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Is there any reliable website other than google translate to translate from Chinese to English?
So I have come across a paper that will highly beneficial to me and my research group ,but the problem its in chinese and it heavily involves chemical formulas and mathematical data,so its hard to translate using google translate.Is there any site that translates academia papers?

Please pay a mathematical freelancer on Upworks.

Is there any free alternative?

@OmkarKedge Translating highly technical texts is difficult. There is no automated translator that can handle it well, and people who do it need a great deal of training in both the discipline and the two languages. Why should it be available for free?

@Johanna : So the answer is, find a way to squeeze more money from your research financers.

a good tranlate software is DEEPL. Just google for it.

Among other problems with this answer, DEEPL does not support Chinese.


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APA Citation of Website With No Author Mentioned
I get conflicting information about APA website citations from different sources. What is the best way to cite website documentation in APA style? For example, if I want to cite an announcement website about Apache Struts project releases (with no author given), do I cite it as:
Apache Struts Team. (2018). Announcements 2018. Retrieved from https://struts.apache.org/announce-2018.html
And in-text citation would be given like this?  Struts 2.3.36 was released as a "General Availability" release on October 15, 2018 (Apache Struts Team, 2018).

Do you not need to also include the date at which you have accessed the website?

@customcommander It looks like APA style to cite website doesn't require the date that website was accessed.

DISCLOSURE: I work for Mendeley as a software engineer. The reason I have used Mendeley is to show how it would cite this particular reference with this particular citation style using a tool familiar with academics and scholars.

Based on my findings, the citation would look like:

Apache Struts Team. (2018). Announcements 2018. Retrieved March 28, 2019, from https://struts.apache.org/announce-2018.html

And the in-text citation would look like:

(Apache Struts Team, 2018)

Please find below the steps I took to produce this answer:

I imported https://struts.apache.org/announce-2018.html using a Mendeley tool; I manually entered missing information in an attempt to construct a reference similar to yours:

And this how the reference looks like in Mendeley:

I can select this reference a copy/paste it using a citation style:

The formatted citation will use this citation style:

This is what you get when you paste it:

Apache Struts Team. (2018). Announcements 2018. Retrieved March 28, 2019, from https://struts.apache.org/announce-2018.html

Then I can use another Mendeley tool to produce an "in-text" citation: (using the same citation style as in step 3)

Which gives me this in-text citation:

(Apache Struts Team, 2018)

The title of your question indicates that there is no author mentioned, but in the body of the question, you imply that the author is a corporate body, i.e. the Apache Struts Team. This certainly counts as an author.
In their blog about style, the APA say that you should cite information found on the web in the same format as you cite information found in a physical print form for the same kind of content. They provide a template that uses author, date, title, and source:

Author, A. (date). Title of document [Format description]. Retrieved from https://URL
In text: (Author, year)

They also provide alternate templates for citations when you are missing one of the four pieces of information.
Regarding a website with no author mentioned, the APA say in their FAQs:

How do you reference a web page that lists no author?
When there is no author for a web page, the title moves to the first position of the reference entry:
Example:
  All 33 Chile miners freed in flawless rescue. (2010, October 13). Retrieved from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39625809/ns/world_news-americas/
Cite in text the first few words of the reference list entry (usually the title) and the year. Use double quotation marks around the title or abbreviated title.: ("All 33 Chile Miners," 2010).

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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What to do about poorly written questions in an exam?
My typical experience with examinations is that when a question expects a student to use a function provided in a previous question that the current question will make this explicit.
I recently took an exam containing a question in which this was not the case and combined with some odd/incorrect phrasing due to English being this professors second language I was unable to answer a question worth a fairly significant amount of the overall grade due to this confusion.
Listening to some chatter as I left I noted that at least a few other students were also confused by the question and I realized shortly after leaving what the question should have been and that it would have been very straightforward to answer if it had been written more clearly. I even used the method it asked to demonstrate in a later question. I suspect that a significant majority of the other students figured out the intention of the question and answered it correctly.
I'm unsure what to do here, is it possible for a student to determine when a question is sufficiently unclear for it to be a problem?
The lecturer has also included impossible questions on graded assignments as well so I felt like it was not outside the realm of possibility for their to be a fatal error on an exam question.

Did you report the problem to the lecturer during the exam?

The question bordered on sounding plausible so I assumed during the stress of the exam that I didn't understand the topic well enough to answer.

Take a look at my question to see if you can get anything useful there https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/191151/157609

I think the first (only?) action item is to ask the professor. I (as a TA) have participated in preparation of HW problems and exams, and I've always made sure to make the problems crystal clear. If I agree that there is room for reasonable misinterpretation, I always take the student's side: an unclear problem is the instructor's fault, so a student should suffer no negative consequences. Even more so for the exam.  Unfortunately, if you fail to convince the instructor that the problem is unclear, I don't think you can do much (unless you are ready to file an official complaint or something).

You should do nothing, unless the question was unfair, i.e. related to material not covered in class.
If the question was ill-posed or otherwise unclear, then you will not be at a disadvantage since (almost) everybody else will be in the same boat.  The wise instructor would anyways eliminate this question (or at least not penalize students who did not answer correctly) once it is apparent that the question statement was problematic.  Remember that instructors have enormous discretion with final marks and nobody wins if the entire class does poorly.
Of course it is possible that the question was clear to many (if not most), that you fall in a minority, and that your suspicions are false.  It is often the case that students realize a question was indeed simple after they walk out of the exam room.

If the question was unclear, it could easily happen that half the class guesses the intended meaning and half does not, so not almost everybody will be in the same boat. And the instructor might not realize they need to eliminate this question - they might fail to realize it was unclear and nobody tells them. So I disagree with this answer.

I'd have a different feeling if the question was something I didn't actually understand but it was actually really straightforward.
It makes me feel like the question was measuring my ability to interpret someone's broken English instead of my knowledge of the topic at hand.

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


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How to ask professor to work on domain we decided on
I am doing a undergrad thesis under a professor. We decided to work on some domain say "X" however now he is giving me work related to some other domain say "Y". Both "X" and "Y" can be related to my degree however I wanted to work in domain "X" and there is no relation between "X" and "Y".
I find it very difficult to work on something I am not interested in. I want suggestions from all professor and students what they think I should do ?
Thesis is part of my degree and I don't have option of leaving it. In what way I should talk with the professor to give me work on the domain we decided on ? Our work has just started (around 1 day). If he does not have any topic in mind related to my domain, I can easily find and present some challenging thing to work upon.
When I do some work I am interested in, I enjoy it irrespective of how challenging it is and I have total courage to do it alone. But if i am not interested in it then it's just painful for me.
To be more specific, "X"=AI and "Y"=Simulation. Now the task I have been currently given is : There is simulation written in one language and I have to code the exact same thing in other language. It's around 1000 lines of code. I don't have knowledge of both the languages (since they are not used in AI (i.e they are not python or R)). They are modelling and simulation languages. I have to reverse engineer the code written in one language and translate to other. I don't find how this work is related to AI ? Also thesis is related to research and I don't see what research I am doing here.

There are three possible answers I can give you: a specific answer based on the information you have included at the bottom of your post, a bottom-up answer that hopefully makes sense to you at your current level of academic experience, and a top-down answer which makes sense to me as an (early career) academic but which might not make as much sense to you yet.
Specific Answer
Reverse-engineering code is a common task in some circles of academia. Often I want to use another person's code, but I need to either (a) fully understand how it works, or (b) modify it slightly to do something different that I want to do. In such situations, reverse-engineering is called for.
Therefore, you are likely doing real academic work, even if it isn't exactly what you signed up for, and you will definitely learn something important. Which leads us to the ...
Bottom-up Answer
If you are not sure that you will learn something important doing this reverse-engineering task, then ask your professor. It seems like the purpose of your work isn't clear to you, and when anyone isn't sure why they're doing something they're naturally not going to enjoy it very much.
One way to structure the conversation with your professor is to ask these three questions:

What is the thing we are trying to do that has not been done before?
Why is it important that we are able to do that thing?
How will the work that I do enable us to do that thing?

