Academia - Science topic

Government-sponsored Ph.D. awards that come from the applicant's home country should be discontinued! It breaks my heart to see people receiving this scholarship despite the fact that they are not qualified, however just because they were recommended by their home countries. Unfortunately, after beginning their Ph.D. with the help of this scholarship, they do nothing except spend their stipend on activities other than research. In the end, they are having a Dr. title without any qualification in research. That's quite terrible and is damaging academia on a daily basis. This is also unjust to other candidates who possess the necessary qualifications and the desire to begin a Ph.D. degree. It is time to tighten up the selection process for Ph.D., and candidates should be picked by a committee made up of members of the host nation in a fair and open manner.

#academia #research #phd #fellowship

What was your experience searching for academic jobs for the first time? Were you able to obtain a tenure-track position? How many jobs did you apply to, where did you apply, and what was the hiring process like? Do certain disciplines have better or worse academic job prospects?

What advice do you have for emerging scholars who will start applying for academic jobs in the future?

Apps such as https://chat.openai.com can now collate diverse information in response to a question and compose well phrased readable essays. The are likely to become more capable over time and through better ‘algorithms’ and larger training datasets.

Possible impact areas (more please) :

- ethics

- the process or craft of research

- academic institution processes

- how academic research is owned and monetised

- the drift of academia‘s attention moving to what the apps best facilitate

Both, EU and UK worked intensively for many years to establish close collaborative links in academia and research.

How can AI tools such as chatGPT be used to conduct research without compromising the value and process?

Academic inbreeding is the practice when Ph.D. holders are employed by the same institution that trained them. We invite you to participate in a survey about academic inbreeding in ecology. This survey aims to assess the effect of academic inbreeding on the scientific outputs of ecologists.

If you are an ecologist with Ph.D. and still researching, please share your opinion in the form available on the link below:

Completing the questionnaire will take ca. 5 minutes, the information you shared will be treated as confidential, and your identity remains anonymous.

The survey is available until September 30th, 2022.

Thank you for taking the time to contribute to our project. We have been circulating this survey on Twitter (https://tinyurl.com/22hhmt8z). Please feel free to share this survey with your colleagues in your institution or in your research network.

Best Regards,

Jana Růžičková & Zoltán Elek

Ecologists from ELKH-ELTE-MTM Integrative Ecology Research Group and ELHK Centre for Agricultural Research, Plant Protection Institute, Budapest, Hungary.

I think it depends on the job one looks for. I had some colleagues that landed a job after their Ph.D. with no publication, but the company did not care about that either. If one intends to continue in academia, having publications would definitely help.

Looking forward sharing thoughts, dear colleagues :)

Dear Colleagues,

I have been formally teaching since 2009 at the university level. Also, I have been pursuing my Ph.D. at the University of Malaya since 2018, now waiting for the final viva.

I am very passionate about teaching and always enjoy sharing my understanding with future generations. Also, my heart is whispering for the Post-Doc.

I am requesting your kind suggestions or directions, especially, regarding what should be my future plan. What is the best time to start my Post-Doc?

Regards

Azizur

I am PhD candidate in environmental sociology and currently waiting for the viva voce examination that will be expected in December 2022. I just would like to know, what is a good or minimum h-index for Scopus that we can say is a baseline for PhD graduates to be eligible to apply for senior lecturer/ academician post in university?

I had written a paper few months ago and its prepreint is floating online.

Query: I want to add more additional results along with modeling in that paper and submit it to some other journal. Can I do the same because a preprint is already floating online? Won't it count in the plagiarism count by the detector? I mean I know preprint is also my earlier version of the same paper but software dont.

Kindly help me with this.

I wish to know if a PhD in hydrogeology is relevant in getting a job outside Academia, and if it is, what are the possible job opportunities?

I am interested to know the various possibilities and job opportunities in geology that are outside academia. Which fields of geology are relevant in finding jobs outside Academia?

Colleagues,

Please what is the average number of publications required before one can qualify to be an Associate Professor?

This information is not clearly written in the cyberspace/public domain, hence I need comments from experts in the Academia.

