting up to speed with the editing software can take time, especially if you haven't done it before.  You could spend months editing a 1-hour class, but as I say, if you keep it bare-bones you can get the editing down to an hour or so of your time, including setting up all the steps to upload to YouTube.  I record all my videos at 1080p, but I upload to YouTube at 480p because of my slow connection (and my students have the same slow connection).  I find that the board is difficult to read, even though the camera is only 10 feet away -- I also upload my slideshows and try to write big!
Bottom line: either convince your school to invest in a professional system so you don't have to do much work yourself, or plan on spending a good bit of time (and money, if your school won't pay for it--I bought everything out of my own pocket, but as I say, I'm enjoying it) to learn the setup and edit/upload videos.

Jesus,I always thought school will provide you everything and you just have to do the teaching stuff,never thought it will take so much time and efforts.You are truly doing great things.

@AveMaleficum I appreciate that -- as I said, I'm enjoying the process, although it does take time.

I'd recommend to add 2 additionnal external hard drives: for backups, one "close", one "far" (so that if the building burns, you still have that copy). When one of the 3 HD fails (the main one, or one of the 2 backups), replace it immediately. IOW, have 3 copies at all time, the "working copy", and the 2 backups, one close, one "away" (at a friends/parent house?). Test the backup disks at least once a month (and upgrade when the technology gets obsolete).

Vincent Racaniello made a useful youtube video about how he records his lectures:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5v_uSQ-JXg

You might be interested in Erik Demaine's set up for video classes, which seems to require less work: http://erikdemaine.org/classes/recording/


text:
How to show interest to serve as a TPC or reviewer in top conferences?
My Questions: How can I express interest to receive invitation to serve as a reviewer in a top ranked conference? Currently I am registered with the conference review system (i.e., EDAS) and I receive review invitations from ordinary conferences, but I consider review in high quality conferences. Is there any feasible way to express interest and show that I have technical expertise to judge papers in a particular area. I know that having certain academic qualification (like master and more commonly PhD) and research experience is must to become nominated in top conferences.
Background: Researchers more or less receive invitations to serve as reviewer of a journal or conference. I guess the process in journals to identify reviewers is one of three main channels

Author suggests potential reviewer
Reviewer's profile is in the review system from previous submission
Reviewers can express interest to become reviewer in journals (Some journals have link to register).

and there should be other ways to feed information into the journal review system (that I might have missed).
However, in conferences, it is slightly different because

normally there is no registration link to express interest (I have not seen),
usually there is no option that authors nominate reviewers while submitting a paper to conference (at least I have not experienced the same).

the only way left compared to journal is that reviewer registers with the conference review system for paper submission. So in future, when organizing committee is selecting TPCs and reviewers, they can invite already-registered members to play as reviewers.

I can only answer for computer science, but around here TPCs of conferences are generally by-invitation only. You cannot (officially) apply for it per se - typically, the organizers will form the TPC based mainly on previous members, filling any openings with outstanding members of the community not currently part of the TPC. Usually, these outstanding people are personally known to the organizing committee, so no formal search or something like that is conducted.
Of course, writing to the organizers expressing interest cannot hurt, but my impression is that if you do not already know them, your request is sadly likely to be ignored.
Edit:
I should add that I did not mean to imply that it is all just a matter of "knowing somebody". Seeing that you are still a PhD student, you will likely simply not be high-profile enough at this point to be considered for the TPC of a really good conference (these usually only consist of eminent faculty).

Thanks, I am also from CS and look for such answer. Your answer is likely the sad truth.

true. since I am graduating, I need to have a clear strategy to enhance visibility in the domain to soon sit in eminent faculty group!

Sure, but I would be more realistic here and aim for TPCs of good, but maybe not excellent, conferences to bolster your CV. Just sayin' that trying to get in VLDB et al. TPCs might not be the most efficient use of your time in your career stage.

"TPCs might not be the most efficient use of your time in your career stage"; good advise. I like it.

Fresh PhDs are often invited onto TPCs of workshops, and sometimes even major conferences if they had a strong track record publishing as a student.  For instance, in systems, you occasionally see a PhD with 2 SOSP and 1 OSDI paper (or vice versa) -- basically a top venue every year.  These are very much the exception though.  I do agree with the general sentiment that it's "who you know" that matters -- but chairs look for balance (geography, gender, etc) and will usually invite a few people they don't know based on their past performance.


text:
How to get permission from Google to use Google Scholar Data, if needed?
As you maybe aware, Google does not provide any API for Google Scholar product and despite lots of request still there is no interest from Google to provide API for it. So, I am currently working on a product that can utilize publicly available information from Google Scholar page and render them so researchers and academician can use the data and embed them in their own website.
However, while I am developing the system, it happens sometimes that Google blocks my request to fetch scholar page (I parse HTML page). So, I am thinking that there might be a mechanism in their side that blocks request from applications -rather than human. So, it may suggest to get approval from them.
Do you have any idea that:

Do people need approval/permission from Google to use its Google scholar information? The product I am building is probably donation based for basic version and paid for some other version (not yet confirmed).
If people need permission, how should they approach them? I searched the entire scholar page here and found nothing related to get permission. Also there is no forum for Google Scholar according to this place.

Thanks

Related, but not duplicate: API and EULA for Google Scholar

Google Scholar, as you said, does not provide API, nor a complete documentation.
In the comment Davidmh cites this question, and I think that settles everything:

Google Scholar robot.txt disallows bots
Google service Terms of Service says

Don’t misuse our Services. For example, don’t interfere with our Services or try to access them using a method other than the interface and the instructions that we provide.

  So, in the end, you don't have permission for a script that fetches multiple pages at a time.

