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Why would a student go to a lecture at all if everything was in the book already?

Why would a student go to a lecture at all if everything was in the
  book already? The lectures make sense if and only if the lecturer
  tells more than in the book(s) and in more detail (or at least, in a
  better/more clear way). [not my comment]

Especially in light of the Internet in general, what is the added value of a lecture over a (hypertext)book?
Reasons I can think of:

spoken word might stick better, because our language is not primarily based on text,
the possibility to ask for clarification,
some material might not translate well to media

I dislike those arguments, because a huge class can neither run at a comfortable speed for all at once nor answer everyone's questions. The expectation seems to be that the students should be homogeneous and everyone nonconforming should be filtered out.

personal contact affects us on a deeper level, role models are important

Depending on the class size, even that is doubtful.

to form communities,

which would substitute or supplement the professors, but obviously at a different rate.
This is a trick question, because it depends on the style of the lecture.  In my experience the lecturer is acting as a medium and I'm watching them half the time writing on the board, or someone is asking obvious or distracting questions.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

I think something mentioned in a comment is far more important than usually acknowledged: the lecture, standing at a definite time and place, plays the role of a ritual: at that time and place, the students (should) only focus on learning. This gives a rhythm, a time frame to help pace one's study.
In my experience, having very lenient rules such as long delays to turn in homework leads most student to postpone until the very end, and thus to work less than expected (to be honest scholars often do the same with e.g. grant applications). Similarly, leaving students to work with books would probably not end up well unless there are periodic incentives to have finished some chapter by some time. In fact, it seems even MOOCs tend to have a schedule, with material released periodically and only available for a given period, to force students to work it in a given time frame.
Another point is that a lecturer in fact makes small adjustments to the lecture in response to low-level signals from the students. Very concretely, it happens even in large amphitheaters that I feel that students all got a bit lost, which leads me to repeat a point or slow down.
A comparison made by Krantz in his book on mathematical lecturing struck me: when one drives a car on a mostly straight road, one still steers the wheel, even if very softly. This almost imperceptible steering makes the difference between getting to the end of the road and getting off-road pretty quickly. Letting student only study on books would be like launching a car without a driver (nor a computer driver).
Last, any given course has a precise context (background of students, future study, other parallel courses, goal of the lecture, etc.) which is always even slightly at odds with any given book. The lecturer adapts the lecture to her or his precise goals and to the context. In particular, indications of the most important points to remind of every lecture can be very useful.
All that said, lectures in front of a large number of students are not a very adequate way of teaching - it is often the best we decide to afford.

+1. If you can find the motivation to regularly sit down with a book and really learn what’s written there you don’t need a lecture.

+1 for "small adjustments to lecture."  OP is very wrong that for lecture, all students must learn at the same rate and nonconforming students are filtered.  A skilled lecturer is constantly adjusting the lecture based on (mostly) nonverbal cues about how the students are receiving the information.

"[The lecture] gives a rhythm, a time frame to help pace one's study" If interest in the topic is so low, a lecture might help, but idealistically speaking, that's not my concern. It's rather another gripe I have with classes, they are fixed and rigid and can hinder progress.

"small adjustments to the lecture in response to low-level signals from the students". That's not fundamentally different from my point 2; valid though debatable as it ties in with the associated question for comprehensive curricula. To answer my own question, standard curricula would probably impede diversity, despite obvious advantages.

Reading a book and listening to a lecture are very similar ways to learn.  Neither of them are particularly effective.  However, listening to lectures can be beneficial because being exposed to information twice is more effective than being exposed to it once.  I would say the benefit of listening to a lecture after reading a book on the same subject is similar to reading a second, different book on the subject.  Listening to a lecture may also be a lot faster than reading.
The greatest benefit of attending a lecture, however, may come from things other than listening to content.  If the student applies what they are learning in some way during the lecture, then they are engaging in active learning which is much more effective than reading or listening.

I agree in general. Listening to a lecture may also be a lot faster than reading. Not for all students (some need text in order to understand it, including me to some extent :))

However, listening to lectures can be beneficial because being exposed to information twice is more effective than being exposed to it once.  Since both expositions are usually not 1:1, I'd argue it depends on the quality of both exposition, their standard deviation and your brain's implementation of array_merge(), results ranging from great synergy to great confusion.

Your last paragraph is a good summary of my experience.  Generally in lecture if I had a good idea what the professor was talking about, I would start trying to work on the equations we were working on and derive the relationships as we went.  This obviously wont work equally well in every subject.  That said, these were generally subjects where the professors opinion had little sway on the material.  In courses with less mathematical focus, the professors opinion is much more important and the lecture material is likely to be significant for that reason.

@PsySp: I disagree.  At least for me, listening to a lecture is a lot slower than reading.  I never found the conventional large lectures to be of that much benefit (except as an incentive to keep pace with the class).  Smaller classes that had more opportunity for questions & answers were best.

@NajibIdrissi I was very specific that listening is similar to reading.  Asking questions is not included in the scope of listening, but rather in the scope of active learning.  We are in agreement.

Are we assuming that lectures are 100% passive for the students? Because that has not been my experience - or I'm using the word "lecture" wrong.

Neither of them are particularly effective I'm curious what you think are some more effective ways of learning?

@Azor-Ahai that was answered in the last sentence.

@ToddWilcox The literal meaning of "lecture" is that the teacher speaks and the student listens.  Lots of people use "lecture" to refer to other things which actually work better.

@NajibIdrissi It does happen in practice.  Some faculty think that is the right way to teach.  Some students think that's an okay way to behave in class.  I think we both disagree with them.

This is an excellent question - one that the humblest professors ask themselves infact. Please do take your time to see this excellent video from a physics Harvard Professor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwslBPj8GgI&t=3798s.
My personal experience as university student, then MOOC student, then lecturer and then MOOC student again, is that a lecture does not add value with respect to a book unless

the students spontaneously self-assemble in groups, where they collectively discuss the topics being taught
the professor engages them directly in discussions, either in person or via online resources
the professors develop incentives for students to work in groups both in class and outside the class
the professors tracks scientifically what are the most common hurdles in her/his subject, so to redesign constantly her/his course, and engage students more often/harder in those specific issues

The bottom line is that there is no fundamental difference between reading and listening. The main difference is that if you are alone with your book and you're stuck, you're stuck. While in class your professor or your peers might rescue you out simply be engaging you in discussing what you just learnt. That is a key lesson to learn once out in the real world - the ability to reach out to others and challenge your own assumptions in order to further your development.

Why does the formation of groups need to be spontaneous?  In Eric Mazur's classes it's not spontaneous.

While I did +1 this, there are fundamental differences between reading and listening. Our brains work differently when going through those two processes, and working with brains is central to education.

@AnonymousPhysicist I started my list with the most important bullet in my opininon, perhaps given my own experience as a student: if the teacher does not engage you, ultimately it's your own responsibility to make the most out of your class. And even if the teacher helps in that, you should still try to make the most out of it. Nothing beats attitude.

@ToddWilcox I tried to give a different viewpoint in my answer. I agree there are differences between the two models. However, I am arguing that the single most important predictor for success is engagement, either induced by the learning environment, or student's own will.

It depends, because not everyone learns the same way.
A live lecturer has the chance to demonstrate with examples directly relevant to their class. A good lecturer will also be able to give alternate examples from a different perspective if their students fail to completely grasp what the book outlines.
Conversely for a terribly bad lecturer the book may be a better choice.

To paraphrase an excellent professor of mine;
"The traditional lecture, where the lecturer simply gives facts to the students, is like a medieval photocopier; the information goes from the lecturers notes, to the black board, to the students notes without passing through anyone’s brain on the way. Perhaps a few errors are added." SO it was probably quite useful, before we invented photocopiers.
This might not be true for everyone, but it seems to be the case for many people. I personally do not attend many of my lectures because I find the notes superior. However, sometimes a lecturer does something that makes the lecture more than just a stream of facts.
I am a physics student and really good lecture techniques I have seen include;

Doing calculations while simultaneously discussing interpretations.
Presenting a more abstract overview than the material in the notes, so that when the student comes to read the knows they already know the structure of the arguments in them.
Asking a question, getting the class to vote anonymously on the answer (via an app). If more than 1/3 of the class gets it wrong, get them to discuss with their neighbour and then vote again. (This was particularly brilliant.)