I look forward to hearing from you soon

Defining the dilution factor is very important when we are working at the level of ppb (parts per billion) or ppt (parts per trillion). Other day, I was working on plant biomass samples to analyze available Si (Silicon) in plant biomass. I have gone through several steps of dilution and became so confused about what is DILUTION FACTOR. I did several dilutions at several steps (digestion, adding chemicals, again diluting to come up with the range of AAS) and it became so complicated. As always, I approached Dr. Rafael Santos and he solved this problem very easily, I would say just in 10 minutes when I was struggling for an hour. Finally, Dr. Santos made a good explanation with their whiteboard and step by step he came up with the solution. Again, doing a Ph.D. is not just collecting and analyzing data but also needs to understand the chemistry happening in between. If you don't know how to do it then seek help. Asking someone doesn't mean your basics are not strong, asking someone means you know what you're looking for but you don't know how to approach it. I am thankful to have Dr. Santos as my mentor, peer and guide. PS: Here's complex whiteboard solution in the picture :) #ppb #ppt #help #academia #PhD #chemistry #data #AAS

What is the best method of avoiding plagiarism when writing a publication, thesis or dissertation in academia?

I'm not entirely certain how this "Start a discussion" feature works, but I'll give it a shot anyways.

I can't be the only one experiencing a co-author paraphrasing all my work so that person can maintain complete control over the publishing process. Some have said this issue happens often at the graduate level but never at the undergraduate level. I'm a non-traditional 40-something year old student who has extensive experience with civil rights and so I'm particularly sensitive to people trying to pull a fast-one on me.

In this case, the professor glitched a few times which had me researching copyrights and IP laws a long time ago. However, I waited until after graduation to raise the issue because the university has a history of retaliation when people express concerns of possible civil rights violations. The corruption runs deep at this particular institution, which bases most of its decisions on their intentional lack of policies and procedures addressing fundamental rights such as free speech and intellectual property. In other words, they remain silent on key issues in order to have as much lateral discretion as possible when making critical decisions even when those decisions are inconsistent with both laws and ethics and could potentially ruin a student's entire academic career.

One of the biggest red flags I noticed early on was the professor neglected to go over the section in our textbook that addresses authorship order and publishing rights in the chapter titled "Research Ethics."

I think my mistake was taking for granted that I viewed this entire project as my own because it was based almost entirely on my research into safe consumption sites. The experimental design, methodologies, protocols, and procedures were created by myself during her class in "Research Methods" as graded assignments. It was, and always has been, my original ideas and content from the very beginning; it just never occurred to me that this professor could, or would, even try to scrub me out like this. I trusted this person and considered her a friend and mentor!

Looking back, I cannot remember even a single instance where we had this conversation despite it being a core principle of the American Psychology Association Code of Ethics. The professor is a licensed psychologist and my degree was in psychology so you'd think that would have been something we should have covered at least once. Right?

Has anyone else experienced issues similar to this? How did you handle it? What should I do, or have done, to prevent this from becoming an issue?

It is the trending topic for a publisher this week.

I want to learn the opinion of Academia members. Is it due to environmental factors or personal over-ambition?

Why does anyone commit fraud?

A preprint is a version of a scientific manuscript posted on a public server prior to formal peer review. As soon as it's posted, the preprint becomes a permanent part of the scientific record, citable with its own unique DOI.

The question is prompted by this terrific talk by Jonathan Haidt, which I urge you to watch in full: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gatn5ameRr8

Are you a PhD holder working outside academia in the UK and graduated between 2014-2019? Do you want to contribute to a research project? How is your experience? Do you carry out research in your organisation? Does the PhD has helped you in your position?

We'd like to interview you to learn about your trajectory! Check the project’s website for more details: http://tinyurl.com/phdproj

If you want to participate, reply to this discussion or leave your contact information at this link: http://tinyurl.com/phdout.

We’d welcome your spreading this message.

Thanks! #beyondacademia #phd #careeradvancement #leavingacademia

As an old-generation researcher, a teacher educator and a university teacher for two decades, I have the following endless frustrations and uncertainties.

Many old-generations of top-rank professors and reputable academic giants [not me] have high-quality research publications (e.g. books, monographs, unpublished keynote speech papers and high-rank international journal papers) which have no electronic version or no doi so far. Scanned copies for sharing at RG or other circumstances might infringe copyrights or intellectual property rights (especially co-authored research works). And figures in citation index, citations, research interests and RG scores do not necessarily infer their prolific research works or vice versa which seem NOT to be transparent in ResearchGate or other academic citation platforms like Academia.

