Ethics of experimenting on students without telling them This question is prompted by two very similar examples reported online: this one (also on Twitter) and this one. In both, teachers introduce aspects of the political system described in the 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four to a classroom in which they are (or will shortly be) studying the novel, as an aid to understanding the issues it raises. Essentially, the teachers ask students to secretly or publicly report on the behaviour of other students, introduce points systems and punishments, etc.

In both cases, as far as I can tell, the students are unaware that the experiment is going on, and it's more of an exercise than an experiment; its purpose is not to gather any data or test a hypothesis.

My question is: from a legal and an ethical review standpoint, what would a lecturer typically need to do before introducing these sorts of activities into their class, in the way described above, as part of a learning exercise?

I am not asking for personal advice here, I'm just interested in how this sort of thing would be assessed by a typical ethical review panel. I work at a research institute where we do have a very well-defined ethical review process but only for animal studies; we don't do research involving human subjects. Furthermore, several of the steps we would normally be expected to provide (sample size, etc) do not actually apply here since the purpose is not actually research, it is teaching "pretending" to be research: the experiment does not need to generate any meaningful data to fulfil its purpose (unless you redesigned it as a study of the effectiveness of this method in raising understanding of certain issues).

Several of the comments on Twitter noted that this would probably be considered unethical as described; the participants have not consented to be involved, for example. Does the fact that the 'experiment' is not (scientifically) actually an experiment make any difference? Lastly, these experiments sound like they are high-school environments; does the answer change depending on whether the students concerned are above or below 18?

Somewhat related: Ethics of conducting research on a class.

Virtually every modern university has an ethics procedure for experiments conducted on human subjects.  If an academic wants to conduct an experiment on students (especially one that involves deception) they would generally need to put in a proposal to their university ethics board.  This would disclose the details of the proposed experiment, and the nature of any deception of subjects, and the university would make a decision as to whether or not to allow the experiment to proceed.

Experiments involving deception of subjects are often approved (many psychological experiments are of this kind), but it is usual to require that the subjects be "debriefed" after the experiment, to disclose to them the deception they were subjected to, and how the experiment worked.  In cases where the deception is likely to be distressing to the subjects, or the gains from the experiment are minor, the ethics board might decide not to allow the experiment to proceed, or might require it to be altered in some way.

Now, with regard to the particular situation described in the Atlantic article, this does not appear to be an academic experiment at all; it is an extended High School class exercise that uses some mild deception to illustrate the world of the book through mimicking aspects of it in the conduct of the classroom.  Students are subjected to some overbearing actions by the teacher to give them a small taste of totalitarianism.  Nothing described in the article would be unlawful, since at worst it involves cases of nasty looks, overbearing control, or dressing down a dissenter.

High Schools generally do not have formal ethics panels like the universities, since they do not conduct academic research.  It is likely that there is significant teacher discretion on how to conduct classes, but this would be subject to oversight by the school principal.  In this case I think it is unlikely that the exercise would have been subjected to any preliminary scrutiny of the kind that would occur in a university ethics application.  Obviously students would be free to object to this teaching exercise and take the matter up with the school principal, but this does not appear to be a case of experimentation that would go to an ethics board.

The basic ethical question at play here is: is it okay to be overbearing and mildly bullying to your students in order to give them a genuine taste of what totalitarianism is like.  Personally, I see no problem with the exercise, since the likely distress to students is mild in comparison to the value of the learning experience, and the students are made aware of the deception after the exercise is completed, so that they can discuss it in relation to the book.  Others may disagree, but to me it sounds like a very creative and useful teaching exercise, and the teacher doesn't take it too far.  I think it is quite brilliant, and I would happily enrol my own children in this class!

Short answer:  You have to make sure no one cries.  If you create an environment that results or reasonably could be expected to result in emotional hurt, then you've been unethical.

At university, there will be a "human subjects" review of some sort.  Anyone writing a grant or proposal for anything will have to be passed by this review.  I've never done experiments on human subjects, but every grant I've received required an additional piece of paper which stated that there were no human subjects involved (in my math research.)

In your case, as you say, it's not really an experiment, but a teaching technique.  I don't know what to say about this, exactly, but I would not be surprised to find that the human subjects panel or office or whatever also oversees such things.  No doubt you have to be careful.

Story from 1970:  I was in 5th grade in a small town in Nebraska which had a teachers college.  Every master's of ed candidate at the college had to do something for a thesis and often this was some sort of experiment on a classroom full of students.  Lucky us; those of us in town were the handiest subjects for all these theses.  As I moved through the Kearney, Nebraska school system, I was the subject of 4 or 5 experiments each year.  We were video-taped, quizzed, surveyed, lied to, etc., on a regular basis.

In 5th grade, my teachers along with some master's candidate thought it would be instructive if they did the "Blue-eyed /Brown-eyed" thing to us.  They announced one morning that a newspaper article stated, scientifically, that brown-eyed children were smarter than blue-eyed children.  Then then segregated us and the smart kids, not needing so much instruction, got to play games and have snacks.  While the inferior kids had to do extra math work sheets, you know, because they needed the extra practice, being so dumb and all.

Of course this was supposed to teach the (100% white) children about racial discrimination and how bad it hurt one's feelings.  We had girls in tears by the end of the day.  The next day, there were some red-faced daddies with their fists cocked at the school.  "You make my daughter cry; I break your ribs."  I tell this story to illustrate the ethical problem.

I don't think the situation would be much different with college freshlings.  If you hurt their feelings too much, Daddy is likely to visit you.  Set aside whether the human subjects panel approved of your experiment or whether there are legal remedies.


It it appropriate to request a letter of recommendation via LinkedIn? I had a professor who told me during the year that he'd be happy to write me a letter of recommendation for a research degree I was contemplating applying to. I've since decided to apply.
My university (in Europe) is on break until 1 October. I emailed the professor asking for the letter three weeks ago on his university email address. He hasn't answered me. However, I sent him a connection request on LinkedIn, and he accepted it within 45 seconds. I am thus wondering if he is not checking his university email during our vacation. However, I would like to know if he is willing to write it before October, as waiting until then would give me insufficient time to request one from someone else.
Would it be inappropriate for me to send him a follow-up letter request via LinkedIn, since I know he's checking that? Would it be more appropriate to make reference to the email I sent him, or send my entire request via the messenger? Or should I limit myself to communication via the university email address and just hope he reads it?

If someone is on LinkedIn, especially if they are active on LinkedIn, I see no reason why they would be offended if you sent them a message on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a professional networking site. That would be exactly what you are doing. I would write something straight forward:

[Salutation]
I am applying to graduate programs at a few schools. I enjoyed your class in Underwater Heavy Metal Guitar and felt I did well in the class. Would you be willing to write me a letter of recommendation for my graduate program applications?
Sincerely,
-bron10

Three weeks is a long enough time that this professor has likely not seen (or has forgotten about) your email. There is no reason to cower in fear about asking for a letter of recommendation from a professor who said he would write you one. If he is at all reasonable, a simple message on LinkedIn will be just fine.

Too much thinking can be procrastinating. Waiting to take an action will halt the whole thing you want to achieve. At the end, it will either be a yes or a no for recommendation, which will be still better than waiting.
I would recommend you to start with by messaging your professor on linkedIn, maybe a simple 'Hello' type communication.
If you receive a response, ask if he gets a chance to check regarding your recommendation letter.
Again either yes or no. Even if checked or not checked, you can request the possibility to receive it, also specifying the reason that something is at halt because of it.
Make sure you acknowledge and express genuine gratitude how he taught and supported you before closing this conversation on linkedIn.
Again there will be waiting time, and you might check back with him on linkedIn after specified possible time plus maximum of 2 days additionally depending on your comfort-ability.
After this point you will be facing the same question again regarding waiting, so read this again and repeat your actions.


Does publishing a paper on arXiv prevent me from submitting it to a non-open access journal? If I publish a pre-print paper on arXiv, how can I guarantee exclusive rights to the publisher afterwards? Am I unable to publish on non-open access journals after I publish a pre-print on arXiv ?

You are generally allowed to publish even in a non-open access journal even if a pre-print is on the arXiv.  Most journal copyright agreements explicitly allow the authors to post the article online.  Here's an example of a fairly generous one:

  The ASL hereby grants to the Author the non-exclusive right to reproduce the Article, to create
  derivative works based upon the Article, and to distribute and display the Article and any such derivative
  work by any means and in any media, provided the provisions of clause (3) below are met. The Author may
  sub-license any publisher or other third party to exercise those rights.

and a less generous one which still allows the author to post a copy online:

  I understand that I retain or am hereby granted (without the need to obtain further permission) rights to use certain versions of the Article for certain
  scholarly purposes, as described and defined below (“Retained Rights”), and that no rights in patents, trademarks or other intellectual property rights
  are transferred to the journal.

  The Retained Rights include the right to use the Pre-print or  Accepted Authors Manuscript for Personal Use, Internal Institutional Use and for
  Scholarly Posting; and the Published Journal Article for Personal Use and Internal Institutional Use.