It probably varies by subject, and perhaps by student, but I would say that the traditional lecture is not as effective as working through notes/a text book. There are, however, many lecture-like teaching methods that are very useful.

Yes but photocopying your own notes is particularily effective. So it would be better if the student would prepare the lecture ;)

I like Benoîts answer most so far, but would like to add more than fits in a comment:
When you enter a lecture as a student, aside from it being a "ritual", you get these benefits:

It is a definite time and place. If you learn on your own, you also would need to manage time slots for your different courses. If you are only accountable to yourself, it will be easy to miss a slot (do something else instead). This is a common problem in businesses - people get interrupted doing their planned work, and at the end of the day they have done a lot, but finished nothing. Whole methodologies have been invnted around this problem, google "getting things done" for an example.
While not every lecturer might be doing a grand job, they do, by necessity, structure their content in some way or another, which is hopefully made so that it fits a sensible time scale over a semester. I.e., they give the students a frame in which to do their own home studies (deepening what they learned).
It gives a common language. While content will likely be similar, the actual words/phrases used might be slightly different from prof to prof, from university to university, and from book to book. Having a central spoken "disemination" of the content gives at least the students at that place a common way to talk.
It builds community. The students get to meet (are forced to), and it makes it easier for them to form circles. I still believe, even in these days, that some direct contact can only help them. There are more facets to working together than just knowing facts about your field.
It gives the students a way to judge whether they are keeping up. If you sit in the lecture and don't have a single clue all the time, it is a clear signal. If studying alone, this may not be so obvious.
In smaller, more intense courses my experience in the past (way, way past :) ) was that the lecture is not anymore 100% one-directional, but often students will interrupt if necessary (i.e., to clarify a point, to ask about perceived errors and such). This is incredibly powerful, to me; not necessarily because they can fix small errors, but because it fosters an athmosphere where the mind actually has to be engaged during the lecture. For me personally, while reading a (any) book, it is certainly a danger to get into "automatic reading mode" where you think that you got everything, but in fact are just nodding along.
In my opinion, the lecture should be like the backbone of the actual studies (which take place at home, from the book, as necessary). If the lecture contains enough information to be done with it, then so much the better, but I would not assume that about every lecture.

I like to visit lectures from different areas. If I am somewhat interested in X but not interested enough to read a 500 pages book, listening to an expert for 2 hours per week can be a good opportunity to get an overview of X.

If you're not interested enough to read a 500 pages book, why don't you read the first 50 pages of it, and then consider whether you want to read the rest? That would take much less time than 2 hours per week.

@DmitryGrigoryev Sure, that is also an option, lectures just work better for me. If a book is on my desk I don't have to read, there is a good chance I never open it since I can always do so later. If I know the lecture starts in 20 minutes, I go there...

If I don't read the book, chances are I'm not going either.

You are basing you arguments on an erroneous premise: not every person has equal listening and reading capabilities.
Just to give an example: while one is reading one can skim the text, for instance, which cannot be done while listening. To me, and to other people, this is vital in improving comprehension speed. During speech, one also uses body language to convey the meaning of what is being said.
There is a good read about this here.
Teaching and learning are made of communication, and different people tend to understand concepts more efficiently with communication modes that suit their personality and background.

Two different textbooks can give two different viewpoints, which is very helpful. But a (good) lecturer doesn't just add a second viewpoint: they refine the first viewpoint in light of how their students digest the book's approach. The lecturer interacts with both the students and the book, in a way that a second book cannot.

I was a physics undergrad at Imperial, London from 1985 to 1988, and (at least at that time) it was a point of pride that everything that was examinable was taught by a lecturer, during a lecture, on a blackboard, with chalk.  So I only bought one book during my entire undergraduate career, but I took a lot of notes.  I still have about 10 lever-arch files full of notes, probably some five thousand handwritten pages, representing what is now a very expensive education.
I mention this because I'm sort of the designated physicist in the family, and now I have nieces, nephews, and Godchildren getting to exam age, I'm being asked to do physics tuition.  That means I'm having to go back to my notes and remind myself about a bunch of stuff I haven't used for some decades, and I'm discovering that my notes are almost uniquely readable to me because they represent my understanding of the material right when that understanding was forged.  I saw what was going on in front of me, understood it, and wrote down my understanding all in the moment.  In some cases, being human, I failed to understand, and I could tell when that was because I couldn't write it down meaningfully - then I knew I had to chase up the lecturer afterwards and get my comprehension fixed, so that I could write it down.
So the handwritten notes functioned as a real-time comprehension check - and in addition, a priceless corpus of physics-as-it-makes-most-sense-to-my-particular-brain, the most efficient way possible of reloading/refreshing that knowledge later (which was necessary at the time, because nearly the entire degree result came from the end-of-year exams).
I'm unsure about the value of just sitting in a lecture hall, watching it all go by; but for me at least, sitting in a lecture hall and attempting to codify in real time what I was seeing was a very effective educational technique.

Generally speaking, people go to college to improve their career opportunities.
Networking isn't being considered here.  College is a shared experience and some of the value of it certainly comes out of access to both talented faculty and other students.
A book can't give you a letter of recommendation or look you up to recruit you for a position it needs to fill years later.  It can't help you form a startup or find investors.  Consider the cost of high end colleges.  Are the professors really that much better there that they justify the higher tuition or are students paying for the opportunity to share the college experience with other students that can afford to attend these colleges?
A strictly online experience limits options for group based course work.  Interacting with the professor and other students exposes you to different ways of thinking about problems.
You get out of it what you put into it.  If you don't interact with the other students or the professor and the professor doesn't provide their own insight into the book and related problems then by all means stop paying tuition, buy the book, and read it at home.  I have had a professor who in a graduate level course spent large amounts of time reading directly from the book in lecture.  However in that case the students found they had to hold their own sessions in the evenings to discuss the material and that did prove to be productive and an excellent networking opportunity.

Here are a few examples taken from my experience:

Psychology 101 as an undergraduate with a huge workload in my major, which was completely unrelated to Psych: I didn't have time to read the book AND go to class.  I chose to go to class.  It was a good choice, because the instructor brought the material alive with a lot of visuals, and a lot of experimental results.  The text was dryer, in comparison.
An advanced graduate level math class: looking at the sketches and equations on the blackboard, and listening to the instructor walking us through proofs and examples, it was easier for me to see the forest, as opposed to getting bogged down with the trees, as sometimes happened to me when studying on my own.  Also, attending class included opportunities to interact with other students.  And what a shot in the arm it was to ask a question that got an "I hadn't thought of it that way" response from the instructor.
A history class: the instructor read selected quotes from source documents.  Yes, the quotes were taken from the reading assignments.  But in class we got the gems, strung together with comments from the instructor.  This helped me form a big-picture view that would have been harder to get from just reading at home.

Also: some math and computer science classes contained problems to work out during class.  This is analogous to sight-reading in a rehearsal.  You're forced to keep going (but without the pressure of an exam) and this can be helpful, to balance against slow, careful work at home.
In general, I benefited from interaction with fellow students, and the opportunity to form study groups.
Math classes taught me how to read mathematical symbols and aggregates of symbols out loud.
I found it helpful to watch the instructor work through problems, explaining the thought process all the while.

What Nick said:
not everyone learns the same way.
Observed over the years about 18-year-old students in basic mathematics courses.  Perhaps who will not major in math or physics or engineering, but are taking math anyway.  In some cases,
the student is not able to read the book by himself
I am not adducing a reason for that here.  But it is not uncommon.

Here are some reasons:

Not everything is in the book.  To make the book a reasonable size, sometimes the major issues are covered while details are deliberately overlooked.  Very often, I will read a book and think I understand it all, but when I try to do the examples, I'll realize I'm missing a lot of the finer points.
Some things can't be accomplished just by reading.  Music education and phys ed are just two examples.
You can't ask a book questions.  (You can, these days, substitute asking on internet groups for classroom interactions.)
Some things may be omitted from the book because the author thinks they are "obvious" or have been learned already from (allegedly) prerequisite courses.  (That's what I like about the "For Dummies" series: they assume no previous knowledge.)
Not everyone has the discipline to learn from the book.  In a class, the teacher/lecturer/professor sets clear expectations for what must be accomplished by when.  If you can get the job done and done well in a reasonable time without that, fine.
The teacher/lecturer/professor may add a topic or two to what the book discusses, and considers the added topics to be part of the course that ze is teaching.