Be ready to do as much or as little reading as your professor assigns you. If your professor is at all a good professor, they will know that your understanding is key to achieving good results. If your professor isn't a good one -- well, you will still be able to learn something, hopefully. Which leads me to ...
Top-down Answer
From the viewpoint of a long-standing researcher, an undergraduate student often does not know much about the field of their interest. Undergraduate education is all about What We Know, and academic research is all about What We Don't Know, and the amount of knowledge you must have to even be able to ask good questions is often surprisingly large.
This has consequences. For example, a lot of academic work looks surprisingly menial. It looks like understanding old papers, learning boring techniques, repeating old experiments -- and yes, reverse-engineering existing code. What your professor has assigned you may therefore be building a foundation for your future work that you don't appreciate yet.
A lot of academic work, especially meaningful work, is also surprisingly cross-disciplinary. You mentioned that you can't see the connection between AI and simulation. But concepts from simulation -- sampling, ergodicity, entropy, autocorrelation, even free energies -- are vital to machine learning. On a practical level, many modern groups pushing the boundaries in machine learning are doing so to solve simulation problems -- such as the AlphaFold team at Google. So, what your professor is doing might also enable you to make unexpected connections that give you a competitive edge.
So don't be too surprised that you are working on something that doesn't look like your main field of interest -- that is something that not only can happen from time to time, but must happen if you want to be at all an effective researcher in the future. Of course, I can't ask you to take this on faith, and it is your professor's job to at least partially convince you that what you are doing is worthwhile work.
But if you have a clearly-defined goal with clearly-defined significance and a clearly-defined way to achieve it, then you should at least try to work at it for a while before worrying that it is irrelevant to your future.

Wow thanks for so much detailed answer. The only purpose the work has been give to me is to check if the other language is faster than the previous one. If it is faster then he/we will work on bigger model by using it. Do you think it's worth reverse engineering 1000 lines of code and writing in other language ?

Your own uncertainty (that it is worthwhile) is very worth discussing with your professor.
But before you do, think about this: the easiest way to get out of this task is to suggest another problem that would be a better use of your time. If you feel you have enough background knowledge to accomplish that, then do that. If you feel you don't, then it will naturally be difficult for you to convince your professor to assign you something else.

I do have other tasks in my head and I can accomplish them. I think talking to them would be best idea. If you were professor would you will get offended if some student asks you such questions ? I fear he doesn't get offended

Also I do have other problem or topic which is challenging, can be based on AI and I am very interested to do it.

Assuming your professor has some expertise in both X and Y, there is one possibility:

your professor may be trying to build some foundation to X from point of view of Y.

Or, there may be some project which relates X and Y.
1 day is too early to protest that both of you have decided on one thing but now you are asked to do something else.
Please wait for some time. I can not tell how much is a reasonable time, but, I would wait for two weeks and then see if it is working out or not. I would then ask the professor what could be a reason for asking you to do Y instead of X.

Please see my question, I have added few more details so that I can get better help.

I do not know anything about AI or simulation. All I can suggest at this point is that you need to believe your professor at least for a week or two.. You said, "Also thesis is related to research and I don't see what research I am doing here." As I said before, I do not know about computer science but in mathematics, it is not always possible to see what research some body is doing just after spending one day.. Please hold on and see what happens in a week or two..

I think till I complete the work it will be 1 month over and duration is 3.5 months

Since you are in mathematics, let say you have read some topic on operation research and want to write simulation for it, is this research work ?


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Is it fair if professor doesn't meet the deadline but asks students to submit more than a week before?
My professor asked me to submit a report more than a week before the official deadline. Other professors were more lenient to their students. I submitted my report on the deadline as told by him. However, he himself did not send me some documents that were required to be sent before the deadline.
This didn't happened for the first time. Multiple times I have seen that my professor didn't follow the official rules but expected me to do work according to official rules, which I did.
I find this really discriminatory. Isn't everyone expected to follow the rules ? Why only the students?  I also see other professors following the rules.

This isn’t an issue of fairness or discrimination. The professor is expected to follow the rules that apply to him, and you are expected to follow the rules that apply to you. Both of those things are true independently of each other. If the professor were lenient with you about your deadline, that would not make it more appropriate for him to violate a deadline imposed on him by the university, or other official rules.
It’s perfectly reasonable to complain to your university about the professor not treating you according to the rules of the institution. Your complaint would be justified, and I hope acted on, regardless of whether you yourself are a rule-abiding person.

By saying that he didn't followed the rules, I mean that he didn't helped me in anyway like providing feedback or something. He didn't followed a lot of rules which could have helped me in doing better. So isn't he doing wrong with me then ?

@The_Mike it sounds like he’s just bad at his job. There are plenty of people like that. It’s unfortunate, and certainly justified for you to complain about. But being bad at your job isn’t the same thing as not following the rules. It’s important to describe your problem in accurate terms so that people can understand what you’re taking about and don’t dismiss you as a person who complains unreasonably about pointless things.

@DanRomik Problem is if I complain then it's more likely that his colleagues (who will decide injustice) would support him. I see in most cases colleagues support each other. However there is no subjectivity in my case. I mean I am clearly right and he is wrong.

@The_Mike not all problems have an easy solution. But what’s certain is if you don’t complain, nothing will change.

@DanRomik Okay. Unfortunately many students are afraid of professors for grade related things. I am not. I will seek justice.


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Is there any reason not to go up for promotion?
I started my first permanent academic position as a Lecturer at at UK university in Autumn 2019. More than one of my senior colleagues seems very eager to get me promoted to a Reader as soon as possible, looking out that I tick the right administrative boxes to make this happen and encouraging me to apply for promotion this month. This seems premature to me as I don't even feel like I know the my way around the university yet, and with Covid I haven't accomplished much in my research since joining the university.
My question is: Are there any reasons not to pursue a promotion? A promotion is a great thing, right? But are there any downsides? E.g. it might make it harder for me to move to a different university in a few years if I want to, or I might get saddled with more administrative responsibilities? Are there any other downsides I haven't thought of?

Are there consequences of not being promoted? The main question may be a purely local question that can only be answered by someone at your university.

Without knowing any specifics, I'd say that the main downside is how much additional effort is required to obtain the promotion: usually "ticking administrative boxes" means taking more responsibilities, which could mean work that you don't want to do now if you have other priorities.

Reason: the title of a 'reader' or Professor has no value or prestige at a given university.  There are many mickey mouse professors, and you do not want to add to the tally.

Regarding mobility: If you take on more admin tasks, you will have less time for research, which might be reflected in less output and make you less hot from the perspective of a hiring committee. Some people find ways out of this dilemma, others don't.

Not really.  Promotion is primarily about pay (though sometimes the pay increment is small) and recognition of your achievements to those who are not already aware of them.
You are unlikely to get more duties after promotion because you are expected to take on the duties of the higher rank in order to get the promotion.  It's seeking a promotion, not receiving one, that causes you to get more duties.
As you already have a permanent academic position, a change in rank will not make much difference to your mobility; it is already very low.

Can you explain why the mobility for a permanent staff member would be very low per se? In my field, there's much movement of tenured faculty, both within-country (towards more attractive positions) and cross-country (especially to flee from countries that are demolishing their academic system).

@lighthousekeeper Opportunity cost.  "In my field, there's much movement of tenured faculty" To be honest, I do not believe you.  Maybe more than academics in other fields, but not compared to, say, retail workers.

Might depend on where the retail store is. The supermarket in my hometown has had the same staff since ages. A previous department I worked in had three tenured faculty quit and move on in 2020 alone.

@lighthousekeeper To put this a little into perspective, LinkedIn puts the average yearly staff turnover across industries at around 10% (https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/blog/trends-and-research/2018/the-3-industries-with-the-highest-turnover-rates). I doubt that many UK universities have anything close to that kind of churn among their permanent staff, so I think it's fair to say that OP's mobility is already very low, statistically speaking.

@xLeitix Thanks for that pointer, statistically speaking you and AnonymousPhysicist are surely correct. I guess in the context of this question, there is an important distinction between whether the low mobility is self-imposed (which it might be in the majority of cases; a tenured position is generally considered an "end-goal" in academia) or comes from a lack of alternatives (which might be what OP has in mind). If more people were willing to switch jobs, there also would be more openings for other people to switch to.

Thanks everyone for your responses. In my field, movement is difficult, but not uncommon (but turnover is certainly not 10%). What I had in mind as possible reasons it might make moving harder is if e.g. there are generally many more positions open at the lecturer level than the reader level. Regarding the seeking of the promotion, not the achieving of it being what leads to more duties, that clarifies things, thanks. Some are hired a reader, some are promoted to a readership, and some have a readership thrust upon 'em...

@Newbie2019 Your concern about fewer open positions is actually a valid point. I have seen individual cases of professors changing from associate to assistant professor jobs in Europe, but not in the UK and I don't know how likely that would be to happen there.