I've seen examples where the journal actually did some genuine copyediting beyond what the referee did where the author wasn't allowed to post the version that benefited from the copyediting, but could still post the earlier version.

So, for most journals, the answer is that you're allowed to post the article online because it's specifically allowed by the document they ask you to sign.  But it is possible that posting on the arxiv will rule out particular journals that have more restrictive policies.

Although most journals allow publication of the pre-print (before peer review version) elsewhere, they only do so after they accepted and published the final version of the paper. Otherwise they might take it as previous publication and reject the manuscript. Russel O'Connor ran into this problem with the ACM when he tried to secure open access and free use by putting the material into public domain by uploading it to the ArXiv before submitting it to the ACM.


Should you tell grad students to apply for grants you know they won't get? I am a humanities professor at a middling university in the United States.  My department has a poorly funded Ph.D. program, which attracts second-tier students at best. (The good Ph.D. students go to programs that can afford to fund them fully, it seems.)

Each year, I typically have my Ph.D. students apply to all of the relevant major grants (Fulbright, Mellon stuff, etc.) that would fund their dissertation research.  None has ever gotten a grant, nor have I ever had a student who I thought had a remote chance of getting one. Their essays are usually poorly written, despite lots of editing help from me. (By poorly written, I mean there are really fundamental writing issues, like incomplete sentences. I point these out to them to the extent possible but I can't write their essays for them, and I don't catch every error they make.) Frankly, I think our Ph.D. students are just not of the caliber that are going to win grant contests where only the top 1 or 2 percent of applicants are funded.

I am wondering if I should continue to have the students apply to these grants each year. On one hand, it feels like a waste of their time (not to mention mine, and the application reviewers') to have them write grant essays for fellowships that they basically have no chance of getting. On the other hand, I can't know for certain that they will never get grants -- strange things happen -- and more importantly, I think that writing the application essays is good for forcing them to think through their dissertation projects. But maybe that time would be better spent doing research so they can finish our program without accumulating massive amounts of debt (because we have poor funding, many of them borrow money to attend -- for which reason I think we should not even admit students if we can't fund them, but that is a separate issue).

For the record, I do strongly encourage my students to apply for smaller-ticket grants -- the kind that pay $500 or $1000 to support a certain type of project, or go to a specific research site, etc. These grants are usually more obscure, more specialized and less competitive, and the students have a better record of getting them. (I also work very hard with them on these smaller grant applications because I know their chances are better.) But when it comes to the big-name, Fulbright-esque grants, the prospects just seem hopelessly dim, and I wonder if the time everyone spends on their applications is worth it.

If what you say about your students' writing skills and their chances of getting a major grant is accurate, I would say that it's a complete waste of everyone's time - theirs, yours, and the reviewers - to have them write such major grant proposals. Forget about using such proposal writing as a vehicle to improve their writing skills. The experience won't benefit them if their current writing skills are really as bad as you say they are. Instead, have them focus on the smaller-ticket grants. If any of them show evidence of more promise and growth after such experiences, then you can direct these more promising students towards targets that are higher up on the grant ladder.

Maybe you should first answer yourself the following questions:

Aren't you suppose to write a recommendation letter? Can you do it with your clear conscience?
Would you feel it fair if your incompetent students by some chance passed through the grant process instead of those who really deserve it?
Is PhD some kind of a "basic human right", or rather a certificate about an exceptional knowledge and skill? Do you really want to depreciate the title? <sarcasm>Isn't it enough that nowadays each taxi driver has some kind of university degree?</sarcasm>
Do you want later to have to filter out the articles of those low quality students from the stuff you go through in your future research?
Is your responsibility science, education and guarding of scientific quality, or are you a social worker?
Wouldn't you serve the students better if you gave them realistic feedback, so they would not lose time and would not be frustrated by being unsuccessful in what does not suit them?
And a personal question: It seems that you are very frustrated by the current situation. If you keep struggling with constantly having all your students under your expectations, isn't it time for yourself to consider changing the university? :)


How to follow up the result of postdoc committee? I have been accepted for postdoc position at university A. In the meanwhile, I applied for postdoc in university B, and I am waiting to hear from them.

I would like to write a follow-up email to my potential mentor at university B asking about the decision of their committee, because I need to finalize my decision about the job at university A. How can I express my situation in a polite email to university B?

Just ask them if a decision is imminent as you are keen and motivated.

Trying to write some form of « I have an offer from X, should I take it? » may not help...


Ethics of publishing received peer reviews What are the ethics of publishing (on the web, etc.) peer reviews received for a paper? Does your answer change if the paper was accepted or rejected?

I am specifically interested in the  "one-shot" case typical of computing science conferences, without rebuttals, where there is no or limited dialogue between an author and the reviewers.

This is quite distinct from Can I publish the reviews I write? as here I am talking about reviews I have received, not those I have written - the reviews' authors retain their anonymity, and presumably the paper would be included alongside those reviews.

Vijay's response below includes a summary of much of the other responses and my comments on those.

In the journals where I have been invloved as editor, author or reviewer (except in ones where the review process is open on the web), the implicit understanding has been that the communication is closed between the author-editor-reviewer. I have not seen any explicit rules stated by these journals to control against any such public dissemination but I have not looked for it either. I think that, particularly in cases where it is not explicitly stated that reviews are public, posting reviews without consent from the reviewer would be similar to publisihing someone private letters wihout consent. It is not illegal but ethically very distasteful. I do not think it matters whether or not the review was anonymous. Whether the paper was accepted or not would not matter either. I would consider posting without consent just as bad under all circumstances.

This might be related to your question: http://www.peerageofscience.org/

The concept is that 1) you peer-review your paper before submitting it to a journal, 2) peer-reviews are peer-reviewed, 3) participating journals send you publication offers if they like your paper, 4) you may submit your peer-reviewed paper to any journal you like

I'm not sure are the reviews public themselves, I did not use the site yet, but at least there are peer-review scores appearing on the main page


None of 25 students at question session before exam has a question. What should lecturer do? In a comment on another question Josef shared an anecdote.

  And just another anecdote: A few weeks ago, there was a question hour at the last lecture timeslot before the exam. About ~25 of more than 120 people taking the course where there. Nobody actually had a question. All just wanted to hear the other questions...

I have seen this many times. Sometimes the lecturer can push students and someone will ask "what will be in the exam?" which is obviously useless and just makes the lecturer restate what (usually) is already told multiple times about content and procedure of the exam.

What should the lecturer do in such a case?

Technically it seems correct to just say "if you have no more questions, the session is over" and go home.

Yet there are times when the lecturer had to commute to this specific lecture and it seems travel-time spent in vain if nothing is actually done.

Students have also come in hopes that the session will help them prepare for exam. And usually the average question-session student is above the average from all the courses students, and lecturers don't like to let down the more interested and responsible students who assumed they don't want to miss this event. And usually this is what happens - the lecturer tries to improvise and talk on some subjects that seems more tricky/useful for the lecturer.

What are the best strategies so the lecturer could actually make the "question" session worth the attendees time?

I know it isn't good to broaden the question intentionally, but solid plans how to prepare and avoid the no-question situation at all are also welcome here.

Some specific suggestions:

You likely know what material the students have been having issues with, based on questions from lecture, office hours, previous homework sets, or whatever. Mention those topics and review them.
Instead of asking for broad-based questions, go over the syllabus lecture by lecture, calling out specific topics by name and asking whether there was any issues with each of those. It'll help prime their memory.
Ask the TAs to attend. If that's not possible, ask them to send you common questions ahead of time. They also know what the students are finding difficult.

Adding to R.M's suggestion about taking the anonymizing approach. Google Slides has this feature called Slides Q&A which lets the audience ask question whenever they like anonymously or by name. In my experience, this has increased the amount of questions asked in lectures. The lecturer can now choose when to answer certain questions and filter out less important questions.

But an other suggestion is to let the students set up an agenda before even inviting to a question session. This can be announced a week ahead and that if enough problems, topics or other discussions are submitted by mail, you will set up a extra lecture for preparing for the exam. This will change the format of the sessions a bit, but will most likely get the students to state what they need help with.


What should I do if advisor asks me to move to another university or lab for strange reasons? Summary: Yesterday, my advisor told me that he wants me to change labs through because I said something "inappropriate" that made the lab unstable.  He is a really famous professor and his citation is within world top 100 in our field. I don't want to lose the opportunity to cooperate with him. I have enrolled. He has no right to make me leave. But if he is unhappy, he could make me not able to graduate three years later.

Question: What should I do? Should I leave as he asked?

Details: At first, I was unsure what he meant by "inappropriate". He didn't specify, and I have only been here for like two months and only know 3 or 4 people. Maybe I said some gossip, but I mean no harm and I never offended him. I don't even remember what I said.

