If I request a paper through my university library, must they pay a substantial amount of money? I was asked to referee a mathematics article, submitted for publication in a reputable journal. To evaluate it, I also wanted to look at a cited article which it claims to extend. Upon searching online (through my university's VPN) I hit a paywall: I can read it for "only" $39.95.

My university subscribes to some journals, but apparently not this one. I find this price ridiculous and I will not pay. But I am also reluctant to ask my library to; that money is coming out of our students' tuition. If I ask a librarian to furnish me with a copy of the article, will they be out this same $40?

Related question: will publishers (requesting that I do peer review for them) obtain and provide articles upon request, in situations like this?

(Related but different.)

Update: People gave me the (excellent!) advice to ask my librarians, and they got back to me. Their answer in brief: It depends. Usually, it doesn't cost my library anything; sometimes it can, but the requests go through different channels than the paywall I encountered.

You should not hesitate to ask the library for articles like this. The library most likely will pay a fee, but it will probably be less than the $40 for you to access it directly, and is an expected budget item for academic libraries.

There are costs associated with interlibrary loan (ILL) transactions, but they are minimal for articles that can be handled entirely electronically (for things that need to be physically transmitted, like books, and/or processed in some way, like print articles that must be scanned, the costs can be substantially higher). Since you found this article online, it probably falls in that cheapest category.

Many libraries also have agreements with publishers to "buy on demand" some articles that are requested through ILL. This usually happens entirely behind the scenes, so you probably wouldn't know the difference between such an article and traditional cross-library lending. It may cost the library more than ILL, but the library then "owns" the article so any future requests for that article will be at no additional cost, unlike ILL, which costs the same every time.

As an academic librarian, I can tell you that the library almost certainly has a budget for this kind of thing, and if it were my institution, I would want you to use this basic library service to get the materials you need to do your job (almost as much as I want students to get the materials they need). Nothing in a library is actually free*; making information accessible is the reason libraries—and library budgets—exist.

*Of course there are open access journals, donated books, etc., but someone had to pay for all of those, too, one way or another.

My library has a fund set aside for requests. It is specifically earmarked for things they don't have that someone might want. So ask; at worst they tell you no.


Prof disagrees with assigned textbook regarding an exam question This actually happened to my wife, but for the sake of simplicity I'll talk about it as if it happened to me.

I wrote a final exam for a university course last week, and a couple days ago I got my marks and the correct answers back. I disagreed with one of the questions I answered wrong, so I pulled out the textbook that was assigned to this course and found that it supports my answer. I sent an email to my prof with the page number and the exact quote from the textbook that supports my answer. His reply was (with slightly changed wording):

  In class I said that correct exam answer... This is an issue with any text and shows why class is so vital: Texts rapidly go out of date or (such as the broad text used for this course)  demonstrate a lack of depth. Lectures are usually much more up to date.

Keep in mind that this is an Archaeology class, which in my unprofessional opinion really doesn't "go out of date" all that quickly. The textbook is the assigned textbook for this course by the university. The online lecture notes posted by the prof make no mention of the disagreement. I was not present at the lecture.

Do professors have an obligation to recognize the assigned textbook as an authority in the context of the course? In my experience, when confronted with such a problem they typically go "Ok, fair enough, I'll give you the mark", but are they just being nice or are they supposed to do this? He's not a senior prof (not even PhD yet), so do you think going to his superior would help?

If I get this one extra mark it will bump me up 0.4 GPA for the course because I'm right at the cut-off.

Edit:
Since several people asked, the question was something like "Which Aztec god is the god of war and is associated with water". The book said one god, Huitzilopochtli, was the god of war, while Tlaloc was the god of fertility and rain. When studying for the exam, Huitzilopochtli stuck in my head as the god of war, so I picked him. The prof said that in class he mentioned that Tlaloc also had militaristic aspects.
Note that I'm not saying the prof is wrong objectively, only that our book makes no mention of Tlaloc being war-like and instead makes emphasis on fertility and life, being a beneficial god, which seemed totally opposite to war. When I sent my email I explained that I picked Huitzilopochtli because the book lists only him as the war god, but that I recognize my answer is only half-right due to the water reference, and that I feel that Tlaloc is also only half-right since he's not a war god.  Also, the prof agreed with me that the book was misleading, but said that I should've come to the lecture. Hence my question here focusing on whether the book should have any authority without getting into the details of the question itself.

Do professors have an obligation to recognize the assigned textbook as an authority in the context of the course?

No, there is no such obligation.  It's a bad educational practice to choose a textbook that's seriously unreliable, but even good textbooks slowly go out of date, and they sometimes have a lack of detail or even outright errors as well.  It's important for professors to try to be clear about any deficiencies the textbook has, for example by highlighting them in class.  I provide a written list of any typos or other issues I am aware of (although I note that of course there may be others as well).  However, there is no obligation to accept the textbook's version as a correct answer, and there are no specific rules about how things must be brought to the students' attention.  It's entirely up to the lecturer's discretion.

I would expect that many professors would be more flexible or accommodating than what happened in this instance, but not all of them.  At least in the sort of universities I'm familiar with (in the U.S.), there's no way an administrator will change the grade under these circumstances if the faculty member who assigned it is unwilling to do so.

On the other hand, it's not clear to me from what you say whether this person is a regular faculty member (due to the lack of a Ph.D.).  If you are dealing with a teaching assistant, it could be worth asking the professor in charge of the whole course.  This will probably upset the TA, but it might work (since the professor will want to maintain common policies among all the TAs assigning grades).  Other than that, I don't see any recourse.

Added in light of Pete Clark's answer: I'm assuming your answer is definitely wrong.  I.e., either the textbook had an error in it or it's out of date regarding a clear scholarly consensus.  On the other hand, if you can make a case that your answer is actually correct or accepted by serious researchers (not just that the textbook says it, but that authoritative and up to date scholarly sources agree), then you've got more of a basis for disputing the grade.

I'm actually very surprised by the answers to this question.

First, I think it's very bad form for a lecturer to deliberately include a question on an exam where the assigned textbook gets it wrong. I would certainly never do that.

Second, if the lecturer thinks it's important that the students get the correct facts about this topic, (s)he should inform the students through a forum that all students are required to use (whether they use it or not), such as e-mail or a class website (I would do both, actually, just to make sure). Again, I think it's bad form and sloppy to think it suffices to just "mention it in class", especially if the lecturer intends to include it in the exam. All lecturers know that all students cannot make every single class, and I would think it's both unfair and childish to "punish" the students that didn't make that specific class in this way.


Popular software used in research is incorrectly reporting solution is optimal: what to do? I have an example demonstrating the solution produced by a popularly used software package is not the optimal solution, despite the software claiming that it is. Several recent papers published from my lab have used this software in their evaluations, and I know it is extensively used in the research community to solve optimization problems.

So I am unsure how to report this bug; it is a proprietary, closed-source software. As a first step, I could contact the software developer about the bug, although they don't seem to have a straightforward method to report bugs.

But a larger issue is that papers published with results based upon a buggy software could be compromised. What if the eventual fix causes the software to take much longer to execute, so that running on large instances is now infeasible?

I have told my advisor about the issue, but he does not seem very interested, possibly because of the potential ramifications.

I am currently working on a project where I could have used this software; I now don't trust it and have switched to a much less powerful open-source alternative. So I guess my question is: how should I handle this situation?

You should create a reproducible test case that demonstrates the flaw conclusively.  If you are that confident and the software is that widely used, it warrants publication in a technical journal. They key is to involve the company. Show them your test case and mention you have interest in publishing the result. Offer to collaborate with them on the publication. That way, they will be forced to either demonstrate you are wrong or admit you are right. In the latter case, they save face by admitting the problem. If they ignore you, press ahead.

I have seen well-known commercial optimisation packages such as CPLEX producing wrong result under a stress, so to speak---solving problems which are on paper solvable with the said software, but in practice sufficiently dissimilar from what they are tested on, and targeted at.

By wrong I mean as wrong as it gets, i.e. a linear optimisation problem is reported infeasible, while a request to produce an infeasibility certificate fails (and if solved with a higher precision on a slower open-source solver, the problem turns out to be feasible).

Surely sooner or later the error, if there was an error, will be found and exposed, this is how science works. Incidentally, in the past couple of years I published papers, which, among other things, correct errors in a monograph and in textbooks (sic!); the corresponding erroneous papers were published over 20 years ago. Oh well.


Dealing with aggressive student suspected to be cheating In a previous test one of my TAs discovered a fraudulent pattern in six of the exams. The answers were uncomfortably similar, actually identical in many places. I called the students to my office and brought two colleagues to help me "interview" them individually (ask them questions about the test, gauge their level of knowledge about the subject, ...)

One of the students reacted very explosively at my one and only question: "Could you please tell me how you solved 'problem 2'? He told me he felt threatened by the question and that I had no right to ask him questions after the exam. To what I reply: "do you or do you not know?"

