Room for Improvement

Student comments on my teaching of a particular course:

Great professor!
I have enjoyed this class!
I liked the readings.
This course required too much previous knowledge.
Professor very helpful with homework.
Homework very useful for class.
Well-constructed lectures.
Very organized lectures.
She speaks very clearly.
She answered my homework questions.
She provided images and charts to supplement the subject matter.
The in-class exercises were helpful.
I liked the practice exercises we did in groups during lecture.
I liked that she asked questions during class and this helped deepen my understanding of concepts.
Useful supplementary material to help us understand lecture material.
She explained the topics completely in class. Didn't use a textbook as a crutch.
It was great that lecture and lab material were well coordinated.
She was always ready to answer questions.
She was always willing to help with any questions.
She provided the subject matter very clearly.
The last project was too much work for this level of class.
Lecture presentations very clear.
I liked the in-class exercises.
You should improve your teaching methods.

Note that almost all of the comments are in the 3rd person (except for the last one), as if the students were writing to someone else about me, rather than writing to me with feedback. I don't know if it matters in terms of type and level of feedback whether the student is imaging an unknown audience or speaking directly to me (?). At evaluation time, I give a little talk to the class about the importance of this feedback and how it is used by instructors and the department/college/university, but I think there is still general confusion among students about what exactly the purpose of these evaluations is and who reads them and whether anyone cares what they think.

These are overall nice comments, and unfortunately also rather classic in that the criticisms are too vague to help me understand what the specific complaints are.

The last comment, despite being too vague to be useful in any specific way, is absolutely right. Despite being deep into my mid-career years, I don't want my teaching to fossilize. I want to improve. In recent years I have attended teaching workshops and gotten some ideas from those. When I team-teach, a faculty colleague is in the classroom with me, so I get some peer feedback. And last term, I jettisoned the too-long and too-detailed textbook and provided focused readings, including some that I wrote myself. That seems to have worked quite well (or at least no one said they missed having a textbook), so perhaps that counts as an improvement. I would also like to do some new things involving e-learning and have been to some workshops and meetings about that.

I am thinking about teaching because I was just looking at my evaluations, though mostly I am enjoying having lots of uninterrupted time for research. This week I even managed to submit a manuscript on which I am primary author. It's been about two years since I've been able to do that (and I don't mean to imply that I did it alone -- an excellent colleague was essential to the completion of this paper).

As I was finishing the paper (and a related grant proposal) recently, it occurred to me that I could create a new teaching module based on this work and incorporate it into the class for which I just received teaching evaluations (not, of course, as extra work but replacing some older material). Probably more than any major change in teaching style, a realistic way that I can improve my teaching is to find good ways to incorporate new material -- specifically, integrating New Science with Classic Science, so that students learn the fundamental stuff without which they are incomplete as scientists and people and yet are also exposed to new things that help them see where the field is at (including being exposed to unresolved questions that might inspire them).

Anyway, it's been a busy summer so far. My father recently asked me if my husband "also has the summer off" and I was actually quite calm about it this time. Have you had a similar conversation with anyone yet this summer? Parents? Neighbors? Friends? Students? Assuming that you do in fact work in the summer even if you are not teaching, did you (1) smile serenely and let them continue to exist in ignorance; (2) correct them (a) calmly, (b) not calmly; or (3) lapse into stony silence (if having a conversation) or send a glaring emoticon (if in e-contact)? (or other..).

Making Change

The topic for today is whether/how much some of us academics change our research focus over the years. Some of you are too young to have sufficient data to answer this question for yourself, but even you youngsters can look around at more senior researchers and see whether and how much people change research focus over the years, from very dramatic changes to a small but perceptible shift.

Some possibilities are:

(1) dramatic: this could be very dramatic, like a change from chemistry to classical languages, or it could be within the same general field but with a change to a totally different subfield.

(2) semi-dramatic: this could involve a shift motivated by interdisciplinary research -- for example, a physical scientist who increasingly became involved in a major way in the life sciences or engineering such that they develop a new field of expertise. In this case, they still have their feet in their original field and subfield, but they also have a new research identity. This type of change is not so rare, or even surprising in some fields, but it still does involve a rather major shift.

(3) perceptible but not very remarkable: this type of change could involve a change in the types of research problems addressed, but the researcher would still be mostly identified with their original subfield; maybe someone develops new research methods that can be applied to different types of problems and this motivates a bit of branching out in research questions and subfields, probably with lots of help from colleagues in these other subfields. Or maybe interests shifts, new collaborations lead to new interests, and so on. There are lots of ways that this type of change can (and probably should) happen during a career.

And then there's:

(4) no change worthy of note.

Although I certainly know some in the first two categories, I think many of us are in the third category, which describes what I think is a rather normal sort of change in the course of a career. I am trying to think of examples of category 4, and I can think of a few people who have done the exact same thing for many many years (some with great success), but I still think various shades of category 3 are more common.

Do any of you consider yourself a category (1) or (2) or (4), or are most of us (3)s? You could answer about your advisor or other academics you have observed if this question isn't relevant to you (yet).

Useless Moneybags

Every once in a while, someone makes a statement in a comment about how their advisor "doesn't do anything". In some cases, there is the added description that an advisor "doesn't do anything except get grants". I find these comments fascinating, but not necessarily in a good way. I am sure I have written about this before, but since I was thinking about the phenomenon recently as I was sitting suspended over an ocean, I am writing about it again now.

I am sure there are exceptions -- of course I don't know how things work in other fields or at other institutions other than ones with which I am closely associated -- but I think in many cases, this comment displays a misconception about the definition of "anything" in a research context. [This is where the young and perhaps not-so-young say to their advisors (but perhaps not aloud): "But that's your fault because you are supposed to teach us what you do". Yes, that's true to some extent, although it's a rather lame reason for remaining ignorant over the entire course of a graduate program, as I've discussed before.]

In any case, I know that the Do-Nothing (except provide grants) Advisors are believed to exist, and that is why many of us learn during fascinating and mandatory Research Ethics workshops that just providing the money for a research project is not sufficient justification for us to be a co-author on the resulting papers. And yet, I always wonder: But what if the research was our IDEA? Doesn't that count?