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How do you respond when students submit the wrong assignment, but you only notice after the deadline has passed?
I occasionally get students who submit their assignments, but I only notice that they've submitted the wrong assignment when I begin grading. I can think of three possibilities to explain this:

They made an honest mistake
They are trying to buy some time to submit their assignment by making it seem like an honest mistake
They didn't do the assignment at all and are trying to get some kind of credit

Sometimes I allow students a few hours or 24 hours to resubmit the correct assignment (is 24 hours too long?). If they don't, then I usually assume they haven't actually completed it. Other times, I'm just tempted to give them a zero.
The student in question submitted an assignment that was submitted previously in the semester.
Is there a better way that you know of to confirm whether they're being honest or not?
By the way, I'm looking for a general answer that can apply across multiple situations. In this specific situation, due to many different factors, I decided to allow the student to resubmit. She resubmitted right away, which seems to demonstrate it was an honest mistake.

Are the students submitting future assignments on the wrong date, but still showing that they have put in some work (i.e. they did the wrong assignment)? Or are they re-submitting old work, or completely unrelated work from another class (i.e. they submitted the wrong document)? I'd be more forgiving about the former if the student has clearly done some work (but the wrong work), rather than the latter scenario which might be a low-effort way to buy more time.

Does it happen often?  Is it often the same student?

If this is in person, there's not a good reason to be submitting the wrong assignment. If this is online, does the tech you're using allow students to check their submission? Mine does and my syllabus says it's on the student to check they submitted the correct thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor

When I was teaching we were required to use the Learning Management System even for face to face classes.  My syllabus said, "Be careful what you upload.  'I uploaded the wrong thing' will not be accepted as an excuse."

Just as an aside, my experience with the so-called "real world" (both with the real world of industry and the real world of research), people are much more forgiving with "late submissions" than it is said to be. Reviews are usually late, giving back of exams, papers, software projects, ... everything is usually delayed. As long it doesn't happen repeatly or it is something extremly important, there is lottle consequence. This also motivated me to let a wrong homework slide once.

The fact that you're left guessing at unknowable motivations suggests a deeper problem to me.  I always found guessing games like this very frustrating when assignments are due; giving students the benefit of the doubt sounds harmless... unless you're a student who scrambled to meet the deadline, while your peers took advantage of the professor's good will.  This is especially true if the class is curved.
The policy I use now leaves my opinions completely out of it:

Give clear due dates and turn-in proceedures
Give students a "budget" for late assignments.  I like to give three 12-hour tokens they can use at their discretion, no questions asked.  If they turn something in late, I automatically use whatever tokens they have left to cover the time.
Anything beyond that requires an issue serious enough that we're probably involving academic affairs as well.  Things like serious illnesses and hospitalizations, for example.
Anything turned not turned in on time, or within the scope of one of their "late tokens", gets a daily penalty added onto the score.

That way you're never faced with trying to ascribe motivations to what students are doing, and the rules are laid out clearly for them, which I find students like.

This is a very clever idea (+1).  I like the 12-hour tokens --- I think I might steal that idea.

Great answer. I actually use a similar token system, which I call the Life Happens Card (I got the idea from my favourite professor while at school). In this case, the student had already submitted the assignment on time; it was only after that I realized the assignment was wrong.

@Ben  I tried "late days" for a few years, using 24-hour tokens.  As with Jeff, I gave the students a budget.  Mine was more generous; I think it was five late days.  However, I required students to notify me if they intended to use late days.  That totally didn't work.

@BobBrown: This is all really interesting stuff.  I have posted a related question soliciting examples of innovative practices of this kind.

My Life Happens Cards work quite well. I allow a 48 hour extension. If students decide not to use theirs, at the end of the semester I cancel their lowest quiz mark. With this double incentive, students are quite happy; it has solved a lot of problems and conflict for me.

@Ben  I'm not sure "totally didn't work" is answer fodder.

+1 for daily penalty. I've used the same strategy and it's very effective.

I like calling them "Life Happens" cards!  I might use that instead of "tokens".  Also I should note that my "three 12 hour tokens" are for masters students on a short quarter system, so obviously you should tweak the values.  I could see undergrads on a full semester system having a bigger "budet".

I announce a policy at the beginning of the semester that the course staff will only grade the work that is actually submitted, before the deadline, for each assigned homework problem.  So if a student submits a solution to the wrong problem, for any reason or no reason, they can expect a grade of zero, exactly as if they submitted nothing at all.
(Behind the scenes, I tell my graders that they are welcome to swap obviously misplaced assignments if it's easy, if they have time, and if they want to, but they are absolutely not required to.)
On the other hand, I also drop the lowest 25% of homework scores before computing final course grades.  For example, in a class with 32 homework problems, only the highest 24 scores for each student would count toward their homework grade.  (A majority of the grades in my classes are based on exams.)  I also announce this policy at the beginning of the semester.
So in practice, if a student submits the wrong homework, they've burned one of their free drops, and they don't get feedback from the graders, but it has no significant impact on their overall course grade.
For similar reasons, I never give homework extensions.  The deadline is the deadline is the deadline.

It's really nice when someone is strict up front but lenient and understanding behind our backs!

Personally I always just tell them to make sure it doesn't happen again and let it go at that unless I see a pattern.
I think to get to the right answer here (which I believe mine is) you have to ask yourself what the purpose of grading homework even is in the first place and why does it matter if they turn it in on time.  I mean, unlike exams, homework isn't really a good measure of student ability and even if it was it's not like anyone is spending all the time between assignment and submission working on it.
In an ideal world (and in some grad school courses) student grades would purely be based on mastery as shown in exams or projects.  Unfortunately, at the UG and lower level we need to assign and grade homework as an incentive to keep students from just leaving everything to the last minute and never learning the material.  In other words I'd argue that graded homework is a necessary evil done to keep students from hurting themselves (and why I usually allow students course grade to be just their exam grade if it's better).
As such if a student goes to that kind of length to get more time on hw I figure they are mostly just hurting themselves (but I also give extensions liberally as long as it doesn't become a problem for keeping up).
Besides, from a fairness POV there is really not much harm if some students get some extra time.  I mean that's just noise compared to the unfairness inherently present in time to work on homework between students who need to take jobs and who don't and besides that extra time comes out of the time needed for the next assignment.

In a business English course like mine, exams are of very limited value. Students can't really learn how to write proper sentences on a timed exam, so assignments (not "homework") is essential. They are writing letters, emails, etc., so they need to practice and take the time to edit/revise their grammar, which exams do not afford. I much prefer many short quizzes to anxiety-inducing English exams. I do, however, agree that projects are helpful. Giving extra time might not be a big deal, but it can become a problem if other students find out, because it can be perceived as favouritism.

Even in this case it's not the ability of students to respond in a certain number of days that one is trying to measure (can't since how much time students have in those days varies wildly anyway).  So the size of the unfair advantage a student who fake submits gets is already less than the unfairness you are already willing to inflict by making assignments due knowing the huge variation in student time and outside commitments.  The goal isn't uniformity for its own sake but minimal distance from the ideal grade assignment.

Every student signs up for a course with advance knowledge of their outside commitments, so uniformity with due dates is fair. Uniformity establishes a clear standard for students, which minimizes conflict between students, as well as conflict with the instructor. In other words, uniformity's purpose is to prevent needless conflict.

I don't think anything but #1 is a reasonable assumption. They submit something and presumably that took time and effort to prepare.
Is there any reason not to be generous here? Especially since you say it is occasional.
The time you give them would depend on the assignment, of course. But I doubt that a day is too long.
It might be different if the same student does this repeatedly. Then you should explore more deeply into why it is happening. It is even possible in such a case they have something like dyslexia that makes it hard for a person to manage things accurately.

"It might be different if the same student does this repeatedly..."  You cannot treat students differently, not even based on past behavior.  That's a ticket to an unpleasant meeting with the dean.

I realized my previous comment was incomplete.  Set rules that give you some maneuvering room, put the rules in the syllabus, and apply those rules consistently to all students.

@BobBrown: In all places I know, telling the dean "this student has done it once, so I won't allow it a second time" would be acceptable (and with an online system, you can even prove this). Many places even don't have so explicit rules in a syllabus (or even a syllabus). So your statement is not universally true.