At that point things spiraled very fast out of control, he reacted violently, stepping out of the office while muttering some insults. On the way out he hit the door. I tried to calm him down but he got only angrier and the color of his words became redder. After seeing this, the other students refused to continue the interviews with my colleagues and left.

I definitely don't know if I should have approached the situation in a different way. Should I make them repeat the exam? Start a disciplinary process?

EDIT (Jan/09/18):

In case of suspected misconduct I should bring the case, along with evidence, to the Dean. He then reviews it and decides whether to bring it to the Academic Council or stop it there. They ultimately have the power to decide what to do. However, almost a year ago a colleague also faced a situation that involved fraud during a test, and the Dean decided to not do anything because the potential punishment for the student would be too harsh (he might be expelled)

EDIT (Jan/10/18):

Just to add some details into the situation: At the moment of the incident I was talking with one student, and each of my colleagues was doing the same with a student. The six of us were in the same (big) room. And the other three students were waiting outside.

Report the student and his problem behavior to your honor council or academic conduct officer, as appropriate at your institution and let it be their problem.  At most schools, your responsibility as an instructor is to report suspected cases of misconduct, not to form a final judgement.

If you do not want a student who feels alarmed and threatened to react like a cornered rat, I suggest that you not corner him or humiliate him.

Students make mistakes.  I think our goal as teachers should be to help students learn certain facts, skills, habits, and ways of thinking and analyzing, and provide useful feedback in a fair way.  I don't think our goal should be to create a cornered rat.  If a student appears to have cheated on a midterm exam, but we don't have proof, then let's step up our proctoring on the final exam, to minimize the chances that a student could cheat without our realizing it.

(As a TA I once faced this situation.  Two students handed in identical homework.  But there was no proof of misconduct.  Solution: the department scheduled my class's final for a special room where I was able to put the suspects in isolated seats widely separated from other students.  One student got a D and the other failed the final and had to repeat the course over the summer.)

If a student cheated in the midterm, chances are very good that if s/he is prevented from cheating in the final, s/he will fail the exam.

If not -- if the student manages to demonstrate the desired knowledge and skills in the final, without unfair assistance -- that's a good thing, no?


Group members want to work using virtual meeting (google hangouts) but we already have bad group dynamics I am in the first semester of my masters degree in a professional field. I have been assigned to a group with a (fake) political stance. Every week of the semester we are expected to make presentations to the class advocating our groups position in various formats (town hall, internal meeting, speech, etc.). The groups were largely assigned based on age/professional experience (many of the students in this program are working adults, but we are all just out of under-grad).

Our first meeting there was some friction about where and when to meet, one of the members even went to the wrong location then blamed the group when she was 15 minutes late.

Our first presentation was good but not nearly as professional as the other groups. Now the group wants to stop meeting in person and use Google Hangouts instead. I am very afraid this will detract from the quality of our work and probably our grade, how can I convince my fellow group mates that the extra time spent meeting in person is worth it?

I know this answer comes too late for you.

But I agree with your assessment. This group project is only going to sink from here. To which, I would build on one existing comment already offered to you.

  Raise your concerns to them, and then listen to what they have to say
  with an open mind?

That being said, do not raise your concern to them as a group, raise your concerns and listen to each what has to say with an open mind, but do it individually first. If you bring this concern to them as a group, most members of your group will probably just make the most expedient decision that takes the least amount of commitment on their part, a vote will be quickly called, and then that will be the end of it.

Also, I agree that the Professor wouldn't want to be bothered with such a problem. Learning to work with unmotivated colleagues is a fact of life. This is your problem to solve, not his.

If I have understood right, you are concerned that the little bit of functionality this working group has had up until now will deteriorate even further with this change of meeting format, because you suspect that the shift to remote collaboration may signal a lack of commitment to the project.

Whenever you are assigned a work group at school, and things are not going well, you should inform the professor, keep trying to make it work, and then if things continue to go badly, inform the professor again.

In other words, inform the captain when the ship starts taking on water; do your best to keep the boat afloat; and keep a firm eye on the lifeboats.


Is it appropriate to express concerns to a professor about a new exam format? I'm taking a math class at community college. The class has three regular exams (25% of grade) and a final (25%). Normally, the professor generously grades the fifteen-question exams with partial credit, but because of the COVID-19 crisis, we have had to move everything online.

I received excellent scores on the first two exams, but the third exam we had to take online. In the new, twenty-question format, she obviously could not offer partial credit because a computer scored it. Going into the exam, I didn't feel unprepared, but I ended up getting a terrible 62%. But then, the professor announced that the entire class had performed poorly on the exam, and she gave us another day to retake it. I had already spent an entire day studying and working on the exam, and I knew it would be dropped anyway, so I declined. I still don't think that there was much that would have changed if I took it a second time without being able to see what I got wrong. When I did get it back, I found that several of my mistakes had nothing to do with math and were a result of failing to correctly enter my results into the computer.

I don't know how the rest of the class performed on the exam compared to me, but the professor was concerned enough to give an extra day, so I'm willing to bet it was around the same. Needless to say, I strongly suspect that our collective failure is a result of the new exam format. I think that our grades depended on the partial-credit scoring. And now, the final, worth 25% of my grade, is coming up on May 18th.

I have a 98% in the class. If I get a 60% on the final, it will completely destroy my grade. And what's most disturbing to me is that so far, there has been no correspondence on what the final will look like. In terms of format, I don't know what I'm studying for, exactly. If it is going to be similar to the third exam, then I'm very likely doomed. With my two AP exams also around the corner, in the same week, it is causing an undue amount of stress.

I really appreciate the professor, and I naturally want to remain respectful and stay on good terms with her. Is it appropriate for me to voice my concerns? What kind of language should I use, and which parts of what I have disclosed here are appropriate to include? And what reasonably should I request?

It’s totally appropriate to point out to your professor that your grade is suffering for technical reasons having to do with the online format of the exam. If your professor is reasonable she will not be in the least bit offended by this.

By the way, we are pretty much all dealing with issues of this sort nowadays. I experienced something similar just a few days ago when I gave an online quiz. One of the problems required entering the answer to a question in decimal notation, and this was automatically graded by the testing platform. The correct answer was 15/64=0.234375, but some students assumed it was okay to round off the answer and entered 0.234 or 0.23, only to have that marked off as incorrect. When they emailed me to point out the issue, I gave them the points for the question.

To summarize, let your professor know. Be polite and explain the technical issues in entering the answers that caused your answers to be marked as incorrect. If you explain it clearly and convincingly enough, not only will the professor be in a better position to design a fairer format for the final exam, she may actually give you back some of the points that were marked off in the current exam.

TL;DR:

Your professor probably does not care about these issues as much as you do. That is a non-problem. Just reach out to your professor and do not sweat over it. Focus on whatever is more important than these grades. Family, sports, opposite/same sex, this does not worth your time.

Longer answer:

If you have a concern about something that affects your life (grades do, unfortunately) why shouldn't you be able to reach out to your professor?

Academics, in general (or at least in theory) are devoted to science and justice. There are some oddballs, yes but that is the kernel of their profession. Why would you spend all your life behind a desk/in a lab if you don't have such passion -even only for the first few years of your profession? Money? That falls under oddballs category. Prestige? Do academics have any prestige in this world at all? Nothing. Dealing with problems is my passion and that case is yours is another problem to be solved.

Don't tell everyone but there is a trick: If you can pose any problem in a brain-tingling way you can lure any academics to pursue any problem. What to do with this information is up to you though. I will not give away all our secrets out of nowhere.

Don't be confrontational, because in that case their first instinct would be to destroy you with facts -that is how academy works: the way of hard science. That is most probably not personal. I said instinct, because in most cases it can't be controlled and maybe even noticed.

Of course this is my experience and my way of interacting with students, and not everyone has to be like this. Yet even if they unwelcoming, what would you lose? Your grade you already lost? Your grade which will be even lower? Latter is why there are boards and ethical committees. They will say some bad words and hurt your feelings? Don't be a special snowflake. There are idiots posing as academics, deal with it. You will not see them next year or the year after but I have to deal with them almost daily.

Just... Just don't be disrespectful and don't be confrontational if you are not ready to play that way. I can tolerate (and even enjoy in a sinister way) confrontation but disrespect is some another level. I can hurt your feelings, and you would brush them off by tomorrow.