Today, what I want to know is how many readers have said or thought that their advisor doesn't (or didn't) do anything, meaning in this case that the advisor doesn't (or didn't) do any research (whether it was true or not)? If anyone leaves a comment confessing to having this thought/belief, it would also be helpful to know the academic discipline involved. In my field, it's relatively easy for me to do some actual research myself, but in other fields or in other research group configurations, it may be more difficult for an advisor to do this. Hence, additional information may be important for exploring and understanding this phenomenon.

There may be various modes of thought that feed into such a view. One that I imagine is common goes something like this:

- because you and other students ± postdocs, techs etc. are the ones actually generating data, you are the ones doing the real work, and your advisor is therefore "not doing anything".

But I hope it is more complex than that, and not an indication of a lack of appreciation for the value of ideas -- the ideas that can lead to a successful proposal and therefore a grant, the ideas for overcoming obstacles that may arise during the data-gathering stages, and the ideas that come once the data (or whatever) are obtained and it's time to think about the results, understand them, discuss them, interpret them, and thereby generate new ideas.

If a grad student who thinks their advisor doesn't do anything is in a situation in which they (the student) had some ideas that formed the core of a grant proposal that they largely wrote (perhaps with some help with the logistics of writing/submitting a proposal), got the grant (perhaps with their advisor's name on it), carried out the research largely independently (perhaps after learning some key techniques from someone other than the advisor), made the most significant interpretations, and wrote the papers, then go ahead and say it: your advisor didn't do much, if anything.

Otherwise, I think it is a strange and incorrect thing to say.

Citing Creeps

Today in Scientopia: On creeps and their effect on the work of others

Subparallel Research

Let's say you heard a rumor that another group of researchers was working on a possibly identical, or at least very similar, project to your own research. You had both been working on this project for about a year, and had nothing published yet, not even a conference paper or abstract.

Would you:

- Contact the other group, seeking to open lines of communication? Possible motivation for this approach includes a desire to minimize overlap, share resources, and avoid negative consequences for students involved in the research.

- Do nothing and continue to work separately, waiting for a publication by you (ideally) or the other group (alas) to indicate results? Possible motivation for this approach includes a distrust of others and a wish to keep ideas and results confidential until it is time to submit something for publication.

In a recent experience with this situation, a researcher heard that we were working on something similar to his research project. He told mutual colleagues to ask my group to contact him. OK, so that was a bit indirect, but it was a way of opening communication without officially taking the first step: a sort of testing the waters without committing too much.

So we contacted him, and subsequent communication has been very friendly and interesting, with a bit of territory marking, but nothing too extreme. In the end, it will be particularly important for our students that our groups are now in communication and discussing complementary vs. overlapping research efforts.

In other cases, however, I have not been as interested in communicating information, although I typically don't mind giving general outlines of what I am doing.

For me, a key factor in my enthusiasm level re. communication is what I think of the other group -- that is, whether I think we are likely to have open, sincere, constructive discussions about our subparallel research.. or not. Sometimes you can't predict that if you don't know someone well, but sometimes there are clues (or prior negative experience) as a guide.

If you have heard rumors of possible or definite identical/similar research by others, what have you done?

And what influenced your approach? Whether/how well you know the other researcher(s)? Paranoia level? Desire to get the scoop? Other? Or does your research group (or field) have a particular philosophy of non-communication from which you do not stray (until you publish) no matter how nice the 'competing' researchers?

Trending

Have you ever had an idea for a research project that, as far as you knew, no one else was doing, only to find later that other people had the same idea at about the same time? Yes, there are instances of intellectual theft, but sometimes it seems like there is just something in the air (or water).

[Maybe this phenomenon is analogous to the one in which people think they are giving their baby a cool and unique name, only to find that every other kid of the same age is named Olivia or Logan?]

Some research projects arise from a synthesis of little bits of information and ideas that develop from reading, listening, and thinking -- perhaps over time or perhaps in a sudden burst of inspiration. You think you are the only one to have this idea because you haven't seen anything in the literature or at conferences to indicate anyone else is working on this.

But then, what seemed like open territory suddenly seems a bit crowded.

Has this happened to you? It just happened to some of my colleagues and me.

What you do next depends on whether you and the other researchers are interested in cooperating (or at least communicating) or competing.

Tomorrow's post: initiating communication with other research groups about parallel research

Doing Stuff

Someone -- a scientist -- recently told me to be careful about how and when I use the word "research" because this word has negative connotations for some people, particularly politicians and others who might make negative decisions about funding for certain activities that involve certain people at institutions of higher education in the United States.

Research is a bad word? Research?

Research is a search for knowledge. Through research, we discover things. We solve problems. We invent new things. Research implies that the search for knowledge is somewhat systematic, but only in a broad sense. Research is learning. These are good things.

Research isn't always used as a force for good, of course, and it can be warped, politicized, and done poorly, but that doesn't mean the concept itself is flawed or that there is anything wrong with the word. If that were the case, we should also stop using words like "government", "religion", and "faculty meeting".

What is a better alternative to the phrase "I do research"? I am not making this up, but in this same conversation, I was told that some people apparently prefer more friendly statements, like "I do stuff".

Speaking from my elitist ivory tower liberal professorial outpost, "I do stuff" just sounds stupid to me as a job description. Also, it's a bit vague, covering everything from cleaning out your closets (something I do every 7 years, whether they need it or not) to determining the structure of material using a synchrontron.

I suppose I should not be surprised about this, given that we are in the era of "This was not intended as a factual statement", "fair and balanced", and deliberate misunderstanding of fundamental scientific phenomena.

Nevertheless, as a researcher (or stuff-doer, if you prefer), I don't think the useful word "research" should be considered a scary, elitist, or liberal word. It's a slippery slope from vilifying a word to undermining the concept, to the ultimate benefit of no one.

It seems to me that some of the same people who don't like the word "research" also get upset at the thought that the US might be out-competed by others in technological advances. Technological advances come mostly from research (except the ones kindly provided by friendly pink unicorns).

