Introduction to PhD Study1
Introduction to PhD Study:
Formal and Scientific Requirements
Katarína Furmanová, Petr Novotný, Martin Ukrop, Ján Jančár
Image credit:
Hsiang-Yun Wu,
St. Pölten UAS
TU Wien
DUVOD: Course Organization
• Intro session (today)
• Formal aspects of PhD study at FI MU
• PhD retreat in Telč
• Discussions and activities focused on practical aspects of research work
• Opportunity to get to know your colleagues
• Tentative dates: May 3rd – May 5th or May 31st – June 2nd 2023
• Both parts are compulsory!
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The Illustrated Guide to a PhD
Imagine a circle that contains all of human knowledge:
Introduction to PhD Study4
By the time you finish elementary school, you know a little:By the time you finish high school, you know a bit more:With a bachelor’s degree, you gain a specialty:A master’s degree deepens that specialty:Reading research papers takes you to the edge of human knowledge:Once you are at the boundary, you focus:
Image credit: Matt Might, University of Utah, http://matt.might.net/
http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/
The Illustrated Guide to a PhD
You push at the boundary for a few years:
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Until one day, the boundary gives way:And, that dent you have made is called a PhD.:
PhD
Image credit: Matt Might, University of Utah, http://matt.might.net/
http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/
The Illustrated Guide to a PhD
So, do not forget the bigger picture:
Introduction to PhD Study6
Image credit: Matt Might, University of Utah, http://matt.might.net/
http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/
Study Program at FI
• One study program: Informatics
• Standard length: 4 years
• Up to 8 years by the Law
• Two specializations:
• Fundamentals of Computer Science (theory-oriented)
• Computing Technology and Methodology (application-oriented)
Read more: https://www.fi.muni.cz/admission/doctoral/fields.html.en
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Important People
• Supervisor
• Each specialization coordinated by one Doctoral Committee
• The entire study program coordinated by the Doctoral Board
• Additionally, if you have any problems or questions:
• Office for Doctoral and International Studies: Ada Nazarejová
• Ombudsman for doctoral students: Barbora Kozlíková
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Stages of PhD Study
• Orientation in the field, deepening of the knowledge
• First results, publications, failures (not necessarily in this order)
• Thesis Proposal and State Doctoral Exam (3rd and 4th semester)
• More results, publications, failures (not necessarily in this order)
• Thesis writing and defense (perhaps the most stressful stage)
• Semestral schedule: https://www.fi.muni.cz/studies/doctoral/schedule.html.en
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Year 1
Year 2
Year 2+
Year 4
(ideally)
Control Mechanisms
• Guideline for the student, supervisor, committee, and board
• Individual study plan: Overall plan
• The general direction of the study
• At the beginning of study
• Individual study plan: Semestral plans
• Specification of the tangible results
• Every semester – summary of previous semester, plan for the next
• Thesis Proposal
• Shows the student knows what to do and has realistic plan
• 4th semester at latest
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Mandatory Courses
• DUVOD Introduction to PhD Study (2 credits)
• DACSE Academic Communication Skills in English (2 credits)
• DTEDI Thesis Proposal (7 credits): ≤4th semester
• DZAST Internship Abroad (12-36 credits)
• At least 30 days in total, 2 credits/5 days
• Can be split into smaller stays of at least 10 consecutive days
• https://is.muni.cz/do/fi/formulare/PhD_studium/35653494/
• DINDIV Individual Research Plan (≥215 credits)
• 15-40 credits/semester
• In total you need ≥ 240 credits
• https://is.muni.cz/auth/do/fi/phd/predmety/
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Voluntary Courses
• DINKOL Informatics Colloquium (1 credit/semester)
• Invited lectures on various research topics
• Every Tuesday at 14:30 in A217, informal ‘meet the speaker’ starts at 14:00
• https://www.fi.muni.cz/research/colloquium/index.html
• DUCIT Teaching Lab (3 credits)
• VV041 English for Academic Purposes (2 credits)
• VV043 Academic Writing in English (5 credits)
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Service to Faculty
• 10 hours per semester: Supervision of examinations and tests
• https://is.muni.cz/auth/do/fi/phd/28933687/
• 2 x per study: Administration at Bachelor/Master State Exam
• Teaching: Not strictly compulsory, might be expected by supervisor
13 Introduction to PhD Study
Publications
• At least two peer-reviewed publications at international fora
• The most important aspect of your research work
• Several types of publication media available:
• Conferences
• Journals
• Books, book chapters (typically on invitation)
• Patents
• The purpose of each medium varies across scientific fields
• The term ‘a good publication’ therefore varies as well
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Conferences
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• Rapid dissemination of currently examined ideas, reporting ”smaller” results
• People networking
• Single or double-round review process with a binary decision
• Results published in ‘Proceedings’ or associated journals
Journals
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• Longer validity of results expected
• Reporting ”finalized/almost finalized” results
• Automatic distribution to subscribers
• Multi-round review process with a possible revision
Publishing Models
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• Open Access
• Authors submit
• Publisher gets the work evaluated (revision process)
• If accepted, authors pay a publishing fee and publishers ‘prints’ the work
• Everyone reads for free
• Closed Access
• Authors submit
• Publisher gets the work evaluated (revision process)
• If accepted, publisher ‘prints’ the work
• Readers pay to get access to the published work
Publication Quality
• Often judged by the quality of publication media
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How To Choose Publication Media?
