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How to comfortably interact with famous professors?
I know that they are "just as human as we are", but I feel somewhat uncomfortable to talk nonchalantly with the top-notch math researchers and professors in my department because of their social position, their extremely superior knowledge and talent, and also because of their age.
Still, I feel that it is like a waste to have such interesting mind-expanding people around and not to interact properly and talk about maths when I meet them in the department (outside the lecture hall).
So my question is: according to your experience, what is the best (where best means: most polite, appropriate, acceptable, but also profitable) way to interact and make the most of the presence of such awesome professors? Can I discuss "lower" [mathematical and non-mathematical] subjects with them even though their actual (research) interests lie in much more abstruse topics?
Any suggestion (even in the form of a comment) is really appreciated.

Talk to them as adults. Don't waste their time.

@EnthusiasticStudent Indeed: I know that it is a risk. That is why I'm asking what would be acceptable.

The answer is obvious, if you have a scientific issue to talk to them and relates to them; then you can ask them to talk about. If they are your advisers or teachers, you can talk to them about your progress. The students and professors relationship in academia is somehow a standard way in almost anywhere. I can not imagine what special would be beneficial to mention in answer to your question.

I think it sometimes helps to have a need to start talking to them in the first place. Just the other day, I went to see one of my professors to ask him about how to include data in my essay. Somehow we then spent a good hour discussing programming in general (I'm a CS student), and it was a good talk.

If you are taking a class with the professor, walk with him after the class.

Related: How do I stop feeling intimidated by my advisor?

Also related: this comment by @JeffE - "what is the best way to talk to a professor?" Answer: "Directly, exactly as if they were human."

Get drunk with them, preferably at a conference in an exotic location.

Why would you interact with them? That's the first question to ask. If it's because they are likely to have the answer to one of your question, check your question again and again and find the appropriate moment to go and ask it (see answers). You can also ask your question by email. Another point: professors don't behave all the same. Some are very student-oriented, some are snobbish. You'll easily tell! My main piece of advise would be to be sincere, don't go and talk to them just to tell you did.

From a student's point of view, here is how I tackle the situation. You can break it down by the circumstances in which you meet, and thus guesstimate how much time the professor has for you.
Asking "may I talk to / email you later about...?" can be useful if it's not the right time and place for a useful discussion.
DTK's answer has good points about how you should approach a conversation.
Of course there will be some variations depending on the culture and environment of your department, and how well you know the prof you're talking to.
Hallway / elevator encounters
If they look busy or rushed, perhaps best save it till later. Otherwise, keep questions very brief, concisely answerable, and related to something you know they're interested in (i.e. their own research field).
Discussions at semi-social occasions, such as at a gathering after a seminar, or breaks at a conference
Here, the professor probably has no immediate obligations or things urgently pressing on his or her mind (or else they'd have disappeared by now). This is a better opportunity to ask broader or more complicated questions, or if they work in a related field you could ask for an opinion on a problem you've been thinking about.
Social occasions such as at lunchtime, conference dinner, etc.
As above, but they may even prefer to talk about something other than their own field of expertise -- sports, politics, an interesting paper from a completely unrelated discipline that you read whilst procrastinating, etc. If you don't know the professor very well, you might want to wait for him or her to initiate steering the conversation in that direction.

I must agree. Not matter the field, most people like a break from their job. If you run into a faculty member outside of the university setting, unless they have invited you to talk about their field, keep conversation to a shared interest that allows them to unwind, and not feel you are dragging them back to their classroom.

I have to admit, while these are great, they really should be applied to everyone. Fellow students, famous and non-famous professors, anyone really.

@corsiKa Indeed. Really, I'm just elaborating on the "treat them like a normal adult, but don't waste their time" one-liner.

Find out their other interests (often on book-jackets they authored or on their profile page on the department webpage), engage them in those.
Be respectful of their time. Ask "I heard you are active in topic. Do you have a few minutes to discuss?". If they say no, drop it. If they offer another time, follow their lead.
Do not be obsequious or servile; speak respectfully, but as an adult to an adult. Do not act as a peer, until invited to do so.
Respect the individual and the rank. Keep the values and priorities of the professor in mind. If invited to address the professor by name, do so. If not, address the professor as "Doctor such-and-so" or "Professor such-and-so".
Lastly, always be polite, be kind and listen.

"Professor Doctor"? I know it's common in Europe to write Prof. Dr., but is it ever said out loud? I think that would very easily qualify as sounding servile. Also I think age can be relevant; younger staff are generally quick to be informal in their interactions.

I heard it semi-regularly between students and visiting faculty at University of Texas, when the faculty received their titles from European institutions. When in doubt, ask how the professor prefers to be addressed (or even better, how they would prefer you to address them). Age is certainly relevant; one does not interact across generational boundaries the way one interacts with a member of their cohort.

If someone with a PhD were knighted, I wouldn't call them "Sir Doctor Jones". I'd call them "Sir Jones". I cannot imagine anyone being offended if you called them only by their highest honorific and missed out the rest.

"Professor Doctor" is not used in English.

@Moriarty "Sir Jones" is always wrong. Professor Surname, Sir Firstname, Professor Sir Firstname Lastname.

Just to add to the "Professor Doctor" discussion. As far is I know in conversations it is not a European thing, but a German thing, although I believe there it is more common to use "Herr Professor" or "Herr Doctor" (please someone correct me if I'm wrong) -- Certainly in the Netherlands "Professor Doctor" is never ever used in conversations. And in writing actually also only in formal documents/letters.

Afaik, this depends on the field and maybe the university. I work in computer science at a young (<50 years) university with a focus on STEM fields. I don't know a single person in the department who insists even on "Dr Name", let alone "Prof Name". We use "Herr/Frau Name" (i.e. Mr(s)) for professors and administrative staff, and first names the rest. That said, if a professor did insist you'd adjust.

Oops, yes that's right (and I'm a native speaker...). I'd say "Sir Bob" or "Doctor / Professor Jones". @Raphael I agree that it very much depends on the culture of the department and country. In the Netherlands I rarely address anyone by anything other than their first name. I wonder if there's been a qualitative survey done on how these attitudes vary geographically and between fields?

@Michiel The German thing is to use as you write "Herr Professor" in conversation, if you want to be formal. You only use the "highest" title when addressing someone directly, even in very formal letters, never the "Professor Doctor" combination. That's for business cards and letter address fields.

maybe to change the tone from arguing about "Doctor Professor", can I ask you to reword "respect the man and the rank" so that it works in a universe where not all famous professors are men?

@KateGregory Thank you. I recognize that the best man for the job is often not a man, and I will try to adjust my speach to reflect that. Thanks for pointing out to me, to improve awareness.

While I am not a "famous professor" I am famous in my field, enough that people routinely want their picture taken with me at conferences. At the same time I get a little starstruck by folks more famous than I am (for example having dinner with the single person who invented the language I'm now considered an expert in, or having him plop himself down next to me while I'm watching a session at a conference.) So I can see both sides of this particular dynamic.
My suggestion to you is this: you have an access to this person that outsiders do not. If you have a Nobel-winner in the same building as you, who lines up for coffee with you or is sitting next to you at a meeting, you can talk about anything nontechnical at all. You can admire an item of clothing (what a cool tie! I love that ring!) or similar accessory (oh, you got the new phone/band/watch - is it good?) or comment on the weather, or how much you're looking forward to the presentation by the visitor, or just about anything other than the professor's research. I can't do that. How incredibly creepy would it be for me to email a Nobel-winner complimenting them on a tie or ring or watch worn in a press release picture?
They are indeed "just as human as we are" and because of that, your first interactions with them should be on that basis. Talk to them about the same things you would talk to anyone about. Don't burst out with a technical question you've been dying to ask. Just relax and be someone who while not a peer, has that inside access. Interacting properly with these people will include technical stuff - I can't so much as go to lunch without talking about technical stuff - but it will also include normal human stuff like "did you watch that game last night" or "were you stuck in that giant traffic jam yesterday" and the like.
I don't mind when people I've never met want to start conversations with me by asking my technical opinion, or sharing theirs. I love what I do. But if you want to form a true connection with your famous colleague, do it by emphasizing the colleague part first and letting the technical conversations arise a little more naturally. While I was thrilled to have Stroustrup tell me I should definitely write the "C++ as a first language" course for Pluralsight (I hesitated, because it's hard, but he encouraged me to do it and he was right, it's a great course in the end) it was actually slightly more fun to discuss the importance of caffeine to programmers and the sadly-neglected role of chocolate in that :-).