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Must an instructor require proof of hardship to offer incomplete grades?
As a state university adjunct I get a fair number of students who start classes are finding themselves unprepared, have unforeseen events (job, home, personal), which impact their ability to complete the course in a timely fashion.  I tend to offer an incomplete as a way to permit the student to complete the work, and achieve the best results possible.  Normally, I do not ask for "proof" of the excuse.
Recently, I had peers admonish me, with the argument that my approach was reducing revenue for faculty. It was argued that normally, the proper way is to let the student withdraw, and then re-enroll the next term. That way there are two instances of the faculty getting paid to conduct the course.
In my case, the normal incremental work for me to handle an incomplete is rather small, and I have been perhaps a bit liberal in the interest that the students get a good value from their academic experience.  I have taught at three universities, and pretty much had the same practice at each.  However, I have getting considerable flack, so thought I would get additional input from a diverse community.
How is the assignment of an incomplete grade practically handled at your institution, and what are the thresholds for qualification for that grade? Is it appropriate to offer incomplete grades without requiring a particular level of hardship or requesting proof of that hardship?
Thank you.
Addendum #1
There is no clear cut answer to the question I posed, but there is value in understanding the perspectives of others. And in this case, there is no right or wrong response.  However, to add clarity, I will provide two examples of recent incomplete grades, so that the context is more clear.
Before I do that, I will add, with some reservation, additional general details.  The bulk of the students I teach are distance learning students.  The majority however, are in state.  My institution is part of a large state university system, and tends to serve more non-traditional students, and certainly students in non-traditional settings.
The first instance is Beth, who has been a student of mine in the past. Beth works as a clerk in a public institution and is married with a 2yo girl. When I first had her as a student, I was told by her adviser that she was an excellent student. My experience confirmed that. The third term that I had Beth, she was taking four courses, trying to complete her degree soon, working full time, and raising a 2 yo girl. She was taking two advanced level technical courses from me, and our meetings were conducted on the phone. Somewhere mid-term she mentioned that she was pregnant and would be delivering in a couple of weeks, but would make up the work immediately.  She probably would, but I told her that she had a lot on her plate, and as far as I was concerned she had a few more important things than her weekly assignments, and that should it make things easier for her, an incomplete would be possible, and explained how it would work. Her words were that she would not need that, but thanks for the offer. I told her that since the end of the term was getting close, that if I didn't hear from her for some reason, unless she objected I would assign her an incomplete in both courses.  It turns out she had the baby, underestimated how tired she would be, and the demands of two children. I didn't hear from her until the last week of the term. It turns out that her other two instructors were unwilling to cut her any slack in deliverables, so my two courses took that hit. Fine by me. Within three weeks of the term being over, all of Beth's work had been submitted and was exemplary.
I was chastised by two peers, who pointed out that Beth knew she would be delivering a baby mid-term, and that she could have lowered her course load or even eliminated going to school for that term. I countered that in a job setting, a pregnancy is a medical matter, and I knew of no employer who wasn't expected to give time off for a new child.
Shortly after the situation with Beth, another student, Burt, who was doing good work for the first 4 weeks of the term, contacted me and apologized and said he would have to withdraw from his course. I suggested that we have one more phone conference to discuss things. Burt, like more than half my students, is an immigrant, and is struggling to learn, obtain credentials, get a better job, and well, we all know the stories.  So Burt had signed up for 5 courses, and was overloaded (no kidding). But Burt's wife's hours had increased, and she couldn't say no, because he had lost his job, and she was the sole means of support. Furthermore, his wife's sister who had been nannying their kids, had to go back home on short notice. So Burt was suddenly unemployed, working a course overload, trying to make ends meet, and now watching two young children. He was overwhelmed, and didn't think he could get all his coursework done. From my perspective, he had learned a valuable lesson in over-committing. In Burt's course, he had completed the first phase, and the remainder of the course was three research papers and a final exam.  I offered an incomplete, explained how it would work, and pointed out that our need to meet, and his need to use online materials was reducing.  We could schedule the exam when he was ready, and he could write the three papers and submit them as he was able. The long and short was that Burt finished the other four courses, and received good grades. He completed the work for my course within 8 weeks of the end of the term. He did well in my course, and his papers were well written. He continues to work on his degree, and told me he will never sign up for an overload again.
In both the case of Beth and Burt, I did not feel that I had students shopping for incomplete grades. I did feel the students were financially strapped, time limited, resource limited, and that by offering incompletes, they were able to convert a situation which would probably cost them more tuition, cause their degree to take more time, and have an element of discouragement to their academic efforts.
The relationship between educators and students can be a special one.  Kind of like a doctor-patient relationship.  Or it can be a rather quantitative relationship of assignments, rubrics and graded outcomes. Having worked in the scientific and aerospace community for four decades, I have had a large number of relatively new hires working for me.  Many come ill-prepared for work in industry. So in my courses, I have exercises which are similar to what they might encounter in industry. While I don't have specific exercises for how to treat people, I figure that a certain percentage of them will be supervisors, managers and leaders, and I want them to have developed judgment and experienced being "human."  So I try to set an example and treat them as I would a valued employee.

This question can not have a generic answer which would fit all universities. Each university has its own regulations. The question should add further details (without disclosing univ. name) to get an answer.

I'm a bit surprised that you find your work for an incomplete to be small. For me it's the opposite; a student who can't attend at the end usually also "ghosts" me when I try to schedule makeup work and/or exams. It almost always turns into a lot of wasted time on my end, such that I'm now very loathe to give incompletes. (I will note I had other procedures that worked when I was an adjunct, that didn't scale when I became full-time.) Also, it's a trap for students, who usually do much worse on the final months later than if they'd taken it at the end of the course.

My current institution leaves it up to faculty discretion.  The last one required department head approval.  The first one was 30 years ago, and had a book of rules, which I don't much remember any more.  As for the makeup work, I simply provide a list, and the exam must be scheduled, and I give a complete-by date.  I don't chase the students.

"the argument that my approach was reducing revenue for faculty" - I could see some arguments for fairness or academic rigor (i.e., it's unfair to give out incompletes without due cause when other students are making sacrifices and weighing different requirements against each other to complete their courses in normal time), but this particular argument struck me as...unusual. I'm a bit concerned about a situation where the faculty feels benefited by students failing a course.

@Bryan Krause, very clearly some of my colleagues felt that the "best course" is to have the student withdraw, and then re-enroll the next term. Then the faculty get paid for teaching two terms, which it is argued, is what the student is getting.  The sense I get is that there is an attitude which the students are a necessary inconvenience, and if they are going to be around, then there should be compensation for their presence.

This question as currently phrased isn't really the type that we look for on this forum, as it will simply yield a list of "here's what my university does" answers, which you can look up yourself on different websites. Maybe consider refactoring to a "what's best practice" question? Not sure how to best fix this one.

@mongo Oh I understand why they feel that way. I'm just surprised and a bit appalled by that approach.

@eykanal I gave editing the question a shot, though OP and others might disagree with my edit. Notably, I strongly dislike editing questions that already have answers, but I tried to make sure my edits did not disqualify the existing answers in any way.

Recently, I had peers admonish me, with the argument that my approach was reducing revenue for faculty.

It is you who should be admonishing your peers, not them you. Your responsibility in deciding whether to give a student an incomplete grade is to do what in your estimation will lead to the best educational outcome for the student, subject to practical constraints on your time, availability etc. No other considerations should play a role, certainly not the desire to maximize the institution's revenue even when that goes against what you perceive to be the interests of the student. Frankly, I find your peers' argument to be blatantly unethical, and their willingness to not only admit to such an attitude but to even admonish you for not having it yourself to be quite disturbing.

How is the assignment of an incomplete grade practically handled at your institution, and what are the thresholds for qualification for that grade?

At my institution, the criteria for an incomplete grade are described as follows:

According to Academic Senate Regulations, the grade of Incomplete ('I') may be assigned when a student’s work is of passing quality and represents a significant portion of the requirements for a final grade, but is incomplete for a good cause as determined by the instructor; good cause may include current illness, serious personal problems, an accident, a recent death in the immediate family, a large and necessary increase in working hours or other situations of equal gravity.

The key phrase is "as determined by the instructor".

Is it appropriate to offer incomplete grades without requiring a particular level of hardship or requesting proof of that hardship?

Yes, it is appropriate (at my institution at least), though perhaps not wise, depending on the situation and the nature of the hardship claimed.
Finally, I should add that in my own experience, giving someone an incomplete is usually not the big favor they think it is, and in fact often ends up being a disservice to the student. Count me in with those who think incompletes should be given very sparingly, but for educational reasons rather than those cited by your colleagues.

At my institution, a part of the University System of Georgia, a grade of incomplete is allowed "only when the student has done satisfactory work up to the last two weeks of the semester, but for nonacademic reasons beyond his/her control is unable to meet the full requirements of the course."
Both the "last two weeks" part and the burden of proof required are at least somewhat subject to interpretation by the professor.  The worse the non-academic event, the more liberal I'd probably be about timing.  We do have a hardship withdrawal process for truly difficult circumstances.
Personally, I am very sparing with grades of incomplete.  The last one was several years ago, for a deaf student who didn't tell me he was deaf, so I did not arrange accommodation for him.
I expect students who start a class unprepared to withdraw; a student who is failing at mid-term shapes up or fails the course.