Following this Quora question, I found scholar.py, that is not an answer to your question but could be of use (I have not tried it).
Furthermore, I also asked the developer of the H-Index GS Calculator, to get another opinion, but I'm sure the "one-click" nature of the plugin complies with the ToS. A bot does not. Maybe you can change your system in this direction.
UPDATE: the developer says the in the past he wrote the GS team the same questions, and they replied

you can do stuff, respecting the ToS (so, no bot)
they will not provide an API, for legal constraints with affiliated digital libraries (ex. Scopus, WoS, etc.).

Also, his calculator has a throttler that reduces the number of queries per minute, to mitigate the issue. There are few simple techniques to "cheat", but, we are at the boundaries of the ToS :-).

I think "you can't get permission" is not exact. You don't have permission, by the ToS, but they are free to grant them to you, if you convince them. I guess the OP should ask the legal department or become a Google Certified Partner (probably difficult, but who knows).

I edited the quote. You can't easily get permission should be more appropriate :-)

Thanks Aubrey. Misuse is something I am not doing indeed. I am just letting people better use it. It is not at all misuse. If you can have your live citations in your personal webpage, it helps Google to disseminate its data and also help you to let visitors know your status. So where is misuse that I cannot see?

"For them", misuse is to try to access [data] using a method other than the interface and the instructions that we provide. My personal opinion is the same as yours, but as I wrote before GS has some serious legal constraints (I bet big publishers are really aggressive in defending their data). I think it's a pity, but that is what it is.

What about "Publish or Perish" (http://www.harzing.com/pop.htm#about) ? It uses GS data. My usage is also somehow similar in different way.

We need to investigate, the only thing I know I read it in this comment.

That is good hint. Publish or perish does ask visitor to click on the link. So, I can do the same too.

Yes, that is what I tried to say with "but I'm sure the "one-click" nature of the plugin complies with the ToS. A bot does not. Maybe you can change your system in this direction.". Maybe you (or someone) can edit my answer to say it more clearly?


text:
Career options after teaching oriented position
How commonly do professors at predominantly undergraduate institutions transition to different lines of work? What do they wind up doing?
I have a PhD in mechanical engineering and I focus on mathematical modeling in biology. I'm currently a postdoc looking at working at a predominantly undergraduate institution in the US. I love teaching, I just want to know what my alternatives would be in a few years if I wanted to go in a different direction.

Verifiably wonderful communication skills, "people" skills, ...

Keep in mind that many people in industry also teach or are involved in similar activities, undergraduate institutions are not the only place teaching occurs. I am not posting this as an answer because you probably are more referring to non-teaching lines of work, though?

@enderland I hadn't thought of teaching outside of a higher ed institution. Any thoughts you have on this would be relevant as an answer.

This was going to be my question!! You beat me to it ;).  I am currently a "lecturer" (teaching track) at a US university which is strongly research-focused.  I was wondering too on how I might shift to a different line of work in the future if needed. I only have anecdotes to offer: I have senior colleagues who successfully moved from teaching tracks to research tracks or industry jobs.  They however had to be active in research (not too difficult after a few years teaching and perfecting courses), develop proposals and/or rely on contacts.

@drN Anecdotes are great; academic career paths are often idiosyncratic.

@AlexSzatmary I am glad you say "often" idiosyncratic than "rarely" idiosyncratic...  Gives me hope that there is always room for change (of career path) if needed.

@drN In my area of work, mathematical modeling in biology, everyone's career path is meandering. My PhD advisor started in naval architecture, then tried working on petrochemical fluid dynamics before beginning work on red and white blood cell motion in fluids. My postdoc mentor majored in nuclear engineering and has just spent his 50th year at NIH.

@AlexSzatmary Yes, but it would seem that your colleagues moved from one form of research to another form of research.  I am wondering how circuitous a path would be to move from pure teaching to research.

@drN - Sounds like you've got material there for a separate Question!

If you have experience with any kind of programming (I'm guessing you do!), you could join the throngs of people who used to teach or do research but are now doing any number of things involving programming computers.


text:
Good questions for a student-advisor compatibility test
There are online a good amount of tests aimed to assess "compatibility" between two persons in a given life or work commitment situation; for instance, between coworkers, roommates, lovers, dungeons'n'dragons players.
Basically, the idea is asking questions to which there is no true correct answer, but different possible viewpoints based on personality, opinions and general attitude. Two people can check easily if they are on the same page on a number of controversial points, and early discussion helps identifying possible reasons for disagreement.
It would be interesting to come up with similar questions for the phd student/advisor relationship. For example,

A good advisor should:
a. provide detailed guidance and tell their student what to investigate in great detail, even on a day-by-day basis.
b. leave their student free to choose their work agenda, but arrange regular meetings to check on their status and make sure they don't go astray.
c. give their student a problem and tell them to come back when they have an interesting result, even if it is months later.

I would like to gather several specific questions of this kind as answers to a community wiki question.

Interesting question, but all your examples are situations of approximate parity or equity between people, which quite often is not the case with student-advisor relationships. Especially if the two are of two different generations, even the connotations of words (e.g., in poll questions) could be significantly different... Not that this scuttles the poll, but it complicates it, I think.

Continuing @paul's line of thought: the premise here is that both parties know in advance what they are looking for out of the relationship and have ideas about how it should be run.  Even from the advisor's perspective I can say (unfortunately) that this is not always the case.  Most students really don't have a clue, and most expectations they may have are accidental or random.

Finally, differing expectations of the advising relationship may be good rather than bad.  I wanted an advisor "of type c.", and I got one, one of the world's greatest.  But maybe a "type b." advisor would have been better for me.  I sort of suspect that, in retrospect.

