text:
Do TAs in the US usually grade student responses?
In my country, many institutes have the custom of TAs evaluating and distributing the marks of students of that particular course the TA is handling.
I am wondering whether it is a part of academic culture in the US or not.

May depend on the institution or even the professor. Certainly I graded and released grades for my sections.

I am not sure what a TA would do if they didn't do these things?

Also, not sure the title matches the body

@AzorAhai--hehim TA can prepare presentations, frame questions, do a textbook reading, take small lectures, etc.,

@hanugm In my experience, TAs led small review sections, graded, and generally answered questions in office hours or by email. Not sure what frame questions or textbook readings means. I have never heard of a TA preparing presentations. In my field, that would be pretty inappropriate, unless it was like a single lecture or two on the TA's specialty.

Yes, this is common in the United States.
With the assumption that "Evaluate the answer sheets" means "Grades assignments/projects/exams"
In both my undergrad and graduate studies and personal experience as a TA, assignments/projects/exams were often graded by a TA.
In my experience I've found that a Professor will generally only participate in the grading process when:

The subject is very specialized. i.e. a semester project, or something that aligns with a professors specialty

The amount of student in the class is very low (< 50). Many of my smaller undergraduate classes were graded by professors either exclusively or in conjunction with TAs.

If we look at something like Penn State's School of Science TA Info Page they specifically list grading a a responsibility of a TA. This responsibility along with the prerequisite that the TA either took that class and did well previously or has extensive knowledge of the subject is very common across Universities in the United States.
You also mention that a TA would "prepare presentations, frame questions, do a textbook reading, take small lectures" This can also be true, but varies more between professors than the position as a whole.

When I was a TA, grading student assignments was the majority of my job.

I'd note that the page you linked seems to be talking about undergraduate TAs specifically. Not that it makes any difference to your answer, but I could imagine an occasional person getting hung up on that.

While not universal in the US, TAs often grade student assignments and give the papers back to the students in a small group (section). Even exams, which might be graded jointly by all the TAs (one or two questions each for all papers), might have the papers handed back by individual TAs.
Of course, electronic marking is sometimes used and students sometimes get their marks directly from an automated system.
But the TA is often expected to have some knowledge of the progress of students in their section, so seeing the grades (and comments) is pretty common.
The professor, who is ultimately responsible for grading, will probably prepare grading rubrics for the TAs and will handle special cases on request, either from the TA or a student.

I think a lot of it depends on the size of the institution and whether there is a graduate program in that subject at the particular university.
At a R1 institution (major university), you could expect to have a graduate student or upper division undergraduate student grading your work in introductory courses.
At smaller regional schools and community colleges, it is fairly uncommon to have teaching assistants or funds for graders, so the professor grades the majority of the student work.

I got to grade the undergraduate statistics course at my school during my junior and senior years. Of course that was back in the 1980's. The graduate students at that time typically lectured the Calculus sections under the direction of a professor.

@CL40 It happens, usually for very introductory courses


text:
Do instructors make all the necessary (bulk amount of) images on their own for tutorial purposes?
I am an instructor for a machine learning course and I need to make a presentation on all the recent architectures or models. I have to include a lot of images from several research papers and need to keep them in public on my website for all the students to study.
To keep the details about the models and architectures, I thought of using diagrams describing the architectures from various research papers available and use them in my tutorial. But after reading about rules and copyright infringements, I concluded that I may not be allowed to use those images directly in my tutorials. Although I can cite the paper that contains the images it will be difficult for students to follow the tutorial if I don't keep images in sequence.
With this context, I'm not doubting whether I can place images like this in tutorials that are intended to keep in public for further use of students.
So as an instructor, do I need to make the images on my own for every architecture and model I am going to discuss? If yes, that would a lot of time.

Is it necessary to make it publicly visible, as opposed to sharing just with the students taking the course?

Have you considered asking for permission from the various authors?

What does it mean to "crop an architecture"?

It seems to be synonymous with "model," which aren't images. Do you mean you want to extract a published diagram from a peer-reviewed paper and put it in your slides?

@Azor Most likely something like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convolutional_neural_network#/media/File:Comparison_image_neural_networks.svg

@GoodDeeds Is that a yes to my second question?

@GoodDeeds It is a customary in my institute to keep slides on personal profile blog. Most of the people are not cautious about copyright infringements. I wanted to get a clarity about it.

@EricTowers Then I need to contact at-least dozens of authors. I didn't prepare aforementioned tutorials yet.

@AzorAhai-him- I mean taking a screenshot of the image. Yes, I want to extract from peer-reviewed paper.

@hanugm I edited your question to clarify, please review.

"Although I can cite the paper that contains the images it will be difficult for students to follow the tutorial if I don't keep images in sequence." I don't understand this point, what do you mean?

For legal advice you can be certain of, check with someone appropriate at your school. Start with the chair of your department.
That said, common academic practice says you can  use the images as part of the teaching material you provide your students - properly acknowledged, of course. You may not be able to use them in something you publish.

The important part: "properly acknowledged".

Note that putting content on the public internet (rather than an internal system only your students can access) is more liable to be viewed as "publishing" (and make any defence based on fair use/fair dealing more complicated) if anyone actually decided to take legal action.

The academic/educational exception for use of copyright material isn't unlimited. Nor is fair use, as I comment on for another answer.

I'm ready to bet a beer that both the department chair and the legal department will answer "it's unclear; just be safe and don't use them".

@FedericoPoloni For sure the lawyer would say that. The chair might say "I'm sorry you asked". I won't take your bet. The OP has edited the question to specify display on their website. There links to the originals would be OK.

Even if someone wanted to complain and/or sue (and they won't), this would almost surely fall under "fair use" (or equivalent in other countries). You are using a small portion of copyrighted work for teaching purposes, which is allowed - so you don't even need to mail all journals.
On the other hand, "fair use" wouldn't apply if you wanted to publish your lecture (as a book, review article etc) - in that case, the practice is to obtain permission for all the images from the journal that published them.