Research is essential to the health, happiness, and security of us all, so we need to keep doing it, and/or stuff, and calling it what it is (and funding it).

To Author or not to Author?

Today in Scientopia, I discuss the question of what to do if you provide information (e.g., data) to a colleague for a publication but you don't agree with the colleague's interpretations and conclusions.

ABCs of Job Satisfaction

Today let's revisit the topic of From Whence We Derive Our Job Satisfaction, assuming that there is job satisfaction being derived.

So, for those of you who enjoy your jobs (academic or otherwise), is the source of your feeling of job-enjoyment related at least in part to:

A. your department (or non-academic equivalent)?; i.e., a unit larger than your immediate research/work group, but within your institution);

B. your more distant professional environment? In the academic example, this would be people in your research field who are not in your department.

C. your own work and/or that of your immediate research group?

There are other possibilities than those listed (e.g., I am, for once, not mentioning cats), but for these options, typical answers might be:

A-B-C (for people quite content with their professional environment)

A ± C but not B; or B ± C but not A.

c would be unfortunate if it were not combined with A or B, but that would at least be better than deriving no job satisfaction at all.

I wonder what the most common situation is. From scattered comments to blog posts over the years, there has been a persistent mention of B-but-not-A.

My answers to this question have varied with time. I was in a C-only situation very early in my career (grad school/postdoc), and was briefly in an A-C situation in my first tenure-track job when I was happy in my department but had yet to establish a reputation in my field and was finding it difficult to get the respect of a certain close network of older (male) professors in my field (solution: publish a lot, get grants, find a research niche).

Then there were some B-C times in which I wasn't particularly happy in my department, but I was otherwise doing well professionally and enjoying my research and research group.

Now I'd say A-B-C, but it took a while to get there.

Division of Labor

In September 2008, I wrote a Labor-themed post (well, sort of) in honor of the US holiday, Labor Day. Last year I seem to have ignored Labor Day, so I figured that it was time to return to the relevant topic of Work, in today's case focusing on who can teach what when and why.

Some colleagues and I were recently chatting about who could teach which course in the place of particular faculty who will be on research leaves in the coming year or two. In less economically difficult times, an option is to hire a visiting instructor, thereby injecting some new energy into the department and giving a boost to an early-career scientist who wants the teaching experience. Being a visiting assistant professor was very important to my career in its early days, although there are pros and cons to such positions for the individual in question.

In times of austerity, existing faculty can cover for others. Many of us can teach a variety of courses and some of us like having this variety, as long as it is not excessive and doesn't involve teaching new courses too often (other than graduate seminars of course). As long as our teaching loads are only varying and not increasing in a particular year, adjusting the teaching assignments of existing faculty can be a good option for a department. This option doesn't necessarily work, however, for highly specialized classes.

Another option is to cancel the classes. My department wouldn't cancel a class that was essential to a degree program, but it might cancel an elective. That would be too bad for the students who really wanted to take these courses.

Yet another option is to have research scientists, postdocs, or senior grad students to teach some courses. My department has used this option in the past as well, and it has worked out well for all concerned.

My colleagues and I were mostly discussing this last option for a couple of specialized courses that are aimed at the advanced undergraduate to graduate level. Apparently a senior and highly qualified research scientist may teach one of them, and the name of another highly qualified research scientist was mentioned for a similar course in another topic.

In one case, the people with the most knowledge about these scientists said that they would both be excellent and diligent teachers and the students would certainly benefit from having these people as instructors, but the concern is that the research scientists would be unable to do anything else and their research would come to a screeching halt during the months they are teaching.

Well, in a way that would be understandable. Whenever I create and teach a new course, my research productivity definitely decreases. It does not go to zero, but that's partly because I've been doing this research-teaching-service balance thing for a long time and am pretty good at multi-tasking in general.

I wondered briefly if there might be an element of "We professors can balance teaching and research but you research scientists cannot" to the opinions of some of my colleagues. I decided, however, that, given that these colleagues have years-long close knowledge of the working habits of the research scientists, they probably do have a pretty good idea about work habits and multi-tasking abilities of the individuals in question.

So, if it is indeed true that their research efforts would go to nearly zero during the teaching term, would it be in the best interests of the research scientists to teach these courses? Would the benefits of a teaching experience offset the loss of research productivity for a few months, or would the harm of that loss be greater than the benefit?

Of course the answer varies with the individual, their career goals, the source(s) and stability of their funding, and the ability of the PI's research group to function without the research scientists performing their usual roles.

In general, though, if the choice is between canceling a class and asking a (willing) research scientist to teach, the latter is the better option. If the research scientist is paid by grants for which they are not a PI, they would have to work out an agreement with the PI about some level of activity involving essential research activities. If that is possible, the situation could work out for everyone: students, researchers, and PIs.

Run With It

Have you ever voluntarily given away a good idea? I just did. I didn't do it out of altruism, although it's OK with me if the recipient of my idea thinks that.

I gave this idea away knowing that the person to whom I mentioned it might take it and run with it without me, but hoping that he would instead provide one little thing I needed to follow through with the idea myself or that he would at least express an interest in collaborating on the research related to testing my idea. In fact, he said "Great idea. I'll work on that and let you know how it turns out."

OK, that's fine. It isn't such an awesome idea that I am emotionally and professionally shattered by having someone else work on it. It just would have been fun. I could have worked on it without this guy, but it would have taken me a long time to get set up to do the research, whereas he, now that he has My Idea, can do the work rather quickly. I am sincerely looking forward to finding out the results, even if they are acquired by someone else.

I should also mention that this person is an assistant professor whose tenure evaluation is starting to loom. If this idea works out, it may help his career in some way. I hope it does.

Nevertheless, this incident started me thinking about what I would have done in a similar situation. The passage of years since my professorial youth has perhaps blurred my memory of what it was like to be an assistant professor, but the feeling of tenure anxiety is a rather visceral one that I don't think I have entirely forgotten.