I acknowledge your points that there is a fundamental disparity between student and advisor, and that studentspeople often do not know what is best for them. But I believe there is still some use in making clear what both parties expect and discuss it in advance.

@paulgarrett Actually, (1) that workplace questionnaire seems tailored to boss/employee pairs, too (2) dungeons and dragons is another example in which there is no equity between all parties: the game is run by a storyteller/moderator/overlord who has ultimate control on all aspect of the game for the other players, the dungeon master.

@Federico: No one said "no use"!  I upvoted your question.

@FedericoPoloni, it seems to me that this "immediate" model of advisor-student already has several built-in assumptions, which are at least as important as what the questions (in that context) appear to be.

Maybe an accurate comparison of extreme asymmetry would be to a prospective employee who's never had any job at all (and has no friends who have, either), or someone who's never had a boyfriend/girlfriend/room-mate, or someone who's never X, but/and is asked to commit in advance to attitudes about it... versus person who's been doing the thing for 10-20+ years. The experienced person may still be a jerk, or incompetent, or have not been paying attention, but... The best thing that happened to me in grad school was that most of my assumptions about how it would work flew out the window...

My university actually has an expections test like this prepared by the graduate research school (who administer overall all research post-grads). Its not compulsory, and indeed i've felt too aqward to give it to mine, since I had already been working with him for over a year.

@Oxinabox Interesting. Is the test private? If not, could you please share it?

Page 13 of this document: http://www.postgraduate.uwa.edu.au/students/resources/workshops/?a=518068
Credit to  Michael Azariadis (or possibly Krystyna Haq (or others,  internal pedigree is unclear)) of the University of Western Australia.
Who apparently adapted it quote; "from work of from a version developed by
Margaret Kiley and Kate Cadman, from an original scale developed by Ingrid Moses, Centre for Learning and Teaching, University of Sydney ."
Looks like it is 3rd generation. Its most-likely worth tracking down that original source. before putting it in an answer. (Feel free to do so)

I think this is also an issue of accuracy of self-perception. It's not just recognizing what you need out of an advisor-advisee relationship, it's that both parties need to be able to accurately assess their traits and strengths. I've seen many instances where people think they're good communicators, work flexibly, etc., when any outside observer will tell you they are quite the opposite. So, your rating form might need to account for this. It isn't just a question of "what do they need/want?" but "what can they realistically deliver?"

Let me continue along the lines of @paul and @pete in a shortened quest for an answer.
I have been a teacher, although at this time I simply "work for" University of Richmond in a staff position. Lately I have been musing over a similar question involving the interaction between MDs and their patients. As patients we can forget that there is a sense in which we are hiring the doctors, and that the doctors are doing work /for/ us. While it is an asymmetric relationship, it is possible to bring it into balance.
The interview is likely to be short from the {doctor|advisor} side: A cardiologist is unlikely to be of much use for my orthopaedic problems, and an advisor is likely to be able to cut short the interview rather quickly if the subject matter is ill suited. So, let's suppose the question is really "How do I as a {patient|student} select a {doctor|advisor}?" It is a search for compatibility, yes?

"How did you get into this line of work?" I always ask this. I want my doctor to have gone into medicine for the same reasons I got into computer science.
"What has kept you in this line of work?" I really want the answer to match my own reasons for having worked with computers and software every day for the past four decades: I cannot imagine doing anything else.
I know what success/victory conditions are for myself. So I ask "In my case, what does success look like for you?"

You are likely to spot failure/incompatibility in five minutes; which allows you to move on to the next candidate. If you can talk at ease for 15 minutes, you likely have found someone with whom you are compatible. Remember: the match need not be perfect to be successful.
So in your case, you are looking for answers involving a continued desire to have substantive interactions with students (rather than just "problems"), and someone who likes to frame and revise the problem, but allow the student to work alone as evidence of success.


text:
My department asks to pay back to them the compensation I have received for being a member in a grant proposal assessment committee
Basically, it is as the title says.
I have received an invitation to be a member of a grant proposal committee. They have offered a compensation for each working day (which includes interview sessions). Now, my department asks me to

either give them back the entire compensation in a special account, or
register vacation days for the days I have worked for this committee.

I was shocked because I never heard about that, the funding institution never mentioned anything like this, and when I asked my "manager" about that in the past, they did not mention anything about this.
The "rationale" (which I find very unconvincing) is that they already pay me so if I do something "Extracurricular" I should register it as vacations, or pay back whatever I have received.
Is this standard practice? Can I avoid it somehow?
Edit: this is The Netherlands and this task is not considered as ancillary activity and so that Collective Labor Agreement about reimbursing the compensation does not apply.

Why do you expect to be paid twice for 1 days work? Either you are paid by the Grant Committee for that day or your Dept.  This would be the norm in commercial employment, thats if you weren't disciplined or fired for taking a 2nd job without the 1st employers permission.

@Secretsquirrel It is a 5 days job.

Is the funding body also in the Netherlands?

Are they asking to give the money back to the proposal committee or to your department itself?

@TimRias Yes, in the Netherlands

@Bergi, my department asks me to give them the compensation I have received from the funding institution.

That does not seem unreasonable to me, the institution is funding your department and your department is paying you a salary for your work on their clock (for the department's client). Of course, this should have been clarified in advance in a contract involving the department…

That's why the grant proposal committee should have given you a honorarium instead of a salary...

I'll be honest, I am surprised about the general tone of answers here. Is this legal? Maybe. Is this common or ethical? Certainly not. I would take any request to pay back a honorarium as a clear-cut sign that this is a toxic place to work and you should get out.