• Ask colleagues where they publish
• Check publication lists of cooperating/competing groups, established authorities in the field
• Check your favorite papers and the references in there
• Check citation databases and search engines:
• Web of Knowledge - http://webofknowledge.com
• Scopus - http://scopus.com
• DBLP - http://dblp.uni-trier.de
• Google Scholar - http://scholar.google.com
• Check field-specific lists of conferences and journals (e.g., http://imagescience.org)
• Check publisher/society calendars (e.g., https://dl.acm.org/conferences/upcoming)
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Availability
How To Choose Publication Media?
• According to the Evaluation of Employees (Autumn, 2021):
”A high-quality conference publication is a paper in the main program of a
conference with rank B or higher. The conference rank by default applies only to
the main conference program, and not to any of the associated workshops,
student sessions or poster sessions.”
Read also: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Qkva47eKdOqn4GPATyzJ-
UzxXkLJxKaBjnEK5s98oUc/edit
• The actual list of conference ranks:
• http://portal.core.edu.au/conf-ranks
• http://gii-grin-scie-rating.scie.es/ratingSearch.jsf
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Eligibility at FI MU (Conferences)
How To Choose Publication Media?
• According to the Evaluation of Employees (Autumn, 2021):
• ” A high-quality journal publication is an article in a journal with impact factor.”
• The actual list of journal ranks:
• http://jcr.clarivate.com
• Impact factor:
• The number of citations to the articles published in the previous two years divided by
the number of articles published in those years
• Essentially the average number of recent citations per article
•
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Eligibility at FI MU (Journals)
Predatory Publishers
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…
Predatory Publishers and Conferences
• Check (and silently ignore) those desperately inviting you to publish:
http://beallslist.net/
• Beware of MDPI and Hindawi
• Typical signs of predatory publishers/conferences:
• Conferences: exotic venues (e.g., Hawaii or a cruise ship)
• Journals: open-access model (not a bad thing by itself)
• Short deadlines for notifications of acceptance
• Wide scope of accepted topics
• Suspicious committee members (look for known members of the research community)
• http://www.rtcse.org/
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Publication Ethics
Introduction to PhD Study24
Imagecredit:
TylerVigen,http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations
Bad Practices
• Publishing for the sake of publishing (e.g., in predatory journals)
• Data dredging, cherry-picking, p-hacking
Publication Ethics
• Publishing for the sake of publishing (e.g., in predatory journals)
• Data dredging, cherry-picking, p-hacking
• Publishing unreliable/non-replicable results
• Many publishers promote sharing data & source-code to avoid this
• Plagiarism, dual publishing (self-plagiarism)
• Respect intellectual property
• Funding misuse
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Bad Practices
Research Ethics
• Confidentiality (reviewed papers, grants, …)
• Sensitive data handling, research on human or animal subjects
• In IT mostly user studies, collecting information on user practices
• Consent, anonymization, data storing
• Research Ethics Committee
• Approval often required by publishers or funding agencies
• https://www.muni.cz/en/about-us/organizational-structure/boards-and-
committees/research-ethics-committee/ethics-at-mu
Introduction to PhD Study, Spring 202226
Legal and Ethical Aspect of Research
Research Ethics
• Carefulness, honesty, objectivity, openness about your research
• Confidentiality, respectfulness towards collogues, competitors, participants
• MU Academic Code of Ethics, misconducts handled by Ethics board of MU
• More on research ethics in DTEDI
Introduction to PhD Study, Spring 202227
General Guidelines
Reporting Your Publications
• Make sure you add your publications to IS (some stipends depend on them)
• Transfer the publication records to RIV
• RIV = Rejstřík informací o výsledcích – National registry of research outcomes
• Publications affiliated with MU – important for evaluation of the faculty/university
• Instructions (only in Czech): https://is.muni.cz/auth/do/fi/RIV/riv.html
28 Introduction to PhD Study, Spring 2022
Formal Requirements Summary
• ≥240 credits + ≥30-day foreign internship + Thesis Proposal
+ State Doctoral Exam + Thesis
• ≥215 credits for DINDIV Individual Research Plan
• Service to Faculty
• Exam supervision
• State exam administration help
• Teaching
• At least two peer-reviewed publications at international fora
Introduction to PhD Study, Spring 202229
Financing
• Your ‘salary’ (https://www.fi.muni.cz/admission/doctoral/finance.html.en)
• ‘Active students’ scholarship: https://www.fi.muni.cz/~smerk/firank/phd2022P.html
• First year – every full-time student
• Later – if you had at least one quality publication in the past 2 years that is within MU
fully affiliated with FI, or multiple publications that add up to 100% FI affiliation, e.g.,
publications shared between FI and ICS (ÚVT) or other faculties
• Stipends from the Specific Research projects – nominated by supervisor
• Teaching, project money (research grants, industry partners), Brno Ph.D. talent
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Financing
• When you are awarded a scholarship, you will get a notification that a document was delivered
to you via IS. Please open the document and (unless you want to decline the money), please
click that you want to give up the right to appeal the decision (‘Vzdání se práva na
odvolání’) and then please confirm it. Make sure to do it for all scholarships. You get the
money sooner and save other people a lot of headache ☺.
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Financing
• Internships, conference participation, and publications
• A limited budget of your Head of Department
• Budget provided by Rector’s Office
• Research grants awarded to your supervisor
• Stipends from the Specific Research project: https://forms.gle/955QxR4xX7ds4gqw5
• Active participation at conferences ranked A or higher
• Active participation at distinguished summer/winter schools
• Research internships abroad
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What’s next?
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• PhD retreat in Telč
• Discussion and activities focused on practical aspects of research work
• Opportunity to get to know your colleagues
• Tentative dates: May 3rd – May 5th or May 31st – June 2nd 2023
• MUNI PhD Academia/FRESHERS
Image credit:
Mario Zucca Illustration
The Journey
Begins…