My guess is that since my grade is not good enough, the university didn't give me the scholarship that it had promised when I was admitted. I had used my own money for enrollment and then waited to be refunded when the scholarship came through. I am not the only one, and apparently everyone is afraid that their scholarship will also be canceled. The lab is expanding so fast but the funding is not catching up. And the professors in the scholarship committee are unhappy since he recruited like a dozen PhDs at once.

It seems that the professor blames me for telling the others that my scholarship was canceled, which caused the panic. My family is wealthy enough that I can self-fund, but that doesn't help if I am being forced out of the lab. This seems very unfair.

There are many plausible reasons why the professor may not want to reveal what exactly you said was inappropriate; most likely the professor doesn't want to inadvertently reveal the identity of the person who accused you of inappropriate behavior in order to avoid retaliation or further confrontations.

As a grad student, you are considered an adult and a professional. What matters here is not whether you intended to cause harm, but whether your behavior caused harm. As we grow up the world tends to become less forgiving of our mistakes, and the professor has every right to remove someone from their group to maintain a healthy working environment. Although it is also possible that whatever offensive thing you said was simply the last straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak. Either way, you should reflect on your behavior and tendencies and learn from the mistake. If there are mitigating factors (e.g., being a foreign student, mental health problems, etc.), ask the professor nicely to reconsider... but don't expect anything. Ultimately a successful grad school career depends to a large degree your relationship with your advisor. If the relationship is so broken that your professor is trying to kick you out without any prior warnings (I assume), then there is no point in forcing the matter, no matter how famous the professor is.

Also some assumptions in your question is unwarranted... Why do you think the professor has planted "spies" among the students? More likely the professor learned of the matter because someone reported you. I think you over-estimate how much the professors care about the everyday activity of their students.

It sounds like a lost cause- get out of that situation ASAP.

Even if you manage to stay in his lab and also to graduate (and he might graduate you early just to be rid of you), the real worry is that he'd write you a bad letter of recommendation when you apply for a job after your degree.


I am part of a “study team” that authored a paper. How do I list in in my CV? I was a member of a study team that produced a couple of research papers.
The authors of the paper are, for example:

  Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, John Smith and The ABC Study Investigators

In the acknowledgements, it reads:

  The ABC Study team consists of members from Harvard University (James Bond, Thomas Harper, David Price, and Jason Jolly)

(Suppose that my name is David Price.)

Can I list such papers in the publication list of my CV?
If not, how can I show that I participated in these research papers?

In PubMed, my name was listed as one of 'collaborators.'

Consortium authors are authors as well, just much less "important" authors than the main authors.  The situation is in fact quite similar to being in the middle of a large author list (e.g., one of my papers where I am 12th out of 32 authors).

As such, you should list the paper in a way that is clear, transparent, and easy for a reader to understand its stated authorship.  Put the paper in your CV with the authors just as they appear in the standard citation, then add a note at the end of that citation that says you were part of the consortium authors.  Following your example:

  Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, John Smith and The ABC Study Investigators, "Totally Awesome Science," Journal of Irreproducible Results, 12(6), pp. 406-453, 2012.
  (Member of ABC Study Investigators)

You can switch to the citation style that allows this easily. I'll list two standard papers and a paper written in a team:

Study of DEF. Journal of DE 15(5):1388-1391, 2013.
Note on XYZ (with J. Doe). Journal of XY 51(3):820-840, 2014.
Note on KLM (with J. Soe and Team ABC, as a member of Team ABC). Journal of KL 8(1):1-15, 2015.

This is clear, you're not lying to anybody nor hiding any substantial information, yet the presentation of the publications is easy to read: (1) paper title; (2) authors; (3) journal specification.


Submitting a paper to a new journal with responses for the rejection to the first journal I submitted my paper in IEEE Transcations of XXX and got a rejection. But the comments were really helpful and has helped me a lot in improving the paper. But, unfortunately, I cannot resubmit that paper to this same journal again and now I am looking for another journal.

I am writing a proper response again every comment and thinking to submit the response letter as part of the submission to the new journal. The basic idea is to let the reviewers know that this paper has been reviewed (by reviewers of another journal) and improvements has been made. Will it somehow improve the chances of acceptance. (as I am in the final stages of my PhD now)

What does the community say?

I wouldn't do that, actually. Use the comments of the reviewers of the first journal to improve the paper as usual. Simply submit the revised paper to the other journal.

It is actually better that they look at it with a fresh viewpoint, rather than having their view possibly clouded by the opinions of others. Let your paper stand on its own.

You will get additional comments, of course. Hopefully they will also help you improve it further.

Depending on the field, your approach might be beneficial.

If the pool of potential reviewers is small, a reviewer might reject a paper he already rejected for the IEEE Transaction of XXX without having a closer look.
The editor can scan through the comments from the last review process and estimate how far your paper is from getting published. If the review does not request very major revisions, it might help you.


Acknowledgment and authors in article based on PhD thesis A friend of mine finished his PhD and joined our group, on a project closely related to his PhD work. After three months, we submitted an article which includes significant  amount of work from his thesis and also the work done the last three months in our group.

But his PhD supervisor got angry and said he can not add any other author except himself and he demanded that the acknowledgment should only be based on funding information which he will provide.

The article includes some experimental work which was conducted by my friend after joining our group. We offered the professor to add his and our both funding acknowledgment, but he did not agree.

Is he right in his demands?

Moreover, my friend said his supervisor rejected the publication draft by saying it’s not worthy to be published.

My understanding of the current situation:

Your friend is attempting to publish what sounds like a significant portion of results from their dissertation, along with some new results obtained after a few months in a new research group (your group). Further, your friend's former PhD advisor does not approve of the new collaboration with your group, is not satisfied with whatever compromise you've proposed thus far, and does not want your group to submit the manuscript in question.

  Is [the former advisor] right in his demands?

Unfortunately, there is no universally correct answer. Why? Simply put, the "correct" answer to this question depends on the norms in your field, the agreed-upon publication policies in your friend's former research group, and so on. (One of the key things I've learned on this site is just how much academia varies, and I strongly encourage you / your friend to reflect on this point as well; see, e.g., Academia varies more than you think it does).

Further, getting into philosophical debates about the "correct" way a former advisor should proceed in this situation is, in my view, pointless; before getting on to your question, let me explain why I say this.

On this site, we see, time and time again, plenty of questions which are very closely related to the situation that your friend is currently in. Here are four such questions among many, and I strongly encourage you / your friend to take a look at these, too:

Authorship for paper based on my thesis
When should a supervisor be an author?
Co-authorship for not very involved supervisor
My advisor wants to co-author a paper on my thesis work, but drags out the submission, claiming it isn't ready. Should I submit without him?

As far as the "correct" course of action in the above / other related questions is concerned, the key takeaway (for me, at least) that all of these questions have in common is: it depends.

Now, on to your question. For simplicity, I see your friend's situation as belonging to one of the following two categories (below, since it is not clear in your question, when I write "norms," this will refer to the norms that exist for your friend, whatever that might entail):

If the "norms" are such that your friend is free to do whatever he wants with his research results, whether or not the results were obtained during his PhD, then your friend's former advisor has no grounds to halt publication, so long as the funding for the portion of the manuscript related to your friend's PhD results are acknowledged.
On the other hand, if the "norms" are such that your friend is required to consult with former PhD advisor on any collaborations, publications, etc. stemming from the research conducted while a PhD student, then your friend needs to sort this out with the former advisor ASAP.

In an ideal world, if this second case applies to your friend, then your friend should have already had a discussion with the former advisor. In fact, what this question and the many other related ones help to underscore is how extremely important it is to have authorship discussions with your advisor early on. (This may seem obvious now, but I write this for future visitors to A.SE who are on the verge of finding themselves in similar situations.)

Edit 2: I find the question very interesting but not well presented. As long as it doesn't become clearer, here's how I understand the issue:

The OP's friend did his PhD with his PhD advisor. At least part of his work was not eventually published as the PhD advisor considered it inadequate for publication. The PhD student finished his PhD and went to work in another group in the same subject. He added a few more data, bringing the work to what he and his new group considered at publishable level. So, they wrote the manuscript (or planned to) adding the work from the PhD, plus the extra 3 months of work from the new group and offered co-authorship to PhD advisor. The PhD advisor was not aware that his ex-student was continuing working on the same subject and had not agreed in advance on this collaboration.

The acknowledgement is a detail in the issue. The actual issue is the authorship and the "collaboration". (That's how I understand it).

Also, the contribution of the PhD advisor was zero for the post doc, but was present in the PhD period.

If things are like that, then this is my "answer" below. If not, my answer is at the bottom.

Just to clarify, I don't answer in respect to how reasonable reaction it is for the career of the ex-PhD student. I answer if it is reasonable in the context of research collaboration and supervision and try to identify where mistakes were done. It's quite obvious that this behaviour obstructs the career of the student, but there are obvious or subtle rules in research (as in every workplace) that, if not followed, can lead to problems like this. End of edit 2.

I think that his PhD supervisor has valid reasons to be angry (provided some missing information are true).

Fist of all, most of the work was done during your friend's PhD, so as part of his PhD, it seems like his supervisor has the last word of what should be published and how.