To enhance on some of the other answers here: I, like many other scientists, used to have a very limited tolerance or appreciation for small-talk.  My feeling was essentially: why waste time talking about boring things like weather or sports when we could be talking about SCIENCE!
Something that helped me overcome this, however, was realizing small-talk actually has a high indirect value as a signaling strategy.  Small-talk allows you to actively signal to another person that you have recognized them as a human being, rather than as a resource to be exploited.  It also gives a number of opportunities for the other person to signal to you whether they are currently interested in a serious conversation or whether they are feeling too busy / burned out / cranky, etc to have one.  Small-talk thus lets you discretely negotiate reasonable bounds for an interaction.
Not starting by engaging in small-talk, however, is a good way to set off many people's crazy-filters, since many highly problematic people are not capable of engaging in small-talk.

I would say treat them as a fellow human being. Just that they are famous in there fields doesn't mean that they are 'handled with care, and need special procedures to communicate with them'.
Try not assume too much, and just be yourself. Be genuine about it, because any human being knows when it's all fake and pre-constructed.. :)
That would be my advice in a nutshell.

I took a class with a Nobel Prize-winning economist. He was pretty laid back. Usually the older these people are, the more open they are to talking.
My tips.
Be prepared for lectures - do the required reading and assigned work.
Ask them about things that they'd have an interest in talking about. For instance, the economist who taught my class was married to a woman from a country I had lived in for a while. I asked him how he liked that country. We talked for 30 minutes, and he gave me his personal e-mail.
Think of interesting things you have done and talk to them about those things. Travel, how you applied coursework to another subject, your career plans - pretty much anything interesting. Catch them in office hours - they're usually more laid back.

I used to be an Academic Advisor at a university.  The others here are correct in both these are people just like you and me, and, they are busy people, so you don't want to "waste" their time.
However, professors LOVE, and I do mean LOVE (at least the good ones) students who are interested in the coursework.  One of the primary complaints I heard from the ones I knew was that students didn't respond/interact enough during class, nor did they show any genuine interest in the material.  If you're a particular professor's current student.
As a college student, this is the one time in your life when you'll have seemingly unlimited access to such minds.  I was always, and still am as a graduate student, blown away at the knowledge and skill some professors have.  Take advantage of this now.  You never know where it may lead you in the future.
These professors were also undergraduate students at some point in their life.  They too may have struggled with some concepts you are struggling with, if you're seeking assistance.  While working as an Advisor, I was their peer.  I was on a first name basis with them, and had great conversations.  I remember one professor tell me that he struggled with a particular concept as an undergraduate.  Rather than give up, he worked hard to not only gain an understanding of that concept, but went on to master that concept. If you ask questions about math lower than their PhD level expertise, you may strike a cord with them. If they see that you're interested in something, whether struggling or not, they may offer insight into how better to understand or learn the topic.  Or, since they may have a deeper understanding of the topic, they can offer an understanding that you didn't know possible.
Again, don't be shy.  You may even ask a particular professor if they have office hours during which to discuss a particular topic.  If the professor has student or graduate assistants helping them, ask an assistant how best to meet with the professor.
Again, take advantage of these opportunities while they exist.
Good luck!!

Most aspects have been alredy dealt with, I'll just add this one:
Take care to watch for signs that tell you whether the Professor does not mind talking to you or whether he just answers in order to be polite.
Most famous (in their field) academics I have talked to are extremely social animals, some aren't, and some would like to be but never find the time. So most know how to terminate an unwanted (or untimely) conversation, although few will want to look arrogant, so it's good to exercise a little more care than usual to gauge how your dialogue partner likes the conversation; not necessarily because missing the queue might make someone important angry but because it helps them to not feel bad for telling an interested student off.
I.e.: Don't feel guilty if you miss a clue -- they're used to students only understanding half of what they say :)

As some of the answers suggested, those profs are humans, too.  How they react to some lowly academics, such as students, differs.  All really depends on his personality.  Don't be offended if he ignores you.  In all cases, don't be pushy.  Let me share my two stories.
Story #1:
A famous prof shows up for the conference at my school.  He knows a lot of faculty members reasonably well.  He's highly respected in his field and has strong, controversial opinions.  My advisor asked me not to approach this famous prof during the conference under any circumstances.  Surprisingly, he approached me during lunch and started to engage some small talks.  His wife is in the same ethnic background as I do and he's interested in a second opinion on the food from that area of the world.  At the same time, I felt the uncomfortable gaze from my advisor...
Story #2:
A person (let's call him "A") would like to visit my advisor during his business trip.  My advisor refused to meet "A", but "A" insisted to drop by.  I don't know the relationship between "A" and my advisor.  My advisor stayed home on that day.  To make "A" satisfied, my advisor asked his students to engage in useless small talks if he drops by.  "A" did drop by and I turned him away to my best abilities.  My advisor called my lab extension later in the afternoon making sure that "A" was gone before he drove to campus.

Those two stories tell a lot about the (questionable and childish) behaviour of your advisor, not about approaching most of the professors.

I should note that the advisors in #1 and #2 are two different people.


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Ignored Requests Open-Source Software from a Research Group
For more than 6 weeks now, I have been attempting to contact a post-doc or their (former?) PI to request access to either the source code or software of a tool that was published in BMC Bioinformatics. The authors did not provide the source as a supplemental file, but assure the reader in the article that it will be made available upon request. This is the first time requesting source code of a research group, but I have yet to receive any kind of reply to my polite requests.
I am unsure how to proceed. Pursuant to the guidelines for publication in the journal, "[i]f published, software applications/tools must be freely available to any researcher wishing to use them for non-commercial purposes, without restrictions such as the need for a material transfer agreement." This group is located in Europe, and it is highly likely that they should have a working knowledge of English, after all, the publication and their websites are in English, so I don't think there a language barrier exists.
Possible actions that I am considering:

Contacting the managing editor for the publication to explain the situation, and see if his/her email attracts more of a response.
Contacting any granting agencies who have provided supporting funding for the project to determine whether they have stipulations about providing source code.
A phone call to the corresponding author.

I think both of the proposed actions can perceived as (extremely) hostile by the other group, so I would not do that. If you are familiar with how academic labs work: that code maybe is on a hard disk or a long-gone postdoc in an undocumented form or documented only in Russian/German/French, whatever is their mother tongue. It may be code written in LISP or Pascal, whatever that favorite of that guys was. Best case scenario is that someone trying to fix this for you, worst case scenario they just ignored and forgot your message. Your best chance is to have a normal relationship with them.

FYI: Reference on the time it takes for a source code used for a research article to be released;  Reference on availability of source code used in computer science research articles.

I highly disagree with the majority of answers.  Most likely the research (and software) was funded with taxpayer dollars.  The OP should not be a pushover.  He should demand they fulfill their promises to taxpayers.  There is no need to be polite.  OP has already waited too long.

To go along with @emory's answer, most funding (at least in the US) also has data retention policy requirements attached. I would think the same is true in Europe. They'd obligated to keep the source code around for several years after the funding ended. If they lost the source code then they'd probably in violation of the terms of their funding.

Can you provide more info on what steps you have taken to contact the authors?  For instance, if there were mutliple authors, have you tried contacting all of them?  Have you asked any of your professors whether they know any of those researchers, and perhaps have an alternate email for them?  I think contacting the journal editor is a reasonable move when the time comes, but you should really exhaust all less extreme measures first.

Have you considered simply giving them a phone call?

@DaoWen: I have never heard of such a policy. From what I have seen here in Europe, at least in some fields/with some funding agencies, only the written reports about projects matter. These reports have to be handed in to certain libraries where they will be stored indefinitely. Whatever was prototypically developed in the course of writing those reports is considered irrelevant by the funding agencies and is likely to disappear when the respective employees quit, unless someone makes specific provisions to keep that code.

@O.R.Mapper http://osp.fad.harvard.edu/content/retention-of-research-data-and-materials  "Harvard and its researchers have legal, institutional and ethical obligations to manage and retain records of research conducted at Harvard. These obligations are not new and are not unique to Harvard: they arise from express provisions in agreements with federal and other research sponsors, overarching regulatory requirements relating to funded research, and fundamental precepts of research integrity."  Even if 100% of a research team got hit by a bus and died, Harvard would remain obliged.

@emory: Sure, I believe you. Kind of the "opposite case" exists as well, though; I am more familiar with funding grants that explicitly guarantee that the involved parties have to reveal whatever code was created while conducting the project only during the project duration and only to the other project partners. Any kind of funding for maintaining the data/tools created in the project after the project has ended is virtually impossible to obtain. That said, that usually refers to projects that involve both universities and industry partners, and the latter insist on such clear rules.

@Roland - I had not considered that option actually, so I have added it to my question as well.