Could you share with me your novel ideas and possible answers here? And once you get some answers from your university colleagues and students towards these forwarded questions, please put them here afterwards for further reflections.

Many thanks!

From Percy KWOK

Does a good CV with an extensive publication record, industry and academia experience, pedagogy/teaching experience in universities, multidisciplinary interests and a variety of skills and trainings really create uncertainty in postdoc hiring?

Does it look like exaggerate? Should CVs be simpler?

Do professors prefer people with less extensive profiles when hiring as postdocs or is it something else?

I have been applying for postdoc positions recently but someone told me that your CV is too detailed and looks exaggerated. It might confuse professors. Is that true?

#postdoc

Through the usage of PERMA Profiler developed by Butler and Kern (2016) that is model by Dr. Martin Seligman's PERMA Theory of Well Being. Is there a relationship between the well being and academic performance in the field of academia?

Recently all Peer-Reviewed (SCI) Journals are consistently supporting open access publishing practices. My concern is that, it will not be very arduous for researchers from poor country to publish articles in such journals?. Most of researchers from different countries who cannot afford that much money due to lack of research grants including funds crisis etc.. Is this really a good move in scientific academia?. It is like benefiting the same rich sections and it seem like scientific business rather than good freely quilty research? Now the house is open for enlightened thought in this regard.

Closed

Hi all,

I am currently working out a PhD topic and working with tight timelines.

I am thinking of doing a research on how 'wokeness' and heightened sensitivity to racial and gender is impacting team cohesion and productivity.

Some studies have argued that having a racially diverse team for example leads to less workplace complains. I however think that this could simply be a symptom of workers doing just their bit, avoiding socialisation lest they risk being 'mistaken'.

1. Can I get some opinions regarding this area.

2. Will it be more appropriate to pick one end (Either gender or race)?

3. Can I leave this open to workers in General or narrow down to a sector e.g Care homes or Academia?

4. Could someone please help me with how such a topic would be drafted?

Please Help.

Dennis

As A PHD Student, I accumulate resources that are important such as Power Points and other documents. I have learnt my initiation into academia that it is important to make reference to sources. Is it different with online research?

In many universities, notably in North America but most likely around the world, there are five-year reviews of professors throughout the careers. The reviews can take the form of assembling pretty well everything they have done in the previous five-year period, including providing vast documentary evidence of satisfactory (or even outstanding) performance in teaching, research and scholarship, and service (and, if applicable, in administration). This is generally an extremely time-consuming, intense and potentially stressful experience, and, equally, it is not always clear what the value of this exercise is. In addition to the potential for (conscious and unconscious) bias throughout the process as well as a number of forms and sometimes quantitative configurations, there is also the normative consideration of ensuring that full weight of given to the contributions that are presented for review. Although the broader public may not be aware of the working conditions within academia, it is important to note that, generally speaking, there are a number of regular evaluation-points that professors routinely must face, including: annual reviews, tenure and promotion reviews, grant proposals, conference presentations, articles and other publications, sabbaticals, teaching evaluations by students, some positions and committees, research chairs, etc.. My question seeks to understand—if there is already robust, intense, high-stakes, regular and relatively comprehensive evaluation of academic performance—is there (significant) added value to these five-year reviews? I am aware of some universities that have eliminated them, and others that have re-negotiated the requirements, but they do remain for the most part intact. Do they support and cultivate more enhanced engagement and performance? How? Would the time and resources required for this process be better spent in cultivating more enhanced engagement and performance?

I want to ask others opinion on what career choices should one make right after a PhD in Engineering.

1) Should one choose academia, or the industry (R&D) etc.? What are the pros and cons?

Or,

2) Should one find a Post Doctoral position first for 1-2 years. Then move towards an academic career as an Assistant Professor? Does the post-Doc cause a major difference to your career prospects?

3) Can one start an industry career after a Post-Doc?

4) In some countries, one can become an Assistant Professor right after PhD? is this Path advisable?

Please share your thoughts.