So, I may be giving myself more credit than I am due, but I think that I would have taken the collaborative approach if given a good idea to run with. I think that I would have asked the giver if they wanted to collaborate, and, if they did, worked out a way to do so.

But everyone is different in terms of their interest and ability to collaborate. Collaborating has been a major feature of my career, and, for whatever reason, perhaps it isn't for the Recipient of My Idea. Maybe that's just how he prefers to work. Maybe he is concerned about getting maximum credit for his research.

What would you do if given a good research idea? (whatever your career stage)

Would you ever give away a good idea?

Check Your Cynical Level

Let's consider scenarios similar to those posed by Alex in a comment to yesterday's post:

• Assistant Professor #1 at a major research university does pretty good but not outstanding research (however that is defined by the norms of AP#1's field/department/university), and is an excellent teacher and adviser.

• Assistant Professor #2 at a major research university has met or exceeded the criteria for excellence in research, but is a mediocre teacher.

Note that AP#2 is not a horrifically awful teacher who mumbles incoherently while scribbling on the board and immediately erasing the scribbles, who then gives exams that are completely unrelated to anything presented in class or the textbook, and also, this professor likes to kick puppies.

No, AP#2 is a mediocre, somewhat uninspiring professor who maybe kind of bores students, but is able to convey some information.

As posed by Alex, the questions are whether these people should and will likely be awarded tenure. Depending on your answers to the should vs. will questions, you can assess your degree of cynicism about the system. If I made AP#2 an unintelligible puppy-kicker, then we could really see how cynical you all are.

But if you do that, you will be off-topic and that is the same as writing in the margins of your exam despite being told that you should not do this, and I know that you wouldn't want to do that.

Of course, not all MRUs are the same, and the answers to questions posed for these scenarios, if they occurred in real life, would vary from institution to institution and department to department. But ignoring that complication: How do you vote? It would be most helpful if you indicate in your opinion whether you are or have been a professor at a major research university and therefore are opining from direct experience, or whether you are making a slightly more remote guess as to what you think the results would be.

My opinions:

If AP#1 really did fall short of research expectations, it is likely that he/she would not get tenure. But: I have seen exceptions to this. I have seen faculty of the Teaching God/Research Failure species be initially denied tenure at an MRU, but have this opinion overturned on appeal.

Should AP#1 get tenure? Technically, no. If the criteria for tenure were not met, then AP#1 should not get tenure. In the real world, though, there is some wiggle room. In at least one example of a Teaching God/Research Failure tenure denial overturn, I didn't have a problem with the decision overturn and awarding of tenure because I think there is room at a big university for some Teaching Gods. In the case of this particular colleague, I have managed to co-author one paper with him in the past 15 years, but other research projects have died owing to his research lethargy. This has been frustrating, but I appreciate him nevertheless.

What about AP#2? I think AP#2 would and should get tenure. The key for me is the word "mediocre". It is unreasonable to expect that we are all excellent teachers. We can hope for better than mediocre, and there should be programs and mentoring and encouragement and such to help us become better teachers (no matter what our career stage), but mediocre is not and should not be a tenure-killer at a research university. Unintelligible, unfair irredeemable puppy-kickers should not get tenure no matter how great they are at research, but teachers who get a "C" for teaching should be allowed to pass.

Tenure means you probably get to keep your job, but, in my experience, it doesn't mean that you can do whatever you want, be as lousy at teaching or research as you want for the rest of your life, and never make another improvement in your skills ever again. If a mediocre teacher is awarded tenure, there are ways to provide incentives to improve; in my experience, these range from merit raises (when such things exist) to variation in teaching assignments/teaching load depending on teaching effort and ability. That's being a bit cynical, actually, to suggest that only self-interest would drive someone to improve their teaching; some of my colleagues work at becoming better teachers because they want to be better teachers, even after getting tenure.

Teachable Moment?

Not long ago, I got an award for my research accomplishments, and was surprised, when the award was announced in my department, when a number of undergraduate students congratulated me on my "teaching award". The department chair's announcement didn't actually specify what the award was for; I suppose he thought most people would recognize the award by its name, but he wasn't thinking about the undergrads. With no other information than the name of the award and that it was "prestigious" (a bit of kind hyperbole), some undergrads assumed it was a teaching award.

I think the misinterpretation stems in part from the fact that these students know me best in my role as a teacher. I am sure they are all aware that their professors are both researchers and teachers, and I talk about my research in class, but still, my main interaction with these students is as a teacher.

I didn't correct those who congratulated me on my "teaching award", as I was unable to think of a good way to do this without making them think that I value research over teaching or that I didn't appreciate their kind words.

Yes, I know there is a possible sexist element to their assumption that I got a teaching award. Would students assume that a male professor had received a teaching award if the only thing they knew about the award was that it was "prestigious" ? I don't know. I do admit that I sort of wish they knew it was a research award (because it was), but I am taking the congratulations of my students as a compliment. Perhaps they assumed it was a teaching award because they like me as a teacher? I certainly can't complain about that, especially since I am (apparently) so kind and sweet.

I think this anecdote mostly illustrates the fact that undergraduates -- even those at a research university -- see their professors primarily as teachers. It makes sense that they are most aware of what most directly affects their lives, but it is a reminder that there may be a disconnect between how we see ourselves (in my case, as both a research and teacher) and how our students perceive us.

This episode also reminded me how quickly some of us change roles -- emotionally/mentally -- once the academic year is over. If we had been deep in the academic year when I had these interactions with students, I wonder if I would have been as surprised. Given the timing, though, I was, at least in my own mind, deep into research mode. My students reminded me that, even when I think that I am wearing my research hat, I am still their teacher.

Paranoia the Destroyer?

Paranoia has been such a great inspiration for Art, including of course memorable song lyrics like these:

Girl, I want you here with me
But I'm really not as cool as I'd like to be
'cause there's a red, under my bed..

Paranoia, the destroyer
Paranoia, the destroyer
-- the Kinks

Paranoia, paranoia
Everybody's coming to get me
Just say you never met me
I'm running underground with the moles
Digging in holes
-- Harvey Danger (original erroneous attribution corrected)

(Feel free to submit your favorite mention of paranoia in a song, poem, or other artistic venue.)

