Some readings on Higher Education and Research
What a professor needs to know
How to write a good paper
- Publish like a Pro. Advice on writing good papers, from Nature. A very interesting reading, even if you're never going to publish in Nature.
- How to get your Siggraph paper rejected (by Jim Kajiya, Siggraph 1993 chair) (good advice, even if you're not targeting Siggraph)
- Whiteside's group: writing a paper
- Turbocharge your writing today. Advice on how to write papers. Start early, write often.
- How to Write a Good Paper in Computer Science and How Will It Be Measured by ISI Web of Knowledge, by R. Andonie and I. Dzitac, editors of IJCCC.
- Conference Paper Selectivity and Impact, by Jilin Chen, Joseph A. Konstan in Communications of the ACM. Computer Scientists prefer to publish in conferences rather than journal. This interesting study explains why: papers in highly selective CS conferences are more cited than papers in CS journals.
- To be the best, cite the best, from Nature. We could summarize it by: good researchers did really check their bibliography.
- Love thy lab neighbour (Getting closer to your collaborators boosts a paper's citations), a study summarized in Nature. In short: well localized teams publish papers that are more cited than others. The number of citations correlates inversely with the distance between the office of the first and last authors.
- How to make a good presentation, from The Extreme Presentation(tm).
- Choosing a good chart, from The Extreme Presentation(tm).
About running a lab, also about grants and financing
- Legendary Labs Secrets of academic researchers who produce excellent science and great scientists, by Adrienne Burke (New-York Academy of Science)
- Research funding: Closing arguments, from Nature. What happens when the grants dry out? What are the human, practical consequences? (hint: it's harder when you're dealing with mice than with computers).
- In Person: Falling Off the Ladder: How Not to Succeed in Academia, from Science. From someone who lost that sacred fire. So true. Key quote (for me): "perhaps as a team we would have retained our competitive edge and hence our enthusiasm."
- How to Fail in Grant Writing, from The Chronicle of Higher Education.
- Research funding: Making the cut, from Nature. What happens in the committees that decide about your grants? Key sentence: below 20 % acceptance rate, "That's in a range where you have lost discrimination," says Dick McIntosh, professor emeritus of cell biology at the University of Colorado in Boulder. "That's a situation where you are grading exam papers by throwing them down the stairs."
- Fixing a grant system in crisis: an English funding agency blaklists researchers that submit too many bad proposals. And the Nature editorial on the subject. Update: apparently, it worked in reducing the number of demands, thus increasing the acceptance rate to acceptable levels (which they place at 30 %).
Advising (PhD) students
- Your students are your legacy, by David A. Patterson (Berkeley), Communications of the ACM, March 2009.
- Advising students for success, by Jeffrey D. Ullman (Stanford), Communications of the ACM, March 2009.
- A guide for the perplexed graduate student doing research, by Irving P. Herman, in Nature.
- The disposable academic (Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time). From The Economist. Even in the US, people wonder whether there are too many PhD students.
- Academe as Meritocracy (a reply to the previous paper, by J. A. Tucker, in Inside Higher Ed).
- Thinking Beyond the Dissertation. Very good advice for PhD students: there will be life after your PhD defense. You should prepare for it now.
- Les difficultés d'insertion professionnelle des docteurs. Note about employment perspective for French PhD holders. Key summary: it strongly depends on the discipline (Computer Science PhD have no problems finding a job). Quote: "it's not that there are too many PhD [in France], but we should think about the repartition between disciplines".
- A CV of failures. Good advice from Nature: keep a CV of your failures, too.
- Three Books For Surviving Graduate School (from NPR).
- The 9 Circles of Scientific Hell, from Neuroskeptic.
- "Well, at least it hurt less than grad school at Cornell." (from a former Cornell Grad School student).
Teaching (mostly undergrads)
- College ratings ignites debate over core requirements (from Washington Post, pointed by @GlobalHigherEd). What should be in an undergrad education? Mandatory knowledge in many fields? Deep knowledge in a smaller number of fields? Breadth, or depth?
