text:
As session chair, how to politely end someone's presentation/conversation if over time?
Scenario 1:
Depending on the length of the talk, I'd show the speaker a 10min/5min "warning" sign that their time is about to come to an end. Arguably, 1-2min "overtime" seems tolerable, but 5mins will delay further proceedings (especially if everyone is doing it). What would be a polite way to transition into the question segment?
Secenario 2:
In the question segment, people sometimes forget about the rest and a (heated) discussion will erupt. How to politely remind the people that other people might have questions as well or that the next speaker should come up.
Addendum: This also should work in a virtual environment.

There is no great need to be polite. A speaker who trespasses on the time of following speakers is far more impolite than you are going to be.

@Gantendo, thanks for that link . I love the general good nature of the academic community in this context, the last guy nailed it .

@Anton Impoliteness is not a excuse to be impolite too.

@raulmd13 But is not impolite to dispassionately inform the speaker that their time is up and they must finish then and there. Politeness isn't binary - it's a continuum with positive (polite) and negative (impolite) values. When you're working for the benefit of everyone else, a politeness level of zero (neither polite nor impolite, just business-like) is perfectly acceptable.

@Graham's right, but you can also modulate your position on the continuum (including by tone of voice and body language) - first polite and gentle, then neutral, business-like, and a little more assertive.

I heard a story about someone who was infamous for running overtime.  At one of his talks when the allotted time had been reached the two organisers started loudly clapping until everyone else joined in and drowned out the speaker's protests.

If you'd like to give the speaker 10, 5 and 1-minute warnings, assign someone to hold up cards with those warnings.
If someone goes over and you need them to finish, you will need to be assertive.  Stand up, walk to the front of the room, and announce, "Thank you very much, but we are out of time and need to wrap this up.  Perhaps our speaker may be willing to answer additional questions offline during our break.  Again, many thanks to our speaker for a wonderful presentation and to our attendees for their kind attention."
Added:  As lalala points out in comments, all it may take is walking to the front of the room.  It shouldn't take a genius to realize you did that because time's up.  You may not have to say a word.  But if you do, be assertive and just say it.

I use to walk up the stage close to the speaker at the 1 Minute warning (unless it is clear that there are 20 slides left, then at the 5 Minute warning)

@lalala Yup, that can work.  Once you walk to the front, everyone, including the speaker, knows time's almost up.

Depending on where the session chair sits, even standing up can be enough.

While this is unlikely to be a broadly useful answer, here goes.
Story time:
Some years ago I attended a focused conference/workshop held in a small town in Italy. The town had a lovely conference center with an auditorium and a nice sound system for the talks. Each day there were sessions with talks, as well as discussion time and activities. The first day's program was a disaster - nobody kept to their allotted time, the session ran late, lunch was late as a result, and so on. One of the more experienced hands said no problem, I'll take care of it tomorrow.
The next morning the first speaker ignored the stop signal and kept on talking. The audience then heard, slowly coming up in volume, a selection from the Three Tenors. The speaker tried talking louder. The music kept swelling. The speaker quit speaking, and the music slowly went away. The audience looked back, and there was the experienced hand at the sound board with his CD player jacked into it to provide the music.
The next speaker also ignored the stop signal and tried to keep talking. Once again, music from the Three Tenors started being added into the sound system. That speaker figured out what was going to happen, and stopped rather abruptly before the music got too loud, and the audience had a good laugh.
Nobody else ran over time through the rest of the week.
So, a sound board and an Ipod to provide lovely classical music is one approach to the issue. It works quite well.

That was fun. Wish I'd been there. Maybe not as speaker, though.

This is fun but not a realistic solution in most contexts

Playing music over the top of the speaker seems like a very contrived and, frankly, not very professional approach.

@NicoleHamilton - well, the speakers had already violated their part of the bargain. It got the point across to everyone that going over had to stop, and in a less abrupt way than hauling them off the stage or just cutting the microphone. We all learned the lesson quickly, and could laugh about it afterwards.

I think the humor works well because this is a pretty ubiquitous problem in academia, and I think it's likely that every single person who goes over their time has complained (or at least been annoyed) by someone else going over theirs; it's a not-so-gentle reminder that you're currently the one in breach of the social contract.

@NicoleHamilton - Why isn't is professional?  I've seen several conferences use this tactic when someone goes over.  The other options are cutting the mic or sending someone onstage to cajole them off.  If you send someone on stage they can argue and say "just 1 more minute" which sometimes resulted in people being physically dragged off-stage.  By contrast playing 3 Tenors got everyone to leave willingly and laugh about it.

@sevensevens Okay, just my opinion and possibly mine alone, but I think it's kind of passive aggressive, especially the idea of slowly ratcheting the volume until you drown out the speaker.   Anyone chairing a session needs to be assertive enough to be able to end a session by simply announcing the end and should not need to debate about one more minute.  It's just not that hard.  This is my definition of professional and anything less is not.

I think both scenarios have the same response:
You need to look for a natural pause from the speaker. When they end a sentence, when there's a moment of silence, when they finish asking a question. Moments like these are where you should slip in and (firmly) state that the time for their presentation/question really has passed.
For a question/discussion mention that they should 'take it offline', i.e. continue the discussion afterwards without the audience so that the session can move on. For a presentation, you can give them one final minute if you're lenient. But if you've already warned them that their time is up, tell them that and move the session further.
This answer is also possibly useful: https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/54150/69838

In scenario 1, I guess the problem would be with a presenter that doesn't do natural pauses - these also seem to be the ones most likely to overrun their time in the first place.

@lighthousekeeper  I agree.  I would not wait for a pause that may never happen.

Meet with each speaker prior to the session, perhaps immediately before and perhaps earlier. You may need to find a way to inform them that they need to meet.
Tell them that you will appear on the stage immediately at the scheduled end of the talk, hopefully within their peripheral vision. That is the two minute warning. After two minutes, just step to the podium/mike and say "Let's thank the speaker" and start the applause. If you don't permit two minute "overruns" then just step on the stage a bit earlier, within the five minute window.
Many speakers will actually appreciate this as five minutes (and ten, especially) can seem like a long time for a speaker.
If it is in a Q/A session, there is likely a microphone (or more) on the floor. Have someone step near it at the two minute mark and ask for it when that time expires.
People can carry on any remaining conversations away from the presentation.
It is polite in the sense that the speaker has been given notice, several times with your ten and five minute warnings. It is also polite to following speakers that things don't overrun and to audience members who come for only some of the presentations. The last speaker, especially, will thank you for keeping it moving.
This is a fairly common practice at some large in-person meetings in my experience. It is a bit harder with a virtual meeting unless you have a private channel to a speaker. I think a Zoom host has some power to interrupt and one can send private text via chat.

In my somewhat limited experience the best solution to this is the automatic timed "traffic lights" that both the speaker and audience can see.  They display a green light during the main bit of the talk, it turns yellow when approaching the end and turns red when the time is up.  As the audience can see it they know the speaker is going over, the speaker knows the audience knows and tends to finish soon.  It is not a absolute protection, and the chair may need to step in after a while, but it does provide an automated way of delivering the information that avoids the personal uncomfortableness of having to interrupt a potentially senior academic.

Works if you have those lights -- but who does?  I've seen them, but very rarely.

True, and from a quick google I could not even find a site describing them let alone someone selling them.

Time Tracker Visual Timer $37 on Amazon

A Hue colour-changing bulb will do the job nicely -- either manually controlled or it's reasonably easy to script.  Newer bulbs can run from Bluetooth, so you don't need a bridge if you don't have one to hand already.
I used one for an attempt to help my children understand when I could be disturbed while working from home.

I've seen a version of this used on a screen (laptop/monitor) positioned in the room, that shows the approximate time remaining, in green/orange/red. Worked quite well, I don't know what software they were using (but even a presentation that automatically continues to the next slide might work).

This is the classic Toastmasters solution. Can be done many different ways - automated (set green/yellow/red times and press Start), manual (time with a stopwatch and then flip switches for lights or hold up colored cards) and on Zoom/etc. you can use colored backgrounds (Toastmasters has them as downloads because every club needs them now).