I have to say, I like that they spell out conditions for the incomplete.  Even if an individual professor might be more liberal, it at least establishes some nominal starting point.  I've done it a number of times, but always for serious illnesses, with the idea that (a) they'll finish up and get the grade I expected them to get, (b) they'll not finish, it converts to an F and then (b1) they take a retroactive medical/hardship withdraw making the F disappear or (b2) just take the F (long explanation, but regrettably sometimes this is preferable to the withdrawal)

I also like that you have the "last two weeks" threshold spelled out; my institution is more ambiguous, which can be frustrating.

The Associate Dean called yesterday, and this topic came up.  The guidance I received was that he recognized the effort I made in assuring favorable outcomes for students, and encouraged me to take all liberties within policy to do so.
He went on to state that the institution incomplete policy left the decision solely with me, and that he supports and agrees with my decisions.
Furthermore, he stated that while some faculty may have opinions as to how students who encounter difficulties should handle matters, the fairness and benefit to the student should tilt any actions. He acknowledged that he had received "a couple of" complaints, and that he dismissed those, and encouraged those to work harder at student outcomes. He went on to state that student retention is more important than an additional "click" of tuition.
This isn't intended as a competing answer, as I am merely reporting an outcome at my institution.

I'll say that this is usually how the opinions point on this matter. The dean's budgetary concern is to the institution as a whole ("retention" being code word for "ongoing college revenue"). The faculty's budgetary concern is to their courses.

I think the standard for "update" posts is to put them in a comment or edit to the original post, never as an answer (StackExchange is quite protective over what exactly an answer is).

I tend to follow your general idea. We don't have a specific "incomplete" grade at our university, but students can be "lawfully absent" on an exam and can take that exam later on. This is especially for people who get ill during the exam period or who have serious life events like the departure of a loved one.
But there is an important difference in our approaches: I do request at all times proof for the circumstances. Otherwise any student who didn't feel like studying and fears he/she isn't going to make it, will attempt to get an incomplete. So I reckon part of the slack you get, is because you appear pretty naive in your approach. I can guarantee you that students know those things, and students will try to get an incomplete because they know you give one easily.
So that would be one way of dealing with the criticism while still giving your students a fair (and not overly expensive) shot at getting a grade.
On a sidenote: I teach in an advanced masters course, so many of our students are already on the job market. Therefor we also give all students a chance to change the date of their exam to a more suitable one well before the exams actually take place. Again, the point is to facilitate the students, not to give students without proper commitment another chance.

At my institution, a grade of Incomplete indicates that the student has received an extension from the dean of their college to complete final exam or other  requirements of a course.  Individual instructors cannot give Incomplete grades directly.  Instead, the student must submit a petition to their dean, with the instructor's signature indicating their approval, and the dean makes the final decision.
In practice, approval for an Incomplete requires serious extenuating circumstances (like Beth's pregnancy or Burt's family crisis in the original post).  Poor performance in the course is not sufficient.
Incomplete grades automatically become Fs after the eighth week of the following semester if the student is still enrolled, or after one calendar year if the student leaves the university.
However, faculty also have the ability to request a grade correction, and these requests are routinely granted—even years after the course has ended—as long as the new grade is higher than the old one.  Thus, there is an informal mechanism for instructors to offer extensions and/or makeup work beyond the end of the course (or the eight-week deadline for clearing an Incomplete).  In practice, at least in my department, very few students exercise this option.

At my previous university, two similar departments put together online masters programs. From my understanding the programs were launched with the goal of teaching people that are currently have a 9-5 job and want to do school part time. But, these online programs were also launched under the guise of being highly profitable for the departments, as similar online programs had been. I'm not sure of the perspective of your peers, but they could be thinking that the goal of the program is one of profit not necessarily student success.

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(Un)realistic expectations of PhD supervision?
I shall try to make my former question more on-topic and less personal.
When I started my PhD (maths) a year ago, I was having the following (mostly implicit, though) expectations about how working on a PhD project and the supervision by my professor would be:
guidance-oriented expectations

In the few weeks or months, I'd be given articles and other material to work through and to learn new theory from.
In regular meetings, we'd make sure that I properly understand what I'd have read.
We'd agree on a concrete research topic which the material I'd be given partially enables me to work on.
As time passes, I develop a better judgement which literature might help me and what would be interesting questions to work on, so I need less guidance.
In first principle, the PhD is an opportunity for me to learn advanced contents.

As it has turned out, none of these expectations have been met; instead, the (implicit) expectations of my supervisor (who supervises a master's or PhD thesis for the 1st time) were:
independence-oriented expectations

I'd know which problems I want to work on. Why else should I apply for a PhD position?
I'd be able to find literature, articles, conferences etc. on my own; I am a grown-up, aren't I?
In the occasional meetings, I'd report on my progress. I should not expect help with scientific questions, because

the questions arising from the work we agreed I'd be working on do not match my supervisor's expertise
as a researcher, I have to know by myself how to answer my questions.

I have been hired to complement the knowledge in the group, so if I want to extend my knowledge, I am free to read any textbook or paper I want.

I am aware that at the end of a PhD, I should better match the latter. However, I was irritated that this is what is expected from me right from the beginning. Of course, this led to some conflict.
Question: Did I have unrealistic expectations?

@artificial_moonlet I'm sorry for the (really distorting!) typo. Of course, I should match the latter expectations when finishing. Clarified the other sentence.

Did you have any discussions about mentorship style with your supervisor before taking them on as a supervisor?

To me, your ‘guidance’ path is what I would expect for mentoring an upperclass undergraduate (or student intern). I would expect a PhD student to wrestle more with the material themselves.

@BryanKrause No, unfortunately not. Before accepting the offer, I was not aware that this is a matter that one might disagree upon.

I think this is a good question, because many others here point to basically the same underlying problem, different incentives and expectations of the PhD student and the supervisor, and you outlined the two philosophies pretty much.
And while one intuitively might think the guidance-oriented way is the better and more productive one for student and supervisor, I think it is mostly and only practiced in the first 1-2 years of a PhD odysssey, thereafter a switch to independency-oriented has to happen, otherwise it is questionable what distinguishes your PhD work really from a master/bachelor work.
At the middle and at least at the end of your PhD journey you should know more about the methods, details and open questions in your special niche than your supervisor. And as much PhD graduates are produced nowadays, finishing in fast-track programmes etc., important goals of a PhD like independency and autonomy become more and more diluted in my opinion. But this is just a side note.
Of course, the best mixture or time of transition from guidance to independence-oriented will depend a lot on both your experiences, personalities and work load of your supervisor. But I would always choose a supervisor which offers me more freedom and patience to select and work on my own questions and topics rather than outlining the full path of the PhD or guiding me every month.
Research is often pure chance, luck, the right question hitting the right researcher. Too much guidance can undermine the possibililty a PhD student develops a strong interest and ambition to work on a important problem for many years or spots such a problem at all, and solves it finally. Such risks have to be offered and taken in academia and especially in fundamental research. There is a reason engineering PhD's are often much better paid and last shorter than in fundamental sciences, it's this risk or possibility of insignificant or no outcome of years of research.
So my advise is to see this as a gift, if your supervisor doesn't pressure you to submit every year a paper. This kind of supervisor can have a higher personal interest to easen his way to tenure or fame than fostering your autonomy and independence, which is absolutely necessary to have any chance of getting tenure yourself. And after PhD in my opinion it is too late to develop such traits.

I sort of agree. There are many ways supervision can work, and it can be a shock if the two people involved have different expectations.
If you have a supervisor who is willing to let you explore what you want, then take advantage of this for the first ~year and use the time to develop your own interests. Better to end up working on something that has grabbed you as important rather than what a supervisor has told you to work on.
You should be able to request guidance, but it sounds like you will need to be leader in the relationship.


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How to publish results of master theses
This post is from the perspective of the management of a master’s degree in computer science (not from the perspective of a single student).
We have a 2 years master’s degree (= 4 terms). In 3rd term students use about 15 to 20% of their time to find and plan their master thesis topic. In the final 4th term the students then use 100% of their time on carrying out the research and writing up their thesis (70-80 pages). The master thesis defence is at the end of the 4th term. The hand-in deadline for the thesis is about a month before that.
Once the thesis is handed in the students are asked to write a 3-5 pages (scientific)paper about their thesis and handed it in 1 week before their master thesis defence (so they have 3 weeks time to write it and potentially get feedback from their supervisor). Usually about 25% of these papers are (i) interesting enough in terms of findings and (ii) of high enough quality to be worth a shot for a journal/conference publication.
The problem is however that most of the time a few iterations between student and supervisor on the paper would be necessary to make the paper ready for a submission to a journal and even if this is achieved the journal review process takes months at which point the students have already graduated. At this time most students have already found well-paid jobs and show little interest in getting the paper published e.g. doing the revisions the reviewers ask for.
What’s the best way to get the (often very interesting) results of the students still published? Just uploading the papers as pre-prints on e.g. the arxiv yields relatively low visibility. Writing the master paper before the actual master thesis write-up usually yields lower quality papers. Another student continuing the paper submission is also not really an option as each student needs an independent topic and the topic cannot be something like “I got the results of Smith at al. published”. The supervisor is usually not deep enough in the code etc to do additional analysis during the revision(s).
What is the best way to get the results of master theses published? How do other universities approach this problem?