Also, I assume that the continuation of the work was not agreed nor approved by the supervisor of the PhD, thus he's angry realising that the work has been continued without his approval.

So, in a way I can feel for him. It's his project (and your friend's) and he should decide if he wants to include your lab (in the work and) in the publication and not vice versa.

Edit: In this case, your friend would have to convince his PhD advisor of the importance of the new collaboration (as he should have done the moment he started his new post). If that doesn't work, he can discuss with his PhD advisor what he thinks is needed to make the work publishable and how this could be achieved from this point on. At the same time, work with the new team and/to submit a manuscript without the PhD work involved. End of edit.

In the case that it was agreed with the PhD advisor to continue the work on a project in the new lab, and now he backs off, then it's him on the wrong side and that's something the PIs have to sort out.


What makes someone deserving of a Ph.D.? Few days back while attending a thesis defense, one Professor was asking the defender why does he think, he deserves the degree. I was wondering since then, is there really any general answer for that? or the answer should be given describing my own work and then emphasis them how it is important for research field?

I asked the question here to know your opinion about it and to list down what could be the possible answers to this question.

For a Ph.D., my favorite explanation is this cartoon by Matt Might.

In short: a Ph.D. is a measurable contribution to a sum of human knowledge.

To be able to answer this question, all you need is an idea of how to describe what you have discovered, and how it fits into the context of work by others that has come before.  This is often not easy to answer, but an important thing to think about as one is writing one's thesis in any case.

This question is not a check if you are over self-confident or anything the like. Simply provide arguments why your PhD work matches the acceptance criteria that a valid for that institution. Your supervisor should know.

If criteria seem not obvious for some reason, emphasize the scientific novelty (some details you have investigated first ever) and any scientific recognition of the results (accepted papers, attended conferences). Negative results that just disprove the initial work hypothesis may be near equally significant.


How should I address a potential FERPA violation by a professor? In the United States, federal law prohibits professors from releasing any student's grades to any party other than the student and any party whom the student authorizes to receive the grades.

One of my professors appears to be violating this law by uploading each student's lab grades in one file, which is accessible to anyone who is enrolled in the class.

Here is my proposed plan of action:

Ask the professor - in private - to post the grades using the online management system the professor already uses for other things.
If the professor doesn't fix this privacy violation, inform the professor that the method by which he/she post grades is a violation of federal law.
As a last resort, contact the department dean.

Go with option number 1. See what happens.

  1) Ask the professor - in private -

If you're just worried about your grade being posted, may be you can ask him to at least remove your grade from there and leave the rest for the students that want to know their grades as soon as possible. Either that, or may be he could just post people's student ids next to each grade. Or assign a random id himself once, and use that id to communicate future grade reports.

Do note that some online management systems are not all that user-friendly, especially compared to an excel spreadsheet. So do not mandate the way he should solve the problem, mention the problem, and discuss the kind of solutions that may be acceptable to you.

Also note that some grades only affect a tiny percentage of the entire course grade. So that is why some Professors are less worried about the privacy implications of releasing those grades publicly.

And yes, option 2 and 3 would work too, if option 1 doesn't work, but hopefully you won't need to escalate. As you can see from this Supreme Court decision regarding peer-grading, FERPA is not as absolute as you might believe. Furthermore, very few students would have the motivation or the tenacity to pursue this issue in a court of law.

Objetively, I think you should ask a lawyer just to be sure before taking it to the dean, since it's a federal law violation and acussing someone of that would make a huge deal. And you wouldn't want to make a fuss over something for being ill informed.

Personally, I think you shouldn't care whether your professor uploads your grades where somene else can see them or not (even if it's a crime or whatever, i wouldn't give a single care).

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.


Disposing of old written notes Many a times, I study some topic or research paper and make my own notes (it could be figuring out the math in paper, or something else). But after say 7-8 months, these notes just pile up on table and when I look at them I don't think I will be using them for any future work. But I also feel like I'm trashing my study, and the effort was pointless if I dispose of it. Is it okay to dispose of them? What strategy do you have about disposing of written notes?

It may help you to understand that much of the value of those notes has been the very act of writing them.  As such, you may find that you have less compunction against throwing them out.

Personally, I maintain an "aging pile" for notes, in which I keep them until they stop feeling relevant.  For some things, that's a week; for others it was a box in my closet and a decade.  You can also remove the physical clutter aspect by scanning and archiving in something with cloud storage: you'll be trading physical clutter for electronic clutter, but I at least find that electronic clutter is much easier to ignore.

I have notes going back about 20 years.  (Notes means daily logs, [like a daytimer] and all of course work as a college student.)

I save everything, first because it was easy, and I liked having access to my info, though, like others, thought I'd really never need it.

Then my second reason arose when I needed the info itself, or needed to show when certain concepts were originally documented by me.

Make it easy on yourself.
Take everything related to one project/study/class and put it in a pile.  Don't sort it, don't make it all face the same way, don't fuss with it!

Give this pile a name.
"Trigger Study - Small Mammals"

Take a ziplock bag and using a thick black permanent marker, write the name of the pile (BIG) just under the zipper.

Put the whole pile into the ziplock bag, zip it and stand it up in any long term storage container of your choice.

Walmart has clear Sterilite-brand tubs that work fine; clear helps you to see contents without manhandling it down off a shelf.

I use 2 gallon freezer bags... they hold about 400 pages.
You can either break down any monster sized pile into multiple bags, or order zippered bags any size you can imagine.  I use U-Line, but there are others.


What's a good way to prevent students from saying I lost their paper? As a teacher, I've often had students say that they turned in an assignment, but that because I don't see it, grade it, and return it back to them, that I must have lost their papers/assignments. I tend to be disorganized at times, so it's hard for me to confidently say that I really haven't lost their papers. To make matters worse, I have lost a student paper or two over the years only to find it weeks later.

How should I respond?

Notes:

Many have noted electronic submission. I'm assuming for this question that students turn in something physical that I could theoretically lose. ;-) This also allows this question to be applicable to schools that may not use electronic submission.

First, get organized.

You need a good defence. Make sure that you are not at fault.

What I've done is to put student assignments in a folder and keep it entirely separate from any other papers I have. When I bring their assignments home, I transport them in a plastic bag to further distinguish them and prevent papers from falling out somehow. For situations where the class turns in lots of assignments and students don't always pick up their graded assignments, papers can get out of order, so I make sure to keep each assignment in a separate folder, or I put all graded assignments in a single stack alphabetized by last name. I know with full certainty that students' assignments are in my "to-grade" folder, or my "to-return" folder, and nowhere else.

Second, respond to the student

If they say you've lost their paper, give them the benefit of the doubt by looking through your stack. If it's not there, you know it won't be anywhere else, short of a devious third-party intervention, and you can tell them so. :-)

Alternatives

Use an electronic submission dropbox (e.g. Blackboard, D2L, etc.).

You could have students email their assignments to you, but there's always the possibility that it gets caught in your spam filter. If you did this, you should send them an email ASAP to confirm that you received their submission.

Keep all papers in a single room: never take them home to grade, etc.
Keep a list of students who submitted their work as they turn it in.
Scan in assignments, keep an electronic copy and send the copy to students (idea from @MadMyche, in the comments below).

For dispute resolution without the time involved in a formal receipt process, set up a dashcam, and record the physical submissions.


Do teaching evaluations improve from high participation rates Do teaching evaluations tend to improve from high voter turn-out?

I think that teaching evaluations are naturally answered by people with strong opinions or who are invested in the class. Many students don't answer the evaluations because they don't care.

I presume that if you could force them to answer the evaluation questionnaire, then many would just be yes-men and answer favorably.

Is there reason to corroborate or invalidate that line of thought?

There are too many forces here to expect any clear trend.

It depends on who forces them, I think. You are probably correct that when they are optional, only the most invested will be likely to participate. But if the instructor forces them, then some, taking it as an extra task for which they see no personal benefit, might react badly. I'm assuming anonymous responses, of course.

If the system, somehow, forces them then those less invested might still be annoyed, but not at the instructor. Whether you get honest answers, however, or chaotic, playful, anarchistic ones or helpful ones would be worth looking in to, but there is probably no real way to do the experiment.

However, the comments are likely to align, more or less will with how pleased the students were with the course and the instructor's helpfulness than otherwise. But this might not give overall trends different from the current situation you find.

But in particular, I don't see any forces that suggest "yes-men" behavior.

But turn it around. If you do a really good job or a really bad job your participation rate will probably go up.

Humorous aside: Or, you could bribe them somehow to participate so they see a personal benefit for answering. Tricky to do a bribe that doesn't itself slant the results.


Can a professor force me to submit my incomplete paper to a journal? I am taking a graduate class requiring that I submit a paper to a journal at the end of the semester.  The professor sent out an email informing us that we can either hand off a copy of the paper in an addressed envelope to her, which she will then mail, or email her a copy of the submission receipt if we submit the paper electronically.