I think contacting the editor of the journal is your best bet. Contacting grant agencies will most likely not warrant a reply, and I don't imagine many of them have stipulations for sharing code (yet).
That said, I have been in a similar position numerous times, and I have had very little luck every obtaining the code. The editor will most likely not be willing to retract a paper because the author's won't share, and they have little incentive to do so, since it will at most garner a single citation, but could lead to more problems down the road (e.g., the code is buggy and you can't reproduce their results, etc.)
Another tip would be that senior people (i.e., PIs) usually have more luck at this kind of thing because they are harder to ignore and/or have contacts, but it can be harder to get the to actually do it, because it can become political.

I agree that the editor will likely not retract the paper, but I am pretty sure that it will make him more careful handling the next paper by these authors. If the editor takes up on this, it should be a strong incentive for the authors to actually share the code.

It would be interesting to know how this went.

Stop. Do not do any of the things you are thinking of doing.

The authors did not provide the source as a supplemental file, but
  assure the reader in the article that it will be made available upon
  request.

Have you thought that they need to polish the code before releasing it? The fact that I am planning to release my source code does not mean that I have to do it now or whenever suits you.

Pursuant to the guidelines for publication in the journal, "[i]f
  published, software applications/tools must be freely available to any
  researcher wishing to use them for non-commercial purposes, without
  restrictions such as the need for a material transfer agreement."

I have seen journals like that in my area (CS). Still, this initial rule proposed when those journals came out, might atone through the years. Since in certain areas, conferences are the main publishing venue, journals sometimes "relax" their original rules to get enough submissions to get them going. So, I would not count towards this rule to pressure the journal or the authors of this work. Check out some other works on this journal. Do they actually released the code? If not, then releasing the code is the exception and not the rule.
Also, "software applications/tools must be freely available to any researcher wishing to use them for non-commercial purposes, without restrictions such as the need for a material transfer agreement." does not necessarily mean releasing the source code but just the binary or a web-application created from the code. Where did you make the assumption that they should give their source code to you? The word "tool" refers to full apps and not original uncompiled source code.

Contacting the managing editor for the publication to explain the
  situation....

And what do you think the editor would do? Punish the authors because a random stranger on the internet tells him something bad about them? You can rest assure, this action will have little effect on the authors and only reflect bad on you.

Contacting any granting agencies who have provided...

Why do you assume that under the rules of their funding agency they should release everything as open source? I have worked in many research projects in Europe and I have never heard of such a strict rule. Perhaps there are some projects or agencies demanding that but I do not think it is the norm as you suggest it is. In many projects, participants are commercial companies and they are usually not interested in sharing their work with anyone else (except the project partners and only during the project's duration). Enforcing such a rule would make all commercial companies to not want to participate and that is against the policy of funding agencies.
Have you ever stopped to consider that the PI perhaps relocated and did not get those emails? Are you 100% sure that the authors did not reply your emails on purpose? And even if they do, are you sure that they broke some rule as you assume they did? In your shoes, I would not be too sure. And starting a full-scale war, will do more harm to you than them.
Also if you want something, be nice. Sometimes it does not work. OK. Bullying people into doing what you want is not an efficient long-term policy.

Very detailed reply. Let me rebut:

The article is >18 months old now. How much "polishing" can the code still require? This claim makes sense in a recent publication, but not one this old.
The software in this case is a python script, so releasing the tool is the source code. Not only is that the journal policy, which they should be adherent to, it is quite common in bioinformatics to release the software (not necessarily source code, but a binary/web interface at a minimum). Further, their abstract and paper state the software is available upon request, thus, my request.

Yes, but your main assumption about those owing to give the src code is wrong, as the journal policy says nothing about source code but "applications/tools"

That's fair, and I don't necessarily care about the code, but I do want access to the software. Neither of which are "public".

I propose to contact the editor not to impose a punishment, but it may simply be that my email as a graduate student is simply ignored or trapped in spam, whereas their email request should not be. Internet searches strongly suggest they are still at their home institution, and are still covered by the same (multi-year) grant.

I think you are mis-reading an aggressive tone in my request. I have been very polite in my requests, and continue to be, but I also do not know if I am being deliberately ignored (for whatever reason) or if they did not receive my emails. However, they have made certain explicit promises in their publication, and I am trying to get access to a research tool. I am not interested in reproducing or verifying their own work, but to simply apply it to my own.

While this advice is generally sound, for this particular journal, availability of software described in a software article is a hard requirement.

As for the funding agency policies, it can be stipulated that software created under funding from a grant needs to be made available (these exist in Canada), but it may also be that in the proposal they have made such claims. I do not think this would be a fruitful avenue to contact the granting agency, but I was just brainstorming my options.

@ff524 If the journal would take this requirement seriously, they would have asked the code submitted in a repository just like crystal structure files required e.g. for Chemistry papers. Making that optional is a sure way the many authors will not have a reliable solution for code sharing. It is poor practice. Academics are very bad at development / management of code.

So you would advise being a pushover and not caring about scientific accountability. A scientific article must give the reader the knowledge required to retrace the steps leading to the result. That is why the journal requires that the software is available, without it, one of the steps is missing, and the result cannot be verified. And the code most certainly should not be changed before release, the version that the article is built upon is the version that will most accurately retrace the steps. If the author has a newer better version, he can release both.

WRT funding agency requirements, I don't know anything about European funding agencies, but if this was US funded research and I was not getting what I wanted through normal channels, I would just FOIA them.

The idea that they need to polish the source code before releasing it is not compatible with a commitment (according to the journal guidelines) to provide the software "upon request".  If it is requested before it is polished, it needs to be released in its unpolished state.

The idea that the status quo is more important than transparency and correctly done science is extremely annoying and does nothing but slow down progress. So what if most other papers don't bundle their code? Then they are bad papers which cannot be reproduced. It is not in any way an excuse to avoid providing the tools with which results are obtained.

@Svalorzen. My answer was probably written way after, you abandoning your PHD. I am sure you had your reasons, but my answer was not one of them.

@Alexandros I've deleted that part because it was not relevant, but what I meant was about the general attitude. I've seen horrible things written in papers simply because authors could reasonably expect to never be called out for code. Encouraging behaviour that allows this to happen is not a thing I like.

"Have you thought that they need to polish the code before releasing it?" Possibly. But if that was the reason, wouldn't they have replied to the request saying something like, "Actually, the code's in a bit of a mess but we're working on it!"

People in bioinformatics take the requirement for software availability particularly seriously. My for my last publication I was required to dump all code in github and zenodo as well as provide it as a supplement to the paper. If the authors need to polish the code they should do so before publishing. If they are commercial and don't want to freely release, then they don't also get a paper.

It's perfectly possible that your polite request is sat in a queue of jobs behind several others. If you mailed them six weeks ago, then that would just about coincide with the start of the teaching term at many institutions (such as my own). That time of year is quite crazy, so it might just be that they haven't got around to it yet.
Failing that, do you know of anyone else who might need to use the software, and might also send a request? If people feel that their "product" is actually in demand, that might act as a spur to further action...
And, to reiterate the points already made, do not contact the journal - at this stage - and absolutely do not contact the funders until all other possibilities have been tried (and, even then, think very carefully about taking this action).

What I don't understand is why this should be a logistical problem for the original researcher - what is there to "get around to"? This is exactly why the web was developed in the first place: to facilitate the sharing of academic materials of this sort. Drop a tarball on a server and it's done and dusted. This doesn't take more than two minutes, and should have been done when the paper was published.

Do you absolutely need the source code or the tool they created to reproduce their work? If so, then I think them coughing up the code would be paramount for you and any other group wanting to pursue or validate their work. If not.. then try coding your own solution.
I know, I know, your logic may be that it would be easier to start with their source code and build from there. IE: see how they did it. But, what programmers since the dawn of time have learned is it's easier to start and build your own code then it is to take on and learn someone elses. That's why programmers love to go into new things saying "we need to start from scratch". It can be a royal hairball trying to untangle someone elses' code.
If their research provides a basic process that their code simply helps expedite, then try coding your own solution and see if it also works. If they said they would provide code-upon-request, contact them again, but remain friendly. This isn't something to burn a bridge over. Research teams can sometimes get pulled different directions (esp. depending on who they work for), and a past project may get filed away and all the resources they used for it (hard drives, email addy's, etc) may get mothballed. So, asking for the code may require someone spending time digging through archives and such. (In retrospect, if they say the code is available they should have tossed it on a publicaly available repo, so folks like you could grab-n-go without having to pester them). Research goals also change over time. The person writing up the thing you read may have though the code would be available upon request.. but, the folks that funded the research may have changed their minds ... perhaps they want to patent the code as a tool to sell later?
I think you should contact them again, and simply ask that you requested the code, haven't heard from them, could someone please let you know if the code availability has changed, and if so, why? Be polite about it. At this point you just want a response saying whether you might get the code or not.