A student who asked me to write a rec letter seems to have committed academic dishonesty in my class, what do I do? A student (let's call them A) in my class that I just finished teaching asked me to write them a recommendation letter. I said yes, and the first deadline is Dec 15, as they often are (FYI, I'm writing this post on the very early morning of Dec 14).
Unfortunately for the student, as I was grading the final exam, I noticed that A and another student (call them B) seem to have exactly the same wrong answers (their wrong answer was pretty unusual, and in my class of 100, they were the only ones to have these wrong answers).
I've actually been suspicious of B for a while, as B kept coming up with the correct answers without actually being able to justify their steps, and in fact, their work was often wrong up until the final answer.
Upon comparing A and B's exam papers, A's solutions were more or less clear, and I'm sure that A worked it out themselves. B, on the other hand, has solutions that are more or less like A's solutions, but there are so many critical typos and mistakes in notation (showing that B has no idea what is going on in the course) that it should be impossible for B to arrive at the correct answer. I think the errors were introduced because B was sneakily trying to change some letters and such to a different letter, and changing a sentence structure here and there, etc.
So, I suspect that A is actually a decent student, but for whatever reason, A let B copy their answers for the exams in the course (there were 3, all 3 exams were strikingly similar).
I'm planning to submit this case for an investigation, but this takes a while, possibly longer than a semester. My questions are:

Should I still write the recommendation letter? On one hand, if A turns out to be innocent (not possible in my heart, but innocent until proven guilty) then I'm screwing them over by declining to write a letter so close to the deadline. On the other hand, if A cheated, then since I was aware of this before writing this letter, I don't want to not mention it.
How would you confront the student?

You agreed to write this letter, and it is due tomorrow (!). Reneging on your promise would effectively torpedo the student's applications, as they are very unlikely to find another recommender on one day's notice. Given that you haven't even confronted them yet (much less convicted them), this would be altogether unjust. (Clearly, your dilemma would be very different if this incident had come to light a month ago.)
Given this timescale, I suggest the following:

Write the letter without any mention of your unproven suspicions.
Confront the student.
If the student confesses or is convicted, you could then consider contacting the programs to withdraw or amend your letter. This is a natural, just, and foreseeable consequence of A's decision to cheat in a class taught by their recommender.

One other thought: consider doing #2 ASAP -- you could ask the student if they are available for an urgent, important call regarding your letter of recommendation (that should get their attention). You can then confront them and also explain how this will (not) affect your letter. This conversation has a few possible outcomes:

You proceed as above. Indeed, I recommend writing the letter before having this conversation precisely so that your letter is not (even unconsciously) affected (as even innocent students may react poorly to serious accusations).
They withdraw their request for a letter. You certainly shouldn't pressure the student to go this route -- I wouldn't even bring it up. But it's possible the student will say that they prefer not to use your letter given the accusation; in this case, you should respect this.
They confess to cheating, at which point you can either rescind your offer to write the letter, or you can agree to write a letter that reflects this incident.

Note, if you do confront the student ASAP, you must be careful not to pre-empt the judicial process, nor to create an abusive, blackmail-like situation. Assure them that you have written a positive letter that does not mention your suspicions, and that you will not rescind or amend your letter until/unless they are formally convicted. Despite your best efforts, A will doubtless still be stressed; accusations of cheating are always stressful. But being transparent and giving A as much agency as possible is the best one can reasonably do under the circumstances.

How do you even know for sure that A was even aware that his work was being copied?
In the past, where two students have had the same answers, and it was clear that there was copying going on, I have on occasion emailed both students and told them that if they would both email me in agreement an explanation about whose work it actually was, I would give that student 50% credit. The other would get zero. This has stopped copying in courses every time I used it, and in every case there was an admission and apology by both students for their part. But we should also recognize the distinction between students' academic and industrial realms.
The student may not be well as well suited for academia as he is for industry. This sort of "helping" others may be what an employer wants, by getting the job done and not worrying about who does it. But in academia the student needs to be accountable for each person doing their own work. They are very different environments. In industry the employee would be commended for helping his colleagues by providing information to them, and if that is a basic character trait of his, limit his punishment to the academic realm.
I'd go ahead and write a positive letter, maybe even hinting that he seems to like to help his colleagues even when it might cost him personally. But follow through with the investigation and handle it separately. Who knows? Even if he drops out of school for troubles with academic dishonesty, he may find success in the business world where sharing work with colleagues can be a very good thing. There are many successful dropouts (founders of Microsoft, Google, etc.), and if that's where he's headed, help him find success there.


Is the death of a girlfriend's father a reasonable excuse for a student to miss a class? I just received an email from an undergrad student in a course that I am teaching.
The student informed me that his girlfriend's father passed away,
and so he will be unable to attend my class because
he "needs to stay with her to help her with official processes related to her father's death".
(I am paraphrasing what he wrote.)
This is the first time that a student has raised this as a reason for missing a class.
Question:
Is the death of a girlfriend's father a reasonable excuse for a student to miss a class?
Here's how I am thinking about it:

The death of an immediate family member is a significant event.
If the student experienced the death of an immediate family member,
there's no question to me that this would be a reasonable excuse for missing a class.
However, in this case, it's not the student
who is experiencing the death of an immediate family member, but his girlfriend.
I understand that for university students,
a girlfriend/boyfriend can be extremely important.
I don't think my university policy allows a student to miss quizzes/exams
due to the death of a relative of the student's significant other,
so I am assuming that the same policy would apply for missing classes.
However, I have a nagging feeling that if I were to deny his request,
I would be a "bad" or "unreasonable" teacher.
(Note: I mistakenly wrote "due to the death of the student's significant other" earlier but I fixed this mistake.)

Response to comments/questions

Due to COVID-19, the course is run virtually using Zoom.

A few weeks before the start of the semester,
I inherited this course from a colleague
who received reducing teaching load
because he was assigned additional administrative tasks.
I am therefore trying to run the course how he set it up in the past.
The attendance policy which he set,
and is included in the syllabus,
is that if students miss 2 or more classes,
they will automatically fail the course.

In addition, students do receive a small amount of points
for attendance and participation.

The course is conducted using a seminar course format
rather than a traditional lecture format.
For all classes except the first class,
students present their work,
and other students ask questions and give feedback and suggestions.
Due to the seminar course format,
it makes some sense to me why my colleague required
a high level of attendance to pass the course.

I found what the university policy says
regarding excused absences for exams or coursework:

A death certificate and supporting documentation where there is a demonstrably close relationship between the student and the deceased.

What I learned and what I decided to do

Ultimately I decided to excuse the student from that particular class.
It was pointed out that attendance and participation
only counts for a very small number of marks
in the overall course assessment.
Therefore, I should not waste time and effort overthinking this issue.
(In the case where the student were absent for
an exam or major course assignment,
I would have to follow official procedures
to handle the student's issue.)
It was also pointed out that students
may be strongly emotionally affected
by events that occur not only to their immediate family
or to their married spouses,
but also to their significant others or close friends/relatives
or even their pets.
Finally, it is a hassle to take attendance,
so in future courses,
it would make my life easier and less stressful
if attendance was not considered in the course assessment.

Edit: see below for some additional thoughts following OP’s revision of the question.
Let me start with this basic premise: Your students are adults.
Let me repeat that: your students are adults. That is one of the great luxuries of teaching in a higher education setting: you get to spend your time and energy actually teaching the subjects you are passionate about and not having to worry about being some kind of glorified baby-sitter or beacon of moral rectitude for your students. The division of labor is clear: the students get to make to their own decisions about how they want to best benefit from the course you are teaching, and you get to test them, give out assignments of various sorts, and give a grade at the end of the semester that reflects your assessment of what they learned.
And now for your question:

Is the death of a girlfriend's father a reasonable excuse for a student to miss a class?

While it is tempting to answer with a simple “yes”, I think the more accurate answer is that it is meaningless to speak about a “reasonable excuse”. Quite simply, in the context of a lecture-based college class, you should not be in the business of policing the reasons for students’ absences, or indeed whether they are absent or not. So in that sense, any excuse is a “reasonable” excuse. But if that’s the case, of course the notion of an excuse loses all meaning, so we come back to what I said above.
I know that what I‘m saying here flies in the face of the reality that some instructors mandate attendance in lectures, and that you do as well. Well, I have nothing more to say other than that such mandates are misguided and pointless, and lead to precisely the kind of fake dilemmas of the sort presented in your question, in which a baffled instructor tries to wrap their head around whether something is a “reasonable excuse”.
Finally, from a practical point of view, since you inherited this course from a colleague and don’t seem to personally have a strong attachment to the mandated attendance requirement, the best course of action is to simply drop that requirement, and free up your and your students’ time and energy for more productive uses.

Edit: OP has edited the question to clarify that the course is “conducted using a seminar course format rather than a traditional lecture format. For all classes except the first class, students present their work, and other students ask questions and give feedback and suggestions.”
For such a course, an attendance requirement may be logical. I’d still advocate for the instructor to make every effort possible not to get dragged into having to adjudicate questions about what is a “reasonable excuse” for missing class. It’s simply not a healthy situation for an instructor to be in and again conflicts with my “students are adults” premise. What I suggest instead is to have a policy that “students may not miss more than X lectures”, without making a distinction between “excused” and “not excused” absences, and to set X at a number that’s high enough that the policy won’t hurt students who had “serious” problems like an illness or a death in the family. For example X=4 or 5 would be pretty reasonable for a course of the type OP is describing. With such a policy, again the instructor will be treating the students as the adults that they are and freeing up everyone’s time and energy to let them do what they are actually at university to do instead of quibbling over bureaucratic nonsense.