@xLeitix that depends on the circumstances. If you are from a country where the universities are only paying partial wages and they expect you to work on the side (in the summer) to make ends meet, then it makes sense that you should not pay back an honorarium. But other countries do explicitly pay living wages, with the intend to enable the employees to focus on that one job. That is really nice for the employee, but it also means the employer has now a legitimate interest in ensuring that he gets what he pays for. The Netherlands is such a country.

@MaartenBuis I am a research manager in another such country (Sweden), and I find the notion outrageous. Let me put it like this - if a professor comes to you as a department head and says "I examined 3 doctoral dissertations for other unis this year and reviewed 10 grant proposals", do you then reduce their teaching or service load to make up for this additional effort? If you don't, you have zero leg to stand on to ask for any compensation they received for this external work. If you do, fair enough (but I don't believe you).

@xLeitix usually a lot is possible when it comes to compensation, but only if you discuss this before you actually accept or do the work. I think that that is the main problem the OP faces.

I realize this is not helpful, but in France for instance you need a written agreement from your university before you can do any additional paid work. It makes sense to ask before and not after

I live in the UK and I have never heard for a university to ask for these kind of monies to be paid back, if only to avoid a collective "work to rule" event.

Doing payed work for a third party during your payed vacation days is something most employers would frown upon.

@karl but that is the option they give me!

Since you are in the Netherlands, your employment is most likely subject to the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities. The latest copy I could find can be found here. I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice, but Article 1.14 and 1.15 are potentially relevant. These basically say that you need prior permission for certain ancillary activities, and that you can only accept reimbursements with permission from your employer. Whether serving on a grant panel is an ancillary activity or not is another question, but it seems that the article about reimbursements applies regardless.

Note that article 1.15 only applies for activities in capacity as an employee of the university ( “ in function” in the Dutch version of the test). So it becomes relevant if your function as an employee of the university is relevant to you serving on a grant panel.

@TimRias - well, asking a physics professor to review physics grant proposals seems to be fully in line with their physics position at the university?

Thanks! I would be highly surprised if serving on a grant panel constitutes an ancillary activity (i.e., activity not related to my academic work or employment). Moreover, it seems that I need to inform my employer and gain permission for ancillary activities, but serving in a panel (or any other reviewing activity) requires absolutely no permission from my employer, it is part of my academic life.

Ancillary activities are defined in 1.14.1 as " any work he performs for third parties", so it probably does count as  ancillary activities.

@MaartenBuis If that was the case, then according to the above, I would need to inform my line manager any time I read or review a paper. There is a line to be drawn on what constitutes reasonable academic activity.

@PsySp as I told you before: You do not need to convince me, you need to convince your line manager. In all likelihood (s)he will tell you to report all paid work. But you need to talk to her or him, not to us. Whatever we say will not affect you. Whatever your line manager says will affect you.

@MaartenBuis Fair enough, but that applies to virtually every case. I simply ask if this is a "normal" demand and, if not, how to potentially handle it besides the "do whatever they tell you".

@PsySp I don't see "work" defined clearly in the linked document, but it seems reasonable to me that "work" would practically mean "work for pay", as anything else you do without being paid is not work. So, reading and reviewing papers seem like reasonable academic activities under your ordinary job, but if someone is paying you extra that is implying you're doing some additional work not covered by the pay of your ordinary job.

@BryanKrause Got it. Reviewing papers, is free and not ancillary. Reviewing grant proposals is payed, but I need to give them back the entire compensation from a national funding body. Makes total sense to me!

@PsySp since it is in the CAO it is standard. I did not tell you that your only option is "do whatever they tell you". I also mentioned that your other option is to "fight", but you would need a lawyer for that. In the Netherlands, if you are a member of a trade-union, then they will also provide legal assistence in such cases. However, your chance of winning a fight is not helped by the fact that you did not discuss the pay before starting the work.

I don't think grant reviewing panels count as ancillary activities. This is academic service, the only difference being that in some cases you are paid for prepping for and being present at the meetings.

@PsySp If you think that it is a regular part of your university job, then you can't take an extra salary for it. I think that's not unreasonable. You can't have it both ways: Either it's part of your job and in that case you're paid by your university, or it's not part of your job and in that case the agency that contracts for your work needs to pay you. But you can't claim it's part of your regular job and draw a second salary for it -- that's double dipping, and that's the part your employer is upset about.

It is official: this is not considered ancillary activity. From U. Twente "Activities such as participation in a scientific committee or consultative body, editorial work and reviewing articles are generally not considered ancillary activities. Neither are lectures and other ad hoc work you do in the context of your employment with the UT for third parties. It is sufficient to make working agreements with your supervisor in writing regarding these activities."

And here is the link: https://www.utwente.nl/en/service-portal/employment-personal-development/terms-of-employment/ancillary-activities-nevenwerkzaamheden#:~:text=The%20definition%20of%20ancillary%20activities,your%20job%20at%20the%20University.

@PsySp: Note the word "generally" in your quote: it means there can be exceptions, and I wouldn't be surprised if getting paid for participating in a committee is considered an exception. (Also, did you actually "make working agreements with your supervisor in writing" regarding this?) In any case, even if this is not considered an ancillary activity, article 1.15 of the collective agreement linked in the answer (which says that "In his capacity, the employee is not allowed to accept reimbursements, remuneration or gifts, unless the employer grants its permission.") presumably still applies.

There are often rules that govern how much you can work "on the side". It makes sense that you cannot do additional paid work during the hours that you are already employed. So at a minimum there are usually rules that ensure you are "on your own time" when doing additional work. So what you describe does not sound weird to me. Whether there is anything you can do about it is something you need to discuss with a legal expert. Whether that is worth it is something you need to decide.

Thank you. However, it still does not make sense to me for the following reasons: there is no such clause on my contract/agreement and there is no such written relevant rule afaik. Second, this is academic work, pretty much like reviewing a paper and, again afaik, every kind of academic work is included on my contract. It is not a freelance work like private lessons or working on a youtube channel.