But what of the role of paranoia in our daily lives as scholars and teachers?

A reader wrote to me wondering: Is there a healthy level of paranoia that we should maintain to protect our work and, as advisers, the work of our students and postdocs? Or should we try to trust everyone as much as possible, despite occasional reminders that some people really are out to get us?

I have worked with extremely paranoid people from time to time, and I know that I don't want to be like them. I had one colleague for a while who did not even trust me to know everything relevant to the project we were supposedly working on together. He was very secretive, even lying at times to protect information he thought I would steal from him and .. well, I don't really know what he thought I would do with it, other than use it for the work we were doing together. He had no basis for not trusting me in particular; he was like that with everyone.

He was so afraid that people would steal our work (or something) that he constantly criticized me for telling other people "too much" about our research. We annoyed each other at approximately equal and elevated levels, wrote one paper together, and that was it for me. From time to time he has approached me about new projects to work on together, but I always say no. I have told him that our working styles are not compatible and I am too busy stealing other people's research.

I also have a daily reminder about another incident involving Paranoia. The lock on my office door is a special kind that was installed years ago because a postdoc was breaking into my office, stealing things, and hacking into my computer because s/he wanted to find out what I was doing/saying about him/her. Perhaps I was stealing the postdoc's research? Perhaps I was writing mean things about the postdoc in unsolicited letters to other universities? Alas, the lack of evidence for any of these activities did not assuage the postdoc's paranoia, nor did all the cute photos of my cats.

That situation was extremely unpleasant and could have resulted in my being permanently paranoid about postdocs, but in fact I have found that I do not assume in advance that all postdocs will break into my office. The only reason I haven't gone back to a standard lock is because I just haven't bothered. If I did go back to a standard lock, I am certain that I would not spend my days worrying that psycho postdocs were rummaging around in my office when I wasn't there.

But what about more usual situations, such as when we send papers and proposals out for review, or plan the content of a talk? How paranoid should we be? I know from experience that some people will use ideas from unpublished research and try to scoop the original authors, but, in my experience, these have been rare events. I try to put my absolute best ideas and data into manuscripts, proposals, and talks, preferring instead to communicate these things rather than worry about the potential actions of unethical evil-doers.

I have always done so; it's not just a tenured professor luxury thing. It is my preferred mode of working.

I can do this in part because my research has little to no immediate economic value (i.e., no patents will result), and that surely simplifies things for me. The decisions I make are therefore primarily influenced by (1) my relatively low level of daily paranoia, and (2) my wish to communicate my best research results as soon as I am confident about them.

And, except in the most egregious cases (some described in earlier posts), I let it slide even if I suspect that someone is pursuing research that was "inspired" by one of my proposals, or manuscripts in review, or talks about work in progress. We all get ideas from each other in various ways, and it's not worth spending time having paranoid thoughts about the competition. I'd rather just keep doing my work in the best (yet most efficient) way that I can, and confine my paranoid obsessing to a bit of ranting over a double espresso with a colleague now and then.

Avalanche of Useless Science

In a post last winter, I discussed whether papers that receive few or no citations are worthwhile anyway. I came up with a few reasons why they might be worthwhile, and noted that the correlation between number of citations and the "importance" of a paper may not be so great.

In an essay in The Chronicle of Higher Education this week, several researchers argue that "We Must Stop the Avalanche of Low-Quality Research". In this case, "research" means specifically "scientific research".

How do they assess what is low-quality ("redundant, inconsequential, and outright poor") research? They use the number of citations.

Uncited papers are a problem because "the increasing number of low-cited publications only adds to the bulk of words and numbers to be reviewed."

There you go! A great reason to turn down a review request from an editor:

Dear Editor,

I am sorry, but I am going to have to decline your request to review this manuscript, which I happen to know in advance will never be cited, ever.

Sincerely,

CitedSciProf

What if a paper is read, but just doesn't happen to be cited? Is that OK? No, it would seem that that is not OK:

"Even if read, many articles that are not cited by anyone would seem to contain little useful information."

Ah, it would seem so, but what if the research that went into that uncited paper involved a graduate student or postdoc who learned things (e.g., facts, concepts, techniques, writing skills) that were valuable to them in predictable or unexpected ways? Is it OK then or is that not considered possible because uncited papers must be useless, by definition? This is not discussed, perhaps because it is impossible to quantify.

The essay authors take a swipe at professors who pass along reviewing responsibilities: "We all know busy professors who ask Ph.D. students to do their reviewing for them."

Actually, I all don't know them. I am sure it happens, but is it necessarily a problem? I know some professors who involve students in reviewing as part of mentoring, but the professor in those cases was closely involved in the review; the student did not do the professor's "reviewing for them". In fact, I've invited students to participate in reviews, not to pass off my responsibility, but to show the student what is involved in doing a review and to get their insights on topics that may be close to their research. It is easy to indicate in comments to an editor that Doctoral Candidate X was involved in a review.

Even so, the authors of the essay blame these professors, and by extension the Ph.D. students who do the reviews, for some of the low-quality research that gets published. The graduate students are not expert reviewers and therefore "Questionable work finds its way more easily through the review process and enters into the domain of knowledge." In fact, in many cases the graduate students, although inexperienced at reviewing, will likely do a very thorough job at the review. I don't think grad student reviewers contribute to the avalanche of low-quality published research.

So I thought the first part of this article was a bit short-sighted and over-dramatic ("The impact strikes at the heart of academe"), but what about the practical suggestions the authors propose for improving the overall culture of academe? These "fixes" include:

1. "..limit the number of papers to the best three, four, or five that a job or promotion candidate can submit. That would encourage more comprehensive and focused publishing."

I like the kernel of the idea -- that candidates who have published 3-5 excellent papers should not be at a disadvantage relative to those who have published buckets of less significant papers -- but I'm not exactly sure how that would work in real life. What do they mean by "submit"? The CV lists all of a candidate's publications, and the hiring or promotion committees with which I am familiar pick a few of these to read in depth. The application may or may not contain some or all of the candidate's reprints, but it's easy enough to get access to whatever papers we want to read.