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Valuing coding over physics, how can I address this in applications?
I'm a theoretical physicist. I really like to code and come up with (efficient) solutions to math and physics problems. I do not particularly care if this is in subfield A or B. After all, the programming part of the job became my passion, yet I still like the relation to the science field.
I'm am interested in physics. I find myself often going down the rabbit hole to truly understand how and why certain things work and how I could improve/develop it further. But again, this is universal and I don't fancy a particular area. I like field X in physics, but in the end, I'll probably be fine with any subfield.
How should I market myself in applications for postdoc positions? What you usually find as advice is to say "I'm particularly interested in your group because you study X with focus on Y and recent paper Z was highly interesting". However, saying (oversimplified) "I really like to code and your advertised positions matches that. Also I like the location of your university." does not seem like the most captivating way of selling myself. Any advice?

On the face of it, this sounds like a bad plan. And a very poor career plan in academia. Even in CS there is more than "coding".

What's your career status? Are you currently a PhD student?

I'm currently a PhD student. It's not that physics is not not interesting to me. I typically find myself absorbing a topic, and trying to develop it further. But what topic that is, I do not care really care about.

I'm not sure (hence a comment and not an answer) but I think it's to your advantage to say what you said in this question and your comment above: that you're interested in physics, that you like to absorb yourself in a topic, and that you're also passionate about coding and think the position will suit that. The reason is that if they're looking for someone with that profile it will give you an advantage, and if they're not then you might not have enjoyed the job so much. Job seeking is about selling yourself, but it's also about finding a position that will be a good fit for what you want.

From what you describe, you sound a lot like I did in grad school. I wound up getting a job as a software developer at a tech company, completely unrelated to physics, and I love it; I definitely feel like I'm doing the right thing more than I ever did in academia. So I'd suggest you put the option of switching careers to software engineering on the table, as an alternative to getting a postdoc and continuing on the research track. (But of course this question isn't the place to discuss that alternative.)

You might fit under the research software engineer title:"Research Software Engineers are people who combine professional software expertise with an understanding of research. They go by various job titles but the term Research Software Engineer (RSE) is fast gaining international recognition.". I recommend this website and the communities linked to find more information.

@Nathanial would you mind phrasing that out into an answer? :)

Something seems to be missing near "but in the" (at the end of the last paragraph). "meantime"? Or something else? Can you fix it? (But without "Edit:", "Update:", or similar - the question should appear as if it was written today).

A lot of physics involve strong computing skills. E.g. simulation of collision of galaxies, simulation of nuclear reactors, etc etc etc. Remember that the world wide web originated at CERN (an European physics lab)

You value coding over science and want to live at a particular location. Are you sure you want to do a postdoc? It sounds like you should consider looking for industry jobs.

@cheersmate well, what's wrong with wanting to feel comfortable when I have to live there for at least 10 years? I know a lot of people who don't consider applying to the US for example, because they wouldn't be comfortable.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. The point is that in academia, "science" (in terms of mindset, methods, interests) is valued much more than tools. Also, for postdocs you usually have to move around every few years. In industry, practical skills like coding are valued much more, and a company will happily keep you for many years. So why are you keen on staying in academia? It sounds like industry jobs would suit you better. (That's not a bad thing.)

Your job application is about how you will provide what your employer wants.  It is not about what you want.  Talk about your coding achievements, not your preferences, in an application.
Your preferences are important when choosing which jobs to apply for.  This does not seem to be your problem.
If you are asked the predictable question, "Why do you want this position?" you may mention that you enjoy coding, but also mention things more specific to the position.

Weirdly enough, I've had the opposite experience; all the interviews I've passed were focused on convincing the recruiters that I was enthusiastic about their domain, much more than on convincing them that I was qualified. I assumed it was because my previous achievements, plus letters of recommendation, were somewhat an objective measure of qualification, and it was up to the recruiter, not to me, to judge whether that qualification was sufficient.

Yeah, I'm a hiring manager where I work and 90% of the battle is someone proving that what they want aligns with what we need. Whether that comes from them persuading us that what they want is what we want or what we actually want is what they can provide is irrelevant. Skills come second, they can always be taught as long as the motivations are there.

“ Your job application is about how you will provide what your employer wants. It is not about what you want.”  If only all candidates understood this…

How many jobs (outside academia) did you apply for?

@Persistence Do you work in academia?  In my experience academia does not involve hiring managers.  Academics tend to believe everyone wants their job.

@Stef Interviews and applications are not the same thing.

I do not particularly care if this is in sub-field A or B. Afterall, the programming part of the job became my passion, yet I still like the relation to the science field.

If this is true, you might want to consider looking for jobs in "research computing" rather than looking for a conventional postdoc.  Many larger institutions have a "research computing" unit dedicated to supporting researchers in projects that require a lot of computing know-how.  For example, such offices exist at:

Yale
University of Geneva
Princeton
University of Colorado

In contrast, the PIs who are reading postdoc applications will generally view coding as a means to an end;  they are looking to answer questions about the natural world, rather than find elegant solutions to computer problems.  A post-doc is supposed to be able to figure out new research directions and interesting new questions to ask; and saying "I don't care where the questions come from" will not give a PI much confidence in your ability to do this.
A job in research computing probably does mean an exit from the "track" that leads from graduate student to postdoc to professor;  and so a career move like this may make it difficult to return to the "pure research" track in the future.  So consider it carefully.

National labs are also great for these positions!

I've done my masters in high performance computing, and there was a number of people with physics background that needed to learn our approaches so their computations would actually finish in a decent amount of time (say hours/couple days). That would include but not be limited to coding a problem in a specific language, or learning a framework that would allow a single program to run in tens of different computers. Coding was required, but knowledge of the domain is also required. Just mentioning if that could be your case. (BTW this was before AWS, now you could do in hundreds of PCs).

I'm am interested in physics. I find myself often going down the rabbit hole to truly understand how and why certain things work and how I could improve/develop it further. But again, this is universal and I don't fancy a particular area. I like field X in physics, but in the end, I'll probably be fine with any subfield.

I think finding physics itself interesting and not being partial to or feel the need to specialize in any one particular field at this point in life is perfectly laudable and is often correlated with insight and productivity. Lots of notable contributors to physics and science in general have had a propensity to wander around between subfields or even entirely different fields of science.
Mathematics is universal and so extremely portable, and my guess is that your enthusiasm for coding is related to implementation of mathematics and algorithms (rather than say website or game design), which many, many research groups really need!
I think you should see yourself as a "great catch" for any research group and should approach this with a great deal of confidence and enthusiasm. Don't spend one nanosecond thinking about how to market yourself or craft answers that you think might make you appear more appealing.
Instead, be exactly yourself and explain yourself honestly, just as you have done in your question post. There will be plenty of groups out there who may be held back by some inability to invoke a particularly complicated model or perform a specific kind of data analysis beyond the skill or interest of anybody currently in the group.
Instead, focus your energy on reaching out and finding those groups by making your value clear, then decide which group you feel will be most nurturing, have the most interesting challenges to solve and provide the best opportunities for your future, and then let them "catch" you!

