4 ms·

Fraud? Are you kidding me? I have publication in MICRO with a very famous institution in US. (Top 20). You know how my professor published his paper in MICRO?

Fraud? Are you kidding me? I have publication in MICRO with a very famous institution in US. (Top 20). You know how my professor published his paper in MICRO? Relationship! Relationship! Relationship! As a graduate student coming from a third world country, I totally lost my hope on the system when I saw a venue as famous as MICRO, is only based on relationship. Don’t judge me, who can I report it? I am graduate student, means losing my supervisor means losing my visa. I am even posting this via anonymous account (thats how scared I am).

codezero 6y ago
That's a huge bummer. When I was doing research in physics, I found it easy to get published, even without having a PhD - though it didn't hurt, I think, to be working at a university with a group that had already published in that publication before. With that said, my PIs didn't assist me at all in preparing, submitting, or defending my research, except to inform me of what to prepare for. I was really pleased with that whole experience because it felt like there were very distinctly not gatekeepers in that field. It could very easily be that there are not really any professional stakes in the field I studied in, so maybe that makes a difference. My team was all researchers, not tenured faculty, and we funded ourselves with government grants. With all that said, it's really helpful to get a different point of view - thanks for sharing this, and sorry for the trouble you experienced, nobody should be put in such an awkward position.
- jjjjjj__ 6y ago
  I am thinking about applying again from the beginning and start Ph.D. all over. Since I am in love with science. And the only reason I left my home country was because I wanted pursue science. (Science is what makes my love beautiful) But I am afraid maybe my next supervisor will be same (let alone if I leave middle way my current supervisor will not give me letter of recommendation).
  - rscho 6y ago
    You are right to be afraid. Get your PhD. first, then do what you want and try to do honest research if you still feel like it. It's like that in every field, apparently. I've been doing medical research for 10 years and I have yet to meet a honest professor. But with time, I got more independent and while I still have to put up with professoral bullshit I now also can conduct honest and independent projects from time to time.
    - jjjjjj__ 6y ago
      Thank you for those kind words. I really needed it. A honest person to talk too. You can imagine how much of a shock it is to my believe system to come from literally other side of the world, in hope of doing genuine research, and turns out, it is based on lies.
      - codezero 6y ago
        I ended up dropping out of graduate school, but the advice I was given before entering was this: Choose your advisor, not your area of focus. Your advisor single-handedly decides how smoothly your PhD will go, and once you have your PhD, you can decide where your career goes. Obviously, area of focus does determine a bit of your future, but within that area, optimize for a helpful advisor. Also, I am sure your university has resources, and ways you could report this behavior, but it's often very difficult to unseat/challenge university faculty, so I totally understand an unwillingness to act. I agree with the other commenter: finish what you started, get out, and focus on doing good work.
        dijksterhuis 6y ago
        > Choose your advisor, not your area of focus. Absolutely this. Worked on my master's dissertation with my initial supervisor. He went off to try and find funding for a year or two to get me to come back for PhD. Turned up, he passed me an ACM magazine article and asked me to have a look and see if anything stuck. Got hooked. He knows I like weird and trippy stuff ;) I'm in a bit of rubbish situation as he left his position here for greener pastures. Totally fair decision on his part from what I've gathered of the back story Now supervised by someone else and it's just not the same. Have to go over old ground quite often. So yeah, choose your supervisor wisely. If they "get you" then they'll get what you're interested in. Then they'll be able to work with you find an interesting area to study.
  - glangdale 6y ago
    Don't do this! Try to do the best research you can. When you are make your own way as a researcher you can learn from this bad experience and conduct yourself with more integrity. Once you have a post PhD job what you did during your thesis won't matter, to be honest - 10 years on people will judge you by your more recent publications. So don't get off track - changing schools/advisers/topics can be very disruptive and you can wind up becoming a tenured ("ten-yeared") graduate student. I was forced to change advisor due to my first one leaving and it took me from 'on track to get out quickly' to 'slowest guy in my year to finish'.
  - mcguire 6y ago
    You need your advisor to graduate and get your first academic or research job. After that, it's all up to you. Get through it and you have many more options. Changing supervisors is possible, but probably not a good idea.
  - zoomablemind 6y ago
    This part I don't understand. You did get it published, thanks to connections and whatever 'broken' reasons. I'd guess you research in the domain that you want. By all means it helps your progress. So much more reason to accomplish your research, get it done so you feel no guilt about the quality of the result. This indeed is under your control. The faulty system, may it be, is beyond your power, at least at the present standing.
  - zzzq23 6y ago