I agree that the push to publish a lot is a very real and stressful phenomenon and appreciate the need to discuss solutions to this. Even so, in the searches with which I have been involved, candidates with a few great papers had a distinct advantage over those with many papers that were deemed to be least-publishable units (LPU).

I think the problem of publication quantity vs. quality might be more severe for tenure and promotion than for hiring, but even here I have seen that candidates with fewer total papers but more excellent ones are not at a disadvantage relative to those with 47 LPU.

2. "..make more use of citation and journal "impact factors," from Thomson ISI. The scores measure the citation visibility of established journals and of researchers who publish in them. By that index, Nature and Science score about 30. Most major disciplinary journals, though, score 1 to 2, the vast majority score below 1, and some are hardly visible at all. If we add those scores to a researcher's publication record, the publications on a CV might look considerably different than a mere list does."

Oh no.. not that again. The only Science worth doing will be published in Science? That places a lot of faith in the editors and reviewers of these journals and constrains the type of research that is published.

I have absolutely no problem publishing in a disciplinary journal with impact factor of 2-4. These are excellent journals, read by all active researchers in my field. It is bizarre to compare them unfavorably with Nature and Science, as if papers in a journal with an impact factor of 3 are hardly worth reading, much less writing.

3. ".. change the length of papers published in print: Limit manuscripts to five to six journal-length pages, as Nature and Science do, and put a longer version up on a journal's Web site."

I'm fine with that. It wouldn't have any major practical effect on people like me who do all journal reading online anyway, but for those individuals and institutions who still pay for print journals, this could help with costs, library resources etc.


Let's assume that these "fixes" really do "fix" some of the problems in academe -- e.g., the pressure to publish early and often -- so what then?

"..our suggested changes would allow academe to revert to its proper focus on quality research and rededicate itself to the sober pursuit of knowledge."

Maybe that's my problem: I enjoy my research too much and forgot what an entirely sober pursuit it should be. I guess the essay authors and I are just not on the same page.

My Grandmother Was Right

Not long ago, a colleague of mine spilled an acid mixture on his clothes.

He knew what to do: He immediately removed his lab coat, pants, socks, and shoes. He washed off his legs and feet, even though he didn't think the acids got to his skin. He called the appropriate emergency number and closed the lab.

The accident occurred at a time when few people were around (think weekend, holiday, night), but my colleague knew I was working in my office in another building on campus, so he called me. I ran over to his lab, arriving after the campus police but before the paramedics.

Fortunately there were spare clothes in the lab, so he was dressed, albeit strangely, and sitting in a small office near the lab. I talked to the police and one of the paramedics in the corridor, giving them some of the information they needed for their forms.

I know that accidents can happen, even to experienced researchers like my colleague. Most of the safety training I have experienced, either from in-person workshops or via online modules, has seemed like a waste of time, but I think that the training serves the general (and important) purpose of reminding us that accidents can (and probably will) happen. Everyone in the lab needs to know what to do, and the right safety equipment must be accessible and available. Information, equipment, and awareness need to be updated on a regular basis.

The fact of the accident was not remarkable, and fortunately no one was hurt, but there are few aspects of the incident that were notable for me:

- The campus police were great. I had a bad experience with a rude and patronizing campus police officer a few years ago, so it was very nice to meet these very professional, polite, and competent police officers.

- The paramedics were not great. They were completely unprepared to deal with a situation like this. I am sure that they know well what to do when they encounter someone bleeding or broken, but they had no idea what to do in this case of a possible exposure to a dangerous chemical. My colleague was 90% sure that no acid got to his skin, but he wasn't 100% sure, as he explained to the paramedics. The paramedics didn't even seem to realize that time was important. My colleague didn't look injured, and they wasted valuable time making phone calls to other people who also had no idea what to do. They asked questions of my colleague and me, then relayed something completely different into the phone. One of them even started to tell an anecdote about something that happened to his father years ago. My colleague angrily cut him off, the paramedic told him to "calm down", and the campus police in the hall heard those words and became alert to a possible "situation". They thought that my colleague was refusing medical care, and the incident spiraled into an absurd series of misunderstandings. That was bizarre, but the most disturbing thing was that paramedics working within the call range of a major research university festooned with labs containing dangerous materials not only had no idea what to do, but didn't even seem to know how to get the information quickly. When told the best course of action by my colleague and me, they ignored us and made more phone calls.

What I learned:

- Be as self-sufficient as possible for emergency procedures. In recent years it has seemed to me that my university has been emphasizing a "just call 911" message in safety training rather than providing specific information and materials necessary to deal with an emergency on-site. Certainly it is important to call 911, but you can't rely on paramedics to know how to deal with all situations.

- Store colleagues' phone numbers in your phone. Even if they aren't people you would call to chat or text a cute picture of your cat, you may need to contact a colleague outside of working hours in an emergency situation. The phone numbers of colleagues who tend to work unusual hours and/or colleagues who would be able to help you in particular types of emergency situations could be useful some day. This doesn't just apply to lab accidents. If you work on campus outside of normal weekday working hours, you might want to have some colleagues' contact numbers stored in your phone.

- Keep spare clothes in the lab in case you have to get undressed unexpectedly in a semi-public setting -- advice that is related to the title of this post. My grandmother was thinking more of car accidents and events of that nature when she relayed the classic maternal advice about always wearing nice underwear, but, if you care about such things, it could also apply to working in a lab.

Either/Or Proposition

The case of a disgruntled Michigan Tech professor who mailed his teaching awards back to the university (along with angry letters) raises anew questions about how universities value teaching relative to research, and whether it is reasonable to expect someone to be good at both for their entire career.

In the Michigan Tech case, the professor is an associate professor who has not advanced beyond that rank, apparently owing to his low level of research activity.

The professor in question says it is an "either-or proposition" for him -- teaching or research.

