
Minimum Pubs for a PhD in CS? - jnazario
http://blog.regehr.org/archives/850
======
roadnottaken
My favorite is the _rule of 7_ :

You're ready to graduate when the number of first-author publications you've
published, plus the number of years you've been in grad school, equals 7.

Tongue-in-cheek, obviously, but not a bad guideline.

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Evernoob
It's hard to say. I published 8 papers before submitting mine - 6 conference
and 2 journal. I guess technically you don't really need to publish any, but
doing so yields a few key benefits:

a) A conference paper early in the process can get you some really great
feedback on your research. You might get to network with some people who are
influential or prominent in your field. You may also get greater clarity for
the direction you want to take the research.

b) Publishing a few papers means that a lot of the work you'll be submitting
in your thesis has already been scrutinised by experts in much the same way
that your thesis will be graded. If there are any weaknesses in your work or
literature you've overlooked then this should come out in the review process
when you submit your papers so you then have time to address the issues. Once
published, you have greater certainty that the quality of your work is PhD
suitable.

c) You get to put a timestamp on your work in case someone does something
extremely similar in the meantime. It's improbable, but it's not impossible.
If your ideas are great, the likelihood of this happening increases. If you
publish stuff, you can point at your published work and say "look - this idea
was mine". This almost sort of happened to me. I took it as reassurance that
what I was doing had some merit.

d) Paper writing is similar to thesis writing, albeit on a much smaller scale.
You still have to review the literature, present your work, evaluate it
properly and do all the necessary comparisons to other existing stuff. If you
can get a small paper published it's great practice for what you'll ultimately
have to do for the thesis.

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duked
I can tell you from experience that usually there's not any written/formal
publication requirement but I've never seen anyone getting his PhD in CS
without at least 1 international publication (conference paper not workshop).

I disagree with people commenting that you could earn your PhD with zero
publication. You need to compare your work with the state of the art and
confront other people in conferences this is what research is about and not
simply working on something and never open your work to critics.

In other theoretical field it's different but in CS there are plenty of
opportunity to publish your work. PhD symposiums, poster sessions, workshops
and millions of conferences (with probably only 10/20% of very good ones). So
even if there's no formal requirement, I'd really suggest you put some effort
into it. It's not just for the sake of showing who has the biggest
(publication list), it's really to make you interact with people and have an
objective opinion on your work through the review process of your submission
to conferences.

I personally got my PhD with 11 publications (4 top tier conferences) and 5
patents. I can tell you it was a big shock when I submitted my 1st paper and
got demolished but I really got valuable feedback I was on the wrong track and
my advisor didn't care ;)

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throwaway1979
3 full papers at top-tier conferences in your field (you are the first author
and the papers didn't have a bazillion authors). That's the unspoken standard
I've seen in my area (systems). If you have an OSDI/SOSP paper, you could get
away with less. I.e. One best paper at SOSP probably gets you a PhD as long as
you were the primary person on the paper other than the advisor.

~~~
throwaway1979
If you are looking for a rationale why 3 is a good number, then I'd have to
say:

1) It shows you are not a one trick pony. This is essential if you are
applying for faculty positions.

2) It is the number employers expect to see. This is really determined by the
number of papers had by your competition. In this regard, the reason the
number is 3 is because other people have around 3 papers.

This said, no one stamps a PhD on you when you get 3 papers. I actually got 3
papers pretty early in my PhD. I spent an extra year working with a research
lab on an unrelated project. I found my PhD committee (full of some famous
people) was not impressed by my papers. However, when I had some decent job
offers, I felt I grew up in their eyes. So it is really about when you grow
up, which doesn't happen by magic when you cross a certain number :-)

~~~
endianswap
How did the fact that you have job offers come out to your committee? Is that
part of the normal process to ask?

~~~
throwaway1979
I imagine my advisor or another faculty I worked close with may have mentioned
it. This sort of news gets around surprisingly fast in academic circles.

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lutusp
> Minimum Pubs for a PhD in CS?

The answer is obviously "one". Any number of PhDs have been granted based on
one outstanding paper. But this outcome obviously depends on the quality of
the work, and institutions differ in what they consider significant.

No self-respecting person/institution is going to say "N papers are required".
The nature of the work is what's important, not a paper count.

~~~
eshvk
It is not that obvious. Especially in theory, it is quite possible that you
might have a thesis but not have published work anywhere or have things in the
process of being published at the time of defense. I am not sure whether this
is a good idea from a career point of view though...

~~~
lutusp
A PhD is virtually never granted based on unpublished work. It might be
tentatively offered pending publication, but not granted.