The department wants OP to be a member of a scientific community, and that includes being on a panel. The department already paid for you activities and would not like the OP to double-dip. But OP might want to deduct any additional costs from the compensation package before reimbursement.

@ThomasSchwarz Why double dip? Then why the funding body offers a compensation? They can directly pay to the department and avoid the misleading part about personal compensation.

I am not your department head. It does not matter if you convince me or not. What matters is that your department head thinks that (s)he has the right, or even duty, to ask that money back. The right way of responding to that is something you need to discuss with a lawyer, if you want the confrontation. Alternatively, you can just pay up and be extra careful next time "paid" opportunities arise.

@PsySp Not sure how it works where you are, but in the US it's common that faculty are responsible for finding money for some fraction of their time, usually through grants. There may be options to make up shortfalls with extra teaching, or you might just need to go with less pay. So, taking up an assignment like this covers part of that salary you need to cover. But, if the institution is already paying you to do something with that time, they're not going to be happy if do something else to get paid again.

In the US, most faculty is on a 9 months contract (but with the annual pay stretched over 12 months). Sometimes their contract allows them one day a week of for paid activities related to their scholarship, such as consulting or working for a company.

@user253751 What? Of course they know my department, it is a national funding body and they want a diverse (from multiple institutions) panel.

@PsySP They don't know your contractual obligations to your department. They want you to serve on a panel, so they ask you. If that somehow conflicts with your contractual obligations, then that is for you to sort out. Or at the least, for you to inform them of and ask to handle.

@Servaes everybody working on a Dutch university has a contract that falls under the Collective Labor Agreement. So, they do know my contractual obligations (the individual differences do not matter in this particular situation)

@PsySP That still doesn't make it their problem. You have entered a contract with your employer. It is on you and your employer to uphold it. Not any third party.

Of course it is a rather messy situation that is unsatisfactory for both you and your employer. The correct course of action would have been to inform your employer before accepting the invitation, as your contract (or CAO) explicitly states you should do. Then your employer can decide whether you can do this during your regular working hours, or whether you should take vacation days or unpaid leave to do this paid work for a third party.

@Servaes Agreed. It is just it could never cross my mind that they would ask the compensation back. Now that's a great incentive to never again do such an activity in the future.

@PsySp the resolution could also be to do such activity but inform them of this potential issue.

@PsySp or just discuss any work with compensation you may receive with your department before accepting that work. Often there are ways to let you keep some or all of that or compensate you in some other way (maybe not a reduction in teaching load, but assigning courses that are easier or less work to teach, or putting you in committees that are less work, or increasing your travel fund, or ...). But such a discussion is only possible before you accept that work.

It seems perfectly reasonable to me. Your employer pays you for certain hours. They own those hours. Most institutions are happy for you to use some of their time for academic services that don't directly benefit them, but of course if there is any extra compensation for that time then it belongs to the owner of the time, i.e. your employer. In most cases (reviewing a paper, etc) this is zero, and your employer doesn't particularly need you to tell them every time "I have reviewed a paper, and here is the zero Euros I got paid". But the same principle applies - all the compensation belongs to them. In some cases they might decide to waive their right to it, but that is their decision to make.
I would just take them as holiday days. Then you are being compensated for time that belongs to you, so you get to keep the money. (Of course, this assumes that the compensation is enough to make it worthwhile.)

That would actually be perfectly reasonable if I was working only these hours my employer is paying me. But more often than not, I work easily work 60h/w without getting payed back the extra time and effort I put. So, according to them, they do not own me a dime for any extra hour of work I put for them, but I own them all the compensation I get for working in a grant panel.

@PsySp: …and you might have leverage there; Google "work to rule". Maybe you could apologize for misunderstanding the amount of flexibility allowed and expected in your employment with the university, and say that in the future you will work on tracking your time more accurately to ensure that you'll neither spend any paid work time on personal activities (like this grant committee) nor accidentally work more than your agreed upon hours per week. Having a lawyer or a union rep with you might be a good idea — they'll know both what to say and how to say it without sounding whiny or petulant.

@IlmariKaronen Knowing the Dutch system PsySp is probably on a temporary contract. What are the chances of getting that contract extended after such an action? After you worked like that for a while what will your publication record look like? So that leverage is pretty limited. If I were a department head in such a conversation I would strongly recommend you against such actions because I don't want you to hurt yourself, but if you insist I would not care one way or another. So that is how much leverage you have.

Work to rule can be powerful if done as a collective action. But it is still costly: everybodies publication record suffers, and they are competing on an international market even if they choose to stay in the Netherlands. If you want to go that route your best bet is probably to organize that through the unions.

@MaartenBuis: Agreed. However, the OP is also working a lot of unpaid overtime, which they're neither expected nor allowed to do under the collective agreement. However, they are (article 5.6, paragraph 3) allowed to agree with their employer to work extra hours on some days in exchange for time off on other days. So they could propose just that: take the days off and work extra hours (which they would do anyway) on other days to make up for it.

…of course they should've arranged that in advance, but presumably there's still something that may be arranged, if the university is willing to be flexible. And if they're not willing to be flexible, then the OP may wish to politely hint that they don't need to be as flexible regarding their working hours as they've apparently been in the past, either.

Whenever you make a statement like that, you need to consider what you are going to do if the department head calls your bluff. Is the department head really going to notice if you don't spent the extra time on finishing paper xyz? Probably only when it is time to decide whether to continue to employ you...