I feel uncomfortable submitting my paper at this time, and I intended to work on this paper with my advisor over the summer before submitting it to a journal.

My advisor told me that I should report this situation to the Chair and I did, but my complaint was passed off to the Director of Grad Student Services within my department.  The Director informed me that she had talked with the professor, that the professor would not change the requirement, and proposed that I submit it to a journal and then just immediately withdraw the submission.  That has been the plan, but I feel like my right to determine what happens to something that I wrote, my intellectual property, is being infringed upon by this professor.

Can my professor force me to submit my paper to a journal anyway?

I find this highly annoying that a professor would assign something like this. Submissions take time, time the editors invest, time the reviewers invest. To have student papers submitted that are perhaps not exactly the highest quality is a waste of resources. Journals should record only the best science, not be considered a machine. Did the professor stipulate the journal? There are many journals out there that offer pay-to-publish, and then there is another potentially sub-standard non-peer-reviewed paper out there for search machines to find. I would submit a written complaint about this to the dean.

If that is the stipulation of the class, then the best thing to do is to comply with the stipulation whether you feel like the paper is ready for submission or not. Treat this as an academic exercise. Should you refuse (which you have a right to do), but that will probably earn you an failing grade on that assignment. This request for submitting a paper to a journal appears to be common as it teaches students the process preparing a document and submitting to a journal. Another thing this type activity does is encourages students to write at a higher level. During my first graduate class, I had to do a book review and submit it to a journal.

Administratively, professors have deadlines of their own and have a timetable as when to submit grades. In this case, what does the professor do with your grade? Is your grade for the class marked as an incomplete? Can a grade be changed in the system after a certain date? The professor’s decision likely goes beyond that of wanting to see you have a published paper.

If your paper fails to meet the quality criteria of the journal or loses to the competition, it is likely that the journal will not accept it. Given this scenario, you can still work on the paper and bring it to a publishable state. One condition is that most journals will not accept a submission if the article is being considered for another journal. This can take anywhere to several weeks to several months.


Why do Russian and Israeli universities score low in various world rankings? Russia and Israel have good histories of science and technology.

But, I never saw any Russian and Israeli university in the top 50 list.

Currently, the top Russian university, according to QS World Ranking is, Lomonosov Moscow State University. Its position is 114. This is far worse than China. The top Chinese university Tsinghua has a position of 47. The same problem can be seen in Israeli universities.

Why do Russian and Israeli universities score low in various world rankings?

What is the problem? And, why aren't they trying to improve the situation?

          |--------|-----------|--------------|-----------------|-----------
          |QS(2015)|Times(2015)|Shanghai(2014)|Webometrics(2014)|CWUR(2014)
----------|--------|-----------|--------------|-----------------|-----------
  Russia  |   114  |    196    |      84      |       129       |    48**
----------|--------|-----------|--------------|-----------------|-----------
  Israel  |   138  |    188    |      70      |       207       |    22**
----------|--------|-----------|--------------|-----------------|-----------

** this ranking is an exception.

Why do Russian and Israeli universities score low in various world rankings?
  What is the problem? And, why aren't they trying to improve the situation?

As a researcher originally from a country in a similar situation (Austria - historically great, Nobel prize winning researchers - now all universities ranked in the far 3-digit range in most rankings), I can try to speculate. Note that, of course, reasons may differ between Russia and Israel, or between institutions, so there may easily just not be the reason for this phenomenon.

Most rankings are perceived as garbage. Not scoring highly is not perceived as a big deal that needs changing. Unlike in the US and other places, students generally don't care about rankings, and neither do employers. Hence, historically, the universities simply did not care whether they were top-something or not. I think this was the big reason historically in Austria, but it is slowly beginning to change due to top-down pressure from the government. Note that, even today, local students and employers still don't care about rankings, but foreign students and funding sources do, so there is at least some incentive to do something about it.
Most rankings are actually kind of garbage. Many universities outside of the US simply are not as bad as their ranking suggests. Most rankings are either extremely top-heavy in their criteria and hence not very good at distinguishing the 50-best university from the 200-best in a field (e.g., counting Nobel prize winners), or implicitly assume that universities loosely follow the US way of organisation and naming. For instance, my alma mater has historically lost many points in some rankings due to an insanely bad faculty/student ratio. However, this was really mainly due to in Austria only chaired full professors being considered "real" faculty (called "Professorenkollegium"). Hence, the way of counting underestimated the real number of teachers available to students by a factor of 4 or 5. This has, afaik, been fixed by now, but an implicit bias for an US style of organization is still prevalent in many rankings. Further, unlike US universities, there are very little efforts in Austrian universities to tune their numbers for specific rankings. Generally, close to nobody at your average Austrian university has any idea what even the big rankings are looking at.
Being historically good does not mean that the universities are still good. Decades of underfunding for research have severely reduced the quality of research that is being produced. Both things above considered, one has to assert that all the "historically great" universities in Austria aren't actually great anymore. Decades of underfunding, neglect by politicians, and questionable hiring practices for professors have certainly led to big, fundamentally detrimental changes to the university culture. At this point, Austrian universities are still pretty good at teaching students, and there is still reasonable research going on, but it would be wrong to assume that any university actually deserves to be considered on the same (research) tier with top English or US schools. I am pretty sure that at least in Russia, long-lasting underfunding will also be a big reason why the schools don't show up more prominently in rankings.

My Alma Mater is Cornell, a university that is in the top 20 in most rankings. Then I worked for many years in USP, a Brazilian University. I also worked in a few Danish and French universities. Finally, I visited many universities from the top 100. I cannot believe that Lomonosov Moscow State University or Bauman University could be behind USP. In fact, I cannot understand how these Russian universities could be behind Cornell. However, I will advance two tentative explanations. The first one is that when a Russian publish a paper, it is a very good one, something like a new element in the periodical table, or the properties of graphene.  Researchers from Cornell and USP are not so careful with the quality of their publications. The other explanation is language. Russian and French researchers do have a tendency to publish in their languages, and consequently are ignored by the rankings.


What good is engineering research with no practical relevance? I am a Ph.D. student currently doing research at a top engineering school in North America.

I am becoming more and more jaded at the fact that a sizable portion of the research conducted at my university as well as publications to engineering conferences seem to have very limited practical relevance, and with no attempts to address implementation concerns. Many of these papers seem to be published just for the sake of it.

One glaring example is power engineering. The methodologies
proposed by recent graduates from power engineering are so extremely far-fetched from practical implementation, it raises the question as to why any such
research should be continued.

Power is a very safety critical field: people can die after going for too long without power (case in point), and the industry itself is highly government regulated. The algorithms that have been proposed from my
research department as well as many like it completely ignore things
like safety guarantees. Furthermore, it is highly unlikely that
government employees in the power industry would rely on some biology
motivated or learning based algorithm to arrange the power supply to millions of actual
people. There are decades old well-regulated power markets for that!
But power is just one example out of many. I have read many papers on
signal processing and control theory. Most of the papers are completely
math and proof based; their proposed methods are so mathematical, with extremely limited robustness or safety guarantees, etc. These researchers are more concerned with epsilons and deltas than how their proposed methods can be realistically
implemented in people's cars or mobile phones.

An "implementation"
nowadays is just a MATLAB simulation, a few equations, and a graph. Even during undergraduate
engineering training, we have seen how difficult it is to go from
simulation to actual software/hardware that people can use. I can easily show you highly technical papers from these fields published by people who do not even care about the readability of their notation, let alone practical implementation.
So it is a legitimate question as to why anyone would ever use these
highly-theoretical, and assumption laden research results. It is
unclear what "the small-gain signal must belong to a Hilbert space on
the extended half-line" actually means in real life cache design. Furthermore, many
papers are completely without any mention of practical implementation of
the algorithms, so it is completely unknown if anyone would actually
be able to use these research results.

Engineering research is ultimately used to create new technologies that promise to improve the lives of people. However, it is unknown to me at this point how a "bat-echolocation based meta-heuristic algorithm for nuclear generator dispatch" could benefit anyone.

So my question boils down to how we as researchers should attempt to bridge the gap between the highly mathematical, highly theoretical modern engineering research and the practical implementation of research results. What good is engineering research with no practical relevance?

The short answer to your question is that you are vastly overestimating your, and other engineer's, ability to judge what techniques will ever have practical relevance.

I think it was Michael Stonebraker, a Turing award winning computer scientist with no lack of practical impact, who said that the sweet spot for academic applied research are techniques that are about 10 years away from being widely implementable. If you limit yourself to things that you can already do today, you will fail to propose the kind of radically new developments that should, at least in theory, distinguish academic research from other drivers of innovation, such as startup companies or industrial R&D. Incidentally, if the lack of impact your work has right now is distressing you, you should ponder the question whether you would not achieve higher job satisfaction in a startup or industrial lab.