All of this is U.S.-specific:  Some history on this:  A specific college (I think it was actually a truck driver's school) reported that student's were attending classes that they weren't.  This caused financial-aid (i.e. funding) issues and seemed to be unethical and possibly illegal.  (See the web-site:  https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/confessions-community-college-dean/attendance-policies)
As a result, many schools were forced to take attendance (when I went to college, they didn't typically at the University level).  So, then one has the obligation to attend lectures that had previously been basically miss-at-your-own-risk.
If I were the professor, I would typically always allow a student to attend almost any funeral, especially if it were a one-day-event.  For out of town or overseas funerals, the situation gets more complicated.
Also, in my post-academia work-world, I would think most managers would generally allow an employee to miss in this situation, though for certain jobs/situations that would not always be true.  I had to do this myself, and there was no problem from my manager.  Of course, I used a vacation-day (but with very little notice).


How to deal with a student found seeking an answer to a coursework question online? I have just found that a student has posted one of their assignment questions on a forum and is seeking help in getting a solution.

I have a good idea who the student is, but no definitive proof. How would you handle this situation?

Identify the offline equivalent of the observed behavior, and then act as you would normally. Remember, that the burden of proof for academic dishonesty likely resides with you. This includes verifying that the poster is indeed the student you accuse.

I find this situation to be pretty common: https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/2753/how-to-derive-partial-gas-equation. Most stackexchanges have a homework policy. I would consider homework questions posted to stackexchanges to be no worse than asking students who have taken the course before you or asking another professor. How you deal with it is up to you.

What would your response be if you saw a student collaborating on the problem in a study group? How do you respond if you find out that your student asked another instructor or a grad student in your department for help? If you learn the student worked on that problem with his/her tutor? If the student looked up the answer in the textbook or the solutions manual? All of these are common and to varying degrees accepted (if not liked).

I would guess your irritation over this is somewhere more than the student asking one of your colleagues (who being nice will actually do the problem) and somewhat less than the student stealing another student's answer. Identify the offline equivalent, and then behave as you would normally.

EDIT - I missed the last part of the question.

  I have a good idea who the student is, but no definitive proof. How would you handle this situation?

If you do not have proof, then suck it up and let it go - this time. Next time put something in your syllabus. Either write a pretty severe sounding policy that exists to deter the behavior (because your policy will be basically unenforceable), or write harder questions and encourage them to use online forums with the caveat that they document all of their interaction. The second option shifts the burden of good behavior to your students.

In my opinion there is nothing wrong with posting a question online unless it specifically says / suggests that others should do the work for the student.

If you are that concerned about this then you should reconsider the format of your exam to reduce this risk.

Your only option would be to show that the student colluded or plagiarised the work which I believe are concepts well understood in academia.

For example if the students relatives or associates in life are an expert(s) on the topic in question question, how would you know if the work is the student's or not.

Therefore you will need to wait until the work is submitted to decide what to do next.


Does the length of a PhD thesis matter? I am writing a PhD thesis in literature. I have covered all areas in about 120 pages. Does the length of a PhD thesis matter even if it has covered all the areas mentioned in the synopsis?

John Nash's thesis was 26 pages long with only two references and he later won a Nobel prize. What matters is scientific quality not quantity, if your ideas are superior nobody will object the length (mine was less than 100 pages).

If it satisfies your advisor and the committee it is fine. A 1 page dissertation in poetry is within the realm of possibility, however unlikely.
It is a mistake to pad things, I think.
Some places (and some advisors) might have minimal length requirements, though I would question them. But if that is the issue here you need to think a bit more about the overall structure, not just the page count.


(Psychology) Mismatch with Advisor's Research Interests A complicated story so I’ll try to keep it short. Basically, I was fairly young applying to PhD programs (in psychology) and got into a program where I thought I’d be a great fit. My advisor’s research interests seemed to match up with mine, but the more I started working in the lab I realized how much they....don’t. I’m realizing that we have really conflicting theoretical orientations, and I’m not in any way shape or form thrilled about the current research being conducted in the lab. I’ve been skirting by on the outer rim of their research interests, but I ultimately know for the sake of my future I should be working with someone who has more expertise in what I specifically want to work in. All that said, I can tell my advisor wants me to pursue my own interests and is trying to support my ideas (but it’s clear they are working outside their expertise). I actually have a great relationship with my current advisor and interpersonally get along fantastically with my lab. I feel lost as to what to do (switch labs and work with someone more related to what I want to do-not sure if that would damage any current relationships with my present lab, continue with someone who is very supportive but not in the area I want to be in, something else....). I would feel more comfortable working outside said advisors expertise; however, they are new faculty and I’m not confident they can support me very well in that domain. Honestly just looking for advice/thoughts.... I’ve subtly brought this up in our individual meetings but haven’t done anything drastic.

One statement in your question stands out: "I can tell my advisor wants me to pursue my own interests and is trying to support my ideas". That alone would suggest that, under certain conditions, it might be wise to stay. You have other supporting statements as well.

Some students can carry on their research with only minimal advice from advisors. Others need more continuing support, and even the ideas about what to study. You seem to be more in the former group than the latter, but you need to judge that.

If your advisor were hostile, or even indifferent, to your research goals, it would be better to leave, but in this case, perhaps staying is the best option.

But an advisor can be helpful to you in many ways other than just basic support. S/he can help with process and with keeping you within ethical norms of the field. They can probably also make a fair judgement about when you are done and ready to write up your findings. The general support also implies that they will sign off on the work and write good letters. That alone is enough, provided that you are self driven enough, and with enough ideas, to carry through the research relatively unguided.

You need to judge this, of course, but I would be hesitant to make a quick decision to go elsewhere, either at the same university or at a different one. Imagine what your situation would be if it were completely reversed: a hostile advisor who was very knowledgeable in your specialization.

Think before you jump.

However, there is also an opportunity to get the specific guidance you may want outside your institution. It is harder, but not impossible, to keep close contact. In the long term, you do want external collaborative relationships to support your future career and it isn't unreasonable to begin to develop them now. Your current advisor may even be able to put you in contact with a few people. Conferences are also good for making contacts in some fields.

I am in the exact same situation. I unfortunately had to stay with my advisor and am seeking help from other people but it is not easy. If you can, I would recommend switching to someone else. Your future success matters the most.


Name for journal article that was extended from a conference article? In some areas (e.g. CS) it seems acceptable for conference articles to be extended and published as journal articles. In such cases, what is the etiquette for choosing the journal article title? Can it be named the same (hence potentially leading to misunderstandings on which is which)? What are common practices for this?

First of all, I do not think there is any etiquette here. The only rule to follow are the instructions of the journal guest editors. If they do not mention anything about the title, then you can change it.

Now, if you ask about common practices, I can tell you that, in my experience, it is common to change the title, for a number of reasons:

It is a different publication, not a republication of the same paper. You have mentioned that it is an extended version, and I guess that you are suggested to include a percentage of new material, so a new title is in order.
As you point out, it avoids misunderstanding. For instance, when including both publications in your CV, you do want the evaluators of projects or posts to distinguish them.
Note that, even if you use the same title, you could be suggested a change by the journal referees (I assume that the paper is subject to the journal reviewing procedure).

I often have read the explicit instructions "you can change the title and/or coauthors..." but, in case of doubt, there is no harm in asking the guest editors.

Personal note: I once used the same title for the journal special issue and I regret it, for the reason 2 mentioned above.

It's just opinion here but I would think that if you use a  significantly different title you will want to be sure that there is more content than the original. A new title could imply, well, new.


Best practices to teach while wearing a mask The title of the question pretty much says it all: starting Fall 2020, my university should resume face-to-face classes, requiring that

all faculty, staff, students, and visitors […] wear an appropriate face covering while inside campus facilities/buildings where six feet social distancing may not always be possible

Assuming that social distancing will not be possible while I'm teaching at the white board (we may have to use the first row, which is fairly close to the white board), what are the best practices to teach while wearing a mask?
My main concern is my voice may be muffled, but there may be other issues that I've overlooked.

I grew up in Canada and was a PhD student and lecturer in England, before moving to Japan from 2013-2016. Before 2013, like most Westerners I did not wear a mask during flu season, and couldn't imagine wearing one while teaching. When I arrived in Japan in 2013, there was no COVID-19 or SARS-2003 going on, but people everywhere were wearing masks: On day 1 people were wearing masks at the airport when I landed, at the convenience store where I asked for directions when I was lost, and in the audience when I gave my first talk at Kyoto University.