I think you need to forget about how you do things on the internet and remember how you do them in the real world. The fact that you do not think they have treated you with the courtesy and respect you believe you deserve does not justify you treating them any worse then you would hope to be treated.
You have asked for something, you didn't get it. Move on.

Or, he has asked for something, but hasn't gotten it yet. It isn't like an email requesting that I dig up something and send it off is the highest thing on my priority list...

@JonCuster: well, that's a matter of how you relatively prioritise different promises you've made to different people. Yeah, the promises you made to your employer (and students) out-rank the promises you made to the scientific community at large, but only because eating (and students) are more important than your scientific contribution ;-)

Well, that plus how many random emails one gets asking for stuff to be done!  Right now I have waaaaaay too many emails in my in box, most of which are high priority to the sender... A few weeks or months to dig up some old code and package it neatly to ship off to someone I don't know at all?  That would be a pretty fast response, actually.

@JonCuster Do you expect your papers to be read only by people you personally know? Preparing the software together with the paper before actually publishing and then keeping it accessible online seems a more sensible solution that also allows others to verify your work. Otherwise it's asking people to take your results by your word.

I don't appreciate your tone at all. I am not angry or upset, and I have no ego in this request. It is simply asking for a tool, from one peer to another, for a simple tool. My correspondence has been patient and courteous, and I am not trying to bully them. I am trying to keep them honest and to uphold their promise to provide either source code or a tool (again, this is a python script, so it is equivalent to the source code).

My tone is exasperation with the attitude of entitlement that pervades both your original post and your subsequent responses. Who gave you the right or the authority to keep them honest? Have you entered into some sort of personal or financial contract with them? Having access to their material will benefit you, but you are doing nothing to benifit them in return, instead, you are proposing barely disgused threats to get what you want.

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sort: votes


text:
Using a letter of recommendation from freshman year professor?
I am an electrical engineering senior, and I am preparing to apply to Master's programs in three different fields: communications engineering, embedded systems, and computational engineering. I need two LORs for each program. The problem for me is that my best recommenders are professors from my freshman and sophomore years. My grades, classroom-interaction, etc. actually deteriorated after that point.
I have identified four potential recommenders, but I ruled out one of them (a comms prof) because he indicated to me that his letter will not be very good.
My remaining options are:

A Microwaves professor with whom I have taken several courses and gotten A-,B+, and B. I got the A- in a 300 level course I took as a sophomore.
A networking professor with whom I got a B+ recently, and had at least minimal interaction.
A math professor with whom I got an A in a 200 level course (multivariable calculus) as a freshman, and had plenty of interaction. Math was my passion at that time. The prof also encouraged me to become a math major.

My dilemma is: a LOR from number 3 is possibly so much more positive than 1 and 2, but it is for a 200 level course that is not engineering. I don't think it is very relevant to any of my target fields (communications, computational engineering, and Embedded systems). And, I took that course three years ago. I was a different person, socially, academically, motivationally, philosophically, etc. Should I rule out number 3?

My grades, classroom-interaction, etc. actually deteriorated after that point. — This is a much more significant problem than finding good references.

In short: if you don't have better letters of recommendation, then you should go with the ones that you have available.
If the best letter you can get is from a non-EE person, I wouldn't rule it out on that basis alone. If the person can comment on your potential as an EE, that would make things better still.

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


text:
Is it acceptable to submit more than one papers to a conference?
I am an undergraduate and am new to paper writing.
I have been writing papers with professor A at another university since I was in high school. We are writing a paper together for an upcoming conference (which is pretty big).
I have been also writing a paper with professor B at my current institution for the same conference.
I am also writing papers with some graduate students for the same conference.
But - in total, I will be submitting about 5 different papers to the same conference (all with different people!).
I don't know if this is acceptable in academia. That is, will there be any sort of consequences for submitting a lot of papers to the same conference?

What field? What conference?

Some conferences have a rule that an individual can only present one paper at the conference, but can be listed as a coauthor on multiple submissions.

No problem, but check the rules: some conferences limits the maximum number of papers coming from one lab or number of papers you can submit as first author. From your description neither seems to be a problem.

The conference can limit the numbers of papers per paying attendee. Sometimes, you can have more papers as a first author, if your other author is registered for the conference and submits the paper for you.

will there be any sort of consequences for submitting a lot of papers to the same conference? — Yes.  One likely consequence is admission to a strong PhD program.

Yes, it is acceptable, particularly since the author lists will all be different.  Go for it!
One word of warning: The papers themselves must have clearly different content.  If you submit five nearly identical papers, the editors are likely to accept at most the best one and reject the rest.  That will annoy your other co-authors mightily.

If you submit five nearly identical papers... — ...the committee will almost certainly reject them all without review.

I think you are right.  The important par is that the papers must be substantially different.

It's not a problem per se. Many professors with larger groups submit multiple papers to the same major conferences every year.
However, the fact that you are an undergrad and, as you say, new to writing papers and you are still handing in five papers simultaneously to this conference sounds concerning to me. Make sure that:

the papers are all individually good quality - even writing 5 good papers would take me multiple months of work, and I have plenty of experience. And that's not even talking about the time required for doing the research that the papers talk about.
the papers are actually about different research, not just the same basic idea sliced up differently.

It's not a problem as such - for example, I see in the proceedings of a recent very large conference an author that shows up on 9 papers (LREC2014, Núria Bel), the only question is if the individual papers are strong and novel enough.
"Salami publishing" is frowned upon, and if there is significant overlap in the topics it might be more useful and more likely to get accepted if you combine two smaller papers in a single better one.

There's a big difference between a large national conference and a smaller regional workshop. When you have 5,000 to 10,000 talks plus posters at a meeting, with 50 parallel sessions, there's likely not a problem with the number of abstracts on which you're an author. If it's a small meeting of 100 to 200 attendees, with only a single session at a time, you probably can't submit more than one or two talks.
There is also a difference between being an author and being the presenter. Many big conferences do not have limits on authorship, but do restrict the number of presentations any one person can give as the "first author" (or, depending on the conference, "presenting author"). For example, the APS has the rule that the first author should be the presenter, and there's a limit of one contributed (and one invited) talk per meeting.

All the conferences I've been to (theoretical computer science) have had under 200 attendees but I don't think any of them has had limits on how many papers a person can submit, have accepted or present. (I posted this comment earlier along with another point, and over-zealously deleted it when the other point was addressed.)

authors: Vladimir F Героям слава


text:
For a transfer applicant, is it wise to ask the university applied to, not to contact my current one?
Premise that I'm already an undergraduate at a university, but want to change to a UK university. Call the Current uni, C. Call the university that I'm Applying to, A.
Is it acceptable and reasonable to ask A not to contact C without my permission? I don't look suspicious or weird to A, but I will fret about repercussions from C, dislikes students changing unis during their course, if C learns about my application to A.
I'm completely OK for A to ask me to send A reasonable details about me directly from C or my referee, like grade transcripts, without going through me. Privacy is still kept because my referee already knows and because only the transcript office at C is probably bound by privacy rules. Even then, the transcript office will only know that I've something to do with A, but not what. But I DON'T want A to write C's student office, registrar, departmental office, relevant undergraduate faculty, ... like underneath.

'Dear C, This is A. Because Frank is applying to A to change subjects, therefore can you please tell us ...? Also, can you please ask Frank to send us ... ?

I don't think it is wise. Such things would probably do more harm to your case. I see no reason for C to be "repercussive" to students trying to transfer. I've heard about particular professors to act that way, but never about institutions. In any case, their repercussions towards you are clearly an issue and should be addressed. However, this has nothing to do with the institution A, which will follow its procedures. If you issued such request to A, they would probably think that you have something to hide.
As for C, you should clearly transfer to another institution if the claims you have laid out are true. Don't fret about what they will think. It is your education and your life and you are free to make decisions which suit you best.


text:
How much detail about mental health issues should one include in "Special Circumstances" section of graduate school applications?
This question is inspired by answers and comments to the question "Should a postdoc talk about his depression with his mentor?" on this website.
Suppose that an applicant to a graduate program suffered from some mental health issues during the completion of his previous degrees, and that this situation had a noticeable impact on his academic performance (for example, significantly lower grades or part-time status for one or several semesters).
Most graduate school applications have sections dedicated to providing explanations for such special circumstances, and it is of course strongly recommended that any applicant with unusual drops in academic performance should mention something about this in the special circumstances section. Otherwise, the admission committee will be left to guess what might have happened, which is likely to decrease the odds of being admitted (indeed, it seems a consensus that the more tangible information an admission committee has about an applicant, the more confident they can be about the fact that admitting him will be a sound investment).
Many answers/comments to the question "Should a postdoc talk about his depression with his mentor?" seem to recommend being very careful about revealing details on one's mental health conditions, given that there is still a lot of stigma attached to mental health conditions. However, in the case of PhD applications, not mentioning anything is not an option.
This then leads to the following question: If not making any mention of health issues is not an option (such as in PhD applications), how much details should one go into? To avoid stereotyping associated to any particular disease (such as depression=unreliable, learning disability=not smart) one could limit the description to "health problem", but could this lack of details be seen as suspicious and/or still a situation where the admissions committee will have to do guesswork?