I find your example of self-learning power grids particularly unconvincing. If we rewind time a few years and relate your arguments to research into automated driving, I am sure you will find plenty of people who found this research to be a waste of time. Driving surely is a safety critical field, and automotive is highly regulated. Algorithms for automated driving assistance completely failed to, and to some extent still fail to, address the practical concerns of many stakeholders as well as governmental safety guarantees. And yet here we are. I am not sure if the same will happen to power grids, but it is absolutely plausible that it will.

You may also be interested in reading into TRLs (technology readiness levels), as used for instance by the European Union's framework programmes as well as NASA.

The basic concept here is that academic research is usually best suited to bring ideas from TRL 0 or 1 to 3 or 4. The "Matlab implementations" you complain about may very well just be the laboratory tests that are meant on TRL 3. This is very much in line with the position in the grander scheme of the progress of technology that many large organizations envision for academic research labs.

"Usefulness" is about perspective and perception. In my own little office cubicle maybe it is difficult to see where exactly my research results fit in. Just try and find confidence in that there exist (more or less visible) visionaries "high up" in different aspects who see where it will fit in. The bad thing about religion being so bashed and marginalized these days is that the concept of faith in things larger than us loses significance while in practice it is more relevant than ever. Maybe not in an almighty God, but in the existence of people making plans outside of ones' own perspective.


Viva voce question about another student "validating" my results My PhD supervisor wanted me to talk about how my research was "validated" by another student in my Viva Voce, despite my results speaking for themselves. This part of my findings had not even been questioned by my examiners.

The student in question had never worked with me in any way. Nor have they published in a work I could cite - conference paper, article or even blog post. Or even private correspondence.

He claims it is common to "have worked with people in this way".

I don't understand why he would ask me to do this.

Ideas?

Post-script:

I am asking this question from the perspective of the exam administration.
Isn't it cause for concern to bring up a person who wasn't cited or acknowledged in the thesis during the Viva?

I suspect your supervisor was thinking about how that student confirmed your results. A classic way this could happen is, if you solved a problem with one method and then the other student solved the same problem with a different method, and your results agree, then the other student has "validated" your results. Naturally, you don't need to have worked with each other to do this - in fact it's arguably preferable that you don't work with each other, to ensure independence of results. Neither do you need to be able to cite their work (you can just say "unpublished").

It's always good to have someone validate your results, because it increases the chances that your results are robust and not due to, e.g. statistical noise. If someone has validated your results, it's definitely something to mention.

Even if this is about independent confirmation, there should not be any reason for you to (agree to) claim to have worked with them in your research. This would be a lie. I may be wrong but I get the strong feeling that you have to be careful to not let others step over you and 'persuade' you to let them attach strangers' names to your work.

  If anyone is not "involved in a project", they are not an author. Listing them as an author is academic dishonesty. – PVAL Aug 19 '14 at 5:26

See this and this and this, which explain (but of course do not justify) why such practices may be rampant in certain places, and also give an outline of what is considered ethical authorship practices. Also see this for some possible motivations behind similar exploitation of some students for the benefit of others.


What careers not requiring an academic degree might be open to a self-learner who wants to do research on pure mathematics? I hesitated to ask this question since it may not relevant to this website, but I saw a question of same category here but still couldn't find an answer ...

Since childhood, I've had a sharp enthusiasm for Maths, studying books from an elementary level to ones suited for the level of a Masters of Science student at Melbourne University. I am currently 15, but the formal classroom setting feels like a waste of my time. Because of my passion for Maths, going through the formal procedure of education is making me severely depressed...

Here is my question:

What careers which do not require an academic degree (all research positions require a PhD) might be open (in Australia) to a self-learner who wants to do research on Pure Mathematics?

Salaries for a postdoc position are ~80k in Australia, but I am looking for a research career even of a ~15k salary because that would be enough money to survive while doing research. I have yet to published any paper to impress some institution to believe in me, if it helps at all.

EDIT - Thank you all very much for your very informative answers. To be more precise, I would like to write my main reasons of the 'horror' of university:

Solving exercises or studying the texts in self-study themselves can (although difficult) be stopped for the duration of university affairs (classes, ...) but I believe that research can't be frequently stopped by other irrelevant things even with university affairs [university classes will be Math, but not be the research that I want to engross in, at least for first few years], since being creative requires to be much more engrossed (to put it simpler: 1 2-day is more efficient than 2 1-day for research).
Even with prestigious universities it involves a lot of bureaucracy, which they may find necessary to obtain a degree but are irrelevant to Mathematics.
Being very deep concentrated and having manic passion causes a lot sensitivity, that's why we have some recluse people (in Arts and Science) and most of them are suffering from Bipolar Disorder caused by their manic-enthusiasm. While there are many people with great achievements living in society with high-degrees UNFORTUNATELY I don't think it's impossible for me.

3a. An example of negativity in university education is the focus on institutional ranking. Combined with job-seaerching being the main purpose of study for some, it could impact someone who just seeks the beauty of Mathematics faith in seeking a degree.
University costs a lot for a Bachelors of Science, much more than it would to be a mathematician in solitude.

EDIT 2 - In my question, I have asked that from where I can get financial support for basic life expenditure, however many answers include enrollment in universities which costs A LOT for just BSc (supposing that I can survive with my mentioned conditions in first EDIT).

Thank you, everyone. I highly appreciate the brilliant advise in many of your answers, however my main question remains how would I pursue research in Mathematics without a degree? I know the path that is recommended for pursuing a research career, but the cost of university and not having peace of mind are too great of an expense for me.

Be very wary of doing mathematical research on your own. Even if you read all the books there are, you will most likely go off on a tangent and reinvent a theory that has been known in math for decades or centuries - simply because you never heard about it and did not know the commonly accepted names of the structures you have been working with. Or, as others point out, you might work on something that may be true but is of zero interest to anyone else.

If all you are looking for is the joy of doing mathematics, that may well be fine (although even then I'd say using up-to-date tools and theory would probably be more satisfying, just as I'd prefer to code on a modern machine and not an antique, even if it does run a compiler). However, if you want to make a difference in the mathematical world, possibly publish your findings, then you will need to interact with other mathematicians.

And this is where a formal education will help. A math degree will show other mathematicians that you at least have learned the fundamentals. When you contact a mathematician, you will need to differentiate yourself from a random crank. There are far too many home-educated random cranks in mathematics, and you are lucky if they self-identify by claiming that they can solve the general quintic equation by radicals. Having a degree in math will make it easier for you to get other mathematicians to talk to you. In addition, your advisor will have decades more experience than you and will be able to steer you in fruitful directions.

The degree isn't a big issue as you think it is. Just continue studying math on your own. When you've mastered most of the math curriculum, you just contact some university and ask if you can do fast track exams for most subjects. If you show some exceptional talent in some subject, then you'll likely catch the attention of some professor, who will put severe pressure on you to become his/her Ph.D student. You'll produce a lot of work together, you'll travel all around the World, visiting many conferences where you present your work.


I misunderstood an assignment, how to write to the professor apologizing and asking for extension? I am a final year student in India and have been selected to do my final year project abroad in a German university. The professor sent me a programming assignment to do 3 weeks ago; the assignment was to be on JSF (Java Server Faces). Instead, I misread it as JSP (Java Server Pages) and have been working on that ever since.

So recently I re-read the initial email detailing the assignment and I realized my blunder. I have to submit the code with JSF but I will need an extension from my professor. I want to write a professional apology letter but I am unable to find the right words.

The first key question that I think you need to consider is the reason why the professor has asked you to do this assignment.  Is it for your educational benefit, or is it so that the professor can evaluate your capabilities as a programmer?  Often, when dealing with students, especially foreign students, a professor will pose assignments as a way of gaining more insight into the students actual as opposed to "on paper" knowledge and skills.  You are also in a situation where even if you have been working hard for the past few weeks, the professor has no way of observing that, and may gain an impression of you as a person who slacks off and makes excuses.

Given these two statements, my recommendation would be to send a short email containing the following three items:

A short statement of your mistake, just as you gave here.
A short polite request for an extension, including an estimate of how many days you will need to finish the assignment correctly.
An attachment of all of the work that you have produced thus far (or link to it, if is is more an ~1MB in size, to avoid possible email bounce problems)

Attaching the work that you have done will allow the professor to make use of it in deciding how to interpret your mistake and request for extension.  Assuming you've been doing solid work, they will be more likely to a) not evaluate you as a slacker and b) actually grant the extension.  Moreover, if the specifics of the assignment was less important than the quality of the work you produce, the professor might even change the assignment to match what you have done.

Lieber Herr Professor G,
ach, meine Güte, after working intensely for the last three weeks on the interesting assignment you gave me, I just realized I misread JSF (Java Server Faces) in your instructions and thought it said JSP (Java Server Pages).  If you would like to take a look at what I did in JSP, here is a link: [link].
I apologize for my mistake. Would you like me to re-do the assignment in Java Server Faces, as I believe you originally intended?  I estimate it would take me about two weeks.  May I send it to you on [date]?
Sincerely,
Student

(Don't wait to hear back before you get started.  Prof. G will most likely say it's fine, go ahead.  Or Prof. G might say Don't bother, I like what you did.  But I can tell that you'll want to re-do it anyway, for your own satisfaction -- so go for it.)