There are some research groups which focus on scientific computing and developing or implementing tools for researchers in particular fields. If you want to stay in academia, these groups might be a better fit.
Here are a few places I've heard of from my very limited knowledge, I'm sure you could find many more:
https://www.pnnl.gov/computing-and-analytics-division
https://www.mpi-cbg.de/research-groups/current-groups/ivo-sbalzarini/research-focus/

As others have mentioned, physics PIs reading postdoc applications are unlikely to value coding more than physics.
If coding is your primary motivator, and you don't think you can sell your interest in the physics sufficiently, but you don't want to leave the research track, you might want to consider research fields outside of physics that will value both your physics and coding experience equally. An example of this is computational neuroscience (I'm sure there are others). Here is an excerpt from a recent computational neuroscience job ad (emphasis mine):

Successful candidates will have a PhD in Physics, Neuroscience, Mathematics,  Computer Science, Engineering, Statistics or a related discipline  and, preferably, working experience in theoretical neuroscience and deep learning.

where is that ad from? They could be interested in RefPerSys. If in Europe and with possible HorizonEurope funding, contact me by email to basile.starynkevitch@cea.fr working at CEA, LIST in France

@BasileStarynkevitch https://jobs.physicstoday.org/jobs/15714110/postdoc-in-computational-neuroscience

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Journals having format standards described in a commercial document
I am writing a paper that I want to submit to a journal in Education. By looking at the formatting requirements I discovered that most of the journals in this area set require to format submissions by following the APA manual standards. Some state:

Prepare manuscripts according to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). More information is available at www.apastyle.org/. Any manuscript not in this style will automatically be returned to the author.
  [*]

Now, the required document is for sale only in printed copies at prices ranging
from \$29.95 (Softcover) to \$39.95 (Hardcover). Then one has to add shipping fees, I presume.
It is very easy to find scanned copies of this manual on the internet and these show how vague and superficial the instructions about figures, tables, and other technical details are (I think because it is primarily for social scientists). I can think of better free web sites for that, so I wouldn't use it other than to format papers for a journal requiring that style.
Frankly, I think it is unethical to ask an author to buy a document just to know the formats required to submit a paper (or they should refund the money if the paper is not accepted). If I were paranoid (or realistic?) I would suspect that publishers who request to consult the commercial manual get a cut from the APA?
I know most of people will answer: "publish somewhere else or use the illegal copy -which you already downloaded-" but that means not being able to publish in the top rated journals or being forced to break the law because of a simple formatting problem.
Can anybody suggest a way around this money wringing?
ps. I should also add that most of these journals accept only Microsoft Word documents which is also a commercial product (which I find a most improper application for academic writing.)

By the way, I think this question will be better received if you focus more on the request for practical solutions, and less on how you feel about the APA manual requirement.  The latter is not so relevant to the former, and Stack Exchange is explicitly not for promoting opinions.

I thought that highlighting the fact that the manual one is forced to buy is not that good is part of my complaint. I do ask for practical advice (thanks for the -1!)

Going through the hits I got searching for "Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association" I do not see any practical problem. There is tons of material explaining the basic guidelines (youtube videos, pre-formatted docx documents, lists of tips and also, of course, a scanned fulltext). Granted, that's all different from a full-fledged electronic version but from a practical point of view, I do not see a real problem.

@MarcoStamazza: I'm just saying that to me, the overall effect of the post is that of a rant, not of a serious question.  By the way, it's not my -1, and the general etiquette on Stack Exchange is not to comment on the votes of others.

Years ago I spent ~$20 on the AIP Style Manual. It has been worth every penny over the decades. If you don't like the journal requirements, don't publish there. But, this is mostly a rant, not a question.

You can almost certainly obtain the book from your university library.  I just checked my institution's catalog - we have 6 copies available for checkout and a further 5 non-circulating "reference" copies that are always available to read inside the library.  Our librarians clearly know that this is a frequently-needed resource - I bet your librarians know it too.
This is the standard way for academics to refer to "commercial" texts without having to pay for them out of pocket.
(Even if you are not affiliated with a university, you'll almost certainly have to get access to a university library in order to be able to read the literature you need to do publishable research - so might as well figure it out now.  But even so, I also found out that my town's free public library has several copies of this book as well.)

And if your library doesn't have a copy, you can quite probably ask them to buy one, since it can be useful to many others.

Good point, thanks. Borrowing the book could be a solution, even though not my favourite as electronic copies can be easily searched. Going to the library every time I need to verify a detail would not be so good for my productivity.

@MarcoStamazza So, if you can't take a copy with you: do what you think is right, mark it clearly as "make sure to verify that this is correct" (different color, margin note, or whatever), and batch up a bunch of things to check at once when you do go to the library.

Compare to the following situation: You submit a paper and a referee replies that you should discuss some other work, may it be a paper or a book, which is also "commercial". So, to publish the paper you need access to this "commercial" source (either to discuss it, or to argue why you shouldn't). Your institution either has access to this source or, if not, use your funds to purchase a copy or use interlibrary loan. The same applies to sources like style guides. Actually, I would guess that workgroups that publish in outlets that use a certain style guide had purchased a copy already for their own bookshelves.
So, what your facing is, in my opinion, not an issue. To work, you need things and most things cost money (computers, offices, internet access, books,…). If you want to discuss whether a style guide should cost money or not, that's another question.

I am discussing whether the style guide should cost money. And this is not related. Literature review is about the content and how I find academic material is my problem. Formatting a paper is strictly related to having the paper considered by the journal.

Since APA is a scientific organization and part of their mission is "Promoting research in psychology, the improvement of research methods and conditions and the application of research findings." and "Increasing and disseminating psychological knowledge through meetings, professional contacts, reports, papers, discussions and publications." the organization may be open to a discussion whether they should make an electronic version of their style guide available for free. In the context of what is going on with scientific publishing these days, this may well work.

I'd say:  Go ahead and make an official query to APA. I don't know enough about APA to suggest a good way to do this - without further knowledge: a letter to the president may work, but probably there is a better way…

It's useless. Most people here are pointing out how lazy and stupid I am for not wanting to put up with a paid written manual just for the privilege of submitting a paper. They seem to be happy about it. Maybe that is why I will stick to real science journals rather than social science ones.

Use a software package for your references. Free software such as BibLaTeX/Biber, Zotero, and others use CSL and can output APA-styled (and many other) references at the push of a button.

While this is absolutely a good idea, it only helps with the references. The APA style isn't just a citation style, it also contains a lot of formatting and language guidelines.

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text:
What to do if one of my recommenders has commited a plagiarism violation that has been publicized online?
I plan to obtain a recommendation letter for PhD from a recommender with whom I have worked a lot during the course of my bachelor's. However when I accidentally typed her name in Google, a copyright violation notice by IEEE in her name shows up (sample). It identifies the paper that included the copied text, says something like

After careful and considered review of the content and authorship of this paper by a duly constituted expert committee, this paper has been found to be in violation of IEEE's Publication Principles.
This paper contains portions of text from the paper(s) cited below. A credit notice is used, but due to the absence of quotation marks or offset text, copied material is not clearly referenced or specifically identified.

and specifies the original source of the copied text. This violation has nothing to do with my work with her.
I am afraid this shall reduce the credibility of my work. Besides, I am loath to approaching other professors because I have worked much less with them and do not know them as well as this recommender. What should I do? Go ahead with her recommendation despite, or seek another recommender?

Are you sure it is the same person?

@PatriciaShanahan: Of course yes. Her name and the violation notice show up in a simple Google search within a quotation.

This is a plagiarism violation, not just a copyright violation.

When did she write the plagiarized paper; and do you have, or could you get, a feeling for how well-regarded she is in her field? If this happened in the past, and she's now an established, tenured (say) researcher, then probably even her own field has taken the incident as not representative for her. If it's recent and she's very early assistant professor, I wouldn't touch a recommendation of your mentor with a ten feet pole. Yes, it matters how well a professor knows you; but it matters at least as much (and in my opinion more) how your letter-writer is regarded in their profession.

If you google the retraction notice you quote above, only the first author is actually blamed, and he's male. Was your recommender one of the latter authors?

@Wolfgang: I think this is only an example for the type of notice - in any case, I hope so: identifying the mentor in public would not be a good idea.

I assume that because you write "for PhD" that you are currently an undergraduate applying for graduate school.
In that case, I think there is relatively little guilt by association. Some people reading the recommender's letter might discount it because the person is discredited, but I don't think anyone will blame you in particular because we assume undergraduates don't often have a choice of which lab they work in, or any knowledge of the shenanigans their advisors might be engaging in.
Her letter might not be as strong as if she didn't have this cloud hanging over her, but I assume that in it she spoke to the quality and diligence of your work and your suitability for graduate studies.
Things might be different if you were a doctoral student in the lab and applying for postdocs or jobs. In that case, there might be stronger guilt by association, especially if you had authored papers together. But you're just an undergraduate so I wouldn't be worried.

Anecdote: As an undergraduate psych major at a R1, I worked in the lab of a psychologist who worked on ESP - that's extra-sensory perception. He only hired undergraduates because he knew of the taint that would be associated with this work for grad students. I was quite happy with the money, it was fun work coding people's free-associations due to supposed psionic powers, and it didn't hurt my graduate career in any way.