Hmm... Would you be a co-author of the paper?

You are seeing the obvious problem, but you are not writing it in the correct terms. Let me rephrase your problem.

How can I retain students, so they can perform the necessary additional work to prepare and revise a paper?

There are many workaround, but the only obvious solution is this one:
to get a job done, pay a professional to complete the tasks needed

After the student completed their studies they are professionals, whatever work done in terms of research/literature study/paper writing is work (and research work, and personal growth, and science progress, like the work of any PhD/PostDoc/Professor/Research Assistant/etcetc, of course) and work must be paid.
Find the way to fund 6 months of additional work for the student that is doing a good job and for which you can reasonably see a scientific publication.

The work for free disease is so engrained in the academia, that it is hard to see it as the problem and people are looking for solutions to the symptoms, completely obvious to the condition causing them.

"But having a paper in a good journal will be great exposure..."

@RobinClower even the Kardashians cannot afford all that exposure for free :D

At least in CS even entry level industry jobs pay way more than a PhD/PostDoc would conceivably get. For anyone not interested in getting into academia, this would be lost time and money. Not saying this isn't a good idea, just that a focus on monetary compensation probably wouldn't help that much.

@Voo but if someone's not interested in academia, then there's no benefit to them getting a paper published, so it's a moot point. Either you have someone with no interest in academia, who won't publish regardless of time/money, you have someone with a mild interest, who might publish with the correct incentives, or you have someone who's very interested, for whom money would make a big difference, because they could continue their studies and be paid for it.

@Robin Why does the motivation of the original author have anything to do with whether the content of the paper is valuable or not? xLeitix's answer also shows one possible approach that doesn't rely on the original student doing a large amount of additional work after graduation and still getting a valuable paper published, so clearly it's possible to solve this problem.

Answer https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/188322/128758 mentions that "these papers aren't "free" - there is still non-trivial work from my side that goes into each and every one of them. "
I do not know how many hours has to spend xLeitix, but if xLeitix is not doing unpaid overwork, there is the will to spend money to allow xLeitix to perform the work of publishing a paper from a master thesis. Unfortunately OP states ". The supervisor is usually not deep enough in the code etc to do additional analysis during the revision(s)." so I do not think xLeitix  is a viable solution for OP.

I'd guess that it is pretty hard to get publishable results in most fields, including CS, with only one term's work. It is hard to even get started in that much time, much less produce results and write them up properly. You point out other obstacles as well.
But one option, though it takes work, is to have the department start a local journal with an editorial board consisting of professors and possibly others (faculty from other places, graduates, etc.).
Students are given the option (or are required) to publish in that journal unless they submit elsewhere. Depending on the reputation of the institution this could actually be a valuable resource generally if you can find a way to make it visible.
This is easier if the faculty is large. It is also conceivable that such a journal might be multi-disciplinary, increasing the options for both papers and editors.
When I was in grad school we had such a publication. A couple of faculty (out of about 50 in math) made it happen and kept it interesting. It was for more than MS theses, however, and some interesting but short mathematical papers were published there. It was good practice for us, the students. Some faculty also had papers there.
Note that Law Review publications by some major law schools are actually student run and a position on the editorial board is considered a career booster.

Instead of starting a local journal, it might be worthwhile to check if the university hosts a publication server/an institutional repository. At my university, it is quite common to have Master theses published there, including a DOI so that they can be cited and found easily.

In my experience, it is actually quite common to get publishable results out of a ~7 month thesis project (~2 months literature study and ~5 months execution) given two prerequisites: 1) the student is good, and 2) they were given/directed to an appropriate topic. Sometimes the student will write the paper themselves, otherwise the advisor does it. In some cases someone like a PhD student will be brought in to write the paper, even if they weren't involved in the project before. In all cases, all the people involved are coauthors.

@JordiVermeulen, getting a masters thesis and getting a publishable masters thesis are quite different. Research that potentially extends knowledge can't be scheduled.

@Buffy I did specifically say publishable results. The schedule is exactly what I mean by being given/directed to an appropriate topic. You need an advisor who gives you a project that can lead to publishable results in the given time frame. In rare cases the student finds such a topic themseslves.

What is the best way to get the results of master theses published? How do other universities approach this problem?

The three universities I worked and studied in all published a certain fraction of master's theses successfully, and it always worked in the same, boring principle. A paper, by and large, does not get published based on thesis work unless there is somebody available that is willing to continue pushing for it after the student graduates. This can be PhD students that collaborated with the student or a supervisor (faculty), but it needs to be somebody with a sufficiently long clock on their contract to see the paper through to the end. Expecting students to commit to any non-trivial work after graduation is a fool's errand - there is no way to force them, and very little incentives for them to voluntarily deprioritise their new paying job over writing a paper.
As you observe, this does indeed require the responsible person to be more involved with the work than simply grading a finished report - some familiarity with the data, analyses, and maybe even code will often be required to do the kind of revisions that are often necessary (not only because of journal revision requests - it happens quite frequently that student work is decent upon submission but is missing one or two more advanced analyses to be actually publishable). Herein actually lies a key advantage of the model to the student - supervisors that are looking to potentially publish a paper often are much more involved because they have to be, and consequently in a position to provide much more detailed feedback than a supervisor that is mainly evaluating a report as it develops.
My personal model, which has led to around 10 published papers based on thesis work so far, works like this:

When the student is about 50% done I evaluate if I see the potential for a publishable paper in this work.
If yes, I ask the student if that's something they would be interested in, at the same time explaining that I have no hard expectation on them to do anything on top of what they have to do anyway to graduate.
If the student agrees, I start to observe the project (much) more closely. I ask to be added to all repositories, check out if I can understand and reproduce what the student is doing. Essentially, I try to make sure that I can do at least simple extensions in case they are needed for the paper.
After the project is over, I start drafting the paper. As much as I can I try to re-use what the student has already produced (text, figures) etc., but more often than not significant re-writing is necessary, some or all of the figures need to be re-drawn, and sometimes additional analysis is required. I add the student as first author of the paper, and keep them in the loop what I'm doing. The only thing I require from them is that they give a final ok to the paper I produced based on their work before I hand it in. Sometimes they volunteer to do more themselves (like conduct additional analysis or revising some text), but quite frankly it's rare.

This means that these papers aren't "free" - there is still non-trivial work from my side that goes into each and every one of them. But even with this model the amount of work from my side per paper is much less than doing an entire paper from scratch. On the other hand, it does happen (more often than I'd like) that publishable work never gets submitted, either because the students do not agree (rare, but not unheard of) or because neither me nor one of my students finds the time to go through the steps outlined above.

This is basically how my papers were published based on my master's thesis. I agreed with my supervisor when I submitted it to publish but then once I started working I didn't have either the time or interest to edit it, nor could I as I didn't have access to Latex (early 1990's) - I didn't even own a PC. So my supervisor did most of the editing and I did what I could with the raw latex files.

Been there, done that. Being on both sides of the process I have seen basically three approaches:

A first and obvious way is indeed to have the master's thesis available on some university hosted website or open repository. The master's thesis would be referenced and cited much in the same way as a PhD thesis. If the work has merit and is well referenced on search engines, why wouldn't it be cited?

If you want to have the student publish themselves in a reviewed conference or journal, one approach is to help the student find a position in academia after the master's thesis. Typically they would work towards a PhD thesis. If the PhD is related to the master's and you are involved, publishing the paper is logical and the student would be expected to do that. However, the student may also work on another research topic, in another lab. This is basically not different to the situation where a reasearcher switches lab (for instance for a postdoc) and continues collaboration with their previous lab. In this situation the student only works for glory. Publication is not guaranteed and is a delicate balance between will, interests, curtesies between labs, and some actual involvement of the advisor in the writing process (see next point).

The best option is to publish the work yourself. If only one student's work is published, put their name as the first author except if you contribute significantly with your own additional work. What works best in my opinion, is to publish one paper after a series of master's theses done on the same subject. In this case, having the advisor as the first author and actual writer of the paper also makes sense since they promoted the theses and have an overview of the work done; the paper would also cover a larger scope, which makes it more interesting. There are some curtesy rules to follow:

You must list the students as co-authors, after getting their approval to do so;
You must give the students an opportunity to contribute to the act of writing the paper;
You must respect the fact that the students may not be able to contribute to the writing and by default expect to do the additional coding, debugging, simulations, analyses, yourself. The students should still get their names on the paper.

