Open Problems in Modern Astrophysics

Course manual 2022/2023

Course content

The goal of the course is to give an introduction to six ‘hot topics’ in astrophysics, as well as provide the students with experience in reading and critically reviewing and discussing research papers in a professional manner. One session will be dedicated to learning and discussing about sustainability issues (sociological and ecological) in astrophysics.

The first session at 09:00 on Monday 6th September 2021 will be used to introduce the course, discuss how to read/present/critique/referee a paper and consider how to actively participate in the group discussion. The papers will be distributed on the Thursday prior to the Monday lecture and students are to read this paper before the Monday lecture. Each week there will be a different guest lecturer who will introduce the topic for the week in the Monday lecture, which will provide the background for the topic covered by the paper for that week. Each week, two groups of 3-4 students (the presenter groups) will be assigned to critically review that paper via a presentation, and the rest of the class are expected to take part in a general discussion of the paper. The presentation and discussion will take place during the Friday discussion sessions; the class will be divided into two groups for these discussion sessions.

Deadlines for preparation and submission should be taken very seriously. They can be exceeded only in emergencies and, even then, only with prior notification of the lecturer and agreement on a new deadline.

Study materials

Other

• Research papers.

Objectives

• Summarize open problems in modern astrophysics
• Describe research being done to address open problems
• Design effective presentation slides
• Clearly articulate the key points and issues of a journal paper
• Actively participate in scientific debate in a professional manner
• Constructively critique research papers
• Justify recommendations for improving research papers
• Get an understanding of different ethical aspects relevant to modern astronomy and astrophysics

Teaching methods

• Lecture
• Seminar

Learning activities

Attendance

Requirements concerning attendance (OER-B).

Additional requirements for this course:

All students must participate in all classes – part of the grade will be based on attendance; absences must be reported to the TA in advance and are allowed only for emergency matters. The course grade will be determined by the grades for the presentations and reports a student contributes to (2/3 of the weight) and by the quality of their general participation in the discussion, i.e. not as part of the presenter groups (1/3 of the weight).

Assessment

Grading advice given to lecturers

1. For the presenter groups presentation and preparation thereof, you give a grade out of 10 for each student, with a few comments motivating it. Feedback is key. Please try to give pointers on how the students may improve their presentation skills for their next talk. Grade guide: 1-5 is unsatisfactory: not a passing grade. 6 means they did the bare minimum but didn’t really get to grips with the material or understand it except at a superficial level. 7 shows a better understanding of the questions answered, they could make some basic critical points (the more obvious ones) and answer the questions, but didn’t go beyond what was asked. 8-10 shows increasing levels of deeper understanding, they were able to take the topic significantly beyond what was covered in the intro lecture and were able to think deeply and critically about the paper and the questions.

2. For class participation of the other students (not including the presenter groups of that week), you should monitor the activity of the students; since the students are in charge and do most of the talking, that should be possible (the TA can help with identifying people, but the students should identify themselves the first time they ask a question). Use the following simple scheme: 0 if the student is absent, 1-2 for present but low activity, 3-4 for average participation, 5 for very active and/or particularly valuable contributions. Be mindful of shy students, and try to stimulate/enable their participation as well. Also be mindful of those who dominate the discussion, try to help make space for others to speak.

3. For the reports from the presenter groups which you should receive the following week, you submit a copy of the report and your suggested grade out of 10, as done for the presentation (which will apply to the whole group), again preferably with a bit of motivation, to the TA and coordinator (however, the TA will not need to grade the report, since the coordinator can provide that sort of continuity in the grading). Please submit your grade within a week of receiving the report.

Assignments

The group presentation

The Friday discussion begins with the presentations of the presenter groups for that week. This can be in any format (usually powerpoint/keynote but google slides should be a good way to work on this collaboratively – at a distance). Without interruptions, the presentation should last 15 minutes, but the style is informal so some discussion during the presentation is also encouraged. The presenter groups are free to divide up presenting the paper as they wish, but each person should speak for approximately the same amount of time. Everyone in the presenter group should help to plan and create the presentation and answer the questions. After the presentation, we will collect feedback on the presentation style and a few short questions of clarification may be asked by the class to the presenting group.

The referee report

As presenter group, you (jointly) write a referee report.  The referee report is essentially a letter that you are writing to the editor (not the authors!) advising them how to proceed with the manuscript. If you have reservations about the paper, or things are unclear, think carefully about what you need to see in order to amend this, giving clear suggestions for the authors to consider. For example: “Figure X is unclear.” is not as helpful as “Figure X is unclear. Please make the figure axes labels bigger and use a colour-blind-friendly colour scheme or use different symbols.”. Another example: “I don’t understand how the authors arrived at this number.” - try instead “It is not clear from the manuscript how the final values were obtained. Please detail the steps and any derivations or assumptions used to arrive at them." For this course, the referee report written by the presenting groups should typically be 3 pages long, and not more than 1500 words in total (figures aren't necessary but may be included if the students find them useful to convey something important). The report gives a brief overview of the paper but mainly summaries the answers to the questions asked during the presentation.  When writing the report, the students could consider the following simple layout (this is not set in stone though: students should feel free to use a different format if they feel it works better):

Introduction (<1 pages): Give a brief overview of the topic of the paper and put it into context, i.e. are the results presented in the paper important and interesting? This part is key. Sumarise in a few sentences why (or why not) the editor should consider publishing this scientific manuscript in their journal.

Discussion, split into major comments and minor comments, where the former must be addressed prior to publication and the latter are suggestions to the authors. Content could include (but is not exclusive to):

• Are the explanations easy to understand and is the paper well written?

• Key open questions from the paper with suggestions how these could be pursued

• Are the results/interpretation/model plausible? Why / why not?

• Issues related to readability and clarity of the presentation

• Is there anything additional that you would like to see in the paper?

Conclusion: The presenter groups should finish the report with a paragraph giving their own view about the paper. Being critical is fine (this is part of the process of developing their own scientific opinion) and it's also fine to express uncertainty (or be wrong!), the main thing here is to give the reasoning behind their opinion.

Grading (out of 10): 1-5 is unsatisfactory: not a passing grade. 6 means the students did the bare minimum but didn’t really get to grips with the material or understand it except at a superficial level. 7 shows a better understanding of the questions answered, they could make some basic critical points (the more obvious ones), but didn’t go beyond what was asked. 8-10 shows increasing levels of deeper understanding, they were able to take the topic significantly beyond what was covered in the intro lecture and were able to think deeply and critically about the paper.

Feedback: Approximately one week after submission, the students will receive the guest-lecturers grading of the report, following the scheme above and preferably with a bit of motivation.

Fraud and plagiarism

The 'Regulations governing fraud and plagiarism for UvA students' applies to this course. This will be monitored carefully. Upon suspicion of fraud or plagiarism the Examinations Board of the programme will be informed. For the 'Regulations governing fraud and plagiarism for UvA students' see: www.student.uva.nl

Course structure

Timetable

The schedule for this course is published on DataNose.

Contact information

Coordinator

• dr. Oliver Porth

Staff

• Phil Uttley
• Antonija Oklopcic
• Rudy Wijnands
• Ralph Wijers
• Alex de Koter
• Philipp Moesta