"Fair use" isn't an unlimited right anywhere that I know of. An image may be construed as a "work" in itself, independent of any article it appears in and hence it may be the "whole work" that is copied, not a "small portion". Beware of facile assumptions. Images of Mickey Mouse, for example, can get you in trouble. Vigilant lawyers with deep pockets.

About Fair Use:

Fair use is a legal doctrine that promotes freedom of expression by
permitting the unlicensed use of copyright-protected works in certain
circumstances. Section 107 of the Copyright Act provides the statutory
framework for determining whether something is a fair use and
identifies certain types of uses—such as criticism, comment, news
reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research—as examples of
activities that may qualify as fair use. Section 107 calls for
consideration of the following four factors in evaluating a question
of fair use:

Purpose and character of the use, including whether the use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes: Courts
look at how the party claiming fair use is using the copyrighted work,
and are more likely to find that nonprofit educational and
noncommercial uses are fair. This does not mean, however, that all
nonprofit education and noncommercial uses are fair and all commercial
uses are not fair; instead, courts will balance the purpose and
character of the use against the other factors below. Additionally,
“transformative” uses are more likely to be considered fair.
Transformative uses are those that add something new, with a further
purpose or different character, and do not substitute for the original
use of the work.
Nature of the copyrighted work: This factor analyzes the degree to which the work that was used relates to copyright’s purpose of
encouraging creative expression. Thus, using a more creative or
imaginative work (such as a novel, movie, or song) is less likely to
support a claim of a fair use than using a factual work (such as a
technical article or news item). In addition, use of an unpublished
work is less likely to be considered fair.
Amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole: Under this factor, courts look at both
the quantity and quality of the copyrighted material that was used. If
the use includes a large portion of the copyrighted work, fair use is
less likely to be found; if the use employs only a small amount of
copyrighted material, fair use is more likely. That said, some courts
have found use of an entire work to be fair under certain
circumstances. And in other contexts, using even a small amount of a
copyrighted work was determined not to be fair because the selection
was an important part—or the “heart”—of the work.
Effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work: Here, courts review whether, and to what extent, the
unlicensed use harms the existing or future market for the copyright
owner’s original work. In assessing this factor, courts consider
whether the use is hurting the current market for the original work
(for example, by displacing sales of the original) and/or whether the
use could cause substantial harm if it were to become widespread.

In addition to the above, other factors may also be considered by a
court in weighing a fair use question, depending upon the
circumstances. Courts evaluate fair use claims on a case-bycase basis,
and the outcome of any given case depends on a fact-specific inquiry.
This means that there is no formula to ensure that a predetermined
percentage or amount of a work—or specific number of words, lines,
pages, copies—may be used without permission.

It would be better to add how this applies in the OP's situation. It seems relevant, but what conclusions to make from the perspective of the question are not clear.

OK; that makes sense. Thanks for the clarification. To explain further: Yes; there is a such this as "Fair Use," and in the United States, it's encoded in law. To use some protected work for educational purposes is covered, however there is a BIG asterisk: Case law. It's not so simple. Reading the above section I selected for inclusion, we repeatedly see this concept of Fair Use delineated, but also repeatedly see that external resources, meaning the outcome of past cases, is essential knowledge. It isn't quite so cut-and-dry as we might imagine.

No, this is not expected.
Mature instructors often rely on their own publications/materials for showcasing things, otherwise, the most common way to go about it is to crop/screenshot data and provide a reference to the paper on the same slide similar to how one would do it if including this material in, say, a review article.
I am more particular about this kind of thing than most of my colleagues as well but my current understanding is, essentially:

If it is in the public domain, you are free to use it in your talks (even though you're technically making money that way) long as you properly credit the authors. In most cases, it'd be just a reference; some resources like wikipedia provide more explicit instructions about proper attributions, if this is the case, follow those instead.
If you obtained this knowledge elsewhere (such as while being a contractor), inquire about whether it is okay to use it for educational purposes first. Some areas such as medicine are particularly sensitive to this as they deal with personal data.
If you use it outside of educational courses and have decided to write a book on the subject with the intent to eventually sell it, it becomes more complicated and strict, although in academia largely the same applies: many publishers/journals would have guidelines on fair use, however, facilitating this task.
If parts of this course go into industry and you start using graphics in products you're shipping, this is almost certainly a big no. No one might come after you for a while but still... Don't do that.

Obligatory I am not a lawyer.
TL;DR: No, unless you make this course into a book or try to earn money with it outside of academia - in this case more caution/attention would be needed. Better use public domain resources.

I am an instructor for a machine learning course and I need to make a
presentation on all the recent architectures or models. I have to
include a lot of images from several research papers and need to
keep them in public on my website for all the students to study.

No, you don't, and probably shouldn't.  Your course material should be behind some sort of a wall that only enables those who are entitled to it have it.  Most institutions of higher learning have a Learning Management System (LMS) that facilitates this.
If you use such a system, the images are no longer public, but much more limited in distribution, and claims of fair use are thus more legitimate (though not always true).

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text:
How can I earn a professor's attention if I am not his/her student yet?
I am trying to find a professor to do my first research under his/her supervision. I am a high school student. However I have already self-studied all the BSc and MSc (Pure Mathematics) books [based on Melbourne Uni]. But I haven't done any research and I need to have some professor to help me to choose a topic, access to non-free-papers, publishing, etc. Most probably I won't need for the learning part, i.e. to ask professor
on more understanding the texts (i.e., tutoring). Although not asking for teaching Mathematics to me may result in much less taking professor's time compared to professor's student, but professor
prefers to not spend on someone off the street asked him/her to do research with.
I already have asked two professors to do research under their supervisions and in reply I have been rejected, saying "I would prefer to supervise my students" or similar, (one was just yesterday).
I am interested in doing research on Real Analysis and I know there might be some other professors to be interested in guiding me even a lot but they are not specialized on Real Analysis.
I should also add here what I am saying when approaching:

As I quickly rejected in the first try by emailing, I decided to go to a professor's office in person with no previous meeting time; the result was a bit better in the beginning but no success.
I speak: "As I found Mathematics the most supreme beauty, a true Paradise, I started and committed to Mathematics. I had a consecutive study plan and I have studied ... [name of books]. As I was keen to have a big impact on Mathematics, so I decided to analyze books (like what a critic does with a paper to publish) rather than studying. I know that I need a lot to learn before doing research (which I don't know what to study next) and afterwards I don't know how to proceed in research. It would be a great honor if you please help me in my journey..."