Having said all that, I am all in favor of skipping lectures to learn on your own.  You can often get more done and faster that way.  Of course, you're not going to agree with that if you believe that courseroom time,
not what you learn, is important.

Sometimes lectures explain in more detail and are easier to understand than a book. For example, I tried to learn Chemistry all by my self by just reading a book which got confusing because it totally skipped some details. But, when I learned it at school it was way easier since there was more detail. Plus, if you read a book you will be going at a way faster pace which makes it harder to learn the material, since you will read more faster than the lecture will cover it.

I don't know would it be of any use of you but I believe my country has an unique experience with educational systems based on both models-e.g. mandatory lectures and non-mandatory ones. About 30 years ago my country was part of the communist East European states and the lectures in the universities were mandatory. There was a special clause in the university codes requiring students to attend their lectures otherwise they could get expelled very quickly. You should know that then university education was a kind of dream for most of the people and students went to dormitories away from friends and families to study. Also, their expenses (for the most part) were covered by the state, so university student was "social position", not mere education and getting expelled could have ramifications beyond the university. Then even missing one lecture could be big deal if the professor decided to punish the student. This is why students went to lectures without caring what exactly the lecturer was saying and even what this class is all about. Our experience is that mandatory lectures always (I tell you this is for our country in particular, so I can't say it's universally true) led to lower interest in the subject, lower grades and even bribes. Yes, it was a common practice for someone to use his or hers "connections" (as we call them) to try to get some rare foreign goods for the university professor, give him/her money or even just some spirit drinks ( I have heard of such cases too, not joking) to manage to pass the exam regardless of what the student knows. Take into account the fact this was when lectures were mandatory and everyone was attending them. Can you imagine how low was the interest then to have people resorting to bribes instead of just listening to what the professor says?
Then, things changed and the system got progressively freer. Some universities tried to hold onto the "old ways" and punish students for not attending lectures but as the "exclusiveness" of university education got less and less privileges they started to understand there wasn't much effect of punishment. I still know of one university trying to impose fear on its students for not attending lectures, but the general trend is they don't care any more who goes and who doesn't. The reason is that when the borders opened many people fled the country and some started to bring foreign experience in to our (then outdated) education systems, some started to demand more rights and freedom and made the case no one should force anybody to attend anything and then some just made money but had no education and in order to get the social position of being educated, not the actual skills and knowledge they simply bought their diplomas. It was (and to some extent still is) big business in my country. But the results of these practices started showing in ever lower and lower quality of education and more and more "bought", rather than "deserved" degrees. I'm part of this generation and remember absolutely free classrooms where out of a nearly 150 students by names you had only 5 real people in the room! I think you can imagine what the attendance rate was. But universities kept their lectures (sometimes only because the professors would otherwise lose their jobs and the unemployment rate was very high so they pledged their colleagues in the administration to keep the lectures) and now the students themselves are returning to the classrooms. My country had some really rough times the last 20 years but now it seems like the people themselves, not the authorities, the social position or even the economy are forcing them back in the universities. Now the clessrooms are again getting filled because some people themselves chose it is the better way to learn, than by themselves. Now, I could say our country's education system is as free as it can be-nobody forces anybody to attend anything, the professors can chose their curriculum, anybody can read anything and hold whatever opinion he or she thinks is right. The value of higher education has greatly diminished over time and those who have money even don't want to buy their diplomas any more (not because they can't, but because they don't see the point in having an education when you have money) but the people still return to the universities and now it's the people themselves who demand lectures. Now, I can see people in their 30s and 40s going back to school and attending lectures not because anybody demands them to, but because they simply want to, because they feel the need to know more and going to lecture and having personal contact with the lecturer is their own way of getting to know the subject, too. I can see now how my generation is starting to wake up for the value of education and especially this coming from actually knowing what somebody thinks about this or that subject and how s/he can teach it. I can say now people actually start to think of universities more like places where they can go, meet somebody who has knowledge and use his or hers skills to educate themselves or get an answer to specific question they may have. And having a good lecture course becomes essential to manage to satisfy this need. Now the universities are becoming ever more social rather than mere educational institutions and anybody can open university if s/he has the cash to do it. But people don't go to universities for the diploma, they go there to know something they don't and require the professors there to have the knowledge they need or simply desire. This is what a good lecture course is about (at least in my mind-you're free to disagree).
But you may wonder why I'm telling you all this @Troway Jestman. The reason is because I believe you aren't very old (please, forgive me for the personal intrusion here) and probably because you have only your country as an example (which I believe is a western country). But this isn't the only possible example. See, my country has been through both periods when lectures were mandatory and those who attended them had a higher social status than those who didn't and periods where almost nobody went to lectures and people were thinking about actually abolishing them. But in my mind both these alternatives are wrong! And I'm not talking here from some subjective theoretical point of view-I'm talking from personal(and national) experience. When higher education was seen as some "special privilege" to the society's elite and at the same time lectures were mandatory for students and the common people were excluded from attending them, the quality was poor and people didn't learn much from them. So you can see that even when you give incentives to people learning from lectures and at the same time make them mandatory it turns against you and you actually lower the quality of education, rather than increase it. On the other hand when you make everything free, yes, the attendance rate drops and almost no one cares to come but those who come are there for a reason and the dialogue and in general the very quality of education is increased when you have a lecture course parallel to the books and/or internet video course about the subject. And it also makes the professor him/herself do better job at assessing his field, educating him/herself on the novelties there and in general providing better services for society, not just for education. I can go on and tell you many things terribly wrong with my country and its education system but from the perspective of someone who has seen both the effects of mandatory lectures and lectures with almost no attendance at all I can tell you it's better to keep the lecture courses in, rather then abolish them-it's better both for professors and students and for the society in general. And this isn't an answer based on general knowledge but on personal observations. I firmly believe good lecture courses are a must for any modern university, if not for its educational role, than for its social role. Lecture courses can "filter out" those students who really care about some field, provide the professor with the environment to shape his/her course better and improve his/hers communication skills and in general provide the ability to create an environment for learning not only for students, but for everyone interested in this particular field.
I believe this is the true complete answer of your question :)

I know this answer got way too long, but please, let it stay because I believe it gives an unique perspective on the question derived from true experience, rather than just general discussion.

-1 TL;DR. Wall of text, political opinions mixed in, no paragraph break, and not focusing on the question asked.

Edit it and I'll read it.


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How to easily get metrics about a paper's internal referencing?
Is there a tool that can give me some data on the bibliography with regard to the paper it's attached to? I mean, something that can tell me which reference is referred to most often throughout the text, what author is referred to most often, stuff like that.
With short papers and those that use a number-based referencing system, I can do it myself by counting (possibly using Excel). But it's far from ideal.
How do you analyse a paper's bibliography with regard to the text?

I think people have considered weighted citation metrics taking this into account, though I don't know any specific ones in use.

FYI if you get (La)TeX sources, say on arXiv, then searcing the source file is probably more accurate than trying to process the pdf, though may not be 100% accurate.

It depends on what exactly you need, but a good starting point is to use the DOI of your paper and access the API of CrossRef. You will then see the metadata attached to that paper. Most publishers also provide so-called 'open citations' with these metadata.
Here is one example:
https://api.crossref.org/works/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2021.102386
(Note: This is a machine-readable JSON-format; if you only see messy stuff, use a "JSON Beautifier" - either as a browser extension, or you can simply copy the whole JSON text into an online JSON formatter.)
Go to the "reference"-tag. You will see a list of references there. Here is a screenshot of the first three references (the first is from the journal Business History Review, the third is from the journal Critical Inquiry, etc.):

If the references carry DOIs, you can use these DOI to again access the CrossRef API and find out, say, the authors' ORCID (and their names, date of publication, journal names etc). That way, you could calculate which authors are cited most often in a text, or even in a larger corpus of thousands of papers.
Regarding your possible use-case of "which reference is referred to most often throughout the text" - - this seems a bit tricky, as you will need to computationally access the full texts. Well, there are indeed large corpora of full-texts of Open Access papers, which might be helpful for you. But anyway, whatever the actual detail you wish to achieve, the CrossRef API and its open scholarly metadata (open citations) is always a good starting point.
Make sure to read the CrossRef REST API Documentation. For more information on open citations, I suggest the I4OC.