"My main concern is my voice may be muffled"

Don't worry: People have been teaching with masks for decades in East Asia (I witnessed it myself for 3 years in Japan and know from my colleagues that it was nothing new).
My advice for best practices:

First try to get used to wearing a mask. If you're like me, I had never worn one before 2013 and wasn't used to it right away. But it's like wearing glasses: it's a bit annoying to see the side arms of the glasses at first but after wearing them everyday for years you don't notice that anymore. Maybe wear a mask when you go out to the store, between now and Fall 2020, so that when you start teaching you are not uncomfortable.
Get a mask that's comfortable for you to be speaking loud for long periods of time. When teaching we often have to project our voice so that people can hear us in the back, which means we speak louder than normal, and might be moving our jaw more than normal. A lose mask that falls off or moves around if you move your jaw bones too much, might be a bad idea. You can try various masks before Fall 2020 to find which one you'll be comfortable in. This is the type I use and it's the type they were wearing all the time in Japan:

(source: homedics.com)
I got 50 of them for $30 in Canada with inflated COVID prices (they were cheaper before). I don't find myself needing to speak louder, and my voice is pretty much the same as without a mask (if you stick with this classic mask instead of trying to use an N95 or some t-shirt fabric turned into a mask, I think you'll be fine and don't need a visor).

The first comment pointed out that if you use a microphone between your mouth and mask your letter "p" can sound bad. I agree and I never wear a microphone when teaching, and in fact I ask the conference chair to turn down my microphone when I'm giving recorded talks at conferences, because early in my career people told me I was too loud. For centuries we didn't have microphones and lecturers like Richard Feynman didn't use one in lectures like the one in this link, so getting used to projecting your voice is part of teaching (even at conferences they don't always have microphones). If you do still prefer wearing microphones for some reason, I think you are teaching at a rather huge lecture hall where the students will be more than 1 meter away from you, so you are likely not to need a mask. Your question says "Assuming that social distancing will not be possible while I'm teaching at the white board" which makes me assume you're in a small enough room that you don't need a microphone.

If you absolutely must record your lecture, notice that the microphone in Ilya Kuprov's 900+ youtube lectures is nowhere near his mouth/mask. You can use a body-microphone or put it on a microphone stand somewhere.

My Uni will have the whole next semester at "online" regime.
However, I was an observer on several usual exams and test-lectures.
We reduced amount of students - they sit at each 2nd row, at least 4 seats in between two students. The first row is free.
They enter through one door and do not move inside the room - they go directly to their seats. After lecture, they use other door as an exit to not be mixed.
At their places face masks are not necessary. You are far away from them and do not need mask as well.
Additional question about ventilation. We sat in a huge audience without windows and direct air flow. For 1 lecture it was comfortable enough.


What does it mean if a professor asks you to draft his reference letter for you? This question is, honestly speaking, probably somewhat opinion-based, but I still want to give a shot.

A professor acceded to my invitation of writing a reference letter for me. Nevertheless, unlike the other professors who also acceded to write a reference letter for me, he asked me to draft it on my own. Originally I did not feel anything "wrong", and I just felt embarrassed to recommend myself. But yesterday a friend told me that a professor would ask you to write her reference letter for you when she does not actually think that you are "worthy" enough for her to write you one on her own.

What is the probability that such viewpoint is true? Any opinion is greatly appreciated!

For me, it means two things:

I am really busy
I don't know anything about the job you're applying to and what you want to emphasize about yourself

If the first draft you write is something I can't sign, I'll edit it or I won't sign it. If it's not braggy enough, I might add some emphasis. But metaphorically handing me a piece of blank paper and asking me to recommend you is actually asking me to put in quite a lot of work. Do these people you're applying to value initiative? Creativity? Willingness to work long hard hours? Cheerfullness? A driven nature? A gentle spirit? Is the fact you write great software relevant to them? How about your careful bench work? For all I know you want to do less of one thing and more of another. So now I need to ask you a zillion questions about what you want to emphasize, and maybe go research the job too, and then ask you if what I've written is ok - frankly, it's way easier to ask you to write the first draft. And some days, I take the easy route.

It does not mean:

I intend to sign words I didn't write. I will write the final draft
It's ok for you to make up strengths you don't have
You'll know what I send in the end
I can't write a simple letter without help from a student.

Your first draft doesn't even have to be a letter, it can be point form. But tell me you're choosing me as a reference so I can confirm your amazing Xness, Yabilty and Zation. If I can, I will.

By the way, I wish I could find the idiot who started the theory that it means I don't think well of you and want you to retract your request. Several students have retracted their requests after I asked for a first draft, and that's a shame, because I would have cheerfully signed a glowing recommendation for them. I just didn't have time to write it all from scratch myself.

It is very common for an advisor to ask his student to write the letter. I have seen that several times. The reasons are that the advisor is generally very busy and that you are generally the person that knows best what should be written for the job that you are applying. Moreover, if you ask several recommendation letters (let say from 3 persons), you can decide what each of them will say and avoid redundancy between the letters if you write them. Of course, the advisor will then read what you wrote and if he don't agree he will modify it.


PhD supervisor wants me to quit after break I have been studying for a PhD and unfortunately had been suffering from depression during the first year and on medication, so I didn't make much progress at all. My supervisor seemed understanding, telling me I was 'one of the strongest students' he'd taught, and not to worry as sometimes life gets in the way, and I should take a study break if necessary.

I therefore took an official study break for one year, and came off the medication. Just before I was considering returning, I sent an email to the supervisor just asking about what we should do next. His reply was to say how terrible my performance had been so far and that he strongly advises I should quit. I felt devastated to say the least. Is he right after all and should I really quit? I thought he was so supportive to begin with and actually suggested the break. Or is the blunt truth correct? Doing a PhD was my dream and now it is shattered.

Edit: I have been advised to add that I did not tell the supervisor in advance that I was going to be on break for a year, just that I was taking a break as he advised. I did not know in advance how long a break would last. Neither was I in communication during this time. When I was depressed, nothing else mattered.

Edit 2: Clarification that the break was officially sanctioned by the university. Please note technically I am still "on break" as the supervisor has not allowed me to return.

Update: The supervisor has ignored my last email so I guess I will be quitting or moving on. Thanks to everyone who answered and commented.

If your advisor is suggesting that you quit, it is likely that you will have a hard time carrying on with the same advisor.

You maybe need to have a discussion with them about why your performance was bad, and why you needed a break. As it currently stands, it sounds like you had one year in the program without any progress, and then another year where you took a break and also made no progress, so it is two years since you were admitted to the program and you are essentially a new student. From your advisor's point of view, suggesting you quit is good advice as they feel it is unlikely that you will finish your degree. If you want to work with them, you need to convince them that this is not the case.

If you want to continue to pursue a PhD, and you are unable to reach a point in discussion where your advisor is empathetic to your situation and enthusiastic about working with you (not just grudgingly willing to work with you), you probably should either 1: change advisor at the same university, 2: leave your current program and apply to other programs.

Most depressions during a PhD stem from an unreasonable supervisor that puts people in uncomfortable if not threatening situations of pressure. There is almost no checks and balances in academia and a PhD ultimately depends solely on the opinion of your supervisor. Considering the reply of your supervisor, you should rethink twice if you want to work with him/her again. If you even come to the conclusion that your depression is somehow related to your work, you should report it to your faculty, move on and maybe find a different supervisor.


I expect much more commitment from my PhD-supervisor. How do I communicate this to him? I am a doctoral student in economics and have problems with the progress of my doctoral thesis because my supervisor hardly cares about my work.
I currently need some feedback and comments from him, as I cannot publish my results before.
This problem is not a current problem, but has existed since the beginning of my PhD.
It seems that this is not only the case for me, but also for other doctoral candidates and students who are supervised by him.
During the semester I can go to his office if I have a question.
However, even at these meetings he almost never read my work before and told me that he had no time or had forgotten about it. Currently, these personal meetings are also not possible due to the coronavirus.
Therefore I have already sent him e-mails several times, but he hardly answers my messages.

So I would like to ask how I can politely express that I would like to see more commitment from him?
Otherwise he is very friendly and can also help me with technical problems (if he does this once).
I therefore do not want to burden the relationship with too negative criticism.

How can I get him to 1) read my current work in the near future and 2) generally pay more attention to my thesis.

Can anyone give me any recommendations on this?

Realise your own commitment first. As a PhD candidate, you are training to become an independent researcher. Ideally, you aim to reach the stage when you are able to tell good results from bad, proofread and edit your own writing, prepare the PhD thesis for publication and defence. Many PhD candidates struggle because their advisers are over-protective and micromanage every step, leaving them little chance for self-reflection and self-improvement. Embrace the freedom to do your research your way and to learn from your own mistakes in the process. Own your work and own responsibility for making it better.
Use others. Many questions can be answered by people other than your PhD supervisor. Use online resources, such as Stack Exchange, use other peers and colleagues, use support systems in your department. Ask questions, try to understand answers, find and use the relevant literature. Do not sit and passively wait  for your adviser to come back to you with suggestions - use this time to find the answer yourself.
Do not wait for your supervisor's approval of your work. Assume that silence  is a sign of approval and move on. If in doubt, show your work to someone else and ask for their advice. Politely cc your supervisor in the email.  It may work wonders.
Understand the process of submission and clearly distinguish the points when your supervisor is essential to move forward, from those when their advice is only desirable. Politely ask your supervisor to give you feedback by a particular date, but be prepared to move forward regardless of whether or not you receive the response. Depending on your University structure, you may even be able to submit your thesis without your PhD supervisor's approval. Know the people who are in charge of the PG education in your University - such as Research Office of Head of Department - and cc them in all really important emails (but only in really important ones). They may help to encourage your supervisor to find time to give you feedback or approval when it's critical.