My questions are: What's wrong with my actions and speaking? and, what should I say or do in order to 'win' a professor's heart?
PS - I took your kind and helpful advises in the other question, and I decided not to be isolated from 'the system'. However, it's not that easy to find my way on my own. By the way, I truly appreciate for all your guidance.

I have already read http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/46156/how-to-pick-the-brain-of-a-professor-with-whom-you-have-no-connection?rq=1 and haven't got any answer since it may be different circumstances.

Rather than jumping straight to a university professor, have you tried to work with your mathematics teachers in school? They may know people who know people who could help you. When I was working in industry and considering applying to a PhD program I found a colleague who both knew my work and knew one of the professors.

Professional and academic networks are complicated things. People know people who know people... When you approach the teachers, phrase it as asking them for advice and help. Also, don't be impatient. You may need to work with one of them for weeks or months to convince them of your ability, before they will bet their network reputation on you.

Also, I see a lot about what you have read, but not much about what you have written. Writing mathematical proofs is a skill that needs practice. I do hope you are doing the exercises in the books, and writing out the proofs, even if you have nobody to check them.

@Patricia Shanahan - the exercises in the books are as important as texts themselves. I also try to prove all the propositions after learning them, this helps me to learn how to think also. In addition to learning the proofs, I am trying not be 'cheated' by my human mind: are they true for my mind or their truth are 'from reality'?

You should definitely investigate if your school has any dual enrollment programs to allow you to take college courses. Or try to find some way of taking some. Being in high school, this would 1) give you an opportunity to meet professors, 2) help you acquire the knowledge you need (or at least prove that you have it).

In all honesty, "the most supreme beauty, a true Paradise" ...makes me really want to stop reading.

I'd also recommend against opening with the beauty of mathematics. One reason is that it's trite. This is the one thing every pure mathematician believes, and you wouldn't be seeking this opportunity if you didn't agree, so saying it explicitly adds nothing. It can actually give the wrong impression: some people like talking about the beauty of mathematics more than they like actually doing mathematics, and others feel a need to say something but can't think of anything substantive to say. You don't want the reader's first reaction to be wondering whether you fall into one of these categories.

@MKR maybe I am not a real scientist, but "the most supreme beauty, a true Paradise" is something that I would advise my students to NEVER say.

@MKR: I can't speak for Mehrdad, but I find the statements he finds off-putting also to be unhelpful. It's an example of purple prose, which is best avoided in general, and definitely in speaking. To the listener it sounds completely unauthentic and insincere—which is the last thing you want or need. (And, like StrongBad, I would have strong words for anyone in my group who thought they could write something like that in a scholarly context.)

@aeismail♦ - comment of 'Mehrdad' may superficially be same as for instance 'Anonymous Mathematician''s, but it's far different. I never have a defensive mechanism for an objection, in contrast I believe that a helpful objection is invaluable gift from society; I delete my previous comment as I read the informative and gentle comment from 'Anonymous Mathematician'. –  MKR 12 mins ago

@aeismail♦ - and there is neither "write"-ing nor "scholarly context" here; as is written in my question it was a face to face chat and the reaction of the professor whom I was talking with was nothing more than smiling as sign of agreement or pleasure. If there might be some others wouldn't be happy of that and as it is irrelevant to the research (as people in here commented) I won't say that. I appreciate everybody for mentioning that. :)

Meeting with a professor on a topic like this is an academic context.

As I found Mathematics the most supreme beauty, a true Paradise, I started and committed to Mathematics. [...] As I was keen to have a big impact on Mathematics, [...]

This is quite off-putting. What you say here is essentially that you want to be a great mathematician. Since there is no a priori reason to assume that you are better than many other students the professor you address has, such a statement is a little presumptuous.

I had a consecutive study plan and I have studied ... [name of books].

This is good. You give a more or less objective description of your abilities and show that you actually have done serious work.
What's missing is a description of your actual interests. If you say you are interested in mathematics or real analysis, you essentially say that you have not found something that really intrigues you. As research is largely internally motivated, this is not a good sign. Note that I do not say that you have no special interests, but that what you write in your question and what you state as your approach to a professor says so.
So a letter which should attract  the attention of a professional mathematician could be the following:

I am (description + why you have no direct contact person).
I have read the following books.
I am fascinated by (special topic), because (honest reason). In particular, I would like to understand (something you are really interested in).
Can you recommend me further directions for my studies, e.g. textbooks dealing with (whatever)?

If you get a reaction like "read XYZ", and after half a year you pose a question which shows that you have worked through this book, you will probably be taken seriously.

+1. Thank you very much esp. for your first paragraph (excluding beauty of Mathematics as off-putting).

@MKR - You really should listen to the recurring advice here: your flowery spiel about the beauty of mathematics is not going to help you open any doors, and it's quite likely to elicit some eye-rolls during an introduction where your audience is probably guessing you're out of your league. If you want to prattle on about the "true Paradise" of mathematics, save your eloquence for when your work is underway and you've established some credibility. As a footnote, if you want to cement a professor's disinterest in working with you, simply exhibit an inability to listen – that'll do the trick.

I would argue strongly against "I have read the following books.", as opposed to focusing on the specific technical topics that you find interesting.  Focus on the substance, not on the packaging.  (And especially, as others have said, leave the flowers at home.)

What do you mean by "why you have no direct contact person"? Sorry, I didn't understand that at all! Thank you.

@MKR: The professor will ask himself is "Why do you ask me?", and he is looking for an honest answer. So "Because you are famous" is not the right thing to say. "A student/a friend/someone else told me about you" would be good, if it was true, but "because I have noone else to turn to" is probably the right thing to say. In a face-to-face this is probably not an issue, as the professor already knows your name and your basic situation.