Have you seen any references to how many surveys and respondents are engaged per year outside of academia. I found one reference on SurveyMonkey's usage, but would love help in finding more.

Dear all,

I am currently recruiting participants to take part in my thesis project. I am investigating the relationship between self-efficacy, learned helplessness and parental psychological control from a transgenerational perspective.

The study has received ethical approval from Northumbria University (45055).

We are looking for participants who meet the following criteria:

• A resident in the United Kingdom (UK)

• Grew up in a two-parent household

• Currently have school-aged children

• Parent those children with a stable long-term partner who lives in the same household

The study will involve answering a set of demographic questions, questions about the parenting style received from your own parents, the parenting style you use with your own children, and questions measuring your levels of both self-efficacy and learned helplessness.

If you have any further questions regarding the study, please contact me at beth.sheerin@northumbria.ac.uk.

To find out more information about the study and to take part, please go to:

What is the highest amount of rounds of peer review one of your publications has gone through with a single journal before receiving a final decision? Also, how long did it take to go through all those rounds of peer review? I'm trying to get a sense of what is typical.

Any suggestions on how to pivot to policy making?

I saw that there are PhD about it, but I'm not sure to be qualified for them.

How could I increase the chances of being admitted to one without pursuing another master?

I'm finishing a double master in plant sciences and plant biotechnology at Wageningen University & Research. My specialisations are functional plant genomics and phytopathology and entomology, with a minor in nematology and one still to define (around biophysics and omics).

I did a thesis in nematology at the ETH Zurich, one in plant molecular biology at INRAE (French national institute for Agro-Environmental research) and one still to define at SLU (Swedish Agricultural University).

I'd like to pivot toward policy making, but I only have a few courses about transversal skills such as "Negotiation skills", "Communication & Persuasion", "Scientific Writing" etc. and none about policy itself.

Different cultures have different standards on issues such as plagiarism and authorship.

Dear all, starting tomorrow, from 4pm GMT (Lisbon time), a Webinar on "Sustainable tourism in action" will take place, where interesting new insights on the topic will be discussed by speakers from all over, representing the Academia, Government, Business and Citizens. Register, watch, participate by asking questions! Here's the registration link that will then allow you to assist the event in real time: https://lnkd.in/gZ8jV3r Cheers and hope to see you tomorrow!

I'm finishing a double master in plant sciences and plant biotechnology at Wageningen University & Research. My specialisations are functional plant genomics and phytopathology and entomology, with a minor in nematology and one still to define (around biophysics and omics).

I did a thesis in nematology at the ETH Zurich, one in plant molecular biology at INRAE (French national institute for Agro-Environmental research) and one still to define at SLU (Swedish Agricultural University).

I'd like to pivot toward policy making, but I only have a few courses about transversal skills such as "Negotiation skills", "Communication & Persuasion", "Scientific Writing" etc. and none about policy itself.

Any suggestions on how to pivot to policy making? I saw that there are PhD about it, but I'm not sure to be qualified for them. How could I increase the chances of being admitted to one without pursuing another master?

Academia journals (https://www.academiajournals.com) is a predatory publisher? I think so, but I still haven't found it on any blacklist. Could someone point me to a place where this editorial can be evidenced please?

In my upcoming research on Big Data architecture, I'd like to make use of data from some of the best conferences I've attended ( practice-led conferences not academic ones )

What's the most rigorous methodology to capturing data from a video in academia ?

Scientist-entrepreneur Javier Garcia Martinez recalls combining an academic role at the University of Alicante, Spain, while getting a catalyst start-up called Rive Technology off the ground.

The experience, he says, taught him that a so-called barrier between academia and other sectors is no more than a state of mind. “To me, it feels all part of the same thing. It’s our own mindset that puts different activities in different silos,” he tells Julie Gould. Martinez adds: “I was studying, discovering better catalysts, you know, in my academic lab, also in my company, and at the same time talking to customers, to investors, to raise money, and to put that into a commercial plan.

Dear friends

One thing I noted in academia is that competition can sometimes be just as fierce as in the world of business.

Sometimes it can be small and petty like who should be first author, often triggered by purely selfish reasons and following justifications.