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

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MSCA/UKRI Fellowship - Personal tax owed for research expenses
I have been a UKRI/MSCA fellow for a year. The university gave me personally the entire amount: both the amount for my personal salary allowance as well as for fellowship-related expenses like travel.
I expected only to pay tax on the part that is given to me directly as a living allowance/salary. Now that I am filing taxes for the year, I am finding out that I owe income tax on the entire amount, including the amount to be used for research expenses. It doesn't seem right that research expenses should be taxed as income, but because the university transferred all the funds to me it is all being taxed.
What can I do about this? Is there any way to avoid paying tax on the part of the fellowship that should not be considered my income?

Do you mean tax, paid to the government, often a percentage of one's income? Or indirect costs or overhead, the part of a grant taken by an institution to fund research support?

I mean tax paid to the government. They paid me the allowances + research expenses as a lump sum each month, not taxed at source. I had to of course file for tax myself, which I did and found out that a huge part goes in tax. I understand this for the allowances, but I thought research expenses are there to draw from for various field trips, etc. I am now unable to claim any expenses, because of the way I have been paid. Thanks

Thanks, I've rewritten to hopefully clarify, does this seem to match your intended meaning?

Thanks. Too much stress!

I would actually expect it to be deemed as taxable income initially, in case you don't disburse it (wholly or partly) for the intended purpose of research expenses. I would then expect to see a section where you claim the disbursed expenses (with appropriate documentary proof) thereby reducing the income back to what it would have been if the institution had only paid your salary.
So are you sure the tax form doesn't have a section where you prove the actual expenses, thereby reducing your effective income?

I'd just like to add that it is super unusal for the university to pass money for research expenses on a fellowship directly on to the fellow. In fact, I think it is so unusal that it may well be against UKRI terms and conditions (althoguh I don't know that for certain).

You will (I think - I'm not a tax professional!) need to pay tax on the total sum you receive, but then you can deduct eligible expenditures on your tax return, and get the tax refunded. See https://www.gov.uk/tax-relief-for-employees for more detail. If I remember correctly, you do not need to itemise individual expenditures on the tax return, but you should be able to provide this information if HMRC decide to audit you.
Perhaps worth adding: from HMRC's perspective there is no distinction between your salary and the travel budget -- they are both income. So you can 'underspend on travel' in one tax year and 'overspend' in the next. However, if your income has changed significantly from year to year (e.g. because you were only employed for part of the tax year) you may find that while you paid tax at 20%, you get reimbursed at 40% (free money glitch!). Or vice versa.
Overall, you may end up losing a bit of your travel budget to HMRC. However, you are getting complete freedom to organise your own travel plans. In the alternative (and more usual) scenario where the university manages your travel funds, you would typically have to organise travel through the university travel agents, which usually turns out to be both annoying and expensive.

Thanks. But I am not paying tax in the UK. So none of these apply. And I can't claim expenditure AT ALL. So my travel budget is halved and I won't get any refund. This was after all calculations.

@MichelleAssay You need to include that information in your post, then; since you mention UKRI I think anyone is going to assume UK. How can we possibly help you with tax if you don't even tell us what country you pay tax in?

I think it behooves OP to get professional advice. Tax matters never go away, and the only way to make sure this doesn't bite you some time in the future, is to get it understood and sorted officially right now.

It has already bit me for this year. I've been served a huge tax bill and had to pay. I doubt I can get anything back even if we resolve the matter. Unfortunately it seems I just was served a bad deal and didn't realise it until it was too late. But I just want someone to point me towards T and Cs that indicate research expenses are reimbursed. Thanks

You could ask for advice from MSCA or the university's finance office. You could also ask the tax authority though they might be less easy to deal with. I agree that it sounds strange that this would be taxed.

"I agree that it sounds strange that this would be taxed."... In my opinion, it should be taxed unless disbursed with proof that the spend was fellowship related. What if the OP got to the end of the fellowship without spending any of it.....

@user95861 I don't have experience with this fellowship but at least in the US the way it would work is that research expenses are never given directly to the grant recipient, they're either paid directly by the institution or personal funds are used initially but then reimbursed through a channel that does not involve any tax.

Exactly! I shouldn't have been paid this expenses in the first place. I should have just been reimbursed. If I don't spend them, they roll over.

Yes, you are all right. But my advice to ask the various offices and authorities still stands. OP doesn't seem to have asked any of those people yet.

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text:
How do you approach your professor if you do not understand or know how to do the homework at all?
So, I am an undergraduate student taking partial differential equations. This class can be so stressful at times because I do not understand the lecture material, and thus it makes it hard to do homework. Moreover, we have a quiz every Friday based on the homework, and homework is due on Friday.
So far, we are going over 1D wave equations and I do not understand any of the lecture material at all. Moreover, If I do not understand the lecture material I can't do the homework that is due on Friday. Other students in that class are lost too. It just doesn't make sense that this course is required for undergraduate level in order to graduate.
What do I tell my professor in his office hours if I do not understand the homework at all? I am nervous because I do not know how he will react, and I did not put any solution down because I am clueless. How would you react if you were a professor and I went on Wednesdays to your office hours and homework and quiz is due on Friday?

Thank you! I am going to make the effort to go to his office hours.

Just do not mention at the office hours that "it just doesn't make sense that this course is required for undergraduate level in order to graduate.", even if you truly can't see a strong connection to your programme. This topic is (hopefully) a passion of the professor teaching it. But, as a side-note, for me the opposite is out of the norm, as I learned differential equations in school before ever enrolling into university.

You didn't mention a textbook.  If there is one, you should be spending time with it.  If there's not one, or it is equally difficult, the library is your friend.  Sometimes seeing the same material presented in a different way can be of great help.

To address the part of the question "what do I tell the Professor" to help with the problem "I do not understand the lecture material":

Clear your head
Start reading your notes, word by word
As soon as you get confused (even a little bit), stop reading. On a piece of paper, write down what you are confused about, and why.
If you can, skip over the confusing part and continue with step 2. If you have hit a brick wall and can't understand anything that follows, stop.

Take your piece of paper to the office hour and work through it with the Professor. This will give you both a better idea of precisely what you are confused about, and how to resolve it.
Hopefully, when confusion about the lecture material is resolved, the homework will start to make sense.

You have two questions here. What should you do and what would I, the professor, do.
You should try to express your problem as honestly as you can, provided that you think you can trust the professor to be professional. If you know other students in the class with similar issues, you could even go as a group and just say you are lost and don't see a way to get "found".
What I would do, on the other hand, is ask you a bunch of questions to see why you have these problems. Perhaps I've pitched the class at too high a level, making assumptions that were unwarranted. But perhaps you are just not prepared, or overworked, or not working effectively.
But PDE is a pretty common required course for a math major. However, it is a jump, I agree, from some earlier courses. Perhaps there is a bridge that you don't see or that the professor should have provided.
But if you don't go see him, alone or in a group, it will just get worse.
One thing I might do is give you a lot of extra homework but with simpler problems to help you get in to the groove.
I've had students essentially camp out in my office to get a lot of help and they wound up doing well. Not every prof will be happy about that, of course.

Thank you! I am going to make an effort to go to his office hours and face my fears and toughen up.


text:
Vacation Days of Assistant Professor in Canada
I may apply for an Assistant Professor (AP) position at York University in Toronto, Canada. Since I live in Europe, I would like to know how many vacation days are available in this position. For example, what does an AP do in those weeks where no classes take place? Does the AP have to go to the office or can he stay home? Thanks for your answers!

The answer to question depends upon the specific university you would be working at. A 9-month contract might not have any vacation (you are expected to be working when school is in session). A 12-month contract might come with vacation. However, the specific answer to your question depends upon which school you applied to.

Is the 9 month contract a thing in Canada as well? I have a faint impression that TT positions are 'full time' here. However that doesn't change the fact that this question is specific to the university and better asked directly.

The York university, as most (but not all) Canadian universities is unionized.
Here is their webpage with the info: https://www.yufa.ca/. If you look at the agreement you can see that there is one month of paid vacation (over 12 months, I don't know any Canadian university with 9 months contracts). In general you can do what you want during that time, but the North American system expects you to take care of your students even during that time (depending of the field, disappearing for a month can be detrimental to your lab!).

@Zenon indeed, disappearing for a month can be detrimental, but nothing prevent you from cutting these vacations into smaller block.