How and if to advise editor about suitable referees for my paper I am writing a paper where the proofs involve more than one field of mathematics. Call them fields X and Y for simplification. This is not very unusual, but I think it may confuse the editor in the following sense:

There are several motivations for the paper coming from both fields X and Y. However, all technically hard parts in the proofs belong to field X.

So, in my opinion, it would be best to get at least 2 referees, at least one of them from field X (but another one from field Y would be great, at least to give comments regarding the motivation).

While I am not the first one to write about the problem my paper attacks, it is still a rather new problem, and an editor possibly will not have the right "feeling" about what kind of expertise is required for working on this problem.

Even more confusing: Previous work on this problem has been done through field Z, which is certainly not my approach (people from field Z will have to struggle quite a bit with the technical parts of my paper, as I had to struggle with reading their work).

My contribution in this paper is "generalization, theory building, solving some open problems stated by others, stating new open problems". But there is another contribution - I give new motivation which applies also to previous work (not done by me), but went unnoticed.

I would like to communicate to the editor the information regarding what kind of mathematicians I think should review my paper (when I submit it). However, I am afraid it may come out as very rude: Not only I am telling him how to do his work, I am telling him how to judge my own work! Yet, if I were the editor (I am young and not an editor anywhere), I think I would appreciate the information that "this is how the author thinks I should do my work".

Should I communicate any of this information to the editor? What part of it? If coming out as rude was not be an issue at all, I would send a list of possible reviewers explaining why they are good for the job in my opinion.

This certainly sounds like it could be communicated through a cover letter. This does not guarantee that your comments are actually being read by the associate editor, though - at least in my field, cover letters are uncommon enough for journal papers that I typically don't even check if there is one if I get a paper to handle. However, it is unclear to me what practical other ways you have to communicate with a handling editor where you don't know yet who it will be.

That said, you never have a guarantee that the editor will take your input on reviewers into account. Personally, I tend to be fairly sceptical about "suggested reviewers" or anything that approaches this - maybe I am too suspicious, but whenever authors suggest a reviewer, especially when not explicitly asked to do so, I immediately assume that this reviewer will be in some way positively biased, even if no conflict is obvious from the outside.

So my summary is - sure, (briefly) explain your reasoning in the cover letter, but don't get your hopes up too much that this will change substantially how your manuscript will be handled.

Just include a covering letter that suggests that, although the paper uses both X and Y, it would probably be better to find reviewers who are X-theorists who know some Y, rather than Y-theorists who know some X.  Z doesn't seem very relevant to reviewer choice, but you could mention early in the introduction (or perhaps even in the abstract, if it's significant enough) that you don't use any Z theory.

Some journals invite authors to suggest particular reviewers to use or avoid.  If you're submitting to a journal that does that, you could use that section of the submission form to make this suggestion, instead of a covering letter.


Is listener's fees in a conference justified? In a conference, where I am an author, I noticed that there is a substantial fees for registering as a listener for the conference.(10-30% less than the fees for professionals, students etc  but it is still on higher side).

Is this justified given that as an author I would like my work to be presented in front of as many people as possible and receive comments for the same. Is this common practice in conferences across Computer Science or any other field ?

The main reason for fees is that there is a cost for renting the auditoriums and perhaps other services (refreshments, facilities etc.). Under such circumstances all participants need to pay to support the conference. Exactly how the pricing is done differs widely but in most cases it is based on costs divided by a certain number of projected participants in different categories. There are conferences which I have attended that seem horrendously expensive and are held in luxurious places with organizing services and then there are those run by a smaller society where making a cheap efficient meeting for the members by the members is a priority. In all cases you pay just to get in.

So pricing will vary depending on venue and organiser. Depending on how the conference is organized you may be able to gain some insights into how the costs come about and then make constructive comments to the organisers on how it should change; particularly if the organisers are a membership organisation where you are a member.

Is it justified?  Well, if people pay it, then yes. If they don't, then no.

I don't think it's any more complicated than that.

Conference organisers want to earn a living by doing their job. Just as you do.

Some will seek to make as much profit as possible. The market will decide whether or not they are succesful in this.

It's just the economics of the private sector within a mixed economy. So looking for a moral dimension is like dancing about architecture.


Is it appropriate to use emoji or similar icons in a paper? I'm not in academia anymore, but spend quite a bit of my time reading papers and using the findings as part of my job.

Today I picked up a paper that contained a couple of emoji-type icons in the figures. It was to show which of two conditions was preferred. There's a smiley face next to the desired condition and a sad face next to the undesired one. It's an electrical-engineering/computer-science paper.

It's the first time I remember seeing something like this in a paper and it made me question the quality of what I was reading. I googled a bit and it was presented at an FPGA conference in February this year and is associated with a well-known university in the USA, so it seems reputable.

Perhaps I'm just behind the times. Is this more common than I realise?

I'll answer from the perspective of a different field. In the biomedical sciences, it isn't uncommon to use some cartoonish representations to depict animal tasks/procedures, particularly because actual pictures of animal subjects are often avoided for a number of reasons. The same can be true for human subjects.

I wouldn't think twice about seeing a smiling versus frowning monkey indicating task performance in a figure, as long as it was instructive/guiding and not interrupting/distracting. Same for other types of icons like thumbs up/down. Certainly emojis in text would be totally different.

If I remember correctly, Craig Smorynski once (or maybe more than once) used a smile symbol for "end of proof" and a frown for "end of counterexample". I think this is OK, but when I (only once) tried to do the same, the editor didn't allow it.


Is copying paragraph structure plagarism? While helping a friend with a research assignment (basically find some studies on a topic, compare them, and then evaluate the work as a whole), I noticed that the professor had provided a sample paper.

They had one paragraph for every study, and they were all in the same exact format. For example:

  [Authors] conducted a [type of study] to investigate [phenomena]. The
  study was conducted at [institution] and involved [N] [types of
  people]. The strengths of this study were [...] etc.

Is it plagiarism to copy this exact format? Or is the structure of paragraphs not something to worry about?

It's not "plagiarism" because you are copying a standard format. That is known as scenes a faire in fiction, but can apply to Academia. This is not only allowed, but encouraged, because you are conforming to a "formula."

You should be worried if you were copying an unusual or original format. That's not the case here.

I am not sure of the question exactly, but there are "standards" for writing academic papers.

This is the standard way of reporting studies, but use the primary source rather than the secondary source.


How do I deal with a candidate mentioning God twelve times in their application? My group (engineering) is highly multicultural and diverse. Some of my students come from adversarial ethnic/religious groups, so I made it “set in stone” that politics and religion do not belong in the lab. We respect each other and sometimes discuss cultural differences and habits politely.
I recently received some applications for a new PhD position. One candidate started their C.V. with a huge “in the name of God” and continued throughout their application discussing how God will guide or guided them or God will make sure they get good results and finish their PhD. Overall, I counted the word God in their application twelve times. This left a bad taste to me.
In the particular case, the said candidate was classified much lower that the chosen candidate merit-wise (scores, research experience, etc.).

Is it acceptable to disclose and declare vividly religious preferences in academic applications?
Is this a sign that this person will also be as vocal in the group, thus creating issues?
Should I simply ignore this information, even if the candidate decided for some reason to vocally disclose it? What should I do with it?

Clarifications:

I am in the EU.
There is nothing religious about my university.
The candidate in question is from the Middle East.

Regardless of my own faith, referring to god a dozen times in an application is highly unusual and rather unprofessional. Prospective PhD students, however, should have some understanding of the professional customs of the field. (After all, you don't go on at length about any other personal and non-work-related beliefs and preferences in applications, proposals, presentations etc..) If the rest of the application is very good, I might look past this. But it is certainly a glaring minus.

One of the criteria I use in hiring is whether they are a harmonious fit for the existing team.
One of my concerns with this application is that the individual may be too dogmatic and not tolerant of others.  If he passed the first screening, this would be something I would ask him about in the interview, and in follow up questions to his references (by phone).  Possible questions:

We have a Zen Buddhist, a Hindu, two Muslims, a Jew, three atheists, two agnostics, and a Baháʼí on our staff already. Give me examples of how you, a strong {insert his religion} have gotten along with people from a widely diverse religious background. (Are they tolerant of people who have different faiths.)

Also we have homosexuals, transvestites, and transgender individuals on our staff. What is your stance toward this?  (This question looks for tolerance.  Are they going to make a big hairy thing of themselves if they see a gay couple snogging in the mail room?)

Is the bible to be taken literally?  All of it?  Do you follow all the rules in Deuteronomy and Leviticus? (Note: replace bible with whatever holy book they use; replace references to D & L with appropriate references to outmoded rules.  The key function here is to understand if they cling to unworkable rules, or are inconsistent in their beliefs.)

If I told you that you were not to discuss religion or God here at work, could you abide that decision?