Unfortunately, yes, this might put a small seed of doubt in people's minds about you, by association. Was the recommender the first author of the paper in question? If they were neither the first author nor the lab head, any reflected doubt is much smaller.
What are your other options for a recommender? A recommendation from this academic is still a positive in comparison with a recommendation from someone who doesn't really know you, or is outside academia. If anyone stops to think about it, they will realise that you are so junior that you couldn't possibly be implicated, the only negative is that it may pass through their mind in the first place.


text:
Why are contributions to the education of the broader public not valued much within academia?
Scientists not only need to discover new knowledge but also have to share the knowledge to others. For the former, we have things like universities, collaborate groups and journals to take charge. For the latter, we have various forms from teaching, developing and maintaining softwares to writing or translating books, writing and editing in Wikipedia, answering (and asking) in SE, joining an academic club, working on a academic-related project, blogging, etc.
Besides the first two have significant weight in academia, the others seem to be light weight (some even say that they have zero weight) (example for Wikipedia, translating book). Although I understand the worry that I may spread myself too thin, I think the important thing is scheduling time wisely. I don't think they are deserved to be bad effective. In fact some scholarships (like this one) require me to describe "any examples of leadership and involvement in my university or home community". I have even seen some high rep users modestly proudly say that they are active users in SE in their websites. I see a conflict here. Can you explain why contribution to community is deprecated in academia?
A very interesting question from F'x: How can a researcher improve his contribution to society?

This is an unanswerable question as asked. The only possible answer is: "Someday?" "Tomorrow?"

The other answer is that this is not the case at all schools. Some second and third tier schools do value service and teaching over original scholarship. And I think that's just about right, that we need an ecosystem with variety. So, you'll need to reword your question to "When will top schools value contribution to community?"

do you mean top schools don't value service?

@Ooker "Top" schools is usually meant to understand "the schools with the best research". Clearly, in order to be the best in research, those schools need to value research more than everything else.

@ooker - There were some  votes to close this question so I edited and modified the nature of the question from the unanswerable ("when will") to the answerable ("why is") and flipped the negative to positive (from "why not value" to "why deprecated"). In part this is because I feel xLeitx's answer is noteworthy and needs retention in A.SE. Feel free to roll back changes if it is not appropriate.

"I don't think they are deserved to be bad effective." I'm unclear what this means.

@FaheemMitha it means that I think contributions to community is not bad

Related question: How can a researcher improve his contribution to society?.

I have edited the title of this question because "depracated" has a completely different second meaning, which I think may contribute to some confusion about this question.

@scaaahu a very interesting question. I have added it into my question.

More thoughtful answers to this question: Is Physics SE on your CV?

Scientists not only need to discover new knowledge but also have to share the knowledge to others. For the former, we have things like universities, collaborate groups and journals to take charge. For the latter, we have various forms from teaching, developing and maintaining softwares to writing or translating books, writing and editing in Wikipedia, answering (and asking) in SE, joining an academic club, working on a academic-related project, blogging, etc.

I think this is not correct. Discovering new knowledge is the actual research (valued on all levels), "sharing to others" is writing publications (valued so much that the common criticism is rather that publications count too much).
What you mean is a different type of knowledge dissemination, basically the education of the broader public. This is indeed currently not widely valued, but I am not convinced that this is a fault of the system. Essentially, when an university hires a researcher, they want a researcher. They are specifically looking for somebody that generates new knowledge, not somebody that is good at breaking down this new knowledge for the layman (this would be a science journalist, or somesuch), nor for somebody that mainly collects and summarizes the knowledge on Wikipedia or Stack Exchange.
Hence, the answer to your question:

When will contribution to community be valued?

If you understand this as "when will my contributions to community be comparatively valuable for applying to a research position as research results", then the answer will likely be "never".

Thanks for your answer. If so, what about the scholarship mentioned above?

I don't really agree with this.  If, as you say, the "actual research" is the discovering of new knowledge, then that also excludes writing research papers about it.  There's no a priori reason why universities have to value writing journal articles over other forms of dissemination.  Also, your answer is basically tautological.  You essentially just say "the reason universities don't value X is that they value Y instead", without explaining why they value that, or why it's good or reasonable for them to value that.

+1 Vulgarization of existing knowledge and generating new knowledge are two different jobs.

@BrenBarn No, there is no a priori reason why universities have to value conducting research more than community outreach. Yet research is what universities commonly understand to be their mission, and I see no reason why this would change in the foreseeable future. And as long as the mission of universities primarily is research and research-oriented teaching, being a good researcher will remain more important for any decisions than anything else.

@xLeitix: That is exactly what I am not saying.  Your answer draws a distinction between conducting research and disseminating research, but you don't explain why dissemination that is specifically constrained to the research community (i.e., journals) is valued more than that which is broader.  Other forms of dissemination are not incompatible with a research objective, and more recently there has been some attention to the downsides of the traditional dissmenination channels (e.g., file-drawer problem, overeagerness to publish "shocking" results rather than replications).

@BrenBarn Fair enough, but this is also not what the OP is talking about. Oozer specifically mentions community services such as SE,  Wikipedia, and translating books, none of which can be considered an alternative way to disseminate original research.

@xLeitix can you explain why does this conflict with the requirement of the scholarship above? Does this mean the scholarship focus on different goals of the top universities?

@Ooker There is not infinite time. If you want your researchers to spend time translating books, they will do less original research. If your goal is to have as much research as possible, you don't want this.

Ivory towers. I thought this was dying out. Obviously not.

Software is in a gray area right now. As more and more software is required for research, and as younger faculty who have numerous important software products join budget councils (tenure committees, etc.), then the respect for software artifacts will increase. Until people with little to no respect for software age off of these committees, it will be harder (or impossible) for software to contribute directly to tenure decisions at major research universities.
Of course, that's not necessarily enough for software to gain prominence either. Theoretically, the (hand/spreadsheet) calculations, theorems, and experiments in an article are verified in some form through the peer-review process. To date, outside of the statistics-using literature (maybe) where some venues require the publication of programs and data, codes aren't peer-reviewed or published in a traditional way. This gives software an uphill battle for prominence in the minds of tenure reviewers. Until your million-line Fortran simulation code has been peer reviewed, it's likely to remain a lesser contribution to tenure cases (if it gets added at all). I know some committee members who are trying to get software to count, but I haven't been around for discussions of how it might be peer reviewed or what the expectations would be.
The other things you mention (clubs, translations, SE, Wikipedia, etc.) are not classically peer reviewed and aren't creating new knowledge, so they aren't really relevant to tenure committees at research universities. You may find more interest in some of these other things at teaching-focused colleges and universities, but I have no experience with that.
Maybe my focus on tenure here is misguided, but it seems to be the driving force in what matters in academia. Everything else seems to be secondary (Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, perhaps, also contributing highly). Interestingly, some of the things you mention, especially open source and highly used software, may help more with grants from government agencies. Their priorities are different and do drive incentives for academics. Fortunately, along with research products (peer reviewed articles) and teaching, grants do factor strongly into tenure decisions. Some of the other things you mention (alternative dissemination, etc) might factor into what NSF considers "broader impacts", but unless the focus of your grant is on these things specifically, the "intellectual merit" of your proposal will have much more weight among the reviewers of your grants.
I don't see much of this changing rapidly unless a department at a university makes a very public push to include some of these things in their tenure process and wins away some top-notch faculty doing it. If that were to happen (unlikely), other departments might be forced to follow along. The maverick department would have to have some tremendous steals and tremendous research wins over a sustained period to really have an effect, though.

Good answer. I have a question for you. You write "Until people with little to no respect for software age off of these committees, it will be harder (or impossible) for software to contribute directly to tenure decisions at major research universities." The phrasing of this sentence suggests that you think (a) older people have less experience with software and (b) it is inevitable that software will assume more importance in academia as time goes on. I guess (a) isn't that controversial (or interesting), but does (b) correctly represent what you think, or is it just a possibility?