How much vacation time an assistant professor gets is answered by the collective agreement in force at York U. According to a comment above, that's 4 weeks. These are days when you can do whatever you please.
Obviously, there are constraints regarding the time when you can take this vacation, as pointed out by some comments.
More importantly your question suggests that there's potentially vacation whenever there are no classes. So for one thing you may need the time between semesters to develop your teaching material, but also an Assistant Professor is not a teaching-only position, it's research/supervision + teaching + typically some admin duties.
Finally, note that in many Canadian Universities there is a summer term with classes going on between may and August. So you could very well end up teaching all year around; there's typically about 3 to 4 weeks between the end of classes for one term and the beginning of the next (and that time includes exams and marking).

That's a very good answer. Thank you very much!

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text:
Advising a high school research project
I have been contacted out of the blue by a seemingly highly motivated high school student who has requested the opportunity to do a research project under my supervision (in the field of stellar astrophysics). I am not opposed to supervising such a young student, but I fear that they will lack all of the prerequisites to even get started on any kind of project.
How should I approach this?

I think this question is too vague for SE as it stands, but it could be appropriate if it were made more specific.  Are you asking how to find topics in your field that might be approachable for a high school student?  Or whether it is worthwhile to mentor a high school student?  Or something else?  Please edit your question (title and body) to ask a specific question.

Why don't you have a call with them and do an impromptu interview or a light oral exam? It should be easy enough to find out whether they totally lack necessary prerequisites.

Perhaps you could converse with your advanced students and postdocs, if any, to see if any of them have any suggestions.  Also, I wonder if the REU folks have written up a guide for researchers about how to structure a project?

I supervise high school research students every summer. It is very rewarding. But, it is a lot of work, so keep that in mind when deciding whether this is something you are interested in.
Besides for the obvious issues (lacking background knowledge, field-specific skills, and other preparation), I find that high school students tend to need more emotional support from me than other students I work with, so that is something to consider as well.
I interview the students and ask them questions to assess their personalities. I look for the following qualities specifically in would-be high school researchers:

Good attitude. Younger students can be a little bit immature, and this often manifests as a bad attitude. Working with a high school student who does not have a good attitude, does not take criticism well, and is just generally unpleasant to deal with, is just not worth it.
Willingness to fail. The high school students who do research are used to being very successful at everything they do. Sometimes, research can be paralyzing to them because they aren't going to be successful at it immediately (or even after lots of work).
Works hard. (Obvious prerequisite. Without hard work, they will not be successful and working with them will be a waste of my time.)

The high school students I supervise come to me through a K-12 outreach program run by my university. (When I am contacted by a student "out of the blue", I tell them to apply to that program.) As part of that, they commit to five weeks of full-time research in my lab in the summer. After this, some continue to work with me after school during the academic year. I would not agree to work with a high school student who wasn't prepared to make a specific commitment and identify in advance exactly when and for how long (at a minimum) they'll work on the project, because of the high probability that it would end up being a waste of my time.
Designing projects for high school students is actually similar to designing projects for undergrads, because the very strong high school students have a level of preparation that is similar to a typical undergrad sophomore or junior. The basic characteristics of such a project are:

It should be appealing to the student. (I want to encourage them to get into science, not scare them off by giving them a niche project with very little general appeal.)
It should be something that I am 100% confident I could do myself, if I had to. I should be able to plan out (roughly) in advance what they will do each week that they are with me, and even prepare general instructions for every week in advance (so that they are never waiting uselessly for me to tell them what to do next).
They should be able to start doing some useful work after only a few weeks of topic-specific preparation. I give them very focused homework - lecture videos to watch, things to read and answer questions about, tutorials to go through - and expect them to do that mostly independently before they start.
It should be a project where they will be able to make some progress after about five weeks of work.
The project should have potential to turn into something bigger, in case the student turns out to be amazing!

I also have a bunch of material about doing research in my field, and about expectations I have of students I supervise. I've prepared these for my undergrad students, so I already have them on hand for the high school students. It is very helpful for them to have these as reference.
P.S. I have co-authored two papers with my high school students. Don't underestimate them :)

Give them minor take-home assignment, nothing you wouldn't give as a course project. Let them solve it on their own, one of the two things would happen:
1.) They see what the subject is and study a few years more before approaching you
2.) You just got proof that :
     a.) This person is driven enough to cover something for a minor problem at least

     b.) This person can be taught something for doing the work

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What strategies are there for defining learner profiles for an online course aimed at international students?
I am interested in developing a set of postgraduate level courses that will be taught entirely online aimed at a primarily international (non-UK) audience.
I am seeking strategies for defining a set of learner profiles to help understand broad educational needs to help inform the course design process.  While there will be many subject-specific student needs, there will be many more that could be considered generic or trans-discipline.
What strategies are there for defining learner profiles for an online course aimed at international students?
Are there particular parameters I should set eg demographic data, technological ability,  experience of higher education etc?  These are fairly obvious (although this could be questioned), are there others?
Also, is there an evidence base in support of a given strategy or approach?
Thank you for your time!
EDIT:
A (loose) definition of a 'learner profile'.  Essentially, a generic image of a learner that outlines their needs and characteristics relevant to the learning environment.  The expectation is to create a set of broad generalizations about students in order to help inform course design.
This could be informed by research into actual student experiences that are distilled into key questions or criteria, or through professional practice.
This is not to say that the needs of individual learners will be disregarded in a one-size fits all mentality, rather it is to set broad expectations of what learners might need.

Did this concept of "learner profiles" come from your imagination (in which case, could you tell us something about your sequence of thinking that led you to this), or did it come from something you read (in which case, could you choose a link where the concept is explained succinctly)?  Sorry if this is a stupid question!

Thanks aparente001, have added some sentences of explanation.  It is not (afaik) a rigorously defined concept, rather something that I have been tasked with.

@aparente001, another better known name of this technique is "persona analysis." (try Google Image of "Persona analysis" for examples) It's often used in analyzing online platforms and services. Basically, it involves setting up cases with different parameters and then evaluate the values, usefulness, and constraints of the online product to them. From what I have seen most of those parameters seem to be empirically derived, or based on specialists' input.


text:
Is it a good idea to lend or rent textbooks to students?
I teach in a college and I have a small annual fund allowing me to purchase textbooks. If I do not use this fund, it will expire every academic year and thus I am considering creative ways that I can make good use of this fund.
I use textbooks which the authors have passed away so that I do not need to worry about newer editions. Also, I teach lower-level mathematics and the content of these courses will not change much over time.
I am considering purchasing a few copies of the textbooks of the courses I teach. I am considering one of the following two:

Allow needy students to use these books for free on a first-come, first-serve basis. I will not check the student's background; instead, I will just trust his/her words on the neediness.
Allow (any) student to rent these textbooks at a very low fee, say $10.00 per semester.

I am checking here if doing this is legal (especially about the renting part: Do I need any permission/lisence?) and appropriate. Or will it cause some potential problems?
Thank you.

Just because an author has died doesn't mean their book won't continue to be updated.

Have you considered charging a deposit, rather than a fee?

Your first suggestion is almost certainly allowed, legal, and admirable (caveat below). The second one opens issues of what happens to rental fees. You shouldn't really be accepting money for use of your classroom materials beyond the cost of production.
But a loan program would be feasible. If you have more students than books, you could even loan a book to, say, a pair of students to share.
When publishers give you books for your consideration in adopting them, you can also pass those on to students.
Note that some people who use their own textbooks will return the per/copy royalty to their students if the book is required.

Caveat. You don't say the source of the funds. If they come from the university, then you should get approval from someone in the administration. The intent of the grant might be to increase your own knowledge and so have some restrictions.

Checking on the terms of the grant is, I agree, essential.  The books may be considered the property of the university.

As others have pointed out, the rental fee is problematic. The question to answer is who actually owns the book and, consequently, who is entitled to the rental fee if you charged one. Legally, it is almost certainly the case that whatever you buy from university funds is owned by the university, and it is not up to you to decide what to do with it. In your case, that would mean that you can't just rent out books for a fee in the same way as you can't just rent out your office to a student to live in -- it's not yours to rent out, but the university's. Thinking in the same direction then makes it clear that whatever money would come in from such an arrangement would have to go to the university, not to you.
I tend to think that the rental scheme is not only legally, but also ethically fraught. Imagine that you had enough books to rent to all of your students. Then the students would have the option of paying the publisher $80 for a new book, or pay you $10 for a rental. They'd probably go to you for the rental, but that would mean that you are deriving a secondary income from your primary job, for which the university already pays you. That income presents conflicts of interest: For example, you will no longer be interested in changing the text book used by that course, even if there is a much better one, and that means that you may not be providing your students the best education. One can certainly conjure up other ways in which the scheme provides you with conflicts of interest.
So, no, don't do that. If you happen to have a few spare copies of the book, let the students borrow it instead.

