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PhD in Databases

PhD in Databases. introduction. why PhD in databases? everyone should have a reason! which topic should I choose? usually the supervisor does it for you, when you’re young when you grow up, you get to choose the things you get involved with

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PhD in Databases

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  1. PhD in Databases

  2. introduction • why PhD in databases? • everyone should have a reason! • which topic should I choose? • usually the supervisor does it for you, when you’re young • when you grow up, you get to choose the things you get involved with • what are the requirements? how long does it take? • typically, in NTUA it takes at least 3 years and a refereed international journal publication is required • in reality, they are more strict and are set by your supervisor • what is a good PhD? • it should cover in detail an interesting research area and offer novel technical insight • as a result, a PhD student should have a good publication record

  3. example publication venues • conferences • Very Large Databases (VLDB) • journals • ACM Transactions on Database Systems (TODS) • workshops • International Workshop on the Web and Databases (WebDB) • national events • Hellenic Data Management Symposium (HDMS) • other? symposia

  4. conferences • a conference attracts the most recent, state-of-the-art, work on a broad range of topics • (usually) annual event, organized around the world • highly competitive, great visibility/impact • submission process • first an abstract is submitted • a week later the full version is due • 12 double column pages, strict formatting • around 2 months later the decisions are announced • review process • three referees summarize the contributions and give marks on relevance, novelty, presentation, impact, technical depth, overallrecommendation • scores: reject, weak reject, neutral, weak accept, accept, strong accept • discussion phase among referees, before final decision

  5. conferencestypes of papers • full paper • requires presentation: 25 mins + 5 mins questions • short paper / poster paper • a reduced printed version of the paper, e.g., 6 pages • shorter (20 mins) or no presentation • demo paper • describe a system implementation • a demonstration and poster is required in special session • all papers appear in the proceedings of the conference • published by major publishers (ACM, IEEE press, Springer)

  6. conferencessome terms • Call for Papers(CFP)contains all information, defines topics • Important Dates specify the submission deadlines and event dates • Organizing Committee: people responsible for the local arrangements • Program Committee (PC): people that do the review process • Organizing / PC Chair: person in charge • Acceptance Rate: the ratio of accepted vs. submitted papers • not always representative of the quality of the venue • Tracks/Areas: target group separation • research vs. industrial track • separate committees • Sessions: accepted papers are thematically organized into parallel sessions

  7. conference ranking • a very old (partially subjective) list (from NUS 1999) http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~guofei/CS_ConfRank.htm#db AREA: Data Bases Rank 1: SIGMOD: ACM SIGMOD Conf on Management of DataPODS: ACM SIGMOD Conf on Principles of DB SystemsVLDB: Very Large Data BasesICDE: Intl Conf on Data EngineeringICDT: Intl Conf on Database Theory Rank 2:SSD: Intl Symp on Large Spatial DatabasesDEXA: Database and Expert System ApplicationsFODO: Intl Conf on Foundation on Data OrganizationEDBT: Extending DB TechnologyDOOD: Deductive and Object-Oriented DatabasesDASFAA: Database Systems for Advanced ApplicationsCIKM: Intl. Conf on Information and Knowledge ManagementSSDBM: Intl Conf on Scientific and Statistical DB MgmtCoopIS - Conference on Cooperative Information SystemsER - Intl Conf on Conceptual Modeling (ER) Rank 3: …

  8. workshops • like conferences, but with a more focused subject • they are organized in parallel with a conference • some have unofficial proceedings, other full published proceedings • how to recognize good workshops? • long-running, well-established • the good ones are always in collaboration with good conferences • what should go in a workshop? • dblab diploma theses are excellent candidates • somewhat limited impact • however, some very good papers have appeared in workshops

  9. journals • what are the differences with conferences? • no call (except for special issues) --- send anytime • longer, more detailed reviewing phase --- can take a year • revisions, answer letters • longer page limits • often high acceptance rates • only a few good but a lot of bad journals • which paper should you send there? • extended version of conference papers, with only 30% new material • not previously accepted papers are also good candidates • why bother with journals? • in all scientific disciplines, except in CS, journals are more important/prestigious than conferences • people not familiar with CS and DB usually judge a CV by #journals

  10. journal ranking a rather subjective list • ACM Transaction on Database Systems (TODS) • VLDB Journal (VLDBJ) • IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering (TKDE) • Elsevier Information Systems • Elsevier Data and Knowledge Engineering (DKE) • …

  11. reading papers • is it important? • yes! sometimes, more important than reading text books • what do I read? • read recent bibliography on your topic • find a good survey paper • read good papers, even if they are not directly related to your topic • where do I find them? • look for them in the most recent and relevant good conferences • ask your supervisor! • search the web • get them from DBLP, google (scholar), etc.

  12. writing papers • what goes in a paper? • research paper: it presents an interesting solution to an interesting problem • survey paper: reviews all relevant literature for an interesting topic • structure of a paper • abstract, (1) introduction, (2) related work, (3) problem statement, (4) solution, (5) experiments, (6) conclusion, references • a lot of advice available on the web • http://people.csail.mit.edu/mernst/advice/write-technical-paper.html • http://www.cs.uoi.gr/~pvassil/linx/localCopies4grads/Survey_guidelines_byPV.pdf

  13. submitting papers • choose carefully the right venue • based on the topic • based on the quality of your work • be objective, compare your work with others • your supervisor knows better • how to handle rejection • don’t despair! • reviews can be noisy/unfair, resubmit… • if you get consistently bad reviews  you should lower your expectations • consider journals, where you can answer the reviewers’ comments • how to handle acception • don’t cheer! • reviews can be noisy/unfair, you’re lucky • consider creating an extended version and submit it to a journal

  14. web sources • DBLP (computer science archive) • http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/ • DBWorld (db announcements mailing list) • http://www.cs.wisc.edu/dbworld/ • citeseer (digital library) • http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/ • Google Scholar (search engine for papers) • http://scholar.google.com

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