@JeffE: I think books are a useful hint to know how much you already know and how much work you have invested.

@Jan-Christoph Schlage-Puchta: Thank you. Also, "further directions for my studies" as you wrote is much better than asking straight about doing a research. And I believe that every details in your answer would be helpful for me. I truly appreciate your nice advice. :)

@Jan-ChristophSchlage-Puchta  Sure, but demonstrating what you know is a much better hint of how much you know.  "I've read X" can mean many different things, not all of which involve mastery of X.

What's wrong with my actions and speaking?

Nothing's wrong with your actions, although they are not likely to lead to success.  As for your speaking, the paragraph you quote is not ideal, but I don't think that's why you are getting turned down.  Instead, the problem is that the system is just not set up to provide research mentors for high school students.  I regularly turn down requests for high school research supervision, for several reasons:

Like many faculty at research universities, I have more local students who would like to work with me than I have time to supervise.  This is particularly true for undergraduate research, and I end up turning away many undergraduates because of a lack of time.  The ones I end up working with typically have very strong backgrounds, and I'd be reluctant to turn more of them away to free up time to supervise high school students.
It's much easier to vet local students.  If they have never taken any of my classes, I can ask my colleagues about them.  By contrast, it's much harder to evaluate high school students.  It's already difficult to quickly gauge mathematical talent and background, and that's not even enough: I'd also want to know how hard working someone is, how overcommitted they are with other activities, etc.
I don't think high school research is particularly important, and I question whether it's even worthwhile.  For the vast majority of high school students (even ones who are exceptionally talented), spending a few more years studying the mathematics that's already known is at least as worthwhile as doing research.  The number of people who have genuinely reached the stage where they should be doing research, but who are not yet prepared to go to college, is minuscule.  By contrast, there are lots of people whose main motivation seems to be that doing research at a young age looks impressive, and I'm not eager to encourage this.

Of course not everyone will share these reasons, but I think they are reasonably widespread.  To maximize your chances of success, you should keep these issues in mind.
The most straightforward one to address is how to evaluate your background and talents.  You need external evidence, such as a letter of recommendation from a faculty member, ideally combined with some feedback and advice.  You could try taking an advanced course at a local university, or attending a summer math program for high school students.  Another possibility is strong performance on a math contest.  (That's less meaningful, since it measures only a limited form of talent and doesn't come with feedback/advice, but participating in a contest is less expensive than taking a course.)
It's worth applying to research programs specifically aimed at high school students, such as RSI.  There aren't very many of them, and they don't admit many people, so you may not have any luck with this.  If you target individual faculty members, you may have better luck if you choose people who have supervised high school students in the past, since you know they are in principle open to the possibility.  (You can sometimes tell this from their web sites or CVs.)  Faculty members at schools that don't have particularly strong undergraduates may be more excited by the idea of working with a great high school student, while faculty at Princeton have plenty of top undergraduates to work with.
If your search for a research supervisor works out, that's great.  But if it doesn't, you shouldn't worry that it's a negative judgment of you.  You're trying to do something the world basically isn't set up to facilitate.

+1 for point 3, I cannot agree more. There is so much left to study still - the only reason why people seem to be doing this is because they have heard that it looks impressive to do research at that age (which does not make sense at all).

@Anonymous Mathematician: Is it alright that at the beginning I don't talk about my original intention, i.e. to do a research under supervision of some professor, but I just ask to attend him/her classes then after a while I ask for doing a research? (By "alright" I mean: 1- more effective, and 2- ethical). Thank you.

That sounds reasonable to me, assuming you are genuinely interested in attending the class and wouldn't just quit if the professor later declined to supervise a research project.  I don't know how likely it is to lead to a research project, but it is worth doing in its own right (the class could be valuable either way) and taking the class will give the professor more insight into your background and talents (which could increase the chances of supervising a research project).

It does not sound as though you are supplying any evidence of your ability beyond your own claims. You need to fix that.
I suggest working on your relationship with the teachers, especially the mathematics and science teachers, at your high school. A letter from one of them saying they have a brilliant student who needs more challenge then they can give might work better.
What grades are you getting? If not straight A, what can you do to change that? The most efficient use of the time in high school is to first learn the material it is supposed to teach, so you already have that before going to university.
If straight A, try asking your mathematics teacher for more difficult assignments. Would one of your teachers be able and willing to grade exercises from the textbooks you have been reading? That would give the best cross-check that you really are understanding the material, as well as giving them objective evidence of your ability that they could use in a letter of recommendation.
A letter from a teacher saying "MKR has correctly completed exercises from each chapter of books X, Y, and Z. Here is a sample of MKR's mathematical proof writing." would be far more impressive than your claim to have read books X, Y, and Z.

+1 for a letter from a current teacher who knows your potential

Trying to find connections through teachers didn't help a lot, as I was expected. But I will get some letter from a math teacher as he promised to write it later, and thank you very much for your informative advice. I find a very nice guy doing his PhD who already helped me a lot and would like to guide me more.

@MKR I certainly did not expect it to produce results within hours or days, rather than weeks or months.

There's two colleges near me I do not attend. I've just walked right up to professors, talked to them for a few hours fine. I've even been engaged in research projects, while both not their student, and not attend the college. In many ways, this question is a lot like asking how you get anyones attention; productive talking is effective.
There are things to keep in mind of course:

Talking to random professors or about random subjects is not going to go over particularly well. One personal example I have is I deliberately sought out a professor of mathematics, to discuss something mathematical; keep it relevant.
Trying to get their attention at bad times is not going to work; learn their schedule and find a time that works. Even better if you can set up an appointment (emails works, in-person has a nice touch).
Don't demand. You have no idea how often I've seen this, even from students. It doesn't go over well. Ever!

Good luck!

As a math professor, I also find your intro a bit off putting.
You need to sound more serious - if you are.
I would start with: "Hi. I'm a high school student. I read ... and ... and got interested in ... I tend to be attracted by combinatorics/geometry/algebra... especially ....
Could you suggest something I could read and study, and maybe some interesting problems I should look at?