    Find a new advisor. Having a body of dishonest work is problematic. I am a Full Professor. Before we submit a paper, I do my best to make sure our code does what we say it does. We make sure we understand the results as a second check on our implementation. Then we hope we caught all the important bugs that might invalidate our results. Now to be clear, we are not building industrial grade systems and so new benchmarks might expose bugs we don't know about. I am pretty sure that we are not the only group that does this in the field of Programming Languages & Compilers.
wmf 6y ago
In your opinion was your paper good enough to be in MICRO? It's kind of sad, but I think even good science needs help to be seen.
- jjjjjj__ 6y ago
  Not at all. The idea maybe was good (in long term with solid work). But none of our code were working, or works right now for that matter. Nothing works. And I am not saying they does not work as research codes tend to be ugly. I am saying that in literal sense of the word. It was totally wishful story glued together with beautiful sentences, published via a serious relationship in MICRO. There are sentences in that paper which even I don’t or my professor understand. It has been written in that way! 1) Write in a way that nobody understands, 2) use big words, (put them in beautiful sentences, so nobody would have any doubts, particularly in introduction and beginning of the paper and in conclusion). 3) a relationship inside MICRO. Wow you have published a paper in MICRO now.
  - softwaredoug 6y ago
    It does seem the prevailing writing style of academia is a big part of the problem. Papers a lot of time leave the reader feeling stupid. “Surely there’s wisdom here!?” the reader hopes. Maybe if papers taught the underlying concepts in a clearer, more transparent way we’d get better, more reproducible science
    - tnecniv 6y ago
      That's really up to the reviewers. I've definitely been told that I need to clarify different parts of my paper in my reviews. Ultimately, peer review is only as good as your peers. If they won't call out bullshit, then bullshit gets published.
    - rleigh 6y ago
      This is also a recent phenomenon. If you go back and read papers from 50 to 80 years back, they are shorter, more concisely written, mostly devoid of confusing language, and they are a pleasure to read, rather than a chore. It also comes from the practice of writing solely in the third person; it wasn't previously common, and authors could freely express their own opinions and thoughts directly without hiding them behind flowery language. With the extreme formalism of today's papers, it's made them sterile and devoid of any human connection. Today, it seems that using unnecessarily complex language is required to make work seem more impressive than it really is. Perhaps because much of today's published work is not that significant. I've been asked to rephrase perfectly clear and simple sentences solely to use fancier language and currently in vogue vernacular. None of that aids clarity or understanding.
effie 6y ago
I wanted to do theoretical science, after few years at the university, seeing how corrupt the system and the people are, and tired of living in such an environment, I wrapped up after master degree. Best decision of my life. I recommend getting out as soon as reasonable, then get a real job, do science in your free time or as part of a real job. Better work/life balance, higher self-esteem, putting up with and fixing academia corruption is not your problem anymore. Academia does not have exclusive rights on doing science.
- amznthrowaway5 6y ago
  Unfortunately the data science craze has resulted in a lot of these corrupt academic politician types coming into industry, so you definitely don't want to go into "machine learning" if you want to see decency.
celloductor 6y ago
when i publish my research it definitely helped when my prof is a co-author. He did help a lot though, but I know many who would just attach their names to thing.
frequentnapper 6y ago
I saw this in my university too. It's common in many labs (not all) for all the researchers, even masters students who might've just proofread a thesis to put their names in there.
mnwsth 6y ago
You should report it to SIGARCH executive. More information on this blog post https://www.sigarch.org/other-announcements/joint-investigative-committee-jic-update/ https://www.sigarch.org/other-announcements/joint-investigat...
- amznthrowaway5 6y ago
  You really shouldn't, those people are likely corrupt as well and may get you deported.
dbancajas 6y ago
Are you still a grad student? I already graduated and have the same sentiments as you.
uluyol 6y ago
If you have concrete issues to report, I think it would be best to talk to your department head and probably look for a new advisor. If that's not working, the college. Dealing with these problems is hard, switching advisors is difficult, but, I feel sticking with a bad advisor is much more difficult long term. Hopefully you can figure something out. I do not envy the position you are in.
nelaboras 6y ago
Maybe a stupid question, but do you know whether it is really true that it only got publisher due to his relationships? I can imagine some professors also have an interest to convince students that they are 100% in their power (or at least that the student needs them). It might well be that you got published for quality and he wasn't really needed but lies/makes a bit of a show so that you will add him as co-author or similar.
monkeya 6y ago
I feel sorry for you. And I understand it is a very difficult situation. If you speak up and report it with evidence, yes you should have evidence, it will be really good for the community. And I believe there are good professors will support you and would like to advice you because you're as honest as them.