@PsySp As an employer, they don't owe you extra hours they haven't formally asked you to perform. Your contract must be clear about this. If you, in the other hand, volunteered to give your employer roughly 50% more in number of hours from your time, remember that it's a personal choice. For you, it is extra labour that is providing some experience at best, detrimental to your life balance at worse. As for your employer, the truth is, most likely, they don't even care.

Very surprised by this situation happening in the Netherlands and equally surprised by all the answers so far.
Compensation for interview panels is often ridiculously difficult to actually get transferred to your university account when you want to (which is the better solution IMHO since otherwise most of the $$$ goes to taxes). So in that respect, I'm all in favor. Just make sure to get it transferred to/added to your lab account so you are the one in control of spending it.
Knowing the system, I assume we're talking about a couple hundred euros at most. Nice to have as unrestricted funds for your lab, but not substantial for your university's budget. So don't add it to the pile.
As for work done during hours: Aren't most of us doing this on evenings and weekends??? I think it is really weird that there is talk of this work being done "on the clock". Does that mean you should never work more than stated in your contract? Good luck with that in academia...

I did most of this panel preparation work during my free evenings. Also, the money will be transferred to the department itself, I will have no clue/access that these funds (about 700eu)

Hmm, you're talking about funds being transferred to a university/lab account - something that would be used for research expenses maybe? Whereas, it seems OP got the funds personally. If the former is typical, and the latter is unusual, could that explain the confusion here? That is, OP thought this was money they could spend on themselves, and the assumption for the grant org and university is that these funds are spent on research expenses, and that's why the institution wants the money?

Also, the money will be transferred to the department itself, That is new information. That suggests that it was never intended for you personally, but more for your lab account/travel account/some other account that you can use for "nice" things at work like going to a conference or stocking up a contract for a student assistent. This means that you need to know how university accounting works, and that is an arcane art in itself. Here I cannot overemphasize the importance of friendly relations with the secretaries.

Engage work to rule, aka malicious compliance.
If you're paid to work 37 hours (insert your actual time here) per week, then actually work that.
Then apply for leave for the time you're doing grant panel things, and all is good and above board.
You're fulfilling your contractual obligations.

All of that is strictly speaking true, but what will happen when you ask for your contract to be extended?

And therein lies the issue with the casualisation of academia.

sure, we can agree that that many temporary contracts is bad. However, it still means that if the OP follows your advise (s)he will not attain her goals, but will suffer harm in her/his/their career. That is why I think this is bad advise. Is that how the world should be? No. Is that how the world is? Yes.

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


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Changing a graph during a review?
I am writing a machine learning manuscript for publication.
In a figure I had two learning curves for parameter 1 (P1) and parameter 2 (P2). Now, the reviewer asked to incorporate parameter 3 (P3) and show the learning curve for that.
The assumption is that the curve for P1 is better than P2 (P1>P2) and the curve with P2 is better than with P3 (P2>P3).
However, after training with parameter 3 I found a curve that shows (P3>P2). Probably P2 curve was stuck at a local minima. Since, my original P1 curve was okay, I was not bothered with the P2 curve that much when I submitted the manuscript.
Since, it is not expected, I retrained all three curves and after retraining I found the desired curves (P1>P2 and P2>P3).
Now, can I put this newer curves in the figure and submit the manuscript? Or I have to keep the original P1 and P2 curves intact?

How do you know your other curves aren’t stuck in local minima, too? Is it feasible to train multiple times to be sure your expected results are common or anomalies (I know training can be time consuming)? It’s ok to amend and it’s the right thing to do but be prepared for further scrutiny.

You are allowed to improve a manuscript during review in areas other than what the reviewers specified!
Just make sure that you call attention to the changes and explain why you made them somewhere in your response to the reviewers.

I'd do it. But I'd be also be clear to all people involved, that I did it. See next item.
That's exactly why we are often asked to highlight the changes to the manuscript after revision and why the "Response to reviewers" document exists. You basically write an accompanying file where you state "Reviewer 7 suggested to visualise the learning curve for P3. The curve is better than one for P2, making the old version of Figure 254 obsolete. The new version of Fig. 254 shows the learning curve for P3 as (f)."
I would thank "the anonymous reviewers" for "improving our parameter choice" (or something like that) in the acknowledgement section.


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Possibility of guessing acceptance rate of a journal using its impact factor?
Usually for the journals we have impact factor and for the conferences we have acceptance rate.
Now, is it possible to guess the acceptance rate of a journal using its impact factor ? For example, for this journal:
https://www.journals.elsevier.com/computers-and-security/call-for-papers/special-issue-on-blockchain-and-cryptocurrency
whose impact factor is 2.650

You really don’t need to put everything in quotes, and please don’t use code formatting to represent quotes. I’ve removed that formatting.

In a general sense, the answer is "no". Different fields have wildly different citation rates and hence impact factors, so that will vary independently of the level of prestige of the journal.
Within a field, I suspect it's still "no", but it might be interesting to hear if anybody's studied it.

You can probably email the Editor in Chief for this info.  Some times the EiC writes a summary of how well the journal went for a given year, and he/she may quote the acceptance rate.

Voting to leave open as it isn't actually off-topic.

In a general sense, the answer is "no". Different fields have wildly different citation rates and hence impact factors, so that will vary independently of the level of prestige of the journal. Within a field, I suspect it's still "no", but it might be interesting to hear if anybody's studied it.

Intuitively, we would expect "yes"; according to a study by Frontiers in 2015 however the answer is "no".
Caveat: it doesn't look like a very rigorous study. In particular it is lacking controls for different fields.

This is like guessing a person's salary from their postal code. There may or may not be some correlation, but any prediction for an individual journal is bound to be far enough off that the prediction will be entirely useless for any practical purpose - and this is without taking into account that acceptance rates are a fairly useless metric to start with.