Thank you very much for very helpful advice. Though short but I believe it should be enough and more effective than my talk. I will remember that.

Here are a few ideas to get you unstuck.

Start by identifying a university in your area with the right sort of department.  Study the professors' web pages to identify people who seem nice, and whose research fields intrigue you.  Take a look at some of their papers.  Find out if they have regular office hours.  You might need to phone the department for this last step.  Then take one of your favorite books with you, and go to the person's office to have a chat!
Attend some seminars either in your desired topic or in a nearby topic, and sit in on some university lectures.  Approach the speaker, or someone else in the audience, afterwards, and talk about what you found intriguing, and ask a question.  If the conversation goes well, lay the groundwork to continue contact with the person -- ask if you may follow up with an email for some advising.
Make an appointment to speak with an advisor.

Note, in all of the above, just be yourself.  You need not blow a bugle announcing your age or your current educational level.  You can share all of that later, once you have established a human connection with someone.
Comment to some of the others who have participated in this question: a bit of social awkwardness is not as much of a hindrance in mathematics as it might be in some fields.  Also, please take into account that English has lots of variants in different parts of the world.  So please don't be so critical of the OP.

Thank you very much for your very informative advice. And I think attending in a seminar is an effective way to 'build a network'.

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Impact of the visit weekend weather on the admitted graduates' grad school decision in the US
US universities typically organize visit weekends for newly admitted graduates, after which the latter confirm or refuse the offer. Is there any research/study/survey that looked at the impact of the visit weekend weather on the admitted graduates' grad school decision?

Interesting question. I have certainly heard anecdotally from students for whom this was a factor, conscious or subconscious.

Any major hiccups during a visiting weekend can be disastrous. One school I visited had one recruiting weekend per year; my year, the farewell banquet ended up sending about half of the attendees to the emergency room with food poisoning. The department normally got about 15 new students each year; my year, they got three.

I'm not aware of any research, and we've actually debated this some in my department.
Anecdotally, the biggest factor in whether a prospective grad student decides to attend is whether they come to visit. Of course, that's hard to establish as causal, since students who are inclined to turn down the offer are much less likely to visit. Moreover, we know of a few students each year who already accepted our offers who come for the visit weekend(s).
I suspect weather is pretty low on the list of reasons to decline a program.
We've polled students who declined our offer and generally the reason is either that they preferred an advisor at another school, or preferred a higher-ranked program. I don't have the spreadsheet, but I think that was ~75-80% of the respondents over the last two years of polling. (In our chemistry department, the incoming grad student class is ~30-40, so the statistics are reasonable.)
I do agree with the comment above about significantly negative experiences. We sometimes took students to eat at a cool restaurant that used to be a church. One student, who was evidently, extremely Catholic, was offended, even though we explained the church performed rites and was very pleased with the resulting restaurant.
In short, I'd say major negative experiences and then logical sorts of reasons are much more likely causes. (Now, if you're talking about a hurricane, tornado, freak blizzard, or other "major negative experience" due to weather.. that's a different story.)

We're in the midwest, and we delay recruitment to late march or april to avoid bad weather. So whether or not it affects students decisions to join, it has affected our department's scheduling.

The short non-scientific answer: YES
My answer is just based on anecdotes and I am not aware of any methodological research on this subject (it is not my field of research). I've listened to an episode of This American Life about this subject, in which they interview professors on the admission committees of different universities. According the the interviews, visiting a university is a good indication that the student is interested in the school and is more likely to attend the school if he/she is admitted.
This is episode "504: How I Got Into College" of the podcast, which you can find here (http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/504/how-i-got-into-college).
P.S. I tried to post this as a comment to the question but it was too long. I apologize if this is not the answer you are looking for.

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


text:
When / how should I ask about a manuscript's status in review?
I have a manuscript that has been in review for 60 days. The journal asks for reviews within four weeks. At what point is it acceptable (and not detrimental) to contact the editor for an update? How should I phrase the request?

I guess it depends on the journal. I heard from my colleagues that they contacted an editor a year after submission and were replied with "we need more time". Regardless of the journal, I wouldn't do anything during the first 3-5 months.

Keep in mind that the journal has to find reviewers, and have them accept before that clock even starts running.

Are you sure they received your submission?  It's possible they didn't receive it and that's why they haven't replied.

@joel yes, there is an online manuscript status checker

Once they find reviewers, the reviewers have to submit the review on time as well (usually after a month). Often, reviewers need more time than this. It's not unusual for an article to be delayed because one of the reviewers is late. Then, the editors have to deliberate after the reviews are all in.

To give a counterpoint to the people reporting from mathematics or theoretical computer science. In my field (physics), you have a first decision after sixty days for the majority of papers. Thus, I would consider it appropriate to send a polite question to the editor in most cases – if the journal hasn’t given you a status update before this. In fact, from my experience with APS journals, they send you a mail about the delay before this (I have no experience with other publishers in this regard). But as already said this is strongly field-dependent.

I don’t know your field, but in mine (theoretical computer science), you have to get used to long review processes. My personal rule is to contact the journal six months after submission. Given recent events, my new, additional rule is to also state upon submission that I can suggest referees if need be.
As EpiGrad commented, the four weeks time certainly refers to the time allowed to the referee. But additional stages take longer: a first quick scan of your paper to decide whether it’s worth troubling an editor with it; then the editor has to find referees; and, assuming they all complete their reviews in time, the editor also needs a little bit of time to reach a decision based on the reviews. Moreover, your paper might not be their top priority.
As for the “how”, something like this would do:

Dear Editor,
I understand that you must be extremely busy, but I was wondering about the status of my manuscript [title, reference number] that I submitted on [date]. Have you heard back from the referees yet?
Thanks a lot for your time.
Best regards,
[name]

When you contact them you should also offer to suggest reviewers (or additional reviewers if you already gave suggestions) if they would like this.