In other cases competition can be about grands, effectively rendering someone unemployed in some cases. I have seen bullying, discrimination more frequently than in the world of business, the place I come from.

This is truly the dark side of academia, there are also positive things but these are things that make me sick to my stomach.

What is your experience? Do you agree with my rather dark view? If not, why? If yes, how can we fix it?

Best wishes Henrik

How could you judge someone by publication and impact factor of journal or publisher?

What you think it’s easy to publish work in a high impact factor journal without funding? Nature and MDPI and Hindwai and PlosOne and other good journals are open access...and having Article processing charges...

Complexity is an area (field, paradigm???) that presently spans through many scientific fields. From Mathematics and (so called) Econophysics to Biology and Social Sciences.

And, yes, there are many researchers of Complexity in all of them.

But in my literature revision, when writing an article, I realized that Edgar Morin's La Méthode (a work of six volumes) does not have an English version.

The fact that Morin is alive at 100 years old and perhaps one of the most important philosophers of our time (in Complexity, certainly) is just as incomprehensible as to know that I read in Portuguese with a very good translation and it is also published in Spanish (I did not research other possible translations).

What makes me also conviced that, if a person of that magnitude can be ignored by academia establishment, what to ponder about the thousands of scientic minds not living in the so called "central countries" that might have relevant contributions to science.

How do you judge the success of a particular presentation st conferences, workshops and seminars?

Kindly share your valued opinion. Best regards

I am facing problem to integrate Mendeley with MS Word. Is there any other good free/open source citation management application apart from Mendeley?

People are searching for certainty in Science and that’s the opposite of what leads to scientific breakthroughs. How to deal with this?

Hi guys,

Can you tell me the most efficient way to find the top conferences (e.g., 1-3) in different research disciplines?

The top conferences should be well-known and well-recognised ones, which is popular that attracting leading researchers and scientists from both academia and the industry to contribute and participate.

Thanks in advance!

There are varying views on the age, relevance and adequacy of reference materials acceptable for use in academic writings. Might be project papers, conference and journal papers as well as thesis write-ups for Masters and PhD assessments.

Some say 4-5 years or younger references, Some say as long as it is relevant, some say there should be an acceptable ratio of old references to new references eg 20%(old) :80%(new). Some would boldly say for a conference paper not less than 15, for a review paper not less than 120 etc

How would you consider the relevancy of references?

How about the adequacy of references?

What makes a researcher independent and how this can be practised? How to enable any such skill among PhD/Post-Doc students, or even before that stage? Please Feel Free to add your observation, arguments and experience.

If one is working in R&D, the company allows/wants to publish information that proves claims of the company and its cutting-edge technology- Clearly, the company prevents the publication of any information that might harm its business. Additionally, the company has no interest in having an employee publishing reviews or anything else.

How can someone publish independently from the company?

For sake of argument, let's assume that one wants to write a review on his own time at home without any data acquired through the company.

Reputed journals like Nature, Scientific Reports, PlosOne, BMC series few Springer, Elsevier Journals are all charging hefty amounts from authors just to put their reseach open access,

Its only a pdf to be put online

Mo printing charges

No formatting charges

How scholarly are the papers and articles published on ACADEMIA Letters in meeting the standards of peer-reviewed articles? Could one confidently cite them in research that is meant for publication in a scholarly journal? I am curious because I appreciate many of the works published with the ACADEMIA Letters and I want to know the value to place on them in the bibliography of my research.

Hi,

I am interesting what is in bioinformatic most requested from companies and academia to find easiest a job? DNA sequence analysis or? Can someone suggest that if you know how to work with something would be in moest companies requested and have good chance to get a job? and is in industry and academia same situation, or is acadamia are different things needed?

What you suggest?

Hello Everyone!

This is what I found on the website about the payment

"We aim to publish research worth reading, regardless of the financial circumstances of the author. We offer a waiver program to authors who are unable to pay their APC because of financial hardship. You can apply for the waiver once your submission has been accepted."

So, how reliable is this?

Looking to use Cas9 for research in a startup (possibly lentiviral), and would like input on what are the legal requirements and how to obtain Cas9 expression vectors (Cas13 is available from Addgene, but Cas9 is available only to academia).