This is a great answer! Thank you very much for your input!

(2) seems a bit fraught to me. Could be iffy or against policy if not outright illegal, and just puts you and your students both in a weird position.
I'd recommend working through your college's library; it's typical for academic libraries to reserve some materials to only be checked out by students taking a certain course, and I suspect your library would be happy to manage some donated textbooks that way.
Libraries are also quite familiar with the process of lending out books, including offering sufficient carrots and/or sticks to get their books back. For a library affiliated with a college/university, that might include preventing registration, graduation, or transcript release for students who haven't returned a book or paid a fee.

Renting for a fee something you were given funds to buy is IMO unethical.  If you want to be creative along the lines you suggest:

Donate a copy (or more than one) to the library of your institution.  This will maximize the reach of your donation;
If you want to get rid of extra copies, you could sell them making it clear that the proceeds go to a scholarship fund or a student food bank or some other student-centred cause.


text:
Can student second author go to conference?
I am an undergraduate in computer science. I worked on a professor's project, and he submitted it to a conference with me being the second author (he and I are the only authors). If it is accepted, I would really love to attend the conference (I have never done so before), both for knowing what other people are doing and establishing some relation with other professors. However, I am not sure whether it is even appropriate to ask my professor. We are keeping a very friendly relationship, and I don't want asking him for this thing to make him perceive me as "conceited" (or something else).
For my contribution to the research, he came up with the theory, and I did most of experiment and data analysis and visualization to empirically support it. It amounts to about 25%-30% of the total length of the paper.
I am completely unclear about funding issue. Do conference organizer provides some compensation? Or should I ask for university for support (I guess they will be at best reluctant since I am not the first author)? Or should I ask for my professor to use his funding? Or do I need to pay my travel expense myself?

"I did most of experiment and data analysis and visualization" - So you did most of the work, but he only put you as second author?

Questions about financial support are good but digress from the main question - please consider posting them as a separate question.

@BenBitdiddle No, he came up with the theory and mathematical derivation and I programmed some simulation to empirically test it. Also he wrote most of the paper.

I was a student author on two papers, and went to the conference. You need not worry: 1. First or second author status did not matter (indeed, sometimes it is mandated to be alphabetical - then what?). 2. My professor and I both attended the conference; In fact he encouraged me to do so, and I made the oral presentations precisely because I had written the code and thus was most familiar with the theory's actual programmatic instantiation and its limitations. 3. The university has a budget for conference travel - they probably have a form for travel advances, or reimbursements.

As others have already stated, it is perfectly acceptable to show up at a conference when you are not the first author of your paper, or even if you have no paper at all at the conference.
Depending on your research group and how well-funded it is, funding your trip may or may not be a problem. Your first partner in such attempts should certainly be your co-author, and there is nothing wrong about asking him whether you can go and to what extend his grants or the university can support you. The prof. will also know about other funding sources you may apply to. For instance, you could apply as a student volunteer for the conference (usually levies the conference fee), or you could ask for a travel stipend from the conference organizers (although these are often indeed reserved for first authors, at least in my field).
As a sidenote, most professors around me are actually really happy about undergrads that want to go to conferences, as it shows that the undergrad really cares about research and wants to see how it is being done. People love that, because both, in my Swiss current and Austrian previous university, getting good undergrads to stay for a PhD was a perpetual concern and worth quite some money in up-front investment to professors that had some travel money to spare.
(PhD admission works different to the US around here. Most of our PhD students come from our own pool of undergrads, and it's definitely a students market (i.e., few good students, lots of professors looking for them). Good undergrads are basically wooed by professors to do a PhD with them.)

It's not very clear what you mean by seller's market. Who's doing the selling? (Also, typo: extend->extent.)

@E.P. A seller's market in the job market sense - few undergrads that want to do PhD, many professors that are looking for great students.

Just saying - that's not necessarily very clear to non-businessy academics, so it could do with some clarification.

It is perfectly fine for the second author (if it matters: many people do use alphabetic ordering where second author does not necessarily mean less contribution) to present the paper. It is not only appropriate but encouraged to attend. I have seen many professors attend with one or two of their students.. Tell your professor that you are interested in presenting the paper or at least attending the conference in case of acceptance.
Ask him to help you with the funding. He may point you to different resources available on the department/university or even national level. Many conferences have student discount and many do waive the registration fees if you volunteered at the conference. Look for this information into the conference website.

+1 for student volunteers. That's also a good way to meet lots of people.

Firstly, there is no reason (apart from funding) stopping a second author from attending. The conference organisers would love it, they want as many people to attend as they can get.
Sometimes conferences offer a small amount of funding for students. You should check out the conference web page and see whether you are eligible. As an author on one of the papers, you have a chance.
But otherwise you will have to find funding from elsewhere. Your supervisor should be the first person to ask, then maybe the head of the research group you are in, then the head of department. Perhaps there is university-level funding available too. These people should be able to point you towards that. There's probably also an office somewhere who collects information about such grants.
As a general rule, avoid paying out of your own pocket unless you have to.


text:
PhD in Quantum Computing - useful outside of academia?
I'm thinking of applying for a PhD in Quantum Computing at Oxford. Suppose I later on decided that academia wasn't right for me. Would such a title still be useful for looking for jobs in different fields or would it be a waste of 3 years that would make me 'overqualified'?

I think what you are asking is the applications of Quantum Computing, which belongs to the Computer Science site

@cagirici: that is not the same question. There can be many reasons companies are interested in, for example, physics or mathematics PhD's that are not related to their direct knowledge of a small subfield, see e.g. the answer by profmartinez.

Also see What are the goals and benefits of doing a PhD?, What types of industry positions favor PhD over a masters?, Is PhD worth it when considering your career in industry

(continued) Does it make sense to get a PhD if a person does not want to be in academia and prefers to stay in business?, How true is the stereotype that PhD graduates are overqualified?, What skills can I get during a PhD to be competitive on the job market against non-PhD holders?

Specifically for PhD in quantum: http://p.migdal.pl/2015/12/14/sci-to-data-sci.html (in short: it's not hard to turn to industry; you won;t be overqualified if it is an ambitious industry; the title will be useful, but will not serve as a replacement of knowledge/experience).

Thanks - that last link is really helpful and informative!

Many types of companies look for Ph.D. holders from highly ranked institutions, even if they won't work on their research area. Think about it: this type of people have gone through a rigorous merit-based selection process; they have been trained to crack hard problems that require creative solutions; and they are used to going through a process of independent study, deep thinking, and experimenting to get results. It is not uncommon, for example, for financial or consulting firms to tap onto that kind of talent. Many R&D companies will also hire people with a variety of advanced degrees.

A PhD says you know what 'research' means -- I.e., not the undergraduate definition.  That's what companies look for as opposed to a specific topic which I doubt any companies will be interested in --- a PhD is supposed to attack problems beyond the current horizon.  A PhD from a reputable institution provide further evidence your research will be of high quality.


text:
Is attempting to get published in undergraduate history journals worth it?
I'm very interested in trying to get published as a history major in order to ease my path towards becoming a history professor, so I've been thinking about trying to do research on my own. As a result, I want to get published before I graduate but I hear it's not easy to get published in regular journals so I was thinking I should get published in try an undergraduate journal instead. Would that be a better alternative or no? If not, what are some tips to getting published in a regular journal?

Do you have an advisor you are assigned to in the History Department. Set up an appointment to talk with them. If they are a professor and a PhD, then at some point in their career, they will have conducted their own research. They will be able to advise you and they may be willing to work with you on your research and co-author a paper with you so that it has a better chance of being accepted by a leading journal in you field of interest.