I think an answer to this really depends on a lot of things: at least on the journal and the field you are in.
I am from mathematics and there I usually ask after 6 month. Only for journals which are known for long refereeing times I sometimes wait for 9 month.
By the way: The American Mathematical Society publishes a list of expected waiting times and backlogs for some mathematical journals (see e.g. here or google "AMS journal backlog").

Thanks for the link, it will certainly come in handy for future submissions.

I believe that accepted answer is too informal for some people. I prepared following template for myself. Using following link and Coursera professional email course. I waited 4 months before sending this email.
Subject: Inquiry about my submitted article (#XXXX) to Journal - JOURNALNAME

Dear Dr. EDITORNAMESURNAME

My name is NAME SURNAME, and I am first author of article #XXXX (TITLE).
We submitted our article to journal JOURNALNAME on SUBMISSIONDATE.

We have not received an update regarding the status of our manuscript.
Could you let us know when we can expect notice regarding the decision of the editorial board?

Thank you for your time and effort.
Best Regards,

NAME SURNAME

If done respectfully, it is never unreasonable to request the status of your manuscript.

If done too soon it is unreasonable.

@mankoff I disagree. You are building a professional relationship with the journal and you have a right to understand the details of that relationship.  If you have questions about the process you should feel comfortable seeking answers.

What if they advertise to wait 2 months and you are e-mailing them after 2 weeks? This would be unreasonable.

@Jase I think this case is covered in my comment. If you were unclear about the process and have a legitimate question then no, it is not unreasonable.  If they clearly state that the process will take 2 months and you understand this, then I don't see why you would be asking for clarification.  In the original question it is clear that the OP has questions about the process that are not answered by the stated policies.

I was talking about e-mailing them asking for a status update. Asking for clarification about their process is different.

@Jase if you are just pestering the editor when they have made the expectations clear, then yeah that is inappropriate and I would also say not really respectful (even if polite).  The OP seemed to be confused about the policy though... the OP says that the journal had the ms for 60 days but they ask for reviews to be completed in 4 weeks.

I would say after six months is reasonable to ask for a status check. I am from engineering and I often politely ask after six months. If I don't hear from them with a final decision within the next two months I decide to withdraw the paper as it seems that the whole process will take too long and either the journal or the reviewer(s) is not very professional. Eight to nine months is very long response time for a first inquiry. Sometimes you just cant wait that long, you need to know whether is rejected or not because you need to present something on your PhD career, change a job, or as part of a funded project.

As the saying goes,  the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
In my experience, it is reasonable to politely request an update after ~2 months of review. With most manuscript trackers, it is possible to see where the manuscript is in the pipeline and send a gentle reminder if the manuscript is stuck in one stage for too long (e.g. reviewer section, review, editorial evaluation, etc). Keep in mind that most editors are volunteers and they may forget to follow up with reviewers in a timely manner due to their busy schedule. I find it hard to believe that a polite email would antagonize the editor since journals want to publish high quality papers in a timely manner.


text:
Considerations when negotiating a promotion from postdoc to researcher?
I am currently a postdoc at an American university, and have been offered a promotion to something between postdoc and faculty (there is not a specific title, yet, but something like "soft-money academic staff researcher").
Are there any job-related benefits (other than standard health and retirement) that I could request when negotiating this position? Are there any requests that I should not make?
For example, the following come to mind - are all of these appropriate requests, and what should I consider when making such requests?

authorship on project-related publications
research support

undergraduate assistants
misc research

private office
professional development

opportunities to teach courses
money to attend conferences
adjunct faculty status (so that I can advise students, apply for grants)
other opportunities to support later advancement?

some projected timeline of raises and advancement
my role (and degree of autonomy, or lack thereof) when managing students and postdocs. Although part of my position, these folks are are working for multiple PI's.

maybe this is different in your institution/area, but in CS, a 'research faculty' position is basically "postdoc + you can write grants", and isn't something that involves negotiation.

@Suresh even if just a postdoc+grants, do you mean that there is no opportunity to discuss job responsibilities, resources, and priveleges when accepting a new position?

Well it's viewed more as a perk for the postdoc, so that they can be more independent. Not something that they can bargain about. But again, this might be different between places and areas

@Suresh: The definition of "research faculty" varies significantly even among CS departments.

The "authorship on project-related publications" should depend on your contribution, and is not a negotiable job-related benefit.

@pedro but determining in advance the papers I would contribute to is negotiable, and would help define my role. Plus, there is no universally accepted level of contribution required for authorship.

@Abe: I can understand your first statement, but strongly disagree with your second point. Honorary authorship is universally frowned upon and many journals, e.g. Nature and Science, have quite explicit policies prohibiting it.

Yes, I didn't understand that element either. Authorship is usually decided by contribution (per paper). If you don't contribute, you don't get on the paper, regardless if both you and the paper are funded off the same grant.

@pedro i think that this will make a good separate question. I was not referring to honorary authorship. Even when adhering strictly to  guidelines established by journals or societies, there is a lot of grey area (in addition to black and white). It is always a good idea to discuss authorship early. It is a bad idea to wait until the manuscript is first circulated.

@suresh  did I imply somewhere that I would want authorship without making a contribution? If a group meets two hours a week over years, supporting each other by providing feedback, many people will have made intellectual contributions. At what point does this merit authorship?

@Abe that discussion should definitely be had, and it's best to have it early on. No argument there. I just don't see how that plays into the negotiation for a job.

Many tenure track positions in the US offer a certain percentage of time for which you are allowed to do external "consulting", the results of which are not "owned" by the university.  If you have any entrepreneurial inclinations or you just plan on doing some work on the side, I'd make sure to request some consulting time.  I know some universities offer as much as one day per week.