codezero 6y ago

That's a huge bummer. When I was doing research in physics, I found it easy to get published, even without having a PhD - though it didn't hurt, I think, to be working at a university with a group that had already published in that publication before. With that said, my PIs didn't assist me at all in preparing, submitting, or defending my research, except to inform me of what to prepare for. I was really pleased with that whole experience because it felt like there were very distinctly not gatekeepers in that field. It could very easily be that there are not really any professional stakes in the field I studied in, so maybe that makes a difference. My team was all researchers, not tenured faculty, and we funded ourselves with government grants. With all that said, it's really helpful to get a different point of view - thanks for sharing this, and sorry for the trouble you experienced, nobody should be put in such an awkward position.

jjjjjj__ 6y ago
I am thinking about applying again from the beginning and start Ph.D. all over. Since I am in love with science. And the only reason I left my home country was because I wanted pursue science. (Science is what makes my love beautiful) But I am afraid maybe my next supervisor will be same (let alone if I leave middle way my current supervisor will not give me letter of recommendation).
- rscho 6y ago
  You are right to be afraid. Get your PhD. first, then do what you want and try to do honest research if you still feel like it. It's like that in every field, apparently. I've been doing medical research for 10 years and I have yet to meet a honest professor. But with time, I got more independent and while I still have to put up with professoral bullshit I now also can conduct honest and independent projects from time to time.
  - jjjjjj__ 6y ago
    Thank you for those kind words. I really needed it. A honest person to talk too. You can imagine how much of a shock it is to my believe system to come from literally other side of the world, in hope of doing genuine research, and turns out, it is based on lies.
    - codezero 6y ago
      I ended up dropping out of graduate school, but the advice I was given before entering was this: Choose your advisor, not your area of focus. Your advisor single-handedly decides how smoothly your PhD will go, and once you have your PhD, you can decide where your career goes. Obviously, area of focus does determine a bit of your future, but within that area, optimize for a helpful advisor. Also, I am sure your university has resources, and ways you could report this behavior, but it's often very difficult to unseat/challenge university faculty, so I totally understand an unwillingness to act. I agree with the other commenter: finish what you started, get out, and focus on doing good work.
      - dijksterhuis 6y ago
        > Choose your advisor, not your area of focus. Absolutely this. Worked on my master's dissertation with my initial supervisor. He went off to try and find funding for a year or two to get me to come back for PhD. Turned up, he passed me an ACM magazine article and asked me to have a look and see if anything stuck. Got hooked. He knows I like weird and trippy stuff ;) I'm in a bit of rubbish situation as he left his position here for greener pastures. Totally fair decision on his part from what I've gathered of the back story Now supervised by someone else and it's just not the same. Have to go over old ground quite often. So yeah, choose your supervisor wisely. If they "get you" then they'll get what you're interested in. Then they'll be able to work with you find an interesting area to study.
- glangdale 6y ago
  Don't do this! Try to do the best research you can. When you are make your own way as a researcher you can learn from this bad experience and conduct yourself with more integrity. Once you have a post PhD job what you did during your thesis won't matter, to be honest - 10 years on people will judge you by your more recent publications. So don't get off track - changing schools/advisers/topics can be very disruptive and you can wind up becoming a tenured ("ten-yeared") graduate student. I was forced to change advisor due to my first one leaving and it took me from 'on track to get out quickly' to 'slowest guy in my year to finish'.
- mcguire 6y ago
  You need your advisor to graduate and get your first academic or research job. After that, it's all up to you. Get through it and you have many more options. Changing supervisors is possible, but probably not a good idea.
- zoomablemind 6y ago
  This part I don't understand. You did get it published, thanks to connections and whatever 'broken' reasons. I'd guess you research in the domain that you want. By all means it helps your progress. So much more reason to accomplish your research, get it done so you feel no guilt about the quality of the result. This indeed is under your control. The faulty system, may it be, is beyond your power, at least at the present standing.
- zzzq23 6y ago
  Find a new advisor. Having a body of dishonest work is problematic. I am a Full Professor. Before we submit a paper, I do my best to make sure our code does what we say it does. We make sure we understand the results as a second check on our implementation. Then we hope we caught all the important bugs that might invalidate our results. Now to be clear, we are not building industrial grade systems and so new benchmarks might expose bugs we don't know about. I am pretty sure that we are not the only group that does this in the field of Programming Languages & Compilers.