I would like to point out the fact that many researchers (not all) are relatively self-aware when it comes to the perceived quality of their manuscripts. In this sense, they try to aim for journals with relatively suitable prestige (in this case, its impact factor). This results in a balancing effect in which journals receive more papers in tune with their level of perceived prestige and it causes less variance between acceptance rates than one might think because high impact journals would not receive as many low impact manuscripts.
If all papers were submitted to all journals, then there would be a direct correlation between the impact factor and the acceptance rate. This is not the case.


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Can I get in trouble if I submit my own paper as a sole author while employed as a research fellow?
I am a research fellow at my current university. I have been working under a very difficult line manager and we could just not be on the same page. I would be asked to publish 1 paper a month, expected to work 25 hours a day to meet deadlines and run personal errands. Our every technical meeting would be him saying, "you are paid to publish, publish in high ranking journals" and any paper I would write would involve his name even though 100% of the every work was mine. But I accepted this as a given since he was my line manager and the funding was with him, I would add his name to my papers along with other names suggested by him, usually I would get 5 authors for my paper, whom I never met.
I have been working on a paper idea, which I believed to be good, but it was an idea for a conference, not a high ranking journal. I presented the idea to him and he told me not to chase it further as he needs journals not conferences. And even if does get accepted he would not pay for it.
So I have been working on it alone at home and on the weekends. It is now at a stage I am happy with and I am most probably going to publish it in a good conference.
I have given my notice for leaving, and given the above history I want to publish this as a sole author. After all, he would not be paying for it and he refused to be any part of it.
Ive discussed this with a colleague and he painted a very grim picture, he suggests that if I do go ahead with this, my line manager can even take me to court and state that he was working under me and on my funded project, he went ahead and published without me and basically stole project time and project ideas. And he suggested not to publish this paper and just abandon it.
Sorry for being so bitter, but I worked very hard on this paper and would like this to be published. Adding his name would also not benefit as he's not very happy with me leaving and he would not give consent to publish, this would make it more complicated.
Im new to such problems and wanted a more experienced approach on what to do.
Thank you

What does your contract or university policy say on the topic? Your answer is specific to your contract and university. In my position, I'm required to get ethics approval before I can do outside research including publish.

If you're not able to switch to being under someone else, do you have a friend or confidant in the department you can talk to honestly about this experience? Especially someone senior, as they'll know much more about what can be done to help you get out. This seems like it is a personally and emotionally damaging experience. It also is potentially professionally damaging, as the authorship bit seems quite unethical and it seems highly unlikely that you'll be able to meet the paper-per-month demand without publishing very low quality work at least some of the time.

@StellaBiderman hence my notice for leaving, I was expected to publish one a month, I am ashamed to have published two such papers that are of so low quality that I chose not to include them on my CV. He has no research background, all his publications are like this, When I would argue about the difficulty of the task, he would argue that libraries and code are available online, just apply them to datasets and publish the results. A month I dont publish is the month I get angry emails until I publish

I see. I thought you had said that you had given him notice that you wanted to publish alone, not that you were quitting.

@RichardErickson I just read my contract and it mentions policies on patents and profits from patents and state that the university has ownership of patents. Does the same policy apply to conferences?

What is a "line manager" I've never heard of that in academia.

How time critical is the paper and is it related to the work you are doing now? It seems to me that you could simply delay submitting this paper. If it's not related to the project you have been employed on and you have done it using only your own resources, why not just wait for 6 months before submitting it? You have already given notice and in 6 months time, nobody will know when you did the work. After all, he told you not to pursue it, but after you stop working for him, you can pursue whatever you like.

As @Richard Erickson said in a comment, the answer is specific to your university and your contract. Here's the steps I would take if I were in your shoes:
Firstly, read your employment contract. What you're looking for is any language about intellectual property and the results of research. In the comments you mention patents and profits from patents, but that's irrelevant here. If it is specific to patents then it doesn't apply to anything that's not a patent, such as a conference paper. Assuming your contract doesn't unambiguously say that the university owns the IP...
Secondly, go talk to your university legal department. Do not cast this as a dispute. Simply tell them that you were reading your employment contract and wanted clarification about what the university's policy around IP is. Inquire over email, or get them to send you an email confirming their position if you wish to talk in person. If they tell you that their position is that you own the IP to your work, then you're golden. If they tell you that their position is that you don't and you think that your contract doesn't support that claim...
Thirdly, consider hiring a lawyer. This can be expensive and can be a massive waste of time if you're wrong about your contract (lay people generally are, compared to lawyers). Deciding if this is a worthwhile step is a personal decision based on a lot of factors I don't know.

If your university owns the IP, you're likely stuck. Your manager is most likely the person who the university has selected to approve you publishing things, and that seems like a non-starter. If he has a boss who reads your work and is "really in charge" then it might be the boss, but whether you're likely to get anywhere going around your manager depends a lot on the social dynamic.
It's also possible that you can get him to disavow the IP, but I don't really know enough about the details of contracts to comment much on that.

Actually, it sounds like you are well and truly stuck. But only for this one bit of work. If you can risk a lawsuit then maybe not, but it seems like you would have powerful adversaries and little support.
You can publish the work, including all the expected co-authors or simply abandon it as you are leaving. One of the things you will want in leaving, is a decent letter of recommendation unless you have already lined up a new position. It might be necessary to focus on that to the exclusion of other factors to protect your own reputation for the future.
However, since he has discouraged you from submitting to a conference, and you have already given notice of leaving, perhaps you can also give him notice that since he rejected it, you intend to pursue it. You may get pushback or not. But the notice, if properly stated, may free your hand. His refusal to endorse the work might be taken as a release, especially if you submit after employment ends.
In future, however, make sure that you build more realistic expectations into your contract.