This varies enormously between universities (see Suresh and JeffE's comments, for example).  At some schools, having a soft-money position means very little.  They are basically just saying you are allowed to use their name to apply for grants, and to pay for things like office space using grant funding (including overhead).  In such a case, there may not be much to negotiate over, since they intend to make a profit from you, not spend money on you.  You could ask for adjunct status, and the salary requested in grant applications might be determined by the university, but most of your other issues (space, travel, equipment, assistants, etc.) would be handled in the course of dealing with individual grant applications, rather than specified in advance.  The key would be getting large enough grants to pay for them.
At other schools, particularly in medical fields but sometimes elsewhere too, being a research professor can be very serious: you may be a full faculty member, attending and voting in faculty meetings, with the possibility of tenure.  Of course, tenure on a soft-money position doesn't mean much, since the university never gives you a salary.  If you don't get grants, you don't get paid.  But it does mean that as long as you get grants, the university cannot get rid of you.  (This can be a genuine issue in some soft-money positions.  If the regular faculty don't think you meet their usual standards, then the department chair may eventually be tempted to push you to leave, so you do not seem like a permanent fixture and start to affect the department's reputation too much, or to make your lower status clear in other ways.  A tenured soft-money position is a real indication that the department values you, even if they aren't paying for you.)
How you should negotiate really depends on the sort of position.  It can't hurt to ask how anything you care about works, and the worst case scenario is being told it's not negotiable.
One thing I'd avoid bringing up is authorship issues.  This is something that should be discussed at the level of individual projects, and bringing it up here may make people worry that you are asking for something inappropriate (like guaranteed authorship just for providing funding), even if you have nothing like that in mind.  If you do discuss it, you should make it very clear that you are just making sure everyone is on the same page, rather than trying to negotiate special rules that would be guaranteed to apply to your job.
One thing I'd add is grace periods between grants.  If all goes well, you'll arrange overlapping funding, so you will not have a period with no active funding.  However, it might well happen if you aren't lucky, so you should discuss how that would work.  For example, if you had a gap between grants, would they immediately take away your office when the first grant expired?  If you reached a state in which all your grant proposals had been rejected, with no pending applications, then would that be the end of your job?  Or would they allow you some period of time to continue making applications?


text:
How often do publishers sue researchers for copyright infringement for putting their articles on a personal website?
I know that some publishers sometimes send copyright infringement emails to researchers putting their articles on a personal website. How often do publishers actually sue researchers for copyright infringement for putting their articles on a personal website? (assuming the authors didn't have the legal right to do so)
I am mostly interested in United States-based authors, but I am curious about other countries as well.

There have been cases where publishers have demanded that papers be taken down using the process of "take down" notifications under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.  In general, this is a very effective way of getting a paper removed from the web- it's much less costly than filing a law suit.

(originally posted on http://openscience.stackexchange.com/q/122/3)

Authors generally believe they have the legal right, and publishers generally believe that authors don't. Whether or not a person has a putative right is decided in court. So your question with that "didn't have the legal right" clause reduces the potential case pool to cases where the publisher actually prevailed in the suit. I believe the number of cases is zero, but I may have missed something.

I don't think sending emails emails to authors is commonly practiced and I have not heard of anyone suing authors either. As far as I know, most publishers are OK with an author uploading his/her pre-Camera Ready papers to a personal webpage. Also, see this other related question: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9698/how-to-make-my-papers-accessible-to-other-researchers?rq=1.

see this piece about the use of take-down notices to get papers pulled off the web: http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/posting-your-latest-article-you-might-have-to-take-it-down/48865

I have never heard of an individual scientist being sued for posting a few articles online (large-scale systematic activity is a different story).  So far, unlike the music and movie industries, scientific publishers appear to have simply not found it worth the cost in resources and community relations to do so (though they've been quite comfortable suing organizations on occasion).
If a scientist decided to resist a takedown order, however, it seems possible that a journal might feel forced to make an example of them.


text:
Why don't grants from publicly-funded organizations systematically demand code and data to be released?
I wonder why publicly-funded grants do not systematically demand from the recipients that code and data to be released, and results/papers to be publicly accessible. (put aside data that raise privacy issues)

Some do. 654321

In the UK, this is now the case as the default policy from the major public research funders. This is being driven by a number of things: public investment should lead to public knowledge, being able to validate results more easily, and better ability of business to innovate.

Related: Why are CS researchers reluctant to share code and what techniques can I use to encourage sharing?


text:
Having students scribe lectures: can the instructor choose any license?
For each lecture of a course, a couple of students are assigned to scribe the lecture, as part of the course requirements. Can the instructor choose any license he wants for the scribe notes? E.g. CC BY-SA 4.0 or CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 in case the instructor is considering compiling and releasing the scribe notes publicly and is fine with people re-sharing them? Or are students entitled to decide under what license the scribe notes should be? I am mostly interested in the United States but curious about other countries as well.

That's a matter of exactly what your contract is with the students, and what copyrights/licences your school deems acceptable. You need to talk to the school's legal department.

@keshlam OK but I think the situation is quite similar in any US school, and subsequently making the information publicly available would be interesting. Also, what instructor-students contract are you referring to?

I doubt it's similar enough to do more than a poll here, and poll questions are considered out of scope. Different states, different implied rights and obligations. Different schools, different explicit policies. Ask locally.

@keshlam Do US schools have explicit policies on scribe note license? I haven't seen any yet. Any example?

Remember, US schools are VERY far from being a single system. Each will decide for itself what policies apply here.

@keshlam As long as they don't go against state and federal laws. The answer to the question might be in  the latter (?).

I'd ask the students to transfer any copyright to me, formally if need be. In any case, the scribe is writing down what you are writing on the board, so the contents is morally yours in any case.
Presumably the result will undergo wide edition by you, so this is mostly moot.
[A student did transcribe my scribblings a while back; some things  got misunderstood or I plainly messed up, a lot of cleanup was needed, and for the next version I added several examples and clarifications.]


text:
What ratio of PhD graduates in STEM fields ultimately end up as (tenured) professors?
I recently saw this infogram circling around various social networks:

It appeared in this Tweet with the following claim:

Got a PhD? Your chance of becoming a Professor is 0.45%. Good luck.