"However, in the case of PhD applications, not mentioning anything is not an option." - Why is it not an option? It may or may not be a good option depending on this circumstances, but it is an option.

You do not have to disclose your personal health history (including mental health) to graduate schools  when you are applying -- and even while you are enrolled.
There are occasions where you may want to. For example, if there is a semester in your undergraduate record where you did particularly poorly because of (mental) health issues, you may want to note this is in your diversity statement or special circumstances portion. However, you can be as vague as you want -- saying "In the fall of my junior year, my health declined which led to poor performance in a number of my classes. I recovered the next semester and you can see that my senior year grades were all of the highest rank."
If you have faculty writing letters of recommendation for you who know about this incident, you may want to tell them: 1) if you want them to mention it or not; 2) what language to use ("she became depressed following a family death" vs. "She struggled with the additional family issues following the death of her mother" vs. "There was a family crisis that took her away from school that semester", etc.etc.).
Otherwise, your (mental) health record  is your personal medical information. The professors in your department do not need to know it -- any more than they would need to know that you had HIV or were on dialysis. If you need accommodation (such as taking Wed and Fri off for dialysis, or for therapy) you may want to disclose that to some people but you should feel free to compartmentalize the information to certain people and to not disclose everything about your condition.
For example, it is entirely appropriate to tell just your advisor, department chair or director of graduate studies -- or external to the department: your university ombudsperson, disability services officers, or associate provost or dean -- some of the details of your condition and what accommodations you need to be a successful scholar, but ask that the information not be shared with faculty members in the department.  But again, this is your choice.

I would probably emphasize do not have to rather than just have. It attracts the point better, focusing on the do not rather than just the have.

Yes, "compartmentalization".

@Compass - done!

The examples further enrich a solid and helpful answer.

It's not possible to give specific advice without knowing such things as legal jurisdiction and the equal-opportunity commitments of the institution behind the grad school.  Be aware that, while there is growing recognition that prejudice against mental-health issues is indeed prejudice, this is a prejudice that is widely tolerated.
Nonetheless, a request for information about "special circumstances" is not an invitation to feed the prejudices of the search committee.  Clear, historically objective matters such as:

Suspension of studies or retaking a whole year, for whatever reason
Behavioural problems that were officially sanctioned by the University, especially violations of anti-harassment rules

will need to be documented and the candidate needs to be ready to handle questions about why such events occurred.
The kind of special circumstance that you should not feel particular need to bring up are

Receiving a psychiatric diagnosis
Seeking or receiving informal advice about difficulty handling stress or motivation problems
Unusual causes of stress from home life, such as mental health issues, physical health problems, abusive relationships, handling infirm relatives, etc.

The fact that one of these issues could influence the decision of someone on the search committee is not sufficient reason to raise it, for the same sort of reason (bar possible absence of equal opportunities legislation) that issues concerning sexual orientation, or religious/ political beliefs: they are not in and of themselves issues in one's academic career.  It may be wise to allude to these issues if they explain the former kind of event, but it is unlikely to be wise to do so in lurid terms.  If someone retook a year because of a breakdown, saying that they were unable to handle the stress is reasonable, especially if it is possible to show that this was a learning experience and can now be handled in a way that will not undermine their academic career.  The existence of the latter kind of issue is not ipso facto a career issue.
Overall, I recommend not being prejudiced against oneself.  Nobody lacks mental imperfections, and indeed many mental traits can be problematic in one situation but efficient in another.  The advice Sheryl Sandberg gives in her Leaning In deals with prejudices against career women, but the point she makes in her last chapter about not handicapping oneself applies here as well.

I like your Point 2 "Behavioural problems that were officially sanctioned by the University, especially violations of anti-harassment rules" -- if the transcript gives related information. // You lost me in "bar possible absence of equal opportunities legislation", though.


text:
Is use of the word "via" appropriate in an academic essay?
In many cases the words via and through are interchangeable. However, is via viewed as acceptable to use among the academic community, typically?
I personally have a distaste for it, but that doesn't really mean much.

You save 4 characters if you use via; why bother?

This is more a question of English language than of academic writing.

@tohecz No, it's specifically about using the word in academic writings.

That assumes that academic writing for some reason is not the same as good English writing, a common, unfortunate opinion also held by some academics.

@gnometorule It assumes reality, that one should change their writing style based upon their intended audience. The paper I am writing is for a professor, a professional in academia. I care what he might want to see, not what is necessarily "good English writing" by some objective standard, if that can even exist.

@gnometorule I would tend to hold that grammar is unchanged, but the appropriate prose style for a scientific paper is markedly different than for other works, such as fiction or an expository essay.  This is due to the fact that scientific papers are typically read differently: dissected non-linearly for information rather than read straight through for edification.

@JamaIS: One less letter can save a line. One less line can save a column. One less column can save a page. One less page can bring a paper down to an allowable length.

@O.R.Mapper All for the want of a letter, a grade was lost.

There is nothing wrong with the word "via," and in fact I personally have a weakness for it: sometimes it just feels more elegant and specific than alternatives like "through" or "by means of."  I also, however, have a weakness for a lot of somewhat archaic phrases, due to spending a lot of my childhood reading old books.
The general principle which I think academic writing should subscribe to is Orwell's notion of "transparent prose," in which the words are as clear as a window, letting one through to the ideas with minimal obstruction.  Using too many unusual words, such as a lot of "via" and "thus" can be distracting, particularly for an international audience.  Sometimes, though, a word is simply fit and elegant in its context, and there is no reason to avoid using it.

Although I agree with the principle, I want to point out that "via" is latin, not unique to English, and perhaps not so generally "distracting [...] for an international audience"

@PeterJansson Assuming you're dealing with Romance or Germanic languages, yes... not so much for Slavic, Dravidian, or Indo-Aryan languages, not Chinese, Korean, Japanese, etc...

I'm giving you the selection because of your description of "transparent prose".  Let one through to the ideas with minimal obstruction. Essentially, communicate effectively and little stuff like this tends to resolve itself.

I am skeptical that the  [anglophone] academic community as a whole has clear preferences on word choices beyond what is considered good English usage.  Specific academic fields and communities of academics certainly do have preferred and deprecated word choices (and these choices are not necessarily viewed positively by the larger world: cf. "jargon").
Might some particular professor like one word more than another?  Of course, but that is just about the ne plus ultra of a question which is "too localized" to be useful on a site like this one.  Moreover, even if she likes "through" better than "via" or vice versa: so what?  Is she going to think less of your academic essay because of it?  That would be most unreasonable.
Having said all that: the words "via" and "through" are not fully synonymous: see this question on another SE site for a good discussion.  As the answers indicate, "through" is the much older word in English usage and has a much larger range of uses.  The word "via" is much more specific: it means by way of; by the route which passes through or over (a specified place) or by means of, with the aid of.  In academic writing one often wants to express that two things (concepts, ideas, problems...) can be related to each other by means of a third thing.  Given that the word via has as its origin a Roman road connecting point A to point B, this usage is very appropriate for making such connections.  In spoken language, "via" is somewhat uncommon and may perhaps be viewed as stilted or pretentious.  In academic writing it is extremely common and unobtrusive (when used appropriately): the eye passes right over it.  The idea that this particular word would be objectionable to an academic is especially strange to me.  (There are a lot of words like this: in my academic writing I use "thus" and "hence" all the time; in nonacademic speech, not at all.)


text:
In the Harvard referencing style, is it wrong to put references in footnotes?
I have a discussion with my mate about how to reference with the Harvard referencing style.

I would say it is wrong to do the referencing like in the picture below.
My suggestion was that the footnotes was to explantion of synonyms or something like that and all references should be in the end of the paper work, so the reader have all the references in one or two pages, so it's easier to get an overview of all references.
Am I totally wrong?

Hi and welcome, what exactly is your question? harvard describes a whole series of author-year citation. Some fields use citations in footnotes. Advantage, not searching at the end of the paper, but at the bottom of the page.

Thanks!
My question is:
If you look at the picture, is it right to make references in the footer?

See the updated comment above. Yes, depending on the field.