First of all, if you've already written an excellent paper of which you are proud of, then why not submit it to an undergraduate history publication? It certainly won't hurt your chances for graduate school admissions. In fact, I would say that it certainly demonstrates interest and willingness to engage in the academic community of your chosen field. This is something that graduate admissions look for and care about when they're evaluating your application.
Undergraduate publishing opportunities are quite plentiful, and many of them are becoming very well-recognized. In my opinion, I've found that the writing/research published in the best history journals are neck-to-neck with papers that could pass a graduate thesis defense.
I would encourage you to check out:
http://history.unc.edu/undergraduate-program/undergraduate-journals/
with an emphasis on Yale's and Vanderbilt's undergraduate (which are one of the few journals open to undergrads from all universities rather than just serving their own university/college). (Full disclosure, I am an editor of the latter, see: http://vanderbilthistoricalreview.com)

Publishing as an undergrad is a good idea. In particular you might want to publish something related to your undergraduate honors thesis. The Journal of Young Investigarors is a good choice. Several undergrads from projects I have been associated with have published there. If you are serious about being a History Professor, a publication (and an honors thesis) will help you get into a good graduate program, and will show that you are serious about gaining the experience needed to succeed in academics.


text:
"Designated emphasis" on a doctorate
My university is offering a "designated emphasis" in a topic area, that grad students can add to their transcript.  I think that the idea is that it can provide some sort of signal that the student has a competency in this area, like a minor for an undergrad.
Has anyone else ever heard of such a thing?  What possible practical use could it be to the students getting it?  Why might the idea have been conceived of?

Check out my related question about PhD minors: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/43085/why-add-a-minor-to-a-phd

Something like this is actually very common in some fields. Economics programs usually have a requirement called "Specialization Fields," "Major Fields," "Field Certification," or something like that (some example requirements).
They usually consist of a couple courses in the same area, as well as often an additional field exam covering topics from those courses. Glancing over some requirements, most programs require you to finish ~2 or these as a requirement for getting your PhD, either equally or as a major/minor setup. As you might expect, almost all students do these in fields that they are interested in and will eventually do research in.
As for purpose, I believe that they are mostly used as a signaling and filtering device for the job market. If you look at any department's list of job market candidates, you can see that the specialization fields are very prominently displayed. I think the importance of these is probably linked to some of the idiosyncrasies of the econ job market, such as its degree of centralization, but that's just my speculation.

authors: محمد الحربية


text:
I have a paper in review. Can I send to to NIPS (Neural Information Processing Systems) conference as well?
Question is in the title.  I'm not in computer science but I have a paper that I think is a novel application of machine learning.  It's now in review.
I'm not sure how competitive I'll be, but I think that it's worth sending to NIPS.  Most of the conferences in my field don't publish the papers that comprise them, but NIPS does.  If my paper is published in the NIPS proceedings, would that constitute prior publication?
Does it depend on the journal?  If so, what about the top interdisciplinary journals, like Science/Nature/PNAS?

NIPS does not allow for dual submissions.

Dual submissions: Dual submissions will be identified via a combination of automated methods and human (reviewer, area chair, senior area chair, program chair) judgment. NIPS coordinates with other conferences to identify dual submissions. Submissions that are identical or substantially similar to papers that are in submission to, have been accepted to, or have been published in other archival conferences, journals, workshops, etc. will be deemed dual submissions. Submissions that are identical or substantially similar to other NIPS submissions will also be deemed dual submissions; submissions should be distinct and sufficiently substantial. Note that slicing contributions too thinly may result in submissions being deemed dual submissions. The program chairs reserve the right to reject all NIPS submissions by all authors of dual submissions, not just those deemed dual submissions. The NIPS policy on dual submissions applies for the entire duration of the reviewing process (i.e., from the submission deadline to the notification date). Authors should contact the program chairs if they need further clarification.

There is a good chance that the journal does not either.


text:
Universities recommandations and choices
I'm a tunisian student, i have a dream to persuit masters educations in a better university in Europe, USA, UK or Canada. I have a Bachelor degree (Licentiate, BAC+3) in computer science and multimedia field and i speak and write three languages fluently(Arabic-Frensh-English).
I would like to know if a have enough chance to reach it and what to do?
Any recommandations will be helpfull.
Thank's

So-called "shopping questions", which yours might be, are off-topic here. Even if it were ok to ask about your chances to be admitted, this depends on all kind of factors you didn't mention (e.g., GPA, your school's ranking and who you worked with there, letters of recommendation, where you apply). If you click/search the tags "graduate school" or "admission"/"graduate admission" though, you might find several question that might help you.

this is all what i ask about!! "what should i mention?" and specially "What to do?" i dont mean to advertize anything or "Shopping".

That's just a term: it means "asking which school to choose", etc. Have a look at the help center, and you'll see it there. That said, click the tags I mentioned, and I think you'll find some old questions that might help. Being "a Tunesian student" certainly won't disqualify you - one of the smartest researchers I knew in France was.


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How do government research labs compare to research positions in academia and industry?
So what I’m wondering about is how research positions in government run research labs with organisations like Australia’s CSIRO or America’s FFRDC labs compare with equivalent positions in academia and industry.
What are their pay and conditions like, relatively speaking? How much job security do you have? How much control do you get over your topic of research?

In the US, the organizations of interest would be the Department of Energy's national laboratories and other Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDC) under NASA, USDA, NIH, and the Department of Defense.  DARPA is a funding agency that gives out grants rather than conducting research in house.

@BrianBorchers Okay, then. My mistake. Assume that I’m asking about them, then, rather than DARPA.

Since there haven't been other comments/answers yet, it may help to edit Brian's suggestions into your post.

Even within DOE there are large differences between Office of Science (Lawrence Berkeley, Argonne), NNSA (Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos), and others (Knolls Atomic Power and NREL). Talk to people who work in various places, either grads of your program or at conferences.

So what I’m wondering about is how research positions in government run research labs with organisations like Australia’s CSIRO or America’s FFRDC labs compare with equivalent positions in academia and industry.

I work for a US Government Research Agency, so here is an answer based upon my experience (i.e., n = 1):

What are their pay and conditions like, relatively speaking?

In this US, some labs are run by contractors (e.g., some DOE labs like Sandia). Others are run by the federal government (e.g., other DOE labs). I am an employee of the US federal government. OPM describes our benefits (link here) and the GS pay scale is here for 2019. Most research scientists are between a GS-11 and G-15, which a post doc starting as a GS-11 or 12 depending upon the agency. Some federal scientist become Senior Positions (ST), which are above the GS pay scale (OPM page here).
Most research positions in the US Government are "Research Grade Evaluation" (link here, which means we have a review ever 4 years (similar to tenure), where the panel of our peers can recommend our we say in the same pay grade, be promoted, or demoted a level. Some agencies like NOAA and DOD have switched to pay bands rather than the GS pay scale.

How much job security do you have?

Probably similar to a US public academia setting. But, rather than be subject to the whims of state-level politics (US public universities), we are subject to federal politics.

How much control do you get over your topic of research?

This depends upon the position. I am free to study anything falling within the mission area of my agency and my local center, as long as I obtain funding for it through internal or external funding mechanisms. This is less than an academic in theory, but in practice, if you like the applied science of your agency, this is enough freedom for many people including me. Plus, I like directly working with managers to see my research applied.
Here is a link to an obligatory PhD Comic on Intellectual Freedom.
Last, as another answer noted, your questions are largely specific to a given organization. I suggest researching different agencies you might like to work for and reaching out to researchers at those agencies to conduct information interviews. During those interviews, ask similar questions to the ones you posed here.

Conditions, pay, research autonomy are all highly dependent not only on whether you are in an FFRDC or academia, but where within those institutions you work. Given this, it isn't possible to give an all encompassing answer to your question.
What I can tell you for sure is that whether you work in an FFRDC or academia, funding tends to dictate the type of work you do. This is especially true if the academic research is funded by an agency with a clear deliverable. Although the exact topic may not be as flexible, working in FFRDCs and academia tend to allow for more autonomy in how you approach the problems presented to you. To work on a topic you care about, you'll have to either maneuver within those organizations onto a project that interests you or go to different organizations.


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What to do if a student claims to have turned in the homework but I could not find it?
I am teaching a course in a college and assignment homework on a regular basis. Usually I collect all homework in the class and later my student secretary grades all the homework and return them to the students through the mail room. If a student did not turn in the homework at all, a zero will be given.
There is a student who claims to have turned in two homework but got zero for both. I am checking with my secretary and is awaiting for his reply. Likely he will tell me that he does remember anything about her homework. Also I have asked the student to check her mailbox, and it is quite likely that she could not find her homework there.
Another piece of information: I suspect the student is dishonest as sometimes her quiz answer is identical to the student sitting next to her. But since I never caught her red-handed, this should not be used as an evidence.
Now assuming that no evidence can be found regarding whether she turned the homework or not, there are at least three opinions for me:

Give her full marks for the homework, assuming that it is I or my secretary who misplaced them.
Give her zeros, ignoring her claims.
As a happy medium, change her homework status as "excused" so these two particular homework will not be counted toward her grade.