~~~
phireal
That depends entirely on your field. A (not insignificant) number of PhD
students who've gone before me at my university got their PhDs without having
published by the time of their viva.

~~~
eshvk
Exactly. I believe the issue is that the culture in C.S. is to focus more on
conferences which means a more rapid turnaround time. There are other
disciplines where conferences are not as respected as journal publications
which are slow as hell. Having said that, personally I tend to believe in the
existence of life after a PhD, this means that one should probably publish and
also give talks in conferences etc.

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jfischer
At my school (UCLA), there was not a formal requirement for publications or
even an informal requirements. It looked like some professors emphasized
publications more than others. I think, even if you aren't going into
academia, they make a good unit of work and source of external
feedback/validation.

My school did replace their Qualifying Examination with a research paper
requirement ([http://www.cs.ucla.edu/academics/graduate-
program/graduate-s...](http://www.cs.ucla.edu/academics/graduate-
program/graduate-student-handbook/written-qualifying-exam-wqe)), but it does
not have to be published.

Unless things have changed recently, you certainly need more than 3 good
publications to get a tenure-track academic position in CS. That means you
have to either be a publishing machine while you are a student or do a post-
doc.

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jmmcd
A necessary distinction is between a "normal" thesis and a "thesis by papers".
In the latter, the thesis is really just and intro and conclusion wrapped
around already-published papers. In some universities in Ireland and in some
other European countries, the student can choose either. In the case of thesis
by papers, the required number of first-author journal papers is 3.

I haven't heard of any special dispensation for the case where the student has
1 paper proving P != NP. But the student is not obliged to choose "thesis by
papers" so there is no problem.

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guylhem
The minimum number should be 0.

Papers are useless to rate the quality of a PhD thesis - the jury, if _chosen
right_ , should be experts in this field and thus able to analyze by
themselves whether the PhD was _an original contribution to science_ ie
finding a way of doing something that was never done before and believed to be
impossible, or in reverse, proving something to be impossible, and therefore
PhD worthy material.

The amount of papers doesn't matter - or should not matter, if the PhD is to
have any sense. Meaningless papers are just a waste of trees.

For ex, in my PhD I identified a specific kind of variability in written sign
language that for some reason hadn't be grasped by the linguists who worked on
the same problem with us. The PhD was in computer science and there was a
linguist in the jury- she had read the acts of the conference where I had
presented a communication on this variability, and for her this contribution
alone was worthy of a PhD.

In the end, since there were other interesting things, it was awarded summa
cum laude, even if _not a single paper_ was published on the subject in a
journal - my work was only disseminated in presentations, acts of conference,
and a research report ordered by the government.

That was in 2008. 4 years later, my work is leading to an actual
implementation of the ideas discussed, for the reasons discussed in the
manuscript, and I have my own page on the SignWriting website (SignWriting is
the written form of sign language I worked on) :
[http://www.signwriting.org/library/history/contributors/Azna...](http://www.signwriting.org/library/history/contributors/Aznar.html)

I feel _damn proud_ to have been proven right not just by some research paper
published in an obscure magazine, but by real people working on this same
problem and bringing the issues in front of the Unicode committee (in progress
- hopefully it will be completed in 2013 or 2014)

It's far from done yet - it is still research work. But after my work from
2008, I made a tiny dent in the universe (as in
[http://www.openculture.com/2012/09/the_illustrated_guide_to_...](http://www.openculture.com/2012/09/the_illustrated_guide_to_a_phd-
redux.html))

When it's complete, I'll be happy to write a paper presenting the difference
between the theory and the actual implementation, which could prove useful to
other people attacking similar problems.

But a paper is not an end by itself.

EDIT - adding some links

Intermediary work :
[http://www.irit.fr/-Publications-?code=2628&nom=Aznar%20...](http://www.irit.fr/-Publications-?code=2628&nom=Aznar%20Guylhem)

Manuscript : <http://www.irit.fr/~Patrice.Dalle/Publis/these_aznar.pdf>

~~~
neilc
_The minimum number should be 0._

In most places, it is. That said, I think most CS PhDs -- and definitely most
_strong_ CD PhDs -- will have a few publications in top conferences. This has
several benefits:

(1) communicating your results -- few people read entire theses.

(2) getting feedback from the community, both in the form of PC reviews and
feedback from the conference attendees.

(3) as a way to checkpoint your work on individual sub-projects, and to act as
a forcing function.