Ahh ok. Im in the engineering field.
But thanks!

Footnotes in engineering are uncommon. No matter what you do, if you have a clean database (bib file) and use biblatex, you will be fine.

This question appears to be off-topic because it is about how to write an academic paper, rather than about academia itself. When writing a paper, you should consult the appropriate style guide for your field, or imitate other papers in your field. Questions such as "Should I use footnotes or endnotes" depend too much on your specific situation to have a general answer.

@OswaldVeblen I dunno, this sounds like "How do I use a certain format?" It'd be like "How do I cite a verbatim translation in APA?" Which I think would be on-topic.

As your question is directly about Harvard referencing, I believe all Harvard referencing uses in-text citations. Wikipedia supports this understanding.
Yes, you can use footnotes but they are used for clarification or comments, they are not used for referencing as the image in the question has done [therefore the author has cited improperly].
There are several sub-types of Harvard but ALL of them that I am familiar with are in-text, not based on footnotes (except as noted above).

Footnotes are quite common in the humanities, and less so in science and engineering. Putting a reference in the footnotes can happen, according to the specific paper and citation style you are using. For example, the Chicago Manual of Style can use either footnotes or parenthetical references.


text:
Independence as a postdoc working with former PhD supervisor
Having recently finished my PhD, I have now secured funding to act as PI on a project.
I continue to work alongside my former PhD supervisor, with the old supervisor listed as a collaborator on the new project.
The former supervisor frequently refers to me as their 'postdoctoral fellow'. Question 1: Is this appropriate, given that I am the PI on the new project? The former supervisor is certainly in a higher position than I (Professor, whereas I am indeed a postdoc), but I feel that I should not be considered 'their' worker.
The current project requires me to use equipment owned by the former supervisor, and we closely collaborate on a lot of work. I value the impact my former supervisor has had on my career so far, and would hope to continue to work with them in the future. Question 2: How can I best make clear (respectfully) that they are now a colleague?
(UK based)

In my understanding, the term "postdoc" implies that you have, at least nominally, a faculty supervisor.  Is that not the case here?  Also, using someone else's equipment (though I wonder whether your supervisor literally "owns" the equipment; more commonly it was purchased by his university for his use) does put you in an at least partially subsidiary role to them.

I have no supervisor. I am at the 'postdoc' stage in my career, but my work is independent. I am just hostage to owning no equipment of my own.

So your situation seems a bit unusual (at least in my experience, which is far from exhaustive).  Let me also say that your postdoctoral supervisor can certainly be a colleague: I am the supervisor of a postdoctoral fellow.  I call her "my postdoc" but our relationship is more like senior / junior colleague than employer / employee.  Other than the naming issue, is there any specific aspect of your relationship with your former PhD supervisor that you'd like to change?

If you are not getting advanced training / mentorship from someone, I have not seen the label "postdoc" used.  If you are really an independent researcher in a soft money position, maybe the use of the term "postdoc" is part of the problem.  Could you give a link which explains the type of job you have?

My work is in psychology and generally very cheap to fund, as it uses human subjects. I applied for funding to work with my existing supervisor as a co-investigator. The job has no 'label' as such; I am simply funded to undertake a project that requires the use of existing equipment over a period of one year. The role of the old supervisor is to provide equipment and review publications. As you say, the issue may be to do with the use of the word 'postdoc'. I'm sure the situation would be eradicated if I held a lectureship, which I do not.

Does the funding include a full-time salary for you?

Yes; the majority of the funding is for salary.

@CaptainProg Very unique case. I don't know much about psychology are, but in computer science you would not call yourself "principal investigator". In my area, you'd be called "independent postdoctoral fellow holding a scholarship". If your former supervisor manages a group of people, and you don't, then you're not colleagues. I would see you more like an "external collaborator" to his research group.

The answers and comments here assume way too much based on the job title "Postdoc". Where I come from, a Postdoc may be anything from a fresh PhD graduate to the equivalent of a senior Assistant Prof., with his own lab and funding.

Working with former advisors can result in unexpected issues as you clearly point out. The reasons can be a question of (bad) traditions or just not reflecting on the new position to which you have arrived. The "once a PhD student, always a PhD student" is a common syndrome.
What appears to make your situation worse is the fact that you depend on your former advisor even though you are now a PI. I have  a colleague who went through the same thing. Sadly things did not improve until he left and that was with a large bang. Clearly the resolution depends on the personality of your advisor and an answer is therefore slightly difficult to pin down.
Communication is always good and so if your former advisor is sensible and has a reputation as being so then a short to the point discussion should suffice where you can state your obvious gratitude to the former advisor for supporting the application and providing facilities in the collaboration but that you want to be appreciated as a peer, albeit perhaps inexperienced, but not a student. That is the simple way in a good situation.
Now if you know your former advisor is less susceptible to good two-way communication, then the problem is more difficult. You should know your environment by now and should probably know of other peers to whom you can talk and ask for additional advice concerning the situation. I would see this as the second port of call. In the worst case, the problem might not be possible to remove until you remove yourself and then it is an endurance test.
Since you have finished your PhD and still opted to seek funding with your advisor I suspect reality to be located away from the last scenario. Finding colleagues, with insight into the actual conditions to talk things over and seek advice is the best step forward you can take.

The former supervisor frequently refers to me as their 'postdoctoral fellow'. Question 1: Is this appropriate, given that I am the PI on the new project?

I have never encountered a "postdoctoral fellow" that does not have a supervisor.  But my experience is far from global.  As this article on postdoctoral research says, "Depending on the type of appointment, postdoctoral researchers may work independently or under the supervision of a principal investigator."  Later it says "In the US, a postdoctoral scholar is an individual holding a doctoral degree who is engaged in mentored research and/or scholarly training for the purpose of acquiring the professional skills needed to pursue a career path of his or her choosing."
If you are the PI on your project then yes, I suppose that must mean that you do not have a formal supervisor.  However you can still have a mentor...and you should.  Your former PhD advisor's description of you as "theirs" need not imply that they view themselves as your boss; it may only mean that they are affiliated with you and are taking a role of mentoring you, as seems to be the case here.
Let me also say that in that this person who is formally associated with the grant is your former PhD advisor and in that he owns (you say) the equipment that you are using both give him more oversight than some other independent researcher would expect.  If I borrow my friend's car that does not make her my boss, but it does give her some supervisory role over my use of the car.  A senior academic who owns equipment you are using should have some supervisory role in your work.

Question 2: How can I best make clear (respectfully) that they are now a colleague?

I don't see what behavior of the supervisor indicates that he does not view you as a colleague.  I have a postdoc, and I view her as a colleague: a junior one, in which I have some supervisory role, but still a colleague: I have some projects she is not involved in, she has some projects I am not involved in except to hear her talk about them, and there are some projects we do together.  If she decided tomorrow that she only wanted to work on her own projects alone, that would in my view be suboptimal for both of us, but it would be her right.
In some fields postdocs are treated rather differently: they are the highest level of workers for the PI professor.  But since you are a PI, that is not your situation.
Having a senior colleague who can mentor you is extremely valuable.  I continue to mentor my PhD students after they get the PhD -- well, so far I have one, but soon two more -- but this mentorship is limited by my time and energy.  Any mentor should be guiding his/her mentees towards greater mastery, independence and autonomy.  Gradually the influence of mentors wanes: when I was an untenured assistant professor I had a research mentor and a teaching mentor; as a tenured associate professor I have no formal mentors anymore....which is a shame, since to paraphrase Yoda, much to learn, I still have.  But my work is still evaluated by more senior people -- that is a ubiquitous phenomenon in academia -- so it is still important for me to maintain good relationships with senior colleagues.  Unless people are literally telling me what to do, I tend to let it slide when people treat me with less "seniority" than I think I have.
I am a little worried that you may have your eye on the wrong problem.  You have a one year position: what happens next year?  That's the key question, and your future relationship with your advisor is a key part of the answer.  You don't need to kowtow or be subservient to him: on the contrary, you're the PI, so when it comes to the work itself you get to call the shots (and you should).  But you are still looking for a lot of help from your supervisor -- help landing the best possible future job, if nothing else.  So trying to insist "You're not my mentor; I am fully independent from you" in a one-year position seems really to be a strategic mistake to me.  Instead you should apply yourself and show your former PhD supervisor how much stronger and more capable you have become, and then they can write you an excellent recommendation because all of your post-PhD growth and maturation took place before his eyes.


text:
What leverage do universities have over sexual violence in fraternities?