Give me examples of cases where you had your mind firmly set on something, and an argument or discussion changed your mind.  If he answers with his own conversion experience, ask him for another example, not related to his religion.

But really, anyone who wears his religion on his sleeve like this should be avoided.  To much potential for conflict.  Find a reason to dump him in the reject pile. But be sure you have better qualified people than him in the reject pile. Do not trash the rest of the reject pile in his case in the event that he decides later to file a discrimination suit.

Edit:  In all my time on a bunch of stack exchange sites, I've never collected such a set of downvotes. I find it quite amusing.
I suggest that the original poster try this same question on Workplace and see what the reactions are.  Maybe I'm a stick in the mud.
I'll agree that the phrasing of my questions need work:  The key element here is to get the candidate to show his (in)tolerance for others during the interview process.  If he is full of faith,but also shows tolerance, then by all means, hire him.  My experience with people like this is that the louder they proclaim their faith, the less tolerant they are of others' beliefs.
I am minded of that quote, attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, "Preach the Gospel always.  If necessary, use words."


Can I correct a mistake that the reviewers didn't spot in a paper that has not been accepted yet? Recently my paper was accepted pending major revisions (i.e., not yet accepted), and while following the reviewers' comments and revising my paper, I realized that both reviewers missed a mistake that I made in a function block diagram. What should I do?

Correct it and let them know in the joined point-by-point response?
Wait until they tell me about it?
Ask them to double check that diagram?

I'm afraid it may send the wrong message and I'd look disrespectful by showing them that they missed the mistake.

YES.  The responsibility for correctness of the paper is yours not the reviewers’.  The reviewers may help you find errors, but that is secondary to their main function: recommending to the editor whether to publish.

I had made such a correction just three days ago for a paper that I had published almost two years ago. A couple of subscripts were missing from my equations in my published paper. I wrote to the editor and politely asked him to correct it. And within a week it was implemented. yay!

The online version has an editor note like:
(Received 13 May 2016; published 23 September 2016; corrected 3 May 2018)


Extra time when time is of the essence (U.S.) In the U.S. context, I am wondering how colleges deal with the accommodation of students with disabilities when testing something for which "time is of the essence".

Consider, for example, a sight-reading exam at a music school. Surely, as much as dyslexia seriously impairs reading text, there must exist an equivalent condition impairing some people's ability to read music. So I would expect that under current policies, a student who can demonstrate a serious "music reading disability" could ask for accommodation in the form of extra time on a sight-reading exam (at least if the exam is one where students are given some time with the new sheet before they have to perform it live)?

The issue, obviously, is that time is of the essence in a sight-reading exam. What is being tested is precisely whether the student is able to quickly (sometimes even "on the spot") read a new sheet of music.

Of course, this extends beyond the particular example of sight-reading. A school that trains mechanics may specifically want to test whether its students are able to service a car in a given amount of time. A school that trains chemists may want to test whether its students can perform a given experiment in a given amount of time as well. And so on and so forth.

These situations seem hard to reconcile with requests for extra-time from students with disabilities. My questions are:

Do current accommodation policies recognize a "special kind of tests" where "time is of the essence" and requests for extra time from students with disabilities can legally be turned down?
If so, what prevents teachers from deciding that time is of the essence in all (or most) of their tests? In answers to other questions about extra time, we often read that "tests should test knowledge and understanding, not speed". What if a school decided it wanted to grant degrees to student who not only "understand" some material, but are also "quick on their feet" and able to apply this material to solve problems (or produce an artistic performance in the musical example above) in a timely manner? Could the school go down that road without contravening existing anti-discrimination regulations and risk losing all its public funding?

Do current accommodation policies recognize a "special kind of tests"
  where "time is of the essence" and requests for extra time from
  students with disabilities can legally be turned down?

No.

For example, where I am, instructors receive a form simply saying, "Student X has a right to double time on exams". There is no sub-categorization made to that right, and no channel for instructors to pick or choose whether to honor it.

Most institutions do make accomodation for this but you have to ask - there is no “one size fits all policy”.

This is because there are two sides: what the test is trying to achieve and what that particular student may need.

So you have to ask, the lecturer or the department or the learning disabilities officer.


Referee says the proof is wrong, but it is not, what to do? About 3 months ago, my co-author and I submitted a mathematical paper to a journal. Yesterday, we got the editor's response and the paper has been rejected. The reason is that the referee thinks that our results are wrong or trivial.

However, we carefully read the referee's report and we conclude that the "errors" pointed out by the referee are not errors at all and that our proofs are correct. In all modesty, we think that the referee understood very poorly even the statements of our theorems.

Personally, this is the first time that such a situation occurs to me.
I already have four papers published in such journal and the reports I got from the referees have been always really accurate.

What do you think is the best thing to do?
Forget about and try another journal? Write an e-mail to the editor explaining why we disagree with the decision? Other ideas?

EDIT: Thank you very much for all your answers. At the end, we submitted our paper to another journal with only some slight edits we have already planned to do independently by the referee's report.

While you might be able to appeal to the editor, once you've been rejected, you're probably not going to get a change in decision.  I would instead recommend focusing on a new submission to another journal.

Before you do so, however, I would strongly advise performing a major revision on your presentation of the proofs.  Assuming that your proofs are in fact correct, you clearly did not convey them in such a way that their correctness and significance were obvious to the reviewer.  The reviewer may have been a sloppy or shallow reader, but so in fact will be many of your other readers after publication.

In short, take the feedback as an indicator of how your paper needs to be improved before you submit it to another journal.

... try another journal? Write an e-mail to the editor explaining why we disagree with the decision?

I would pick up on this.  I do not know how compact or concise or how deductive your proof is.  I don't know how concise and deductive (rather than inductive) it can be.  Let's suppose it is both concise and deductive, then spell out each step to the editor.  Make sure each step is undeniably justified and spell that out.

If the result is "unimportant", make the case for how it is salient.  What other mathematical work does this influence?  How does your result help some other mathematical effort?  If your result serves only your mathematical effort (like in previous papers of yours), then you have the problem of making sure those are salient as well.

I used to be a reviewer for the Audio Engineering Society.  There was a guy from Hong Kong that submitted and published paper after paper after paper on the topic called "Wavetable synthesis," but they were only continuations of his own work and quite self-referential.  Finally the editorial folks got tired of it, because it got to the question of "Who the hell cares?"  or "Who gives a rat's ass?"  You need to be able to answer that question.

Saying, "This work is important to increase my publication record so that I can get tenure" might not impress them.  (I'm not saying you're saying that.)


What should a student do about a professor who uses class time poorly? One of my professors is quite enthusiastic about teaching the subject. He often deviates from the main content and gets lost in details vastly beside or beyond the matter at hand - which is interesting, though not immediately helpful.
Effectively, this means that he regularly fails to complete the day's chapter. To compensate, he always overruns on time (15 minutes are not unusual at all).
Despite that, he failed to finish several chapters that (according to him) were intended to be taught (and indeed have been in the year before), and did not discuss or even provide solutions to previous homework due to lack of time in class.
I'm looking for advice how to deal with this situation. How can we make him stick to relevant content?
My fear is that the students will a) lack knowledge from missing several chapters, leading to future problems in subsequent courses and b) have worse conditions to succeed in this course's exam, as they lack relevant information and experience.
I'm baffled how he is able to continue like this - he clearly noticed the problem and also apologized to the students about it several times, but did not yet change his habits at all.
As I have already talked to him about other problems before, which he is attempting to fix now, I do not want to "complain" to him again if possible. I'm also a bit unsure what that would accomplish, seeing that he appears to be completely unable to keep his lectures on point.
If the students were to talk to the department head, is he likely to take action, or is this rather within the professors individual judgement? If they do, I'm clueless to imagine how he would take it.
Regarding the missing homework solutions, I considered requesting written solutions to the tasks we failed to look at in class. However, this kind of exercise does not benefit from just solutions and instead requires explanations.

I would encourage you to view this not as poor teaching style, necessarily, but as a particular teaching style which may not suit you.
You should not take for granted the fact that this teacher actually seems to care about the material and be excited about it. That is a great opportunity for you to learn and you should take advantage of it if you can. Ask questions, try to gain some of this person's intuition and insight into the topic - you are probably paying for access to this professor, and this is a way to learn things you cannot learn from the book.
You should describe the teaching style in any reviews you submit about the course or professor. Some students would love the type of course you describe, and some (such as yourself) will not find that it meets their needs. This is the proper way to give feedback. Complaining to the administration will probably not be effective because the professor is not doing anything wrong (except perhaps running classes too long), just adopting a particular teaching style.

I would no longer take your concern up with the professor in question, but rather follow the chain of command and file a complaint. First, keep it informal and talk to the Chair. Ask anyone who has good standing in the class to add their input in the same way. If no progress has been made within a reasonable time frame (let the Chair decide this), then file a formal complaint with the Chair. If it gets worse, go up the chain to the Assistant Dean of your college branch (like College of the Arts). Keep at it until some progress is made. Whatever you do, keep it factual, not emotional.

Good luck.