Consider switching advisors, or if you have more than one, choose another to be the supervisor. This puts pressure on him. Number of theses chaired is one of the metrics that departments look at (a measure of 'service'). If he's tenured it won't have a job impact on him but most professors don't want to look bad among their peers. If you and other students limp along with a lack of guidance the problem likely won't get addressed. Of course that's dependent on finding another willing and able research sponsor.

You might also consider an anonymous and anonymized letter to the department chair, that summarizes the views of multiple students. Offer to give specific examples, metrics or stories, though that's higher risk. Create a separate gmail account for that so you can respond to questions.


Should I secretly record a meeting to prove I'm being discriminated against? I'm a PhD student at a university in the UK. The head and director of graduate studies at my department are trying to get me removed from the department.

Almost all of this is going on over my head, but my supervisor has told me about a number of meetings and emails that have gone on about this topic.

On the basis of what my supervisor tells me, along with my own previous interactions with the head of department, I feel quite sure that what they are doing is discriminatory against me due to a disability that I have.

However, since I am not included in any of the emails etc. about this, I have almost no evidence. This makes it very difficult to defend myself against what they are doing and saying.

While my supervisor is on my side and doesn't want me to be kicked out, he has a very poor understanding of disability issues and discrimination. His number one priority, of course, is protecting himself - ultimately it looks really bad for him to have a student that the head of department warned him would be trouble and ends up getting kicked out.

So he will tell me about these things in person, but not by email - if I ask him anything by email, he asks me to come to his office to discuss it.

Should I secretly record a meeting with him where I bring this up so that if it comes down to it, I have some evidence that the action is discriminatory?

No.

Such action should be the very, very last resort, and only undertaken if you have taken legal advice on whether it is advisable to do so.

As a UK student, you should have support available to you from the Student Union, which will almost certainly include disability representation.

The Student Union will be able to advise you on how to proceed on this matter, and possible provide you with a third party representative to join you at any meetings you have.

Also, you mention emails that exist 'about you.'  You are within your rights to request these to see what they say by making a freedom of information request.  Again, seek advice first before undertaking this action.

Simply put, NO (caps intended since I do not like seeing people go to jail) unless you receive credible advice from an attorney (or Barrister where you are in the UK).

For example, California Law Penal Code § 632, enacted under the California Invasion of Privacy Act, makes it illegal for an individual to monitor or record a "confidential communication". This is true even where the communication is carried on among the parties in the presence of one another or by means of a telegraph, telephone, or other device. Put another way, California is known as a "two-party" state, which means that recordings are not allowed unless all parties to the conversation consent to the recording.

Although it may make sense to collect evidence of wrong doing, remember this is the law and is not intedned to make sense!


Why do academics publish? It seems as though everyone in academia is trying to publish stuff, regardless of whether they actually have something meaningful to say. The journals generate more noise every year.
I understand that papers count for promotion and review, they mostly get counted but... There is room to question the actual motivation to publish.

What is your primary reason for publishing? How much of it is related to making a meaningful contribution to science/knowledge/understanding, and how much is for other reasons/purposes (tenure, CV, fame, pressure, etc.)?

In the words of Lichtfouse (2013) a research article is above all a communication tool and its purpose is to transfer scientific information from one individual to other individuals.

Publishing a paper is for me the way to show that I am doing research and sharing it with others. But, it is clear that I also am pressured into publishing because promotions and the ability to attract funding relies on publications as a primary evaluation tool. So although I do not publish with the expressed intent of attracting more funding or my own promotions, I am well aware of the spiralling development that is ongoing. I do want to mention that publishing something primarily gives me personally a sense of achievement, that my research is good enough to pass the scrutiny of peers etc. As with, I surmise, mostly everyone else, I thrive from doing a good job and getting a sense of accomplishment. Publishing does that for me.

Whether or not people read my research can be answered by yes and no. Everyone does not read my papers but some who do not should and some who reference my work, really ought to read it, again. On the whole, I think papers get the attention they deserve, some get more and some get less attention than I think is fair. But, since my work gets referenced reasonably often, I think over and under referenced papers average out.

The "pressure to publish" is definitely there and I believe that universities and funding agencies should try to improve the way they evaluate research so as to avoid "salami slicing" and other types of publishing effects. But, how such a system should look is difficult to say although many indices such as the h-index can be used. Since there are no perfect systems, it is perhaps more important to look at the ethical aspects of publishing and make awareness of and discssion on publishing issues better.

Lichtfouse, E., 2013. Scientific writing for impact factor journals. Nova Publishers, New York.

A list of recent publications is the most serious document to prove the competence in science. And, very often, no competence - no job.

A professor that has no publications for several years may at the end lose the position. This is a reasonable requirement, as it forces to stay up to date with the knowledge. Otherwise the quality of teaching would drop because alternative ways of discarding low competence professor (like group of students requiring to replace him) are way more difficult and problematic.

Also, publication is a normal, usual way to recognize the PhD work. It may be possible to get PhD without publications but this is usually understood as a sign of unsuccessful work that puts shadow on both student and supervisor. Nobody wants.

Finally, some systems like European may require a scientist to change the institution periodically, providing mostly temporary positions as long as you are not a professor yet. If you have finished a two year post doctoral position without a paper published, that is the end of you scientific carrier - you will not get the next one.

Unfortunately this also means that scientists try to publish something often even when they could generally work for several more years to make a better publication instead.


How to emphasize the main contributor to a paper when the field typically orders authors alphabetically? I am working on a graph theory paper with two of my friends. The problem stated in the paper is solved by me. However, our supervisor professor pointed out that in all of the graph theory journals (and other mathematics journals as well), names of authors are sorted by an alphabetic order which puts me in the third position after one of my friends who was mainly in charge of half of the editings (which I greatly thank his efforts) and our supervisor professor.

I wonder if there is any way to point out who was the main contributor in a graph paper or not.

I think this may be a very deciding factor in being accepted by a good university for a master program because we can only have a few papers before graduation.

I wanted to see if there is any way to point out who was the main contributor in a graph paper or not?

Generally not.  In pure mathematics it's extremely unconventional to use any author ordering other than alphabetical.  You could try, but it will look weird and attract negative attention, and nobody will be quite sure how to interpret it.  In particular, you run the risk of having people think "this jerk insisted on being listed first despite the near-universal use of alphabetical order".  I virtually never see papers with any other author ordering, and I would not recommend it.

It's also rare and considered awkward to include any discussion in the paper of who contributed what.  One reason is that it's difficult to write such a discussion fairly.  For example, suppose your collaborators try three approaches that fail before you find one that works.  Reasonable people could disagree as to whether your collaborators were obviously on the wrong track all along, or whether they pointed the way to the solution by eliminating other plausible methods.  (The general principle is that if your collaborators aren't useful, then you shouldn't be working with them.  Turning this around, if they are useful enough that you are happy to work with them before the problem is solved, then you can't retroactively decide that they weren't useful enough afterwards.)

The flip side of this is that the standards for being an author are fairly demanding, and coauthors should have seriously worked on the mathematics itself.  In particular, supervising the project or editing the paper are not by themselves sufficient for coauthorship.  But it's reasonable for these people to be coauthors if they worked on the problem with you, even if you were the one who ended up making the decisive contribution.

  I think it may be a very deciding factor in being accepted by a good university for a master program because we can only have a few papers before graduation.

The usual way this information is conveyed is a letter of recommendation from your supervisor, who can highlight the role you played in the project.

I don't know 'graph theory' from the Graf Spree, but I know a bit about publishing conventions.  First suggestion (getting outside the box)--if you solved the problem, were you also the principal investigator and writer?  If so, would the others agree to the piece being published with you as the sole author, with full acknowledgement of their relative contributions in a footnote?  If the answer is 'No', then (second suggestion) publish the authors alphabetically--which seems to be the way of it in your discipline--with an asterisk after your name and a footnote acknowledging you as the team member who solved the problem.  If that solution doesn't appeal, then (third suggestion) insert a "Prefatory Note" or "Acknowledgement" page, in which your primary role is detailed.