IMPORTANT: The allegation of gang-rape in the Rolling Stone article that formed the basis for this question has been retracted; later evidence on the matter shows that the allegation that gang-rape occurred at the fraternity was false.  Other similar events have since been alleged at other universities: Baylor, Yale and Wisconsin

Rolling Stone recently reported a horrific preplanned gang rape at a Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house at the University of Virginia, with the victim's "friends" telling her afterward not to report the crime, on the theory that "She's gonna be the girl who cried 'rape,' and we'll never be allowed into any frat party again."
Under pressure, the university has belatedly decided to suspend fraternity events until January. This seems pathetically inadequate to me, but what can a university actually do in this situation that will have a significant and lasting effect on a firmly entrenched rape culture? Are there cases where other schools have done something more effectual? Supposing for the sake of argument that they were willing to completely disassociate themselves from one frat, or from the frat system as a whole, would it do any good? I assume that the frats own their houses, and the schools can't actually shut them down.

Many universities in the past have implemented successful bans on fraternities and sororities for a variety of reasons.

See Inside the Colleges That Killed Frats for Good (Newsweek)

Also see The Dark Power of Fraternities, The Atlantic, March 2014. From the article: one in eight undergraduates in four-year U.S. colleges lives in a Greek house; the houses themselves are worth at least 3 billion dollars. A system like that is not easy to change quickly.

@xLeitix: yes, sexual assault at universities is an endemic problem. Your opinion that it's a criminal justice matter is also commonly raised in the U.S. The challenge is that the U.S. criminal justice system has generally done an awful job handling cases of rape, to the point that many victims do not wish to report their cases to the police. Also see How the U.S. Ended Up With 400,000 Untested Rape Kits. It seems to me that both universities and police agencies will need to change.

@xLeitix: one aspect of the U.S. system that is particularly non-obvious is that the U.S. federal law requiring equal opportunity at universities regardless of sex (Title IX), in addition to covering admissions and sports, also covers sexual harassment, and is interpreted to require universities to follow up on sexual assault charges and to have an internal process for handling them independently of the police (see e.g here).

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@ff524: It would be great to see that comment expanded into an answer. The article makes it sound like frat houses at those schools were all owned by the schools; I wonder if this is true in general, or only at some colleges. The article cites personal impressions that these schools eliminated a lot of woman-hostile behavior by killing off their frats, but it would be interesting to know whether these impressions can be substantiated by any objective or quantitative evidence.

Once again, the premise of the argument is false and nonsensical, so to answer the question it would have to be reframed into something more factual and objective instead of a personal opinion rant piece, as there is no "rape culture" and people, yes, even the accused, have rights. What the university should do, is allow the state investigators to do their job (assuming someone filed a report), and react accordingly with the results.

I just clicked through to the article. It's status is a bit unclear. But it seems from a cursory look it was retracted. Possibly this question should reflect this.

This particular assault didn't happen, should we update the question? https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/q/4010/37441

" Other similar events have..."  The BU frat party allegation, may involve multiple accused individuals since there exist 16 defendants.  However, perhaps only one might be accused of physical violence.  I don't see anything which suggests that there was even an accusation of gang rape in the Yale article.  More glaringly, there was a single victim and a single suspect in the UW article.  That differs from the Rolling Stone accusation where there were supposedly 7 assailants. So, even if all of these accusations were true (and we know that isn't the case!), they simply are not similar.

As it turns out, membership in fraternities is not, in general, strongly correlated with rape.  Rather, it appears that a large percentage of sexual assault is committed by a very small fraction of men who are deliberate predators, who tend to seek out environments where their behavior is enabled by people either turn a blind eye to their behavior or who are not willing to intervene in a problematic situation.  Some fraternities provide such environments, but many non-fraternity social environments do so as well.
Rape is committed mostly against women who know their attacker and who may even be intimate with them willingly under other circumstances (men are raped as well, but at much lower percentages than women).  One of the major recommended interventions for a college is thus to educate students, especially other men, on how to intervene in situations that are likely to be a prelude to rape.  This is one example of a broad spectrum of recommended prevention and mitigation policies, which appear to be both effective in reducing the incidence of rape and reducing the damage that compounds to rape victims in an unsupportive campus culture.
None of these interventions are particularly difficult or expensive.  The main challenges in implementing them are resistance from people who have some stake in keeping aspects of their campus culture from changing, or who are worried about potential image problems.

@xLeitix You're welcome.  Certain comments associated with this question made me uncomfortable and angry, and I figured I should channel that productively.

Re the "Fraternity Membership, Rape Myths, and Sexual Aggression on a College Campus" study you cite, I wonder if anyone has studied whether being on a college campus that has fraternities is correlated with rape?

It's hard to comment on the Schwartz paper since it's paywalled. The gang rape described in the Rolling Stone article has many features that seem to me like they could only have happened at a fraternity.

No offense but I don't see how this answers the question.  It's more like a long comment.  Also taking the % of rapes per fraternity member is flawed.  Basic human nature tells me it is much harder to tell people about rape when it is against a larger group.  The fact that they use reported rapes in the study is flawed.  Just another one of those studies that relies on data without thinking about what goes into the data.

@BenCrowell did you take notice that by now it appears more likely than not it did not happen at all but rather was invented (which may explain why it matched stereotypical imaginations so well)?

I had friends at a very popular fraternity at a major college (and later served on a discipline board).  This fraternity had a series of violations.  Mainly underage drinking, poor grades, and complaints from girls (nothing even close to rape).  So just a series of dumbass fraternity guys acting like dumbass fraternity guys.  Seriously what do you expect when putting 20-200 guys between 18-22 in the same housing.
For these smaller infractions the school will warn both the local charter and the fraternity national headquarters.  Each school has its own rules.  So I can't say that one violation at one school is handled the same as another.  Also when I say a school has rules I am being very liberal.  [A school will have an advisory/disciplinary committee that will basically do whatever it wants]
A school may have outlined several examples of violations (hazing, drinking, grades...) and then their punishment for those.  But I have first hand seen how hazing has turned into - boys will be boys - because someone on the committee went to school with one of the boy's fathers.  Or another dad makes a big contribution right after he got in trouble.
So a school may do pretty much whatever it wants from putting a fraternity/sorority on probation, from expelling members of that fraternity, from taking the charter away from the fraternity.  And it doesn't matter if the house is off campus or not.  In the case I mentioned above, the fraternity owned a house about a half mile off campus.  The university read the boys the riot act, said they were closed, or they could leave the school.
I have first hand seen both good and bad things happen using the school system as reinforcement.
Good

School can act much faster than our court system
School can make people "testify" (based on most honor codes)
School usually has some reasonably smart people making decisions

Bad

It is easy to cover things up.  I had a friend get assaulted on campus.  The campus police did next to nothing and it didn't get reported as an assault to the actual police because the university was worried about their crime stats.  Friend found out nothing was happening, so reported to the police... case was too cold by then to get much traction.
One influential person can taint any committee.  Several times I was told to vote a certain way (or I wouldn't be on said committee in future).  Let it be known after I refused once that 3 committee spots were cut including mine - and then 3 months later 5 committee spots were opened.
Once things hit the press a school will do damage control not get to the bottom of what was actually happening.  See the Duke lacrosse team as a perfect example.

Answer in short: The school will threaten to kick out any students that don't abide by their rules.  So even if a "fraternity" isn't nationally chartered and doesn't have any direct correlation with the school the school can still have said fraternity disbanded or the members face expulsion.  This threat happens all the time but is hardly ever enacted on.  The students really have no discourse except for talking to the press (which in some schools can lead to expulsion).

It's also easy to lie and with the fear-mongering nowadays, campuses are all too quick to throw the "book" at the accused based off of he-said, she-said, no strong evidence needed.

@Keith - Exactly.  I once was told to sit before a committee as a freshman for tearing up a residence hall floor.  The floor RA didn't like me and said she saw me on the floor that night drunk.  The committee told me that I was guilty in a letter.  I simply asked for any witnesses and expected that said witnesses would face harsh punishments if found lying... Case mysteriously dropped.  (I was at a bar with entire rugby team at time of damage 5 miles away)  And I did not show up for any ridiculous meeting for something I was not involved in.

Rape is a serious matter, and even an allegation of rape can have serious consequences decades down the road, even if the man is innocent. With this context, "School can act much faster than our court system" sounds too much like "school is not bound by legal niceties like due process, the right to confront one's accusers, or trial by jury" for me to be comfortable with a parallel system of justice.

@StephanKolassa: there is a reason why different standards of evidence apply in criminal cases than in university disciplinary cases. The "legal niceties" you indicate apply when the state wishes to put someone in prison. When a school wishes to discontinue educating an individual and remove them from their campus, as when an employer wishes to fire an employee, the standard is understandably lower. When the safety of the other students is at stake, a school might even be legally required to act on information it has even if it does not meet the standards of admissibility at a court trial.

