Privacy in academia?
Privacy in academia?
Hi everyone,
I've been checking this forum but I have not managed to find duplicates (I'm using Summit for Lemmy). If that's the case I'll remove this post.
I'm about to start a PhD. I've been told I will be required to partake in publications and other shenanigans. I am not against it, but I'm very concerned about having my full name flying around the internet, as I've always been hesitant of sharing any of that information (real name, pictures, etc).
Ultimately, I only care for potential employers to know that it's actually me the one who has written this or that, which I would happily disclose in private.
What's the usual stance in this situation?
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Part of being an academic is being available to discuss your publications. Your full name will not only be flying around the internet but recorded permanently in libraries and journals.
Science is about collaboration, and standing behind the work you do, publicly. You will find it extremely difficult or impossible to get your PhD without being known to the academic community.
I think you won't find many anonymous scientific papers held in high regard.
OP wants to be Satoshi Nakamoto
Yep, part of evaluating a work is knowing whose work it is. I'll read a paper on, say, lung cancer by SirTobaccoLobbyist differently than one by DrCancerResearcher. If I don't know whose work it is, it's very hard to contextualize.
In fact anonymous review is an important part of the scientific method, precisely because work shouldn’t be judged by its source
Another commenter mentioned going by a pseudonym, which is pretty much what I had in mind - I've always been grown up on the idea of not disclosing your full name nor your physical location, but many universities' websites not only shows the full names of their profs, but also their coordinates and their office hours.
There's a publicly available record of where and when someone is readily present, for better and, especially when it comes to preserving one's safety, for worse.
Let me make this point clearer: would you publicly disclose where you live or where you spend most of your time? I hope you see some of my concerns now.
I trust this is the right place to find like minded people and maybe find a solution, not to argue about what an academic should or should not be.
I'll say it straight forward, if you are considering an academic career you are just shooting yourself in the leg with this. It is already hard to make it in academia, using a pseudonym and expecting people to believe you or check additional proof it is actually your publication is not going to fly.
If you already know that you won't stay in academia but go to industry it might not be much easier. People won't care as much about publications but they still look good on your CV.
Ah, also just doing a PhD might make you end up in some publicly available database where your thesis will end up in. And I strongly doubt any reputable university would give you a PhD under a pseudonym.
Depends on the pseudonym. I know someone who did their PhD in data privacy; they used their real last name but used their initials instead of first and middle name on publications. Then in everyday life they went by their middle name. Worked for them….
A huge part (maybe the most important one) of academic work, is to argue why your ideas are worth listening to and discuss and present them. This is not the same as writing fiction where you can just use a pseudonym, people will be looking you up to see what kind of educational background you have, which university you got the PhD from etc. No place worth having a PhD from is going to let you use a pseudonym, let alone hire you under a different name than your legal name.
I'm sorry, but if using your real name is a deal breaker for you, even with an employer (I.e. the professor example you're giving), you're very unlikely to succeed with this.
Hey fam, I don't fully share your perspective, but I respect it. Here are some thoughts:
- as a student: if you want to be a leader in your field, you really should publish, and get your name out there, and talk to people, etc. However, if that's not important to you, then (usually) you only really need to "publish" your dissertation. This may vary by field and university, and will greatly depend on your advisor. In the US, a younger faculty member will want their students to publish a lot (to increase their own prestige), though a more senior faculty member may not care as much.
- I haven't heard of people publishing under pseudonymns. But you could do something like: if your name is "John Paul Jones", and you're usually known as "John Jones", then maybe you could publish as "Paulie Jones" and then go back to "John Jones" again after graduation.
- in security they say "define your threat model"; what threat is it you're defending against? Is there a threat that can take advantage of the fact that you are currently a student at XYZ university? I decided that risk was minimal. Is there a threat that can take advantage of an email that you published in a paper? I decided the risk of phishing attacks was real, so I used an email address that I only accessed on a "non-work" computer. etc.
- once you graduate: a lot of people here are talking about "academics" and it sounds like they basically mean university-based researchers. But universities aren't the only places where research is done. There are many industry labs that don't publish, or only publish internal documents. Likewise in the US there are government-funded labs that conduct research that is not circulated; if you're from .nl there may be the same in Europe.
- similarly, you can use your PhD to get a good non-research job in industry or the government. A lot of times this involves understanding cutting-edge research well enough to apply it or analyze it, and keeping up with the state of the art. (i.e. you have to be able to understand research, though you're not doing the research yourself.) These usually do not involve publishing.
Anyway good luck with the PhD!
I understand the concerns of privacy, but working in academia means that you give up some of the privacy.
Yes people will have your real name and they will know what college you work at and if some crazy person decides that they want to stalk you on campus because you're woke or part of the deep state turning the frogs gay with chemicals they'll be able to easily do that.
You're gonna have 100s of strangers in your classes during the year. You're going to tell them exactly when you're going to be in your office for office hours.
If you are unable to handle that I doubt academia is for you.
Academia is about furthering human knowledge especially a PhD. There are sacrifices involved; your privacy is probably one of them.