@FaheemMitha, I work in advanced scientific computing, and I think it would be wrong for science if we did not eventually bring the kind of importance to software artifacts (peer review, open access, counting towards tenure, etc) that we have to written articles about research results and design and implementation of experimental research tools. Science needs to take this step, but has not committed yet. Is it inevitable? The sun could explode tomorrow, so I won't comment on that. Also, older people may simply have a bias towards traditional metrics not a lack of experience. Change is hard.

Isn't that we have simulated model a long time ago, since Neumann era? It must have been 50 years. I think all scientists must know the important of simulation, therefore must respect the softwares.

@Ooker, I don't serve on tenure committees, but my discussions with those who do lead me to believe that having a widely used open source scientific software product counts for very little when it comes to granting tenure. It is still the peer reviewed articles about the results from or methods in that software that are used to decide about tenure. Also, as I was told at my PhD defense, "No one in this department ever got a PhD for writing a code!"

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


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Why shouldn't I quote famous scientists in my SOP?
In one of Ben Bitdiddle's comment, he confirms that quoting famous scientists in the SOP is generally bad. But I don't know why. Isn't SOP the place to tell our stories, our inspirations, our motivations, our goals, etc? We scientists, who incur ourselves to solve the hardest problems of the world, are inspired by giant scientists, don't we? So I don't know why...

Thank you for answering my question. I get that a SOP "is forward-looking, not about your childhood". But the quote is not necessary to be something like:  "The purpose of anthropology is to make the world safe for human differences.". I hereby have two questions:

Does that mean we should definitely get rid all things from our past? Not even a paragraph? I have read some samples, many of them start with "I remember the day as if it were yesterday...".
Also, what if the quote I'm about to use is not relevant to any specific field, for example when I want to write down this quote because I want to change field? "Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change". (I can say that I'm not intelligent, but I really want to change the field - this is just an example). This kind of quote is the results of real scientific activities, it applies for every aspect of life, not an inspiration from pop science books.

I know what makes me confuse now. I was mistaken the SOP to the applicant essay. When I search for the sample SOP in my native language, someone has put the 50 best Harvard applicant essays with the title 50 best SOP. After searching it again by English, I acknowledge where I'm wrong. Thank you so much for helping me.

Isn't SOP the place to tell our stories, our inspirations, our motivations, our goals, etc? - No. See this answer

http://explosm.net/comics/3557/

@Mehrdad great comic. So I guess we need to prove how we actually love it. In other word you need to show how we spend our lives "studying the tedious little bit as well as the big flashy facts"

Tag definition of statement-of-purpose: "
Concerning an individual, what influences them, professional interests, and plan for the future, typically described as part of a college applicant's application for admission." Although I agree with the given answers, I can see where the confusion is coming from. If some research has influenced you in a good way, you might feel the need for a quote. Don't do it anyway.

@Mehrdad I never thought I'd see the day where a C&H comic is relevant on Academia.SE...

@Ooker: Please post your new edits as a different question—you're asking something radically different, and creating a "moving target" makes long-term curation of the site difficult.

@aeismail I have two new questions. Does this mean I have to ask two?

@Ooker: Probably for the best, since they're not that closely related.

"I remember the day as if it were yesterday..." — Wow. That is an awful statement of purpose.

Regarding your edit, quotes are not inherently bad. If what you want to say can be effectively said with a quote, go ahead; it just happens that most quotes say the wrong things.

@alex0112: what do you mean?

I know what makes me confuse now. I was mistaken the SOP to the applicant essay. When I search for the sample SOP in my native language, someone has put the 50 best Harvard applicant essays with the title 50 best SOP. After a searching it again by English, I acknowledge where I'm wrong. Thank you so much for helping me.

@JeffE: why is it awful? Except for the first paragraph, everything seems to be OK

@Ooker Heh.  I apologize.  I read SOP as "Stack Overflow Profile".  I was a little confused. ^^

@Ooker Yeah, the SOP is very different from a college essay.  The main point of an SOP is to convince people to hire you, and the main point of a college essay seems to be convincing people that you are a cool person.  Basically people will be thinking "do I want this person in my lab?  Will he/she be a good researcher and publish lots of papers for me?"  The quality of students hired has a direct impact on the faculty's careers.

@BenBitdiddle I want people to hire me, because I'm cool XD

@Ooker Lots of bloviating about the wonderful places the author has worked, how exciting everything was, and how much they think they learned, with only the briefest mention of what they actually did or what they actually want to do, with no technical detail whatsoever.  And really, they're applying to Princeton CS because of its facilities? Seriously? It's tone-deaf fluff, all self-congratulatory hat and no cattle.

(And based on the buzzwords, I'd guess it was written at least a decade ago.)

@Ooker: are you talking about a statement of purpose when someone applies to graduate school, or about a research statement when they apply for a job after graduate school?

@OswaldVeblen I mean the one applying to graduate school

Somewhat related: Can an emotional letter of motivation be harmful in a PhD application?

A statement of purpose is forward-looking. It is not meant to be, to paraphrase Wordsworth, "recollections of early childhood." I don't really care why you decided to study mathematics when you were seven years old, nor do I care about some generic quote from a scientist that inspired you. I want to know what you might want to study as a PhD student, and why you are motivated to study that specific project.
If a famous scientist said something relevant about your proposed project, that's a different story, because it's actually significant to what you want to do in the future. Otherwise, leave it out—it just annoys most of the referees who will eventually read it.

How do you consider a quote is generic or not? Let's say Stephen Hawking said about something about the universe, and I want to apply to study in astronomy, will that quote is relevant?

I mean if you want to study quasars, and there was a relevant quote about quasars, fine. But astronomy is too broad. If in doubt, leave it out.

I think using a Stephen Hawking quote in your SOP is going to make you look like an immature fanboy.  Even though it may be a completely accurate account of how you  got your inspiration, the information the reader is looking for is "what is this person going to do?", not "does this person have the right heroes?".

@msouth: Ok, so let's take another example. If I want to study anthropology, will this quote is address what I'm going to do? "The purpose of anthropology is to make the world safe for human differences."

@Ooker: Again, that's a general quote about anthropology, and probably has little to do with the particulars of your project. If you have to ask if you can include it, then it's not worth including!

@Ooker The point is, the people reading this had damned well better know that the purpose, or, better, one purpose, of anthropology is to make the world safe for human differences.  You are practically talking down to them if you say stuff like that.  What they want to know is what you are going to do as an anthropologist.  They know what all the great minds in anthropology have done.  You're not trying to sell them on those guys.  You are trying to sell them on you.  Don't wave a big flag that says "I don't have any original ideas, lemme just pull a great quote out instead."

@msouth: I have edited my question, can you come and see? Thank you.

@aeismail: my main concern, from the point of view of mathematics, is that few undergraduates will have the ability to even identify specific research projects they might carry out for a PhD - even if they are exceptional candidates for graduate school.

@OswaldVeblen: They don't need to be able to identify specific projects, but they do need to be able to identify particular areas they would be interested in.

Because the people who worship famous scientists usually aren't the ones who've done actual science.  Generally their main scientific experience comes from books marketed to a general audience.  You do not want to be lumped with that crowd, because it shows you don't know what you're getting into.

I agree. But then, how can you surpass all the pains to get a PhD if you don't have some, erm, ideals, curiosity, passion, etc? Quoting a quote doesn't necessary mean you worship someone, it's just because you think it's right.

@Ooker In most scientists, their curiosity and passion is specifically targeted towards the nuances of their field, and not towards broad goals like "understanding the universe."

What if the universe is their specific field? See my comment on the other answer.

@Ooker: The point is that you should be proving that you're ready for graduate study.  Part of this is displaying some familiarity with your field of study, so they know that you're serious and know what you're getting into, and aren't just applying to physics programs because you think physicists are smart or whatever.  You will have a much easier time displaying this familiarity if you talk about narrower, more field-specific topics instead of quoting books that are popular among poseurs.

No problem @Ooker, best of luck!