Is it acceptable, as a Reviewer, to ask the Editor about another reviewer? I recently reviewed a manuscript submitted to a Journal. Today, I received the editor's response to the authors, which included all the reviews made by the (anonymous) reviewers.
I was particularly (and positively) impressed with the review of another reviewer for several reasons. I'd gladly appreciate the possibility of contacting this reviewer, both to express my thoughts and also to discuss about similar topics.
Hence the question: would it be acceptable if I asked the editor to disclose information about this reviewer?
My only concern is that the editor may not appreciate a similar request, which could lead to not being invited to review manuscripts of this journal anymore (which is something I really like doing).
To provide more specific context:

The field is Computer Science;
The reviewing process assumes that the reviewers do not know the identity of other reviewers, but they do know the identity of the manuscript's authors;
The reviewers carried out their reviewing duties independently: they were able to read the other reviewers' opinion only after the editor sent their decision to the authors.
The (associate) editor knows the identity of both the reviewers and the authors;
It is safe to assume that no conflict of interest exists between reviewers and authors.

Finally, I remark that I am asking this question as a reviewer (and not as an author).

I have a very simple solution to propose:

Write a message directly to the other reviewer whom you would like to know. Address it to the reviewer, not to the editor.
In the message, identify yourself and give your contact information. Ask the reviewer to contact you if they are interested.
Send that message to the editor and ask the editor to please transfer it to the other reviewer, either immediately, or later in the review process (perhaps after a decision is made) when the editor feels comfortable doing so.

Note one important difference from what you ask in your question: rather than asking to be able to contact the reviewer directly, you are asking the reviewer to contact you. This is a very important difference because it gives other people more choice in the matter.
The editor will either transfer the message to the other reviewer (either immediately or after a decision is made, perhaps after you have sent a reminder) or will explain to you why they do not feel comfortable with your request. The advantages of this proposal are:

There is no moral concern because you do everything openly before the editor; you even show the editor the contents of the message, so the editor has no concern of anything improper going on.
You give the other reviewer the choice if they are comfortable with the contact. If they are not, the editor has not divulged their information to you. This relieves pressure from the editor.
You leave the editor free to judge the appropriateness of the contact. So, it is not your responsibility, but the editor's.
Even if the editor decides not to give you the reviewer's contact information, the editor should be able to respect that your intention was sincere, your approach was transparent without pressuring anyone, and the editor should not have any negative impression of you.

In the UK or Europe, it would normally be illegal for the institution to disclose any information about that reviewer… even to confirm your guess about an identity.
Why would it be a problem for you to ask the editor to pass on your own details, with a request for contact?


My student told me his mother has cancer, what do I do? Today I saw that one of my students in the class was looking very sad. He sat down at the end of class and he looked like he was in a bad mood. After all the students left the classroom I called  him over. He told me that his mother has cancer.

I told him be strong and try to not think about it too much. But honestly, this was a big lie. How can I try to get him to not think too much of it?

What should I have said to him?

As an instructor, the best you can do is to offer your condolences and tell him to just ask you if he needs anything. For example, you could offer an extension on assignments. If he needs some time off from lectures, maybe a classmate who takes good lecture notes will agree to make a photocopy, or you could get the lectures to be recorded for him.

Your university might also have a policy that allows students to withdraw from the course and receive a refund of fees without penalty to grades: it would be worth finding this out and advising your student if this is possible. Depending on the severity of the illness and how much it is affecting your student, he might wish to take fewer (or zero) courses for a while.

If the course is nearly finished, perhaps an aegrotat (compassionate consideration) will be applicable to the final exam. But neither an illness in the family, nor a bereavement or any personal physical or mental health issue can excuse a student from having to learn the material and complete assessments in order to pass a course. He will still have to demonstrate mastery of most of the material.

Just be compassionate, and as flexible as you feasibly can. Nobody could ask for more.

Its good that the student shared the problem,the best thing to do is to let the student know that the parent is not the only one with cancer and he shouldn't over think about it,its normal,it happens and most of all it can be controlled by a series of medical procedures,the student has to accept the fact because its not the end of everything after all,Just try to encourage him or her that the doctors are under control and the parent will be ok


Why don't graduate math texts have solutions to their exercises? I study mathematics and sometimes I have seen book that contains problems but not their solutions. Why are there no solutions available anywhere?

For example, the books I have read are:

Neukirch: Algebraic number theory,
Lang: Algebra,
Liu: Algebraic geometry and arithmetic curves.

For graduate-level math books, the answer is typically not a value but a complete proof---typically of a related but relatively uninteresting topic.  For example, one of the first exercises in the Neukirch book you reference is:

  Show that the ring Z[i] cannot be ordered.

For such problems, the proof itself is typically much less educational than the process of struggling with the concepts in order to produce said proof.

By the time that students are taking graduate-level mathematical courses, they are expected to have already mastered the general skills of constructing proofs.  Seeing how somebody else has proved a point is thus not expected to be particularly educational, whereas struggling to prove something oneself forces a student to engage deeply with the material at hand.

Finally, examples of working with the concepts in the exercises are typically already given in the chapter, in the proofs of the main results, so adding extra examples by working proofs for the exercises would typically be of only incremental benefit, but undermine the value of students having to work through the proofs themselves.

It's a commercial decision driven by the wishes of professors (who assign textbooks).  Not having the answers makes them more important.  I know of one author who wrote a very well regarded textbook with all the answers and had to remove them in second edition because his publisher said it wasn't selling as well.

Note that textbooks from 100 years ago commonly had all the answers ESPECIALLY in college level math.  So we have actually become less liberal, more restrictive over time.

I recommend people consult Schaum's, Kahn Academy, or look for books like Stroud or Granville that contain all the answers.  It very much helps self study or even directed study (since the major learning comes NOT from the professor, but from working problems on your own).


Unclear terms: Statement of Purpose, Academic Statement and Personal Statement I'm so confused. I can't distinguish between them. It seems to me that sometimes the statement of purpose (SOP) is the personal statement (PS), sometimes it is not the PS, and by the definition I'll give below, academic statement (AS) is the SOP.
Is the SOP a PS (or not)?
I think most people will agree that the SOP is another name for the PS, and you only need one statement beside your CV and research proposal (if necessary) to be written. That explains why in Academia.SE, we only have a sop tag but no PS tag or AS tag. And most of the time I see people ask about a PS question under the SOP tag, and accept the answer only says about the SOP. Except these two questions, where the posters notice that SOP is not the PS (I find them when searching for "personal statement" "statement of purpose"):

Academic Statement of Purpose vs NSF Personal Statement
https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34698/how-to-best-answer-the-question-please-provide-us-your-personal-statement-why

To be clear, the first question asks about academic statement of purpose and only localize to the NSF Fellowship application. But the (sole) answer only discusses the SOP, so I understand that ASOP is the other name of the SOP (don't know if it also be the AS as well).
Is the SOP the Academic Statement?
Now, in the announcement for a fellowship I intend to apply for, it requires me to have both an academic statement and a personal statement. It defines them like this:

ACADEMIC AND PERSONAL STATEMENTS. Each applicant must prepare a one-page Academic Statement and a one-page Personal Statement. The first essay addresses the applicant’s academic and scientific background and preparation, previous research, and a description of the study and research proposed at a U.S. graduate school department. The Personal Statement includes information about the applicant’s background, practical experience, special interests, and career goals, with some attention to plans after degree completion. Applicants should also address how they might represent Vietnam as students in the United States and how they might represent the United States and contribute to Vietnam upon return.

More explicit details are provided in the link. Based on the definition of the AS, I think that it is the SOP as we widely know (or at least is this SOP). If then, what is the PS in this case? Is it the place for the "my first trembling steps" stuff?
Or, does the aggregation of AS and PS in this situation equate the SOP as we widely know, and the recruiters just want to make it explicit?

Your application is a chance for you to sell yourself, and prove to the admissions committee that they should give you money to do research.  Your personal statement should address your "background, practical experience, special interests, and career goals," but only in ways that prove you are a good researcher.

You shouldn't waste space talking about your childhood dreams, because usually those say nothing about your research potential.  Instead you should highlight parts of your personal history that would make someone want to hire you for their lab.

At least in the scholarship I'm about to apply, the SOP as we widely know is the academic statement. I still haven't got a satiate answer.


How to keep track of attendance and student-submitted excuses for absences? I will be teaching an introductory class, in which attendance is important, with approximately 60 students in 3 sections.  I'd like to have a system that:

Enables me to quickly mark whether a student is present.
Allows students to see their own attendance record but not other students'.
Lets students provide information about their absences.

For small classes, students email me (or I email them) for information about absences, but it would be overwhelming with this many students.

A single Google spreadsheet would be great for data entry, and students could use comments to annotate their absences, but it wouldn't protect students' privacy.

Any suggestions (besides not tracking attendance)?  My school provides Google Apps and Blackboard, although I'm willing to use other solutions.

UPDATE: I know a hack that would work in Blackboard would be to create a fake assignment for each day (attending class) and enter attendance information (0 or 1) there.  This is not ideal because (1) entering data into Blackboard is slower than putting it into a spreadsheet, (2) it would bloat the grade listings seen by the students, and (3) I don't think students could add a comment to the "grade" (the excuse).

There is a similar question, but it does not address how to incorporate excuses/explanations, which, to me, is the tricky part.

There is a sort of a solution using Google Apps, but it's ugly and it's still very much imperfect (more on that at the bottom).