In fact, I have the feeling the whole discussion boils down to this:

The supervisor is usually not deep enough in the code etc to do additional analysis during the revision(s).

The work published by a lab should be owned by the permanent members of the lab, otherwise the ideas are vaporware. You, as a researcher and advisor, should ensure reuse of the code and ideas --even if it means re-coding a bad student's code yourself to make it useable-- and know enough about the work to put it into persepective. In CS, a good way to ensure reuse and citation is to integrate the student's work in a library published by the lab, and well curated by the permanent members of the lab. This also promotes involvement of the permanent members, yourself included, in the actual code.
You cannot expect to get papers published with your name on it, just by sitting in the back and without getting your hands dirty.


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Where can I do a research paper or thesis without enrolling in a college or university?
I am not seeking a masters or PhD degree, but I would like to do a  research paper and have it peer reviewed academically?  Is this possible?  If so, where and how to do it?
Addendum:
Thank you for all your comments and answers.  These have clarified many aspects to this project.  I have several research projects to pursue.  The one where I would need the most specific direction would be the following.
Feasibility of using mosquitoes for large scale inoculation and/or medication of mammal (hopefully human) populations.  We all know how effective these insects are as vectors for spreading disease.  There is no reason I can think of why this ability cannot be exploited for said positive benefit.
I approached a local pharmaceutical firm about the research project but have not received any response.  I don't think most pharmaceutical firms would be interested in this research unless they can figure out a way to eventually get compensated for the gratis mass distribution of their pharmaceuticals if the project goes beyond research and successfully applied.  Although these and other challenges are significant, none are practically insurmountable and can be resolved.  The potential benefit from eventual application of the project should make the research worthwhile.  Indeed, part of the research would be the cost/benefit analysis from several perspectives.
I have searched on the Internet and have not found such a project.  I have found some information on genetically engineering mosquitoes for faux mating to eliminate mosquito populations such as this one .
Genetic engineering should not be necessary for said project since we are utilizing the already natural modus operendi of this insect, but another aspect of the research would be the potential benefit of GE for said goal.
one would be marking the mosquitos genetically to distinguish from the rest; making them glow maybe.
I hope spelling out the specifics of the research didn't compromise the scope of topic for this forum.  If so, I welcome comments from moderators as to which SE site may be more appropriate.  Thank you for your comments and answers.  I look forward to reading more.

It would be helpful if you could name the area/field of research and your affiliation, if any, with any research institution.

For better understanding: Do you want to publish that research paper or do you want to write a scientific work and "get it graded/commented/reviewed"?

Yes. Somewhat duplicate of https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/385/do-journals-in-general-have-any-kind-of-policy-regarding-papers-submitted-by-som

I wrote an excellent answer to this question and posted it to a QA site not affiliated with Stack Exchange. It's on a piece of paper on my wall. Unfortunately that means it's unlikely to be peer reviewed and up/down voted.

If your proposed research involves human subjects, or even animal (mammal?) subjects, in most countries you'd need some sort of prior approval from governmental agencies that regulate such things. In the U.S., for example, it is highly non-trivial to obtain such approval, or even to remain within bounds of legality, perhaps even to avoid criminality...

Please do not change your question significantly after it has been answered.

It's not impossible, but in this day and age it is extremely rare for individuals unaffiliated with research institutions (academic or commercial) to successfully publish scientific research papers on their own (without research-institute affiliated co-authors) in good journals (bogus journals publish almost anything for a fee).
The main reasons are that in order to pursue cutting edge research, one usually needs

access to all relevant publications;
regular exchange of ideas with other researchers;
access to hardware (for performing the research tasks).
a living and financial support for the research (including possible publication charges)

Points 1&2 are more fundamental, since if you don't know where the cutting edge of research in a particular field is (or don't know the relevant terminology), then you cannot contribute.
I should also note that there are quite a few unsuccessful manuscript submission from unaffiliated persons, but many are often not even considered for peer review by the journal editors for two possible reasons: (1) because the manuscript does not appear to meet the standards and (2) because the editor strongly suspect it doesn't, because of the author's affiliation. So there is another potential hurdle: editorial bias.

I suppose this is particularly true for solo authors, rather than unaffiliated researchers that collaborate with affiliated researchers (e.g. former colleagues).

@O.R.Mapper True. I shall edit my answer.

Just as a one data point (partial) counterpoint: I have published unaffiliated single author papers in very good journals, with all research performed without an affiliation's resources, and with no underlying grants (or support at all, basically; I don't recommend this).  But I also have a Ph.D. in my field, and have published papers previously while having an affiliation, so I have both knowledge of how to perform and format research, as well as at least a minimal positive reputation for reputable research backing up my name.  Being Dr. Unaffilated with a CV helps.

@zibadawatimmy You essentially did not have the barriers mentioned in 1 & 2 of my list.

@Walter I did say it was a partial counterpoint. Early in my career I did not have those obstacles, which gives long term benefits for sure, but these days for (1) I rely 80% on arxiv, 19% on other free web sources, .9% on e-mailing authors, and .1% on other. For (2) I have no recent conference attendances, as I can't afford them, so I have virtually no contact with new researchers. But the glory of e-mail allows me to communicate with the few researchers I already know. But point being, being an unaffiliated solo author is not automatically a death knell, at least if you don't start out so.

Also more and more journals go open access, so access to a significant amount of relevant publications is now much better than it was. The problem is probably more if experimental work needs to be done. A particle accelerator might be a bit out of budget. But inventing the self driving car (if you already have one) might be within reach. Doing some chemistry at home (if you know what you are doing) to synthesize for example a new dye might also be possible. There might even be facilities that can be rented. Doing research without getting paid for it and the tools is very hard, but possible.

Btw. the way to make money out of self financed research is probably to go for applications and patent them (which in itself is costly) or start a business around them. Otherwise self financed research will always be a financial loss.

Points 1, 2, and 3 are bogus.  Point 4 is of paramount importance.  Without money, almost everything is difficult.  With money, all obstacles can be overcome.

Actually I think editorial bias should be more prominent.

I think you should add large corporations to your list. Microsoft seems to be putting out a lot of research papers and I'm sure other big firms do too. They do get through all four points.

@corsiKa What do you mean add to my list? Which list? Obviously, these corporations qualify as research institutions.

@Walter OP is asking "can I do it without going to a college or university" - you don't make a distinction between academic research institutions and industry research. So without that explicit distinction, this doesn't answer the question. Lots of great background info, but it doesn't address OP's question.

@corsiKa I was perhaps not explicitly answering the question, but I was giving information from which everybody can deduce an answer. I have now more explicitly specified research institution (academic or commercial).

@emory  1 and 3 I think are very field variable.  For point 1, open access is much more common in some areas than others.  For point 3, needed equipment can vary from little more than a place to sit and think to multi-million dollar instruments and consumables whose availability is highly restricted from the general public for safety reasons.

@DanNeely with money you can buy needed subscriptions.  With money you can rent time on multi-million dollar instruments.  With money you can hire trained and certified technical experts to use the dangerous instruments and consumables.  without money, you will have none of those.  If you have enough money, you could just hire the top researchers in your field of interest and use their access to literature, instruments, and consumables.

@emory: Yes, with enough money, you can do all of these things. Yet, the answerer was talking about money sufficient for "a living and financial support for the research (including possible publication charges)". The latter is an amount realistically and routinely achievable by having a regular job and performing some research during one's spare time - as opposed to getting money sufficient for buying journal subscriptions comparable to the extent of a research institution, or even hiring permanent staff.

I'm not sure about a Thesis, since there you need to have the backing of an Academic Institution as far as I am aware.
But as far as a research paper is concerned, you could get the support you need from within any organisation which invests a decent amount of resources in Research and Development. Organisations such as Microsoft in IT publish papers under Microsoft's name.
I think it depends largely on your area and organisation.

Do industry R&D departments hire anyone who isn't either a PhD or maybe a grad student intern?

Absolutely.  Not having formal schooling isn't a bar at any of the top tech orgs- unless the area you apply in can only reasonably be learned in school.  As an example, don't expect to get hired into the quantum computing group if you only have a high school diploma, however you might get hired as an intern if you've won a regional science fair, with a project that dealt with quantum computing, then that company may elect to send you to appropriate courses (which may or may not end in a degree)

Remaining within the IT arena, a case example is Blockchain. Many people are without real experience in the matter but people who have a basic idea in Business, IT and / or software engineering have excellent opportunities if they prove potential.

I would like to do a thesis or research paper and have it peer reviewed academically? Is this possible? If so, where and how to do it?