"Less pop, more science", to paraphrase it


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What are the masters options available for getting into computer vision and image processing research from an electronics background?
Having done bachelors in electronics and instrumentation and a research experience in the field of image processing and computer vision and some publications in the same, what are the possible MS options where I can study computer vision and image processing? Can I opt for MS in robotics, computer science, signal processing?
My confusion is regarding the fact that I was a bachelors student in a different field. Would it be difficult for me to change to a masters program in this other field?

There are Masters of Science programs in Computer Visions and even Computer Science that you can definitely look into. I'm not sure if your preference is to attend school online or on campus. I'm not sure of your location or budget either, so this answer will sound quite generic. However, I have included Georiga Tech's program. The Georgia Tech link is just a course in Computer Visions that's part of their Master of Science in Computer Science program. I believe their program is $7,000 (if it hadn't increased) and it's fully online. I've included their online Masters site link.
Georgia Tech
Georiga Tech Online Masters

Thanks for the answer. I am basically interested in an on campus program. But my confusion is regard the fact that can I go in these field despite of being a bachelors student in a different field. would it be difficult for me?.

I believe you can do it. A bachelors in electronics can simply tie into computer science. I'm answering this based on the general idea of an electronics degree, without seeing the specific courses that you've already taken. Your research experience will definitely help you alot. Also, you're welcome!

Every research option that is available can be researched in any level from bachelors to doctorate. Masters in no exception here. Only the amount of effort you put into it differs.


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What is a graduate research assistantship?
What is the actual meaning of being a research assistant? I have only heard of masters in science and PhD.

A graduate research assistant—regardless of field–is someone who is carrying out research, normally as part of studies that will ultimately lead to either a master's or a PhD (or degree of some other kind). In general, a "graduate research assistant" (or other similar terms) are administrative in origin—it's the name for the "job" that graduate students have while they progress toward their degrees.

One small correction: It's the name for A job that graduate students have while they progress toward their degrees.  It's quite standard in many fields (including my own) for PhD students to hold teaching assistantships, while still being expected to make research progress.

Adding to what @aeismail wrote: all PhD students have to do original research in order to graduate.  Many get free tuition plus a stipend in exchange for carrying out 20 hours per week of assorted teaching duties, such as grading homework for a professor.  They are called "teaching assistants."  However, some of them get the free tuition and the stipend, but with no teaching-related work duties, and they are called "research assistants."  Some research assistantships do not involve any work duties at all.  Some do, but not more than 20 hour per week.  Some examples of research assistant duties: help less experienced students in the group; keep the lab well organized and tidy; perform certain computations as requested by the professor; create and/or maintain a website for the professor; assist with a research project (other than the student's own topic).


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Where can I publish failed research directions?
Suppose I work on a difficult open problem, try several directions that haven't been tried before, work for several weeks on these directions, but finally reach a dead end.
Is there a way I can publish my work, so that future researchers know that these directions are futile and won't have to waste several weeks just to get to the same conclusion?

Related question Why don't people publish failures?. In particular, you may be interested in the accepted answer.

I believe that every serious mathematician or natural scientist has a period when he had been disgusted by successive failures. And, I would like to assert that this is very common...

See also: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28130/pros-and-cons-of-including-less-interesting-results

I think that one has to distinguish different kinds of failures, and also see if the field is experimental or not.
If you have done experiments and they show that some approach does not work, it is perfectly fine to publish that (although, as is discussed in various places, you often do not get the credit that you deserve for this).
If your work is theoretical, it is important that you can formalize the "dead ends" in a sufficient useful way; for example by proving that objects of a certain kind or with certain properties do not exist or that an (intuitive) lemma is wrong which can be shown by a counterexample.


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Most common departmental structure for degrees in EE, CE, and ECE
The acronyms are Computer Engineering (CE), Electrical Engineering (EE), and Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE). Currently, my Department is ECE, and we offer two degrees within the same departmental structure.
As a result of some political issues, I have been asked to find out what is "best practice", i.e., what "most" Universities do. After googling around, I was able to find several departments that pursue each of the possibilities:

separate departments (CE and EE) offering separate degrees,
single departments (ECE) offering degrees in both CE and EE, and
single departments offering one degree that encompasses both fields.

My question is if there is any survey, overview, or summary that would shed light on how common these various options are (preferably in a quantitative way).

Perhaps you can get a hold of the various ABET accreditation guidance? My experience has been these are very loose, and will vary dramatically across universities and continents...

I'm not sure what your question is: are you asking how common it is for universities to have a combined ECE dept vs separate EE and CompE? Please [edit] to clarify. Also, if you're looking for answers supported by a reference (e.g. to a survey), and not random opinions, consider tagging this [tag:reference-request].

@ff524 -- I have edited the question slightly -- my intention is to try to find out how common the various options are.

It seems your question is unclear to many readers, as the existing answers try to explain to you the difference between EE, CompE, and ECE. I don't think that's what you want. I think you should edit both the title and body of the post to clarify.

dunno if they still call it such, but when i was in grad school at Northwestern, it was the "EECS department".  i really didn't think the two should be combined in a single department.  EE and CE could.  i believe CE is a specialization of EE.

authors: أبوخالد الخليفه


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If I publish under a pseudonym, can I still take credit for my work?

Is it possible to publish under a nom de plume (pen name, pseudonym)?
... and still take credit for the work?

I may have a chance to publish with the professor I am working with soon and if I am on the list of authors I would like to use a nom de plume, but I would also like to use the publication to apply to graduate schools next time. Is it possible to have my cake and eat it in the case?
EDIT: Sorry for missing this out; The reason for wanting to publish under a nom de plume is that I would merely want my career to be tracked under a different name. Not to hide identity; I am perfectly fine with what EnergyNumbers was suggesting.

My initial reaction is: why anonymity of you intend to break it. I guess you need to explain the underlying reasoning behind it. Cultural within your subject?

what is "nom de plume"??

Pen name. Pseudonym acquired for the purpose of writing and publishing a text.

Reminds me of "I make anonymous donations". Seriously though, is this because if your paper gets rejected you don't want to associate yourself with it?

nom de plum is literally translated as name of pen  or Pen Name  in the past women were not always allowed to write or be published so they would use a nom de plum or pen name to get their works published, assuming a male pen name

Clearly the answer depends on why you want to publish under a pseudonym.  Most of the answers are just guessing at your reason.  Could you please edit to explain?

A relevant case study is the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, and the discussion over Craig Steven Wright's claim that he is Nakamoto - particularly regarding the evidence requested of Wright which would unambiguously prove that he is indeed Nakamoto.

Taking it that your asking about a nom de plume (aka "pen name") for reasons of conspicuousness, rather than for reasons of anonymity:
Yes, it is possible to publish under something other than your legal name.  A nom de plume isn't that unusual in academia, particular for folk with common names who would otherwise be unfindable in literature databases.
You need to make sure that your legal identity is sufficiently tied to your nom de plume, so that there's not going to be any arguing about it.
Some people adopt double-barrelled surnames for their noms de plume: others add a distinctive first or second initial. As long as its sufficiently close to your real name, that should be sufficient.
Note that this will entail your nom de plume effectively becoming your name for academic purposes: it's what will be on your email correspondence, your web page, your conference name-badges, and so on. You'll just have to do a bit of tweaking with university administration so that payroll, legal, and travel arrangements are all in your real name, not your pen name.

+1 for pointing out another plausible reason for using a nom de plume.

Would anyone happen to know if this would apply in Australia as well? i.e. in Australia would there be more/less trouble caused by using a pseudonym when applying for grad school and arguing that you've written the paper?

Nom de plumes have also been used in Academia to expose fraud:
https://bigthink.com/articles/in-defence-of-pseudonyms-in-science-defending-the-right-to-write/

I would like to use a nom de plume, but I would also like to use the publication to apply to graduate schools next time.

