Some words for all PhD students under my supervision

To explore an academic life is hard, because we have never practised it before. Each and every PhD student will produce different outcomes through their degree pursuits. They basically may be classified into three levels: outstanding, average and lousy. Most of the cases, both qualitative and quantitative aspects will be taken into consideration when evaluating their standards. The following gives some features characterizing these standards:

• Features on outstanding standard: highly ethical towards academic conducts; hard working with sharp mind and deep insights; positive working attitude with high accuracy and efficiency; creative and practical ideas for problem solving; good knowledge in mathematics; excellent skills in technical writing; good skills in programming; be able to publish at least two journal papers with impact factor larger than 1 during PhD course.

• Features on average standard: sound understandings in academic ethics; hard working with sufficient technical contributions; positive working attitude with sound accuracy and efficiency; some workable ideas for problem solving; sound knowledge in mathematics; sound skills in technical writing; sound skills in programming; be able to publish at least two journal papers with impact factor in (0.2, 1.0) during PhD course.

• Features on lousy standard: insufficient understandings on ethics issues in academic conducts; tricky and political minded; pretend to be a hard worker; negative working attitude which is associated with carelessness, inaccuracy and inefficiency; limited workable ideas for problem solving; weak in mathematics; poor skills in technical writing; sound skills in programming; only be able to publish journal papers with impact factor less than 0.2 or no impact factor or class B (inclusive) lower conference papers during PhD course. Candidates in this category may risk termination or failure to receive degree certificate.

Hopefully, all of my PhD students can take a few minutes to read these words and match the items mentioned above. That may, somehow, help in realizing and fixing problems you may have during the PhD study under my supervision.

A useful like CORE provides information on journals and conferences ranking.

I keep asking myself in these days: what kinds of PhDs I am producing at La Trobe?