Can you do the research all on your own?
If yes, go right ahead with writing a research paper on your own in your own home and send it to the editor of a scientific peer-reviewed journal you deem appropriate for the content. Follow the author guidelines and under affiliations just insert your own address. It's probably a good idea to follow the style of other scientific publications. If the editor and the reviewers deem your research paper good enough you'll get a peer-reviewed research paper. If it gets rejected, you can still submit it somewhere else. In principle, there is no difference between being a private person or coming from a prestigious science factory (although in practice there might be some difference).
A thesis is usually a requirement for an academic degree. Since you are not interested in academic degrees I advice you not to pursue a thesis (which would also likely require some studies before), but concentrate on research papers.
You cannot do the research all on your own?
Contact a suitable person, research group leader, ... state your interest in a collaboration and negotiate as a goal the writing of a research paper. If you can find someone, do your part and give your home address as affiliation when writing the paper.
It may be harder to write a research paper on your own than when being employed as a scientist but it is also not forbidden and the process of getting the paper peer-reviewed and published is exactly the same.
P.S. Some journals charge you for the publication of a research paper with them. If you do the research and publication on your own, you'll have to pay these fees. In you are in a collaboration, your partners from academia will likely pay these fees, so this might be the cheaper variant.

I disagree with the "usually" in relation to journals charging. This might be the norm in some fields, but is practically unheard of in others.

@TobiasKildetoft Okay, in my field they usually charge. Changed.

It can also depend (as others have said) on what governing bodies or institutions play a role in your field. In my field, a dominant accrediting body has strict guidelines and ethical bylaws covering field research. You have to submit your proposal and consent forms to a board before even getting their blessing to go ahead with the research (and part of being in compliance is being accredited aka a postgrad degree). If not you'll be automatically rejected. You could probably do a meta-study or survey without it in this field, but no hard research.
I like Trilarion's answer best though. Worst comes to worst you write a kickass paper and don't get published. That would only put you in the same boat as almost all degree and non-degree holders out there.

I am going to assume that you have access to a strong set of journals through an academic library and that you have more than sufficient resources to carry out the research.  If that is the case, then yes you can do it on your own.  Your greatest challenge is the challenge a person with a doctorate faces when doing research outside their discipline, which is reading and understanding the literature.
For my own work, I found myself at the edges of my discipline and in the edges of another discipline.  In the end, I took graduate courses to do catch up.  I needed to learn about Borel tribes, Greenian functions, analytic functions in the complex plane and the residue around a singularity or pole.  Without professional guidance, I would have probably come to the wrong conclusions. There are little things in the literature that turn out to be big deal, but they are not prominent in the literature because everyone with a doctorate in the field knows about them.
As you move up the literature of a field you get further and further away from an undergraduate level of discussion.  Because academic papers are judged, in part, on the observed writing level of the author, you may have a limited ability to avoid being "desk rejected."
Desk rejection is a journal editor's tool to prevent low-quality articles from reaching reviewers.  It also prevents high-quality articles, that also would not be of interest to the journal's audience, from reaching reviewers.  You cannot just send your papers to any journal, they have to match what the audience is looking for.
If I were you, I would go back to a professor I had in college and tell them what you are wanting to do.  I would ask for some time to talk about what the research is, why you are motivated to do it, and what obstacles you are likely to encounter.  The bulk of research is planning.  The actual results and so forth take up very little time usually.
There are a couple of advantages to this.  First, your research may already have been done.  It may even have been done repeatedly.  Second, you may find that there are known problems in the field that researchers spend a lot of time accounting for that you know nothing about.
Let's imagine your data normally suffers from heteroskedasticity, you cannot just run some computer program to correct for it because you will need to know which type of computer program to run for it.  Heteroskedasticity is caused by different things.  You may have a functional form for it, or you could have to use something like ARCH or GARCH.
If your type of data is known to suffer from heteroskedasticity and you do not address this in your paper then you are going to be desk rejected because you obviously don't know enough about your field for anyone to take the time to carefully look at the paper.
Yes, you can submit a paper for peer review, but you will be held to graduate level standards.  If you decide to do this, go get help first.  Even if this is research in history, get help.  If your thesis is far away from the field because it already considered your idea and discarded it, then unless you have amazing new raw data, such discovering a treasure trove of new letters by Robert E. Lee, then you will also get desk rejected.
Sincerely, I wish you the best of luck and go get support from someone.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
Do all the co-authors of a publication own the content and may use RAW DATA, text, figure or table for their own publication?
A third co-author C of a study in 2016 available on-line (under subscription) want to re-use the data (included in the figures or tables) of this paper with for others co-authors (A, B, D, E). Co-authors C and A are in conflict.These data will be presented and analyzed in a different manner to support its own and new data set in a paper that Co-author C want to submit as unique author. Co-author C will only use the published data (and not the raw data) of the study of 2010. Some raw data are available on-line (under subscription). However, co-author C only collected but not processed an insignificant part these data. After asking the editor permission that co-author C have (he is limited to re-use only 3 tables or figures), do co-author C has the right to publish part of theses data in a new paper as a unique author? these data are considered to represent (30%) of the data set for the new paper. Does the co-author C has the right to re-use the data without permission of the others co-authors (A, B, D, E)? The same may be also applied to the raw data already published as supporting data? IS the co-author C allowed to include in "material and method " or in "results" section some brief sentences describing how he gets the some of these data and these previous results in its new paper as unique author?
The PI request to include all the co-authors (A, B, D, E) for the new publication of co-author C. Co-author C is not agreed as most of the co-authors (A, B, D, E) did not participate in the elaboration, analyze and writing task of the new paper.

I'm not 100% about your field, grants rules etc. But in a boarder sense, if he re-uses "published data" and cite it properly, then he would be fine using the data, and publishing the new paper on his own.

thanks, Also, when you re-use data, may mention the co-author C in "the material and method' section a short summary or a brief paragraph explaining how he gets these data? also, is it possible for co-author C to include and expressed differently in the "results" section the results related to the previous publication?

I guess so. Data can be interpreted differently (perhaps with not much difference) using different methods carried out by different researchers.

Or some data that were not interpreted in the previous one are newly analysed and interpreted differently?

Should be fine. I think the key is to properly cite it and explain the main differences and rationale behind the new interpretations.

and for the raw data? :)

If you don't make the raw data available to other researchers to critically re-analyse, then that puts serious doubt on your original publication. The value of our conclusions stem from the fact that anyone can check our findings. If the authors make it hard for no good reason (e.g. sometimes the legal system is not line with the academic system, and not wanting to break the law is legitimate), then that puts serious doubt on the original article.

Do you have access to raw data? Do you own it? Was been published anywhere?

Dear Maarten. A and B do not want to provide the raw data as they do not want C publish as single authors. It is understandable but no to include all the A, B, D, and E in this new manuscript as these last did not participated to the elaboration, experiments and writing tasks of this mansucript (only partially for the catch of the orgnanisms, reflected in the acknowledgement section).

C doesnt have some of the raw data (also available on-line) but not all. These data have been published elsewhere (including co-author C but firs author is A and B). Author C wants to reuse these data in order to have a more comprehensive data set in his paper. What do you think Martens? Thanks a lot

any additional response? thank you

If authors A-E publish data, then author F can freely use that data. Author C has the same rights as author F: The data is public (to subscribers), anyone can use it.

After asking the editor permission that co-author C have (he is limited to re-use only 3 tables or figures), do co-author C has the right to publish part of theses data in a new paper as a unique author?

By stating "[author C] is limited to re-use only 3 tables or figures," the editor only seems to be considering copyright. (The consideration seems rather naive, because using three tables or figures might not constitute a copyright violation.)
You can freely use all published data, you cannot include all published data (that might be a copyright violation).

these data are considered to represent (30%) of the data set for the
  new paper.

That might be too much data to reproduce -- you'll need to consider copyright issues. This probably isn't an issue, because you needn't reproduce everything, e.g., From A et al. [Their Table 1, X], we can infer Your Table 1.

The same may
  be also applied to the raw data already published as supporting data?

Yes, you can use all published data.


text:
Visa to attend conference for paper presentation in USA
I am a master's degree student and I just got a paper approved for presentation at a conference that will last for a couple of days in the USA. Looking at the US Embassy website I didn't find it clear which visa I should apply for.
At first look, F1, F2, M1 or M2 looks most promising but they don't look like they apply for this exact purpose because they look appropriate for longer periods.
So, which visa should I apply for in that case?

The B-1 visa is the correct one, IF you need a visa in the first place. As stated at the US Citizenship and Immigration Services page there, it covers (amongst other things):

Traveling for a scientific, educational, professional or business convention, or a conference on specific dates

If you are eligible for an ESTA as a citizen of a visa waiver country, that is the easier route.