In principle, you could do this.  You would need some way of demonstrating that you really were an author (nobody will believe you if you claim "Andrew Wiles" was just a pseudonym you used for your proof of Fermat's Last Theorem), but a letter of recommendation from your supervisor would suffice.
In practice, why would you want to?  You would need to explain in your application why you had used a pseudonym, and I can't think of any explanation that would sound compelling.  Even in the best-case scenario, this issue would be a distraction from the actual substance of your grad school applications, and it would probably hurt your chances of admission.  Whatever you say, people are going to suspect it's because you are embarrassed by the paper or by your contribution to it, and that won't look good on an application.
I'm assuming here that your nom de plume is intended to hide or disguise your identity.  If not, then it should be fine.  Some people use different names professionally and socially, and this is OK as long as you are clear about it.  (It may cause some confusion in your career, but it isn't considered an ethical problem.)  If this is the case, then you should include a brief note of explanation, for example "I legally changed my name to Smith-Jones upon getting married in 2012, but I have decided to continue publishing under the name Smith."

"why would you want to" - one reason may be visibility. There may be hundreds of scientists publishing under the name of Smith, J., but he is more likely to be alone with "Casimir, Q.". This was suggested elsewhere, but I've also personally known a scientist using a pseudonym for this exact reason/

No. You cannot simultaneously be anonymous and still receive credit for your work.
Theoretically, your pseudonym could get the credit, but you can't invite a pseudonym to be a collaborator, or to give a lecture, or to apply for a grant, so I'm not sure how useful that would end up being.

AFAIR some artists or hackers are known mainly/only by their pseudonyms and they attend meetings (including: giving lectures). So you can invite a [person under a] pseudonym to be a collaborator, or to give a lecture. Sure, it may be tricker (or even impossible) if you want to pay for expenses, and for all other formal stuff. Plus, in small, expert communities in may be effectively impossible to hide.

@PiotrMigdal - I'll concede that it is possible (e.g., Mark Twain, Dr. Seuss), but in almost all cases (a) the real identity is known as well, and (b) the community is much, much larger. The likelihood of this working in a small research community is much smaller.

I'm not arguing that it is a practical solution, at least in academia (in other cases in happens, see e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banksy).
Still, there will be a difference between only using a pseudonym (perhaps not feasible, at least to maintain anonymity) and publishing only a fraction of one's works (e.g. on sensitive topics, which otherwise would be dangerous even in academia) under a pseudonym.

I don't think the OP is asking about anonymity.

@EnergyNumbers - That is how I interpreted it. I guess there could be other motives, such as hiding gender or ethnicity, but my answer applies there as well. I'll leave it to the OP to clarify.

Ramón Antonio Gerardo Estévez is identified in movie credits as Martin Sheen, having chosen the surname because it was that of the famous religious broadcaster Fulton Sheen. Eric Blair published the novels Animal Farm and 1984 and many other works under the pseudonym George Orwell. How would your comments apply to them?

As to another reason using a pseudonym is appropriate is when one is living and researching in a country which would frown upon any given thesis or argument of said article. This can be in many fields of research such as anthropology, sociology, political science, journalism, etc., which compels a researcher to work in places such as China and Iran.

If no one minds me revisiting a 3-year-old question, another idea might be to generate a public/private encryption key, and at the bottom of your works have your public key, a random 100-character string, and the 100-character string after encrypting it with your private key.
Typically digital signatures use the document itself rather than a 100-character string, but in the case of journals/papers, you don't have any control over the final file that the readers download. You might hand the journal a word document, and they'll re-work it into a PDF with their formatting/etc, which makes digitally signing it before hand impossible for you to do.
But with the method proposed above, all someone has to do to check you are the author is to ask you to encrypt a new string, which you do with your private key, and then they can reverse it with the original author's public key, proving you are the original author (or at least, you have their private key).
I was tempted to say you could use the paper's title or abstract instead of 100-characters, but titles can be very short, and also the journal might still mangle it (capitalisation, or weird UTF8 variants of what you gave them originally).

I'm revisiting your comment 3 later, so hope that you won't mind it either! Just upvoted your answer and think it's a brilliant idea. I also had a follow-up question: How would you go about convincing the editors to leave a random 100-character string at the bottom of the paper? Thanks for your time

@Wetlab Taking your comment at face value: What would the advantages of generating a key per paper be over just have 1 key for "the author"? Taking it with some levity: haha, yes; However, I do find that society (at large) has not yet understood the economic (and environmental?) cost of using computational intractability as a resource/currency. That would put me slightly off this idea as I have come to feel that these costs are actually higher than most people think.

Hi both! user51309 - you can't force editors to do anything to their own journal's output, however I would think it would be very unreasonable for them to not let you add a public key, random string, and signed output, at least in the supplementary data table, for each author. The problem is they can still modify the content of your work or delete you as an author, since you are not signing the work itself. But that can already happen, and this method means two "John Smiths" are unique in public key at least, and you could search for authors based on public key.

C.E.Sally - This is the question of anonymity vs pseudoanonymity. The researcher in all instances is anonymous, and they can prove they are the anonymous person, anonymously. The difference between a researcher with 1 public/private keypair that signs all their work with the same keypair, and a researcher that generates a new keypair for every paper they publish, is that in the former all their papers are linked as coming from the same author, while in the latter one can chose to keep all their work unlinked, or individually link any of their publications by co-signing the same random string.

Final comment about the resources, while creating a public/private keypair that is cryptographically secure does take some resources (a minute of time on a standard laptop), the verification of signed things is near-instantaneous, while the forging of signatures should take 1000s of years. Bitcoin does the latter in 5 minutes by throwing lots of energy/money at the problem, and only ever "cracking" the same private key, basically (same curve). So that's where the resources issue comes from.

Yes, but you make things very difficult for yourself if you do not stick to that nom de plume for the remainder of your career. And to get credit, your CV and perhaps some other stuff like your email byline, would have to state something along the lines of, professionally known as Prullaria Fantasticus. Which might strike some people as odd and thus could work against you.


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Comparing a career in medicine vs. medical research?
My friend recently graduated with a bachelor degree in biology. He is thinking that he can help more people by studying a biomedical engineering Ph.D., rather than becoming a medical doctor.  He is wondering, however, about the differences between these two paths from a career perspective.  What the advantages and disadvantages of an academic career vs. a medical career?

I have changed the question to be less situation-specific and less opinion-driven, so that it better fits with the pretty good answers it received.

As a person who faced a similar dilemma a few years ago, I think there are major practical differences:

The working environment. Every doctor will spend his early career in a hospital, whether he plans on practising in the community later or not. A hospital environment is really different than the research one. In the former you are constantly on your feet, working long hours, nights, etc. However, you are constantly working with the people to whom you're helping. In a "lucky" week (depends on the POV), you might save a life every day.
Taking work home. While a M.D works long and hard hours at his/er practice, when she goes home - she can rest. Her patients doesn't follow her home. As a researcher I can tell you that I'm even dreaming on my research.
Independence. The medical environment is a very hierarchical one. Starting out as a M.D, you can't even sign off your own orders (in first world countries, at least :) ), contrary to a graduate student who might be given an independent project very early in his or her study course.
Goals. As a researcher, you end up working for the sake of science. You might find yourself pursuing a direction which might take decades before it translates into helping people. As a practitioner - you're working for the people in front of you.
Demand for your skills. In general - there are hardly any M.Ds who go unemployed. Most healthcare systems are understaffed and there is always a demand for M.Ds. I wish we could say the same about positions in the academy, and the industry is never as stable (and here it's field specific and I can't say much about the specific field in question).

"and the industry is never as stable". By "the industry" you mean biomedical research? The last sentence is not so clear.

I think that stands as a general statement regarding the private sector. The industry, that means - research done outside of the academy, is not a stable job market in many fields, esp. those related to biology.

One thing that comes to mind: for doctors, the move abroad is far more difficult than for the researchers in biomed, because the job market in healthcare is usually heavily protected against international workforce by licensing barriers, see e.g. http://immigrationimpact.com/2013/12/17/licensing-barriers-leave-immigrant-doctors-driving-cabs-instead-of-practicing-medicine/ for the US.

In Europe titles are more homogeneous, the main barrier is the language. Researchers work in English, but a doctor has to speak the language of their patients. Also note that Canada and the US do seek out specialists in areas where they have shortage, like pathology.

This really depends on where you're moving abroad to. Australia has great programs for immigrant M.Ds

For medicine: "A doctor is a medical professional who examines the sick and tries to find a way to help them" [1].
For biomedical engineering: "This field seeks to close the gap between engineering and medicine: It combines the design and problem solving skills of engineering with medical and biological sciences to advance healthcare treatment" [2].
So if your friend want to help patients intimately he should be a doctor but if he wants to help the doctors and advance healthcare and thus indirectly helping the patients he should be a biomedical engineer.