Differentiating Science from Pseudoscience is becoming a challenge at so many levels these days. How can we separate the two and acknowledge a grey area in between?

Let me know your thoughts on this topic. Personal experiences are most welcomed especially from those of us who worked in the UK and in other developed economies.

Hi there, I am starting a discussion on working in the academia field. Aside to interest and passion in the field of research, what are the major benefits and disadvantages of working in the academia field?

To me, being a researcher is due to my passion for the property and finance field. While practicing real estate in the corporate world is monetary rewarding, research brings excitement and stimulating, especially when you get to collaborate with researchers from other countries. Aside to these, its also about attending conferences worldwide, able to meet new people, experience and share knowledge.

Feel free to share your thoughts here!

As public research is the dominant model, it is interesting to notice that private lucrative publication is the major dissemination channel in academia.

I'm interested in studies about the willingness to share among the researchers.

Understanding why the expensive and in english journal model still impedes knowledge production and dissemination is key in many field of study.

The study of academian capitalism, with journal publications as currencies could help if economist were to see this interrogation.

2. I would like to hear from others. As this (in part) is an outgoing project (added to my RG profile, if you would like to know more).

Thank You

Many humanities scholars, such as from disciplines of literary, cultural and film studies, etc., practice academic journalism which is published in newspapers/magazines. Can Academia Letters be considered a reasonable platform to publish such articles (other than peer-reviewed publications)?

How would i link my research gate paper/ssrn/academia with google scholar account. so published paper will see on google scholar?

Recently I have read the which examined the monetory cost of time spent on peer review by researchers. At this time of the open science movement gradually getting its momentum, a need has arisen to re-examine/re-visit the existing peer review and publishing model.

Academic incubators of innovation and entrepreneurship are developed at universities to support innovation and entrepreneurship of students. Incubators are also a supplement to the educational program in the field of activating the innovation and entrepreneurship of students. Incubators sometimes also perform functions or cooperate with a career office for students. Career offices collect employment offers and organize internships for students through cooperation with companies and institutions that employ or give practice to students.

Sometimes academic incubators of innovation and entrepreneurship also cooperate with various institutions and companies in which students find employment or take apprenticeships. In addition, academic incubators of innovation and entrepreneurship, cooperating with various institutions and companies, enable the establishment of clusters of innovation, in which various economic entities, public institutions, scientific institutes and universities cooperate with each other. In this way, the possibilities of entrepreneurship development and generation of innovative solutions in assumed and developed research projects and startups are increasing.

Sometimes, also with the innovation cluster or business incubator, financial institutions cooperate, primarily banks offering financial support in the form of preferential loans for developing innovative startups. However, at the early stage of the establishment of business activity by students and organizations, the most important role is provided by substantive support in the field of advising on the formal and legal issues and accounting service of the university, lecturers and employees of the academic entrepreneurship incubator.

Do you agree with my opinion on this matter?

In view of the above, I am asking you the following question:

Please reply

I invite you to the discussion

Thank you very much

Best wishes

Dear all!

I hope you had a wonderful weekend. At the moment Im in the later stages of planning a hopefully good quantitative article in entrepreneurship. I will use connections in the industry (to do the dirty work of actually convincing people to participate )where Im active and my question is, what do you deem to be an acceptable sample size for a questionnaire about decision making, connecting into other areas?

It is a relatively small business community in our country so sample size can not be 1000, if yes there must be a discussion about expanding the geographical area.I know what the literature says but what is your experience regarding minimum sample size in different level journals. No need to say Im a qualitative researcher seeking to make an excursion into enemy territory :-)

Thank you so much for your input in advance.

Best wishes Henrik

Our research world has become dependant on research output.

Many academic jobs depend on a certain sustained level of research.

Is this unhealthy?

Does it stunt creativity? Does it create pointless research? Does it lead to plagiarism?

Should we have different outcome measures eg a Research Quality Score per article, rather than number of articles?

Hi everyone,

Not really a technical question here, but it has to do very closely with research.

I'm very fascinated by the potential for university-industry collaboration and technology transfer, and I'm curious to understand the perspective of researchers.

What is your experience working with industry as a university researcher?

What works well? What doesn't?

Where do you find the most value in joint projects in collaboration with industry and where are the most critical risks for you?