I don't want to dwell on the specifics of the Michigan Tech case, in part because I don't know the expectations of that institution regarding research and teaching. Instead, I want to discuss the more general question:

Should a tenured professor who focuses primarily on teaching at a research university be 'valued' the same as those who remain active in research?

(by 'valued', I refer to promotion to full professor, salary, etc.)

Teaching is valued by universities, and there are serious efforts to improve the teaching abilities of professors via workshops and mentoring. Our teaching is constantly evaluated, and teaching (as measured in large part by teaching and peer evaluations) is part of the equation for promotions and raises.

Nevertheless, teaching is, of course, just one component of the job. At a research university, most tenured faculty are expected to teach and maintain an active research program. Those who do not advise graduate and/or undergraduate students in research, work with postdocs, write grant proposals and papers, and give presentations at conferences are, technically, only doing part of their job, no matter how much additional effort they put into their undergraduate teaching.

The question raised by the Michigan Tech case seems to be what to do after a professor gets tenure and decides to choose between teaching and research. Should this individual be promoted and be given the same salary increases as colleagues who maintain active research programs but who are, perhaps, not as great at teaching as the not-as-active researcher?

I have no idea what the answer is for Michigan Tech, but at a major research university, I think that an outstanding teacher who has tenure and a decent salary and recognition for teaching excellence is doing pretty well already. I'm not saying they should never be promoted to full professor, especially if there is some level of research activity, but perhaps it will take longer for promotion. And the salary of such a person should certainly not dwell at the lower limits for their rank, but perhaps it won't be as high as those who are active in both research and teaching.

Being active in research and advising requires a lot of time and effort, and therefore faculty who are active and reasonably successful in both research and teaching should advance in their careers with respect to promotion and pay.

Of course universities also like the grant $ that active research faculty bring in, but I hope that the 'value' of research is calculated in a broader sense, encompassing the tangible and intangible benefits of discoveries and ideas, the synergy between research and teaching, and the excitement and visibility that research contributes to a university's overall mission, not to mention the time and efforts of faculty, students, and other researchers.

It's difficult to ignore the role of money in these discussions, though. According to the Chronicle article on the Michigan Tech case:

[Students] have a nagging sense that their tuition money is subsidizing the salaries and stipends of professors and graduate students who spend little time in classrooms.

I hope that students will therefore be happy to know that if their tuition money is supporting a graduate student, that graduate student is teaching. If the graduate student is not teaching, she or he is not being supported by undergraduate tuition money. And professors who are not often in the classroom may be bringing in grant money; these faculty are therefore not sucking up tuition dollars whilst pursuing arcane research in secret labs.

All universities need outstanding teachers, and I respect and admire my colleagues who excel at teaching. I suppose, though, that I have an active-researcher's bias and therefore think that a mid-career professor who views teaching vs. research as an either/or proposition should realize that they are making a choice with consequences, but that those consequences do not directly translate into the value (or lack thereof) that an institution places on teaching relative to research.

Perhaps the denied promotion and raises in the Michigan Tech case were too severe (I don't know), but in general I think it reasonable that low research activity be a factor in decisions about promotion and pay at a university.

Like a Business

At some point during my early years as an Assistant Professor, the university at which I was employed started making sounds about how the institution should be more "like a business". We should all care more about "customer service", for example. Students and others became "stakeholders". At some point the term "deliverables" appeared on the scene.

I think most people are on board with the concept that universities should not waste anyone's money or time, should treat students (and faculty and staff) with respect, should have a positive impact on the community (and the planet), and should do a good job at what they are supposed to do (producing educated citizens, discoveries, lively debate of ideas).

But can and should a scholarly community be run like a business? Many professors don't like the concept, and perhaps neither do the other stakeholders:

Study Finds Public Discontent With Colleges
Tamar Lewin
Published February 17, 2010
Most Americans believe that colleges today operate like businesses, concerned more with their bottom line than with the educational experience of students..

When my (previous) university started the like-a-business chant, what effect did this have on my daily life as a professor other than being forced to read memos with new jargon? In reality, not a lot, but from time to time we had to provide information or produce a report or other document that justified our "mission" in this new context.

That might not sound like a bad thing. Shouldn't we all be able to explain why we should continue to do what we do? Yes, but many of us didn't trust the university to make a thoughtful and fair judgment about what was valuable to the university and the broader community, and what was not. If I, as a science professor, was getting grants, publishing papers, being invited to give talks, getting positive teaching evaluations, and successfully advising students who subsequently found gainful employment, wasn't that pretty good evidence that I was doing my job? And doesn't the system already have mechanisms for evaluating whether I was doing my job or not?

I think so, but at various times new requirements rained down from on high. At one point, although this was a top-ranked university that attracted students from all over the US and beyond, each faculty member had to write a brief report explaining how our research directly benefited the state in which the university was located. There may have been political reasons for this, but the motivation was also tied to the drive to be more like a business, accountable to its stakeholders.

My research had absolutely nothing to do with anything specific to the state. I was teaching some of its citizens about Science and I hoped I was contributing to the excellence of a university that was located in that state, but was that enough? And what of those professors who were studying other galaxies? The literature of other times and places? Diseases that afflict people living on other continents? Would these contributions be recognized?

Perhaps the university was seeking a balance between research on a more cosmic/global scale and that which directly benefited the community surrounding the university's physical location. That would be fine. I think that there should be strong connections between a university (public or private) and its local community. But so should our research universities also be places where scholars investigate the planet and its inhabitants across vast regions of space and time.

The problem was that the university never said that such a balance would be considered or appreciated. That was stressful to me as an Assistant Professor who was doing state-irrelevant research.

In the end, nothing happened re. the state issue; the administration changed, priorities were realigned, and new committees produced new reports about how the stakeholders should be best served. Perhaps that was very business-like, such as what might happen when there's a new boss or manager with new ideas about how things should be done.

There may be some positive aspects of the like-a-business model. Perhaps the increasing emphasis on quality of teaching, even at a major research university, is in some ways related to a recognition that universities should provide good "customer service". As long as universities don't go so far as to adopt a policy of "the customer is always right" (imagine the grade inflation!), improved teaching could be a positive result of the drive to run universities more like businesses.