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At what stage should acknowledgements be inserted into the paper if review is not double-blind?
When the review process is double-blind, I guess (although I have not read this anywhere) that acknowledgements should not be written in the submitted paper, as this might break anonimity. They should only be inserted into the camera-ready version, after the paper is accepted.
What is the custom when the review process is not double-blind? Should I write the acknowledgements in the submitted version, or wait to the camera-ready version?

I'm not entirely clear on how acknowledgements would break anonymity. If a reviewer is one of the acknowledged people, he'll know who he discussed the topic with, anyway. Are you afraid of the reviewer contacting one of the acknowledgees and asking for the name of the author? In such a case, the acknowledgee should certainly refuse to answer.

@StephanKolassa Acknowledgements frequently contain grant information as well, and a grant number de-identifies quite precisely, since can typically be looked up to determine who are the PIs and other key personnel for the project.

@StephanKolassa: The name of the author(s) is the most specific, but by no means the only information that is hidden by double-blindness. Knowing the name of a helpful colleague can provide hints about the research group; knowing a supporting company or organization can provide hints about the city where the research team is located; knowing the name of a funding agency can provide hints about the country of origin of a submission, all of which should ideally remain unknown in a double-blind review process.

In case it wasn't obvious, I meant "de-anonymizes" not "de-identifies" in my comment.

I agree with the other answers here. In particular, I follow the advice of @jakebeal where he suggests to put the acknowledgments in earlier on so you can account for the space it takes up.
I would like to raise an additional consideration for putting acknowledgments in earlier on: when your funding agency requires you to do so.
For example, in the US, certain Department of Defense (DoD) components (such as DARPA) require the authors of any publications (or manuscripts to be submitted for publication) stemming from funded research work to include an appropriate "distribution statement" at some location in the paper. In my subfield, authors typically put this statement in the acknowledgment section.
You might ask:

Why not just add the distribution statement in after the paper is accepted for publication?

Well, manuscripts to be submitted for publication must first be "released" for publication by the DoD, and if the distribution statement is not listed in the paper, then your paper is not approved for "public release." (You can get into trouble with the DoD if you try to submit your paper prior to obtaining public release approval).
Bottom line:
Check with your funding agency to see if they have any constraints on the acknowledgment section (or first-page footnote, etc.) of your paper, and at what stage of the publication process it is required.

If it's not double-blind, then it generally doesn't matter whether the acknowledgements are in the initial version or not: the reviewers will simply ignore them.
When there are page limits involved, however, I like to put the acknowledgements in as early as possible.  That way, their size is built in from the beginning and we don't have to figure out how to fit the extra space during the revision.

+1. There's also nothing to prevent you from inserting a redacted acknowledgement: "I'd like to thank _________ at _______ and . This project was funded by the ________ with grant #__ and does not represent the opinion of the _______ government."

@RoboKaren: just be sure the number of underscores doesn't help identify which government or which grant number format you're redacting :-)

For a review process that is not double-blind, it can be ok to not put the acknowledgement in the submitted version. As long as it is in the published version, it will be fine. I have done that many times.

In mathematics, reviewing isn't double-blind, and I always put acknowledgements in from the start.  Partially this is because papers circulate as preprints, but also, if the referee is someone you should have acknowledged, then it will put them in a better mood if you do so.

I think if the reviewer is close enough to the paper to be acknowledged then s/he should not be a reviewer. But that might vary between fields, I guess.

@Miguel Yes, that's certainly different in (pure) mathematics.  My impression is that being thanked for your comments on a draft of the paper increases your chances of being asked to referee it.  Presumably, the editor thinks that, since you've already looked at the paper, it will be relatively easy for you to referee it.

@Miguel You can go on thinking that, but good luck avoiding the total collapse of the peer review process in mathematics.  There's too much mathematics and too few people doing it; it's the same reason that double-blind review is totally impractical (well, that and preprint servers).


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Choosing between a one page abstract in conference proceedings and full version on arXiv, or publishing full paper in conference proceedings
In some conferences in computer science, the authors of accepted papers have a choice between publishing the full paper in the proceedings, and publishing a one-page abstract with a link to the full paper in arXiv.
The rationale for publishing a one-page abstract is that the authors may want to submit the same paper later to a journal, and some journals would not consider publications that appeared in conference proceedings.
This raises two questions:

Why should it make a difference to a journal, if the paper is published in conference proceedings, or in an arXiv paper linked from the proceedings? In both cases the paper is visible online.
Why should it matter to the author, if the paper is published in the proceedings or in arXiv? both cases the paper is visible online. Apparently, there is an advantage to publishing a one-page abstract with link to arXiv: if I later upgrade the arXiv paper, people coming to the paper will notice and may choose to read the newer version.

Is there any disadvantage to publishing a one-page abstract rather than a full proceedings paper?

A major difference between conference proceedings and arXiv is that conference proceedings are peer reviewed (in CS). Some people consider something to be "published" when it appears in a peer-reviewed venue, and not published otherwise.

@ff524 but the paper is peer-reviewed anyway... after it is peer-reviewed and accepted, I have a choice whether to publish it as a one-page abstract or a full paper.

Yes, but that is why journals might distinguish between a paper published in conference proceedings or one published on arXiv. It doesn't consider the latter to be already "published."

This is a good question! @ff524 I agree: conference proceedings vs. arxiv is definitely the peer-reviewed factor!  What about the 1 page abstract with a chance to publish in a journal later (+ arxiv) instead of just having the paper published in the conference proceedings? CS seems to place heavy emphasis on publishing in conferences anyway? What advantage does a journal publication at a later date offer?  Sorry If I'm hijacking the question...

Is the conference a pure computer science one or in an interdisciplinary field? Interdisciplinary conferences often offer options like that, as they have to deal with different publication cultures. For example, CS-oriented bioinformatics journals tend to accept extended versions of conference papers, while biologically oriented journals don't.

You are basically choosing whether you want this paper to be considered "published" in its current state, where "published" means "published in a peer reviewed venue."

If you decide that this paper should be "published" now, then you may be precluded from "publishing" it again in essentially the same form. Hence the option to "publish" only an abstract, which won't preclude later submission to another publication venue.
If you decide that this paper should not be "published" now, then for many purposes (e.g. promotion and tenure at some institutions, hiring processes that count the number of publications) it isn't credited as a publication. This may seem like a useless distinction, but bureaucratic processes are often a little bit stupid like that. Furthermore, there is a possibility that it won't ever be "published": it is accepted for publication now with 100% probability, but once you decline that offer, you no longer have 100% probability of acceptance somewhere that you'd like to publish.

Depending on the maturity of the work, the quality of this conference proceedings, and your future plans for the work, you may decide that you are ready for this paper to be "published" now in this conference proceedings, or that you're not.


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Is someone with a masters in CS eligible to apply to a CS masters program in another country?
I've completed my Masters in Computer Science in India. Here we've had no specialization as such and the subjects assigned have been as per University rules. Now I feel the need to specialize in my area of interest and have found Universities in the US that will allow me to choose subjects that align with my interests. Am I eligible for applying to said universities?
Note - These subjects are still in the Computer Science department in these Universities :(
Will the fact that they're in a different country be the exception wherein pursuing a second Masters isn't a problem?

Yes, I have seen many doing this for various reasons.

The other option is to take a Post-Master's Certificate. These are usually geared for industry positions and are part-time degrees while you work, but take less time to complete.

Every university is different. My university (in the US) will not grant an MS in computer science to someone who already has one, even from another country.

The issues you mentioned in your question should be covered in your Statement of Purpose. That is, you should be willing and able (as you did), to explain why you want to "repeat" the degree (you're not really repeating the courses).
Hopefully, your schools of choice would consider you "superprepared," having completed many courses, but not the ones you plan to take. The danger is if there are weaknesses in your test scores or your grades, it could work the other way by showing that you are a "less good" student who needs to repeat courses.