- Research and Higher Ed, from Aurelie Thiele. Which institutions are providing the right education to continue with a PhD? Which are efficient, which are not?
Gender (and race) questions
- Recommendation letters may be costing women jobs, promotions. A study by Rice University professors shows that recommendation letters are not gender-neutral.
- How We Collaborate is More Important Than Who Collaborates, a study on group collaboration. Key quote: "Having women in the group made the group more effective as a group".
- Housework Is an Academic Issue (How to keep talented women scientists in the lab, where they belong), from Academe, the journal of AAUP. Men and women scientists work as hard, but women scientists add more hours doing home chores. The study was referenced by Stanford University and cited in Nature.
- Tenure or family?, Nature reports on a study that female grad students are less likely to become tenured professors.
- Scientific output and impact of postdoctoral scientists: a gender perspective, from Scientometrics. A study on men and women PhD students and post-docs. Women PhD students publish as many papers as men, get more citations and publish in better journals. But the number of papers published gets down after PhD defense. An illustration of the "leaky pipeline"? (from @pabloachard)
- Wising Up on STEM Completion, from @insidehighered. Why do so many women drop out of STEM studies? What can we do about it?
- Why so few? Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, a report by AAUW.
- The single mother's manifesto, by J. K. Rowling. You can design a policy that insults single mothers, but beware: some of them might become famous. And they have a very good memory.
- The Female Character Flowchart, from OverthinkingIt.
- The Seat Not Taken. A casual sociological experiment in a crowded train. A single seat remains not taken, and what is the most likely explanation?
- January 10, 1951: IBM changes corporate policy, and allows married women to work at the company.
HigherEd rankings and bibliometry
Connecting Research with society
- America's Real Dream Team, by Thomas L. Friedman. Why immigration is a chance for America (and how it connects to Science and Research)
- Access, Access, Access, by Nicholas D. Kristof. Life expectancy increased in the US during World War II. Why?
- America's History of Fear, by Nicholas D. Kristof. Are catholics a menace to society ? Some people once thought they were.
- The Boys Have Fallen Behind, by Nicholas D. Kristof.
- Can't Keep a Bad Idea Down, by Thomas L. Friedman. About Science, Innovation, and preparing for the future.
- Building a Green Economy, by Paul Krugman. How to prepare the economy for global warming.
- Fiscal Fantasies. Paul Krugman explains the federal budget in simple terms.
- Why Humanity Loves, and Needs, Cities, by Edward L. Glaeser.
- Message to Muslims: I'm Sorry, by Nicholas D. Kristof.
- Enseigner Bourdieu dans le 9-3, by Fabien Truong.
- Report: Majority Of Government Doesn't Trust Citizens Either, from The Onion.
Organising HigherEd
Reforms
Humanities / SHS
- Pour des Sciences Humaines et Sociales au coeur de l'université, rapport d'étape du CDSHS (dit rapport "Aghion"), jan. 2010.
- Jalons d'une réflexion sur l'évaluation (en SHS), second rapport d'étape du CDSHS, mars 2010.
- Pour des SHS au coeur de l'ESR, rapport final du CDSHS, octobre 2010.
- La filière littéraire, un cursus à réinventer, by C. Levenson (Slate)
- A message from your university president, by John Warner, The Morning News (Humour about Humanities, via @HuffPostCollege)
- Les "humanités" : pourquoi, pour qui ? un billet de Michel Lussault, président du PRES de Lyon.
- Les humanités : pourquoi, pour qui ? (2), un billet de Michel Lussault, président du PRES de Lyon.
- Anthropology Group Restyles Its Offerings to Lure Nonacademics, from The Chronicle of HigherEd. 50 % of anthropologists are currently working outside of academe, forcing pro associations to change the way they operate.
- Breaking News: Humanities in Decline! Film at 11. Michael Bérubé at Crooked Timber places things into perspective, and actually looks at the facts. Humanities are not that much in decline.
- What We Need to Know in Good Times and Bad. Cornell President David J. Skorton, on why we need to support the humanities.