I have done Option 1 in the past, but only to find out later that the student who made the claim turns out to be a very dishonest student and likely she lied to me and benefited from lying. What would you suggest me to do in this situation?

Learning management submissions with online homework submission take care of this problem- both you and the student get independent verification of when the homework was submitted and exactly what was submitted.

Thanks @BrianBorchers! That would prevent the problem from happening in the first place. Now my question is, since it has already happened, what is the best thing for me to do in this case?

Personally I would give a zero as there is no proof that the student turned in the work, but the ultimate question is what does your syllabus state you will do in such an instance and does your department have any guidelines/suggestions?

I assume no one else has complained of missing papers? How big is your class? From a sheer probability point of view, it's rather unlikely that this one single person had their assignment lost on two independent occasions. The bigger your class, the less plausible this becomes.

How can it happen that they have missed twice like this? Did they hand them in within a very short time? Because usually they should react when the first one was missed.

Just for clarification: Are we talking about physical mail (handing in a paper) or e-mail? In the later case, you could request a screenshot of the "sent" folder (or complete e-Mail-header). If they can not provide it, I would give a Zero.
Was the homework on paper or done electronically? There coud be pdf time stamps, ...

A middle ground would be to give the student another homework to do.

@OBu, we are talking about physical mail and to the best of my knowledge, there is no record of it.

@NuclearWang, I have no other student complaining about missing papers this semester so far and my class is relatively small (about 16 students).

@scrappedcola, my syllabus does not cover this particular scenario and the department gives no specific guidelines.

@AlexeyB., I have thought about this, and my concern is that it would be unfair to the student if she has turned in the homework.

Well I think you found an area to clean up on subsequent syllabi

@scrappedcola, yes! What would you suggest about the policy on this?

I would do as suggested by Brian B about utilizing your schools learning mgmt system (or setup a dropbox/gdrive folder) and have your students submit their homework in both pdf and paper form. Then you can set in stone that missing homework, that have not been uploaded, will be given an automatic zero. It's a little more overhead for your students (but for those with a phone it's seriously only 5 min) but keeps things fair in case the grader loses work (which I find had to believe was the case this time).

I never sent physical mails. Does the sender not have a proof that they sent it at specified time etc etc?

@Zuriel On the avoidance side: for me, when collecting assignments from a physical box/etc., the very first thing that I do, before moving them anywhere, is go through and make a list of the names associated to each page, specifically to avoid disagreements like this. If their name is on my list, then I know that I should have it somewhere, and will act accordingly. If it isn't, then I know that they're lying.

"I have done Option 1 in the past". That's the problem. Students talk. If word gets round that this tactic works, more students may try it. Electronic submissions are the way to go.

Since you have no way to show that the student didn't submit the homework, it's simply your word against the word of the student.  Furthermore, there were lots of homework assignments from various students, so it would presumably be easier for you to forget receiving the homework than it would be for the student to mistakenly remember submitting the homework.
If an unbiased third party considered this and assumed honesty from both sides, I think that they would conclude that it was more likely that you had lost/forgotten the paper than that the student had remembered submitting a paper when she, in fact, had not done so.
If this happened with a student taking a class from a TA or faculty member under my supervision, I'd tell the TA or faculty member to "excuse the grade" and adopt a system for homework submission (e.g. use a learning management system) that provides independent confirmation that the homework was submitted.

Quiz her about the homework, e.g. "How did you solve this question? What method did you use? Which equations are relevant?" If she did do the homework, she should be able to answer these relatively easily. If she can provide good answers, then award her full marks; otherwise give her zero. The fail case would be if she didn't do the homework but still manages to answer these questions - but if she can do that, she's already mastered the course material, so full marks is still accurate even if it's not fair.
To avoid this in the future, if the learning management system suggested by Brian Borchers isn't possible, you could provide a physical receipt as well (similar to the receipts one gets at a store).

A quiz on the homework sounds good, but there is a second fail case, that she did the homework but can remember almost nothing--but even then, you could probably ask her to bring her study supplies with her (computer or paper and pencil, book, etc.) and redo a key question from the hw in your presence. Even if she can't replicate what she had, it should be clear if she's familiar with it. That might be too much the first time this happens, but reasonable for the second "lost homework." And from now on: "You shouldn't have to deal with this again! Email me a copy of your hw before submitting!"

she did the homework but can remember almost nothing — This possibility requires a very, um, special type of homework.

I like the receipt idea but not the quizzing.

I would need to know your grading scheme, e.g. how many homeworks in the semester, the weight the homework average has, to give very specific suggestions.  But in a general sense here are some thoughts:

If there are a lot of small homework assignments, then it can be helpful to announce that the two lowest scores will be thrown out.  The idea here is that the homework score functions to raise students' grades.
The syllabus can define a decreased maximum score for late submission, for example weight 90% if one day late, weight 80% for two days late, etc.
It sounds like the fundamental problem is the cheating on the quizzes.  This is the thing to focus on.  If the student is not demonstrating academic integrity, then you need to catch her in the quizzes/exams.  Set her up so that she CANNOT cheat; and if she is unprepared, she will do badly; but there will be no gray zone of he-said-she-said.  Get a larger room.  Get more proctors.  If necessary assign this student a specific seat where she is physically unable to see anyone's work.
Do not have her come in to be grilled on the homework assignment.  There was a similar question about half a year ago (but about an exam, I think), and this was the consensus.
You might want to set her up to deliver her homework in person to a department secretary who is at her desk 9 to 5 every day except for lunch, with the secretary making a photocopy and writing a note on the copy stating the date and time of delivery, with her signature.
Philosophically, it may help to go back to your own first principles of pedagogy, whatever they may be (this may require some thought).  For example, perhaps you believe that with the right support and some honest effort, all students can learn your material; and they key is to find, for each student, a way for them to demonstrate the knowledge and skills they've acquired.
It might help to think about why she might be trying to cheat and lie her way through the course.  It is required for her degree program?  Are there no alternatives to your course, that would enable her to graduate?  Nobody likes that kind of pressure....
If there's a chance she is trying to learn your material but is getting frustrated for whatever reason, you may wish to set up an intermediate due date, by which you will require her to submit a first draft of the homework, and come in to office hours to help her see her way to improving the draft.

I like your thoughtful answer here but an still skeptical about why to not ask her about the content of the homework assignment. I did a quick search of the archives but didn't see the question you're referring to--any chance you could please update that part with a link to that previous question? Thanks!

@cactus_pardner - In case I don't find it -- basically, let's assume for the moment that the student is behaving unethically.  Grilling her about the homework will not be a foolproof way of establishing guilt.  But creating objective conditions in which she can fail the course by not being able to cheat in quizzes and exams is pretty foolproof.  On the other hand, if she has not behaved unethically, grilling her about the homework could be humiliating and inhumane.    That's what I remember from the other page, in a nutshell.

Consider improving your submission system
As other answers have pointed out, there is no ideal resolution to the present problem --- you simply are not going to know whether the homework was submitted or not.  Consequently, the most important thing you can do here is to improve your submission system so that it tracks submissions.  This will not solve your present problem, but it will prevent it from happening again.
These days, there are online submission systems that can be used to track homework submissions and make submission records available to both the student and teacher.  Alternatively, you can use email submission, where there is a clear record of the sending and receiving of email.  Alternatively, for physical submissions you can adopt a "locked box" submission system where you have a box for submissions that cannot be accessed by students and you immediately record the submissions that are present in it whenever you remove them from the box.  Finally, if you particularly want to stick with physical submission in-class then you could create a list of students with "tear-off" submission receipts; as you collect the work you could tick off each student and provide them with a submission receipt, which means that both parties have a record of submission.
All of these methods require some work, though the online methods are fairly simple given that almost all work is done electronically nowadays.  There may be some initial time-investment in setting up such a system and getting used to using it, but it is likely to be useful in the long-term to ensure you do not encounter this situation again.