There are other aspects of the like-a-business concept that are less acceptable, such as demonstrated by my anecdote about how one university veered towards harming the scholarly mission of the university. Creating an environment in which scholars and students can discover and communicate freely is paramount; the economic and social benefits of such creative environments are evident in communities that have universities and colleges in their midst.

Are there some ways in which universities should be even more like businesses? Would this be a good time to mention my disenchantment with the university accounting system? Surely no real business could operate for long with the complex accounting systems of some universities. Or perhaps it is the drive to be more like a business that has resulted in the hiring of ever more staff and administrators, some of whom decided that the university needed an all-encompassing and all-enraging system for managing people and money, even if that system has made some aspects of the administration of grants and personnel nearly impossible.

Or perhaps that is part of an evil plan to save money and focus on the bottom line. Just last week I paid for some lab supplies with my own funds rather than dealing with the accounting system. Except.. there's a flaw in that evil plan. I spent my own money instead of charging the items to my grant, and therefore did not save the university any money.

I think that as the economy continues to be weak and access to higher education continues to be a challenge for some (perhaps many) people, universities and "stakeholders" within and beyond the university will all be very focused on the bottom line.

Waste of Time?

A comment on yesterday's post got me thinking about something: If a non-recent journal article gets a low number of citations (say, 0-2), was the research that went into that paper a waste of time (and money)?

My gut reaction is to say no, of course not. Surely something was learned during the research that led to even the most forgettable or forgotten of papers? And surely the researcher didn't know in advance that the paper would never be cited, and did the research for a good reason?

And perhaps citations are not the most perfect judge of what is or is not worthwhile. It's not difficult to think of examples of highly cited papers that aren't that great, and barely cited papers that are overlooked (especially our own).

At the same time, a paper with zero citations, even after more than 10 years, might mean something..

.. such as:

- no one else in the world is or will be interested in this topic;

- others are interested, but they never publish;

- others are interested, but they only cite other papers, not yours (for various possible reasons), creating a snowball effect of subsequent citation of papers other than yours on this topic. With time, it becomes ever less likely that your paper will be cited.

Publishing something widely believed to be wrong or stupid isn't necessarily a barrier to citations, nor is publishing something obvious, so I am not including these in my list of possibilities.

Since I am in a quantitative mood this week, I tried to decide whether there is a minimum number of citations, above which we can say that the research was worthwhile, and below which we might have good reasons to doubt this.

My musings on this topic made me dive into my citation index to look at some of my low-citation papers to see if I could reasonably defend them as worthwhile in some way. My favorite example of a deservedly ignored paper in my oeuvre has surprised me by being cited in the low double-digits. Does that mean that the paper is more worthwhile than it was a few years ago because it has now received (slightly) more than 10 citations (none by me!) instead of 2 (or zero)? No, I don't think so. The difference between 14 citations and 2 citations really isn't that significant in terms of gauging the worth of a paper. And yet, although I am well aware that it was a fairly insignificant paper, I am reluctant to say it was a waste of time.

Further rummaging in my citation history shows me that some of my most highly cited papers do not represent what I consider to be my most significant work but that happened to be on topics that are of more widespread interest than the core of my research. Does that make these more-cited papers more "important" than my others? I am not objective about this, but I don't believe that citations correlate with significance, though I admit that it depends on how you define "important" and "significance".

One more personal example: A paper that has received a very modest number of citations is frequently mentioned to me as a paper that is read and discussed in graduate seminars. I am very pleased about that. The paper is being read and used (perhaps as an example of how not to write a paper..), although it is not cited very often. I consider that paper to have been worthwhile.

So, although I agree that zero citations is not a good thing for non-recent papers, and my papers have thus far avoided this fate (though in some cases not for any good reason), I have trouble casting aspersions on papers that have received a modest but non-zero number of citations.

Why Even Care?

When discussing issues about teaching and teaching evaluations, there are always comments along the lines of:

- Why would a tenured full professor care about these things?

and

- Why even read teaching evaluations if they are so flawed?

The first part is easy to explain. Many professors at major research universities care about teaching. I am by no means alone in this respect. Getting tenure is a huge relief, but it doesn't stop us from caring about being good teachers and caring about whether our students learn what we try to teach them.

But why care about teaching evaluations? That question has a less obvious answer, in part because there are many possible answers. Speaking only for myself, I suppose I am a bit of a perfectionist, and I mine teaching evaluations for whatever useful information they might give me about how a course went and I look for clues as to what worked and what didn't. Even for courses that I teach many times, I change things from year to year, and I am interested in new input each time.

Furthermore, although I am a full professor who has been teaching reasonably well for decades, my teaching evaluations are examined as part of a post-tenure review process. At many universities, every professor is evaluated every year or so for research-teaching-service activities. When there is money available and university/union policies permit, the evaluation is used to determine merit raises. These are primarily based on research, but not entirely. You can get a merit raise for being an outstanding researcher and a mediocre teacher, but the raises become smaller or non-existent if teaching performance is dismal.

The evaluation of my teaching evaluations may also be considered as one component of the Chair's decisions about what I will teach.

Furthermore, some of my committee work involves evaluating professors who have been nominated for awards. Some awards are entirely for research, some are entirely for teaching, and some are for 'scholar-teachers' (or 'teacher-scholars'). For any award involving teaching, we look at teaching evaluations as one component of our deliberations, no matter how senior the professor.

Teaching evaluations never go away. You can ignore your own if you want, but if there are going to be people scrutinizing mine and making decisions about me, I want to know what is in them. If I am going to revise a course in format or content, I want to have some indication of what the students thought about the course.

Even my colleagues who are more interested in research than in teaching and who would be content to teach only 1 course/year nevertheless care a lot about the quality of their teaching. I know there are uncaring professors out there who would just as soon not teach at all and spend as little time as possible on their classes, but, as I've said many times before, I have only encountered a few of these. They may loom large to the students who are unfortunate enough to encounter them in a classroom and they may be favorite characters for the media to skewer when writing about research universities, but I am convinced they are a small and dwindling population.