wmf 6y ago

In your opinion was your paper good enough to be in MICRO? It's kind of sad, but I think even good science needs help to be seen.

jjjjjj__ 6y ago
Not at all. The idea maybe was good (in long term with solid work). But none of our code were working, or works right now for that matter. Nothing works. And I am not saying they does not work as research codes tend to be ugly. I am saying that in literal sense of the word. It was totally wishful story glued together with beautiful sentences, published via a serious relationship in MICRO. There are sentences in that paper which even I don’t or my professor understand. It has been written in that way! 1) Write in a way that nobody understands, 2) use big words, (put them in beautiful sentences, so nobody would have any doubts, particularly in introduction and beginning of the paper and in conclusion). 3) a relationship inside MICRO. Wow you have published a paper in MICRO now.
- softwaredoug 6y ago
  It does seem the prevailing writing style of academia is a big part of the problem. Papers a lot of time leave the reader feeling stupid. “Surely there’s wisdom here!?” the reader hopes. Maybe if papers taught the underlying concepts in a clearer, more transparent way we’d get better, more reproducible science
  - tnecniv 6y ago
    That's really up to the reviewers. I've definitely been told that I need to clarify different parts of my paper in my reviews. Ultimately, peer review is only as good as your peers. If they won't call out bullshit, then bullshit gets published.
  - rleigh 6y ago
    This is also a recent phenomenon. If you go back and read papers from 50 to 80 years back, they are shorter, more concisely written, mostly devoid of confusing language, and they are a pleasure to read, rather than a chore. It also comes from the practice of writing solely in the third person; it wasn't previously common, and authors could freely express their own opinions and thoughts directly without hiding them behind flowery language. With the extreme formalism of today's papers, it's made them sterile and devoid of any human connection. Today, it seems that using unnecessarily complex language is required to make work seem more impressive than it really is. Perhaps because much of today's published work is not that significant. I've been asked to rephrase perfectly clear and simple sentences solely to use fancier language and currently in vogue vernacular. None of that aids clarity or understanding.

effie 6y ago

I wanted to do theoretical science, after few years at the university, seeing how corrupt the system and the people are, and tired of living in such an environment, I wrapped up after master degree. Best decision of my life. I recommend getting out as soon as reasonable, then get a real job, do science in your free time or as part of a real job. Better work/life balance, higher self-esteem, putting up with and fixing academia corruption is not your problem anymore. Academia does not have exclusive rights on doing science.

amznthrowaway5 6y ago
Unfortunately the data science craze has resulted in a lot of these corrupt academic politician types coming into industry, so you definitely don't want to go into "machine learning" if you want to see decency.

celloductor 6y ago

when i publish my research it definitely helped when my prof is a co-author. He did help a lot though, but I know many who would just attach their names to thing.

frequentnapper 6y ago

I saw this in my university too. It's common in many labs (not all) for all the researchers, even masters students who might've just proofread a thesis to put their names in there.

mnwsth 6y ago

You should report it to SIGARCH executive. More information on this blog post https://www.sigarch.org/other-announcements/joint-investigative-committee-jic-update/ https://www.sigarch.org/other-announcements/joint-investigat...

amznthrowaway5 6y ago
You really shouldn't, those people are likely corrupt as well and may get you deported.

dbancajas 6y ago

Are you still a grad student? I already graduated and have the same sentiments as you.

uluyol 6y ago

If you have concrete issues to report, I think it would be best to talk to your department head and probably look for a new advisor. If that's not working, the college. Dealing with these problems is hard, switching advisors is difficult, but, I feel sticking with a bad advisor is much more difficult long term. Hopefully you can figure something out. I do not envy the position you are in.

nelaboras 6y ago

Maybe a stupid question, but do you know whether it is really true that it only got publisher due to his relationships? I can imagine some professors also have an interest to convince students that they are 100% in their power (or at least that the student needs them). It might well be that you got published for quality and he wasn't really needed but lies/makes a bit of a show so that you will add him as co-author or similar.

monkeya 6y ago

I feel sorry for you. And I understand it is a very difficult situation. If you speak up and report it with evidence, yes you should have evidence, it will be really good for the community. And I believe there are good professors will support you and would like to advice you because you're as honest as them.