You could create a master spreadsheet (that for the sake of example has the internal ID of "masterSheet") that looks like this:

      A          B         C         D         E         F
1| Name       | 9/1 | 9/1 Comment | 9/2 | 9/2 Comment | etc.
2| Student A  |     |             |     |             |
3| Student B  |     |             |     |             |
4| Student C  |     |             |     |             |

Then you'll create another spreadsheet for Student A:

    A            B                                C
1| Date | Attendance Grade                 | Comment/Excuse
2| 9/1  | =IMPORTRANGE("masterSheet","B2") |
3| 9/2  | =IMPORTRANGE("masterSheet","D2") |
3| etc. | =IMPORTRANGE("masterSheet","X2") |

You'll then make columns A and B (as well as cell C1) uneditable except by you.  You don't necessarily need to type in the IMPORTRANGE() stuff manually, and you do it formulaicly much easier if you have both the master and student spreadsheets go in the same order (although it's possible either way).

Initially, the student will just see

    A            B                                C
1| Date | Attendance Grade                 | Comment/Excuse
2| 9/1  |                                  |
3| 9/2  |                                  |
3| etc. |                                  |

As you put in their attendance grades for each day, it will show up automatically in theirs, but they won't be able to edit it if you properly protect the range.  Now, for their comments.  You'll do the exact same thing, but in reverse, and you'll get:

      A          B         C                           D         E                           F
1| Name       | 9/1 | 9/1 Comment                   | 9/2 | 9/2 Comment                   | etc.
2| Student A  |     | =IMPORTRANGE("studentA","C2") |     | =IMPORTRANGE("studentA","C3") |
3| Student B  |     | =IMPORTRANGE("studentB","C2") |     | =IMPORTRANGE("studentB","C3") |
4| Student C  |     | =IMPORTRANGE("studentC","C2") |     | =IMPORTRANGE("studentC","C3") |

If a student enters in a comment in their spreadsheet, it will show up on yours.

Now, a few comments about this:

It's ugly.  It's awful.  But it basically does what you want.  But there's also a security consideration that will greatly reduce its efficacy to be effectively useless.  Besides the fact that a student could get access to your original spreadsheet by using IMPORTRANGE() on their comment field, Google Apps requires a user to have viewing or editing privileges to the document referenced by IMPORTRANGE().  There are many ways ways to obfuscate, but it will only ever be obfuscation, and not real security.

What you should do from my experience

Just use Blackboard.  It does NOT take that long to take roll with it.  It is a spreadsheet.  On day one of the semester, I take five minutes and create a column for each day of class, and then don't have to worry about it again (and if you're teaching the same classes, ideally they're on the same schedule and you can either merge the course or clone the course so you only do it once for all three).  Then each day I just hit in 5,enter,0,enter,5,enter,5,enter,5,enter,0,enter (5 is fully present in my personal system, 0 is absent).

All the attendance columns get pushed to the bottom of the student's view (the right of the instructor's view) by using Grade Center -> Manage -> Column Organization.

For students to contact you, make it clear they must use a standard subject line that can be caught and filtered in your e-mail program into a specific e-mail excuse box.  If I accidentally marked them as absent and they weren't, or if they had an excuse, they are instructed to e-mail me using a subject line CC'd to themselves that begins "Attendance:" and that gets filtered into an attendance folder for that semester (you may want them to also add in a section, if you don't have merged courses) where I can then deal with it.  At the end of the semester, I have students verify that I properly tended to any necessary changes in attendance grades and then the one or two mistakes (if any) can be fixed then.

I regularly deal with 120 students a semester (4 sections x 30 students) and have had no problems with this set up.

Unless you have an attendance-specific module in Blackboard that provides the functionality you want, you are going to have problems finding anything that is FERPA-compliant or that is not going to be a giant PITA to use.

Whether using clickers or a mere sign-in sheet, I typically give the class a few minutes (to allow for stragglers), and then at a convenient take-a-breath point, double-check the number of registered clickers/signatures against the number of heads actually present.  If they don't match we have A Very Serious Situation that I will bring class to a halt to address (since they do, indeed, invariably believe it's No Big Deal to sign in for others).
If necessary, ask those with clickers to hold them above their heads as they answer a trivial question, to confirm that no one is holding up two or more, and then check the record later to see which in-class remote was not triggered for that question. That person is, as Richelieu would say, TOAST.

(Alas, this is obviously impractical for auditorium-sized sections, in which the issue usually needs to be addressed the most often.  In those, I augment the clickers with signature sheets every once in a while so that I can scan for identical handwriting on consecutive names. Not perfect, but a start.)


Is the correlation between learning a subject and having high grades strong? I've found myself in a paradoxical situation. I have failed modules over and over, many modules, some modules more than once. One of the failed modules was introduction to computing. After passing it I felt an urge to write lecture notes because I though that the "official" lecture notes made by two teachers of the computer science department were too shallow and unappealing. I took some time to write it and publish in a free webhosting service.

Now I'm feeling like continuing that type of work, expanding it to more modules, such as physics and calculus. It seems that explaning things with plain english, doing comparisons and following a straight path is kinda easy for me. Although I did fail so many modules so many times.

Is the correlation between learning a subject and having high grades strong?

Conversely, is the correlation between not properly learning a subject and having really bad grades strong?

There's no general answer to the question. It depends on the individual course.

If the course is designed so that grades are earned for demonstrating achievement of a learning outcome, then there will be a strong correlation between having high grades and achieving the learning outcomes of the course.
If the course is designed so that grades are earned for things that don't demonstrate achievement of a learning outcome, or so that students can achieve a learning outcome but not have an opportunity to demonstrate it to earn a grade, then the correlation will be weak.

Also, your general description of "learning a subject" may not necessarily be strongly correlated with the desired learning outcomes of a course. It's possible to earn a poor grade for a well-designed course even after having "learned the subject" if the course has specific learning outcomes (i.e., "Students will know how to solve a certain class of problem," "Students will have learned this particular skill") and what you are learning about the subject happens to be orthogonal to those learning outcomes.

A few notes:

Are you actually allowed to post lecture notes online?  Many schools or professors will take exception to this.
I will disagree with some other answers: there isn't a correlation with learning materials and having high grades, but, there is a correlation between knowing enough at a given point in the class and having high grades, if the class is taught well.  That is, if you know what you should know at a given point, your grade is more likely to be higher.  However, just because you are learning a lot doesn't mean your grade is necessarily good.
[Edit: wording improved] You mentioned you're studying computing.  As CS grad student, I can tell you that studying computing is somewhat different from studying other fields: you cannot "learn" computing in the same way you learn other subjects.  Memorizing facts and techniques aren't enough; the largest part of succeeding at computing is understanding at a deep level the implications of the facts.  (This is of course important in other fields too, but you can get away with rote learning for longer.  In CS, though, lack of understanding is an immediate path to failure.)

To prove this, I will mention that I never took notes in my CS classes.  I didn't because while the lecture was proceeding, I was internalizing everything I didn't know already, and then applying it every chance I got.  Guess who did better.
To elaborate, practice and application are literally the most important things to do when studying computing.

I agree with the commenter that you need to ensure that what you think you are learning is actually correct.  For a technical field, it is easy to screw yourself up with mistaken beliefs.  Computing, in particular, is a field where being a smartass is a prerequisite.  You need to be highly attuned to very slight differences in meaning, and if you're going at it alone, you're going to miss things.  Talk with the professor.  Talk to your TA.  We're there to help you understand these finer points and check yourself.


What to do with an expository note Mostly for fun, I've been working on an exposition about some ideas in my area of math (algebraic geometry).  As far as I know there isn't any elementary introduction to this particular topic already out there. It's at an early undergrad level.  I'd like to make it available, but I'm just not sure how best to proceed.

What are my options for disseminating it, and what are the pros/cons of each?  I'm especially interested in what sorts of articles are suitable expository journals, vs what usually lands on a math blog.  (I could also just put it on my site, but I hope someone and than my own students (and my parents) will actually read it.)

Other relevant info: I'm currently a postdoc at a research-intensive place.  I'd like to be competitive for teaching jobs at good liberal arts colleges when I'm done in a couple years -- if any of these options would help with that, it's a point in favor.

(Upon jakebeal's request:)

Seconding @Kimball's recommendation, the "Monthly" (for all its problems...) is seen by undergrads, and also "College M.J.". Small consolation, but, indeed, it's hard to reach people who don't know the keyword to "google-upon". Conceivably, your enveloping HTML page could include more-naive keywords, or even nearly-hype-ish keywords, hubris-acknowledged, that would give g-hits.

you sound like you want to publish the paper. when you take the time to identify what journals it could plausibly appear in, you'll also find out your top choices. make the piece as neat and appealing as possible - have your peers go through it - and see where you can get it published.

as i see it the second best thing to a journal would be submitting it to a conference; next best after that is a working paper; after that a blog post. certainly the higher up this "value chain" that you can publish will support your job search.