Personally, I would go ahead and publish as a sole-authored paper.
If your line manager did not make a contribution commensurate with authorship, he/she should not be named a co-author. A line manager who insists otherwise is abusing his/her position. A university which takes you to court over it is unworthy of the name "university" (possible exception: if you are revealing confidential/privileged data or breaking ethics rules, that might be another matter), especially given that you did the research in your time, not the university's.


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Criteria of papers to review
I am preparing my PhD in computer science. I want to do a state of the art about the topic I am working on, are there any criteria to consider when choosing papers to review? Thank you in advance :)

The criteria will probably mostly depend on the topic itself and the relevance for it. The best approach is to find a competent advisor or mentor who can give you a list of the most important papers to read.

There is a systematic way to perform a state of the art in any topic of interest usually referred to as SLR's and I'll be specific to the field of Computer Science here.
You should consider reading: Kitchenham and Charters Guidelines on how to perform a systematic literature review and follow the same strategy.

Another strategy is to use the snowballing procedure. However, the two strategies suit better in conjunction to validate on being consistent with your retrieved results on that specific topic.

Or you can use any of them, explicitly.

A caveat is that a SLR will usually lead to a rather large number of papers (in a specific area), and the review itself can usually be a big paper of its own. For getting started in a particular direction, one might either read an existing SLR or focus on a smaller (probably incomplete) selection of papers.

Thank you for your helpful comments and for taking the time to answer my question. All the best :)

A very rough criteria is to have a read of the 30/40 most cited papers on the very specific topic. Or find a review paper from the last 3/4 years and read the papers citing it.
In absence/difficulties in doing that (access to publications, topic still too broad, etcetc), try to look for video recordings of award prizes at conferences, usually the awarded person will try to give an overview of the state-of-art plus his/her personal take&contributions on given topic.
Here you can find an example of the ACM A.M. Turing Award: likely it is a bit too popular, try to find a more R&D oriented prize.

Thank you a lot for your answer :)


text:
Will withdrawing this course affect my chances for Grad School?
I am in 6th Semester of Undergraduate in Computer Science at a university in Pakistan. My current GPA is 3.95 and I am at the top of my class. My goal is to get into a competitive graduate program in United States.
I am facing a difficult situation in this semester. I am taking a "Technical and Business Writing" course, and I have scored really bad in mid-term exam. I am thinking about withdrawing this class.
Now I have three options:

If I work hard on this course, I can secure an A- or A in it, but that will jeopardize my extracurricular research work, which I am doing for my research experience.
If I don't work that hard on it, and just go with the flow, I will get a B in it, which will affect my GPA.
I can withdraw this course and get a W in it. Then it will not count in GPA, and I will have to study it in my 7th or 8th semester. I believe that then I can get an A in it.

I have heard that withdrawals do not look good on a transcript. So what should I do?

We can't tell you what to do, but I would recommend calculating exactly how much it would change your gpa at this point. Also worth pointing out that often times schools allow you to present both your cumulative GPA and your major GPA.

It seems weird that someone holds classes that you take just for fun against you when you withdraw.  (But I don't know about the US.)

It seems very unlikely that withdrawing from a non-major class will have any effect at all in the US (probably elsewhere too). It might be good to drop now and start over later with a spurt of energy.
There are a lot of reasons for withdrawing. I once got overloaded and dropped a course with no effect on future goals.
But a lesser grade in a non-major course is also not something to obsess over, provided you pass. And GPA is not the only or even the major determinant of grad school admissions in US. Letters of recommendation in your field are much more important.


text:
Quit Master's for a PHD?
Looking for advice: Anyone ever hear of people who quit their masters to do a PhD? My colleague in our masters (math) will be applying for PhDs this fall as with the usual cycle. However, he entered the masters on a spring semester, hence he is one semester behind with respect to the usual requirements. If he was to be admitted, it is highly unlikely that he would be able to finish the masters on time.
In particular
(a): would it be best to defer PhD matriculation? The clear advantage here is that of safety - in case one isn't suited for a PhD, one at least has a masters to fall back on.
(b): would it be best to accept? This seems to be the better option, except it seems like it would mean burning bridges with faculty at the masters.
Looking for pros and cons.
Also: a friend is interested in trying their hand at academia, but would like to be viable for industry. Don't we all?

Hi @Papuseme The answer to your question is "yes I do know people who have done that", but I suspect you might really be looking for the answer to a different question than that. Would you like to edit and clarify?

Anyone ever hear of people who quit their masters to do a phd? --- I did this during my 4th (and final) graduate school attendance, as described in this 10 April 2007 sci.math post. However, it seems you're assuming (but you don't actually say this) that the person doesn't have a masters to begin with, unlike my situation.

Is this for the US or another country?

Are you certain he won't be finished? Presumably he entered last spring, that means he will have completed this year and still have next year plus summer to finish. That seems like enough time even even for programs that typically last 3 years...

@DaveLRenfro yes, no masters yet.  this is for the US and almost for sure they won't be finished by then.

In the US there is seldom a requirement that one hold a masters before starting a doctorate (or ever, actually). Unless the major field or the institution is exceptional, the person could simply drop out of the masters and begin the doctoral study.
Most US doctoral applicants hold only a bachelors degree and the doctoral program is designed to accommodate that smoothly. A masters may or may not shorten doctoral study depending on the match between what was studied and what needs to be studied for the usual (not universal) comprehensive/qualifying exams and research preparation.
If a masters is required that will be made quite clear in the application process.
The candidate need to give an honest application, of course, not implying that they will have a masters before starting. They will be evaluated fairly.
And, changing programs more generally is pretty common in US. I don't see any downside for your friend. If they can get admitted they can start and should probably just drop out of the masters program if they do.