Trying to "require" independent publications as part of a PhD seems silly, but
having publications is definitely a good thing IMHO.

~~~
guylhem
I fully agree with the benefits of communicating one's result, if only for
feedback and getting independent verification or validation - but a paper is
only a given way to reach this goal.

If your area of research is obscure or quickly evolving, a journal might not
be the best place to share your results, while giving a presentation at
_relevant_ conferences, where people working on similar topics will get
exposed to your result, is better.

But even this is secondary. I loved doing research, but I was even more
interested in the end result - having something working and useful.

Not publishing might have damaged my "profile" in several places where the
amount of dead trees is the only thing that matters, but it's all a matter of
priorities - and I'm not sure I'd have been happy to work in a place where the
end result is only an afterthought.

Maybe that's why I'm reading HN :-)

~~~
scott_s
I think it's worth noting that in the more systems side of CS, researchers
focus on publishing in conferences. Conferences have their own sets of
problems, but the turn-around time is much better than that of journals.

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bo1024
I think a main tension here is between the idea that PhDs are awarded to a
person versus to a dissertation.

On one extreme, if a student has published (say) dozens of top-tier papers and
(say) demonstrated broad expertise in the field, haven't they earned a PhD?

On the other extreme, if a dissertation makes a huge advance in its field,
doesn't that work deserve a PhD regardless of the author's other
accomplishments?

~~~
e-dard
Not always.

For example, if the dozens of papers are all disjointed, or on completely
different topics, you can simply bolt them all together and call it a PhD
_thesis_.

Like all good stories, there has to be a solid start, middle and end. This
generally also means that one fantastic paper is also not enough, content
wise, to warrant the award of a PhD.

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ramgorur
What does it mean by a "good paper" (in CS) ?

\- published at a high impact journal/conference ?

: There are gazzillions of paper out there in many good journals/conference
proceedings but no one really cares about.

\- total number of citations ?

: This may be a factor. But I have seen many survey papers (most of them are
boring and mostly involve physical work) get a load of citations, but do not
always add anything new.

\- On the other hand, I have seen a number of good PhD thesis (especially in
CS theory/math) that did not produce any "publication", per se. But they are
highly cited and pretty much popular. Even many of them are written in
Russian/German.

The impact of a "research work" is not always possible to be measured by some
numbers. Getting the attention of the community is a totally different aspect
-- and that's what makes a research work valuable.

------
archgrove
No university in the UK has a "paper requirement" that I'm aware of. You're
encouraged to publish, but it's not mandatory. Published work does increase
the odds of successfully completing the process, because it pre-vets the work,
but I've known people to finish with only one paper (or even zero). I'm
writing up my thesis now, and have only 1 paper (a workshop, so really only
1/2). I hope that most of my work will be published post-thesis.

Of course, UK PhDs are very different to the US - here, 3 years is a normal
timescale to completion, and 4 years is the maximum my department allows.
Frankly, in any "deep" subject, that's barely enough time to work out what the
state of the art is, let alone advance it.

~~~
Evernoob
I agree with this but also found that there can be a significant difference
depending on your subject matter. It's typically easier for people in CS to
publish because there are fewer barriers to developing and testing your work.
Compare this to something like biology where a PhD student may have to
cultivate an experiment involving animal tissues that may or may not become
compromised somehow (for example), or some other delay that's much less likely
to happen when working with computers, and you can see why they might take
longer to develop something publishable.

Consequently there is an expectation that CS PhD students should publish more.

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dude_abides
There is no minimum requirement in most universities in US. Most good PhD
advisors however do have a minimum pubs requirement. Typically, in non-theory
areas, it is 3 first-author top-conference papers, and higher if you are
directly applying for faculty positions. The reason is that if you meet this
requirement, they feel comfortable letting you defend yourself against the
committee. (A student failing a PhD defense would be a big embarrassment for
the advisor).

That said, such requirements do not matter to superstar candidates, their bar
is much much higher. Typically, by this time, they are already giving invited
talks at famous venues, so defense is merely a formality for them.

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dorkrawk
For many CS undergrad programs you don't HAVE to know any programming
languages to graduate. You would just be at a serious disadvantage for many
likely future positions if you don't.

Maybe you can finish your PhD without publishing but it seems unlikely that
you could spend that much time doing GOOD original research and not have your
name on something. Also it will be very hard to get an academic or even
industry research position without GOOD publications.

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dinkumthinkum
I have to agree 3 is considered a good rule of thumb but it is all very
dependent on a number of factors such as your individual department and
advisor.

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arjn
It varies by sub-field within CS and depends on the quality of the conferences
or journals the papers were published to.

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arethuza
3 was the rule of thumb 20 years ago - but it was a guideline rather than a
hard requirement.

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af3
> I'll omit my own views on this and maybe write about them later on

why not put your own opinion, Dr. "Associate Professor of Computer Science" ?

~~~
dpark
Because he doesn't want to poison the well. You get more impartial answers by
asking without putting in your own opinion. "Hey, what do you think about X?
Personally I think it's really dumb, but what about you?"

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alanbyrne
> Minimum Pubs for a PhD in CS?

This certainly exceeds acronym/real word ratio in my book. I thought this was
about a university pub crawl... :S