@Kallus - I agree.  The problem happens when authorities draw their conclusions with little to no evidence and mostly from that day's public opinion or bad reporting.  Many universities have gotten sued for dismissing a student due to unjust reasons.  Do they care?  Not really because if they pay out it comes from their sizable endowment or they just raise tuition and other students pay for it.  The fact is there is literally almost nothing regulating these committees and members will only be fired/punished if they have a long history of poor decisions.

@blankip: No doubt that the system can be improved, but I would point out that bad decisions are made in both directions. The RS piece includes a case where a student was allowed to return as a student after being found responsible for multiple assaults. From the Title IX link posted by Oswald: When an institution “knows or reasonably should know” about a hostile environment, they are required “to take immediate action to eliminate the harassment, prevent its recurrence and address its effects.”

Now that the reported rape at the University of Virginia has been thoroughly discredited and exposed as serious journalistic misconduct, I think it is worth adding a new answer to this question that reflects that updated information.
The OP has suggested that the university’s action in suspending the fraternity, after receiving public pressure, was “pathetically inadequate”.  We now know that the allegation made against the fraternity was false, and they were the victims of a smear campaign.  The university has settled a defamation claim by the fraternity for $1.65 million in damages, and there have also been other legal settlements from the magazine and the writer of this rape hoax.  The legal settlements are minimal given the extreme misconduct and bigotry of the university and the magazine.
In view of these developments, I submit that the lesson to be learned in these cases is not to grab the pitchforks and rouse the town-folk due to unconfirmed (and farcically implausible) allegations levelled against socially unpopular groups.  People with the scientific training of academics should have the integrity to reject this kind of “trial by media” that proceeds without regard to evidence and due process.  Much of the academic community disgraced itself with this witch-hunt against a group of innocent men.  This is unfortunately typical of the rampant anti-male bigotry of modern academia.

Reporting that the article is false is useful. This, however, requires proof: "rampant anti-male bigotry of modern academia". As a male, I have not experienced this.

The institutionally sanctioned witch-hunt against innocent men in this instance constitutes a small piece of the evidence constituting that larger proof.  Presumably you are asking for "proof" (as opposed to evidence) because this sets the impossible standard of a full account of anti-male bias in academia in a single posting.  Is that the standard for all assertions of fact on this blog - full proof of all aspects of evidence for a broad social claim?  Or would it be fair to say that this is a selectively deployed standard, reserved for when someone breaks the narrative?

There is no "rampant anti-male bigotry of modern academia." 2) Although the specific article has been retracted (and indeed, was a grossly unethical piece of hack work); the question - which you didn't answer - is still valid enough.

These false rape allegations against innocent men have stood on this website for over three years, with no amendment or retraction, and have been up-voted significantly.  That is apparently fine with the academia.stackexchange.com community.  But when you post an answer correcting the record, it is heavily down-voted.  So apparently, false rape allegations against men are fine, but suggesting there is anti-male bigotry in academia is beyond the pale.  The down-voting of the post speaks volumes to the ingrained bigotry I am talking about.

If you'd like, we could swap out the UVa story with the scandal at Baylor, or at Yale, or at Wisconsin, or any of dozens of other similar stories. That this particular incident was invented does not mean that there isn't a problem.

@Ben Have you suggested an edit to the question to change it out for a real rape or have you only complained about it?

@Azor: It would be dishonest to substitute the initial claim with another incident, thereby pretending that the initial claim was never made.  The original post stands as a valuable reminder of the witch-hunt that occurred in this case, aided and abetted by the academia.stackexchange.com community.  After more than three years, it falls to a recent member to point out the obvious, which is immediately met with heavy down-voting and criticism.  Pathetic.

@Ben I don't understand what you want the outcome to be here, then. You don't want the original claim substituted with another on-campus incident of sexual assault because you don't want AC.SE to hide the fact that we "aided and abetted" a false rape claim. No one is criticizing you for point out that the original article was shitty, but more for your crappy MRA attitude.

@Azor: Were it not for my presence on this forum, this false rape accusation probably would never have been pointed out, and the charge against these innocent men would stand without contradiction.  So apparently, it takes someone with a "crappy MRA attitude" to correct the record on something as serious as a false gang rape claim on this site.  That doesn't receive any attention for over three years, but a claim of anti-male bigotry in academia warrants immediate mobilisation within a day!

@Azor: As to the desired outcome, it would be nice if people on this forum had even a fraction of the concern for false gang-rape allegations as they do about my claim of anti-male bigotry on campus.  But apparently they don't.  So in the absence of that, I am happy with the status quo, where the attitude of this forum is on full display for the world to see.

@Ben You realize how this site works right? As soon as you posted a new answer, this question was bumped to the top of everyone's feed. Why didn't you just post a meta question like "hey guys, looks like no one's noticed this old question was based on an article proved to be fabricated, what should we do?" instead of making up claims that AC.SE is anti-male. Look at ANY question about gender, and you'll see that women are treated with HEAVY skepticism on this site..

@Ben https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/q/4010/37441 Here, did it for ya.

Thanks for adding the meta-question.  I have up-voted it.

@Azor: As you can see from the above thread, my original claim criticised only the OP (not the general AC.SE community) for his failure to correct his own false claim.  I also criticised the broader academic community for their role in the scandal.  Within a short period of time, my answer (which is the only thing pointing out the false rape claim) has been heavily down-voted, apparently on the basis of a disagreement with my claim of anti-male bigotry.  So evidently, the AC.SE community thinks this is so beyond the pale that it overrides any real concern about a false gang rape claim.

@Ben Your answer is downvoted because it does not answer the question, and because it contains controversial claims without evidence. You might notice that there are two comments under the question suggesting that the question should be edited; you'd do well to upvote those.

@Tommi: Pointing out the false premise of the question is a perfectly legitimate answer.  The OP's post cites a false gang-rape claim as showing a "rape culture" and then asks what can be done about this.  Pointing out that there was no gang-rape, and it was a witch-hunt is a perfectly legitimate response.  The claim that this "does not answer the question" is disingenuous.

@Ben You are actually correct in that your answer is indeed one. My apologies for reading it too quickly. I would happily remove my downvote, should you remove the final line of your answer; it is needless editorializing and as for now, unsupported by strong arguments.

@Ben https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/104640/13017

@Ben my original claim criticised only the OP please keep your comments polite and focused on the argument that the OP makes and not the personality of the OP.

@StrongBad: Nothing in my post mentioned anything about the personality of the OP.  It criticised the false allegation made in his post, and made no reference to his personality.

You were doing so well until the last paragraph...

Snide smug comments aside, is yours an objection to the last sentence (which a few others didn't like), or the whole paragraph?  If the former, are you suggesting we should rouse the townsfolk and grab the pitchforks to hunt down accused gang-rapists without any due process?

@aeismail The BU accusation may have involved multiple accused assailants. But, the article isn't clear on that.  It just says that there were more than a dozen defendants (on what charges?  illegal consumption/distribution of alcohol?).  The Yale article doesn't suggest multiple accused individuals acting in concert in a gang rape as far I can tell. The BU article clearly indicates a single victim and a single assailant. In contrast the UvA accusation involves 7 physical assailants. So, no, I don't agree that you can swap such stories.  At least not once the term 'rape culture' gets used.


text:
What software can I use to poll my audience during presentation?
I recently attended a lecture where the speaker used piece of software to interactively poll the audience and display the results. The particular solution was ResponseWare. What other solutions are available? Worth the money (if paid)? Pros and cons?
Please note, that I'm not interested in top 5 results of Google search.. I'd be more interested to hear personal experiences with specific software, both as a presenter or audience.

This question appears to be off-topic because it is about software recommendations, and should be migrated accordingly.

Even if it's not off-topic, Stack Exchanges generally frown upon "shopping list" or "recommendation list" type questions.

Software questions are not inherently off-topic at Academia.SE

As mentioned in the other question, what can the software provide that a show of hands can't?

The Software Carpentry instructors do lots of presentations where they need/expect rapid, interactive feedback. They (especially Greg Wilson) have lots of experience of different ways of doing this. Note that their current method, that works extremely well, is to use different coloured sticky notes.
I haven't seen a technical solution that worked better; most are considerably worse. However, this is only practical for yes/no or multiple choice polls.

Thanks - interesting to see low-tech solution from high-tech shop! =)

The organizers of a workshop I recently attended used Socrative to help drive discussion by letting attendees choose among topics that had been introduced during the first half of the session. I found it pretty effective, and since it is HTML5/JS driven, it doesn't need an app or download. You can access the site from any Internet-enabled device and watch the answers come in in real time.

Thank - I'm leaning particularly towards no-app solutions and Socrative looks good indeed.