Being a bit sceptical of the claim and of shiny info-grams in general, I traced the image back through this blog to this report by the Royal Society (see page 14), featuring various reputable academics in the introduction. The report cites a number of other reports from UK organisations as its source (I did not dig deeper). The infogram seemingly pertains to graduates of PhDs in the UK in STEM fields.
I find the figures literally incredible. I cannot believe them. Fewer than 1-in-200 PhD graduates become professors? This would imply, for example, that STEM professors in the UK would need to graduate 200 PhD students just to "repopulate" themselves.
I would like to compare these estimates with figures sourced elsewhere. And so my question is:
Are any other studies or sources of data for estimating the number of PhD graduates who end up with professorships? (... preferably within the STEM areas and not restricted to the UK)

There is a related question specifically for the maths field and referring to tenure-track positions but none of the answers really address this question: What percentage of phds in math actually get a tenure track academic job?
EDIT: Pointer to a follow-up question asked by @gerrit: How many PhD students does a typical STEM professor graduate during their entire career?

You're right: the 0.45% figure is literally incredible.  I did some "Fermi problem" type calculations and came up with the idea that in mathematics about 20% of PhDs get tenure at a research institution (also Gerald Edgar mentioned this figure on mathoverflow.net) and that maybe 30-40% get tenure at some institution: this is in the US.  In other STEM fields there are more industrial jobs, but I would be shocked if the average figure for STEM PhDs in the US were below 10%.  (I don't include this as an answer because you want more formalized analysis, not guesswork...)

A major question here is what "Professor" is supposed to mean --- academic titles in the UK work differently than in the US.  Being a full professor in the UK is similar to having an endowed chair in the US, which very few US scientists ever reach.

Furthermore, I believe (though I'm not certain) that many (maybe most?) full-time, researching, career academics in the UK never hold any position with the word "professor" in the title.  This is totally different from the US, where all tenure-track positions (and some non-tenure-track positions) are called some flavor of "professor".

Indeed it is not at all unusual in the UK to go through one's entire academic career without ever attaining the title 'professor'.  I'm not sure professorships in the UK are as rare as endowed chairs in the US, though.  In my department (in Scotland) 1/3 of the permanent staff are currently professors.

If a professor works for 30 years (say ages 40-70) and the situation is steady-state, a 1:200 ratio would require a professor to graduate 6-7 PhD students per year.  That seems like a lot.

@gerrit: In mathematics, that is not only "a lot"; it is demonstrably more than maximal.  See http://genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/extrema.php

@PeteL.Clark: number of PhD students per professorship varies much across disciplines. E.g. the German Statistische Bundesamt reports on average 6 PhD students/prof with a range from 15 in engineering to 1 in arts. Science and maths being slightly more than average with 7 PhD students/prof.

@cbeleites: Yes, I agree, which is why I mentioned that my statistic was specific to mathematics.  Moreover it also varies regionally: 7 PhD students / professor would in the US be extraordinarily high.  (E.g. my department has about 30 faculty and about 50 PhD students.)

@gerrit that is assuming that professors are the only one allowed to produce PhD students. In my UK department only about 10% of those allowed to supervise PhD students are "Professors". This reduces the number by an order of magnitude, but it is still too big.

I guess that 0.45% is for Britain?  No wonder so many British academics come to the US.

Somehow the 42 votes beside the infogram makes it more ominous.

Just looked up some numbers for Germany:

In 2013, 8700 PhDs were finished in maths/natural sciences.
average age at finishing (all fields): 32.5 a
average age at becoming professor (maths/natural sciences): 40.5 a
predicted number of retiring professors in 2021 = in 8 years = when last year's fresh PhDs reach the average age of becoming professor
(maths/natural sciences): ca. 190

190 : 8700 ≈ 1 : 46 or 2.2 %
Some of the tables show only overall numbers, and no details for maths. But I think that this result is influenced by the fact that the majority of chemistry and biology students go on for a PhD (though I guess that a non-negligible fraction leaves for industry [slightly] before finishing the PhD - which after all may not be that different from doing a PhD in order to get a better entrance position in industry).
Sources: Statistisches Bundesamt

exam statistics
university staff statistics

So this ignores the fact that the number of overall tenured positions available will probably grow in the next 8 years?

Interesting sources (I don't read German but this looks more like what I'm asking for, thanks!) but I don't yet follow your math. Assuming that the number of tenured positions remains the same and the rates of PhDs and retirements remain the same, and that it's a closed system (i.e., no foreign professors), we have 8700 PhDs produced in one year and ⌊190/8⌋ = 23 professorial spaces likewise in one year. So that would make it 23 : 8700, no? Not sure why you took PhDs for 1 year and professors for 8 (even if graduates take 8 years, there'll be 8 sets of graduates in that time).

@badroit: no. I see now that my formulation was ambiguous and tried to clear it up. In 2021 (= in 8 years), 190 maths + natural sciences profs are expected to retire.

@FedericoPoloni: this ignores any predictions whether new professorships will be started (which is something I wouldn't dare to predict 8 years into the future, not even for Germany). But it does include the fact that in 2021 more professors will retire than do right now (at the moment it is ca. 150/a) - which is much easier to predict as long as the retirement age doesn't change too much.

@cbeleites, understood, thanks for the clarification!

I accepted this answer and awarded the bounty as the answer with the most concrete evidence sourced from elsewhere. The figure of 2.2% is indeed quite a lot lower than I expected and is in the same ball-park as the slightly looser 3.5% "Permanent Research Staff" figure found in the infogram (as noted elsewhere, UK professorships tend to be more exclusive than elsewhere, including Germany).

It's a shiny info-gram, but I think there is a lot wrong with it:

It transports the (common) misconception that the 53% leaving to industry after their PhD are sort of failed professors. At least in CS, and probably a lot of other STEM fields as well, many PhD students start with the full intention of leaving academia sometime. Hence, the better question the diagram should be asking is How many of those that want to become professors actually do?. Basically, I could come up with similar low percentages for every field. Let's say less than 1% of all working population of a city works in supermarkets. Does that mean that supermarket jobs are horribly hard to break into? No, because most people do not have the career goal of working in a supermarket in the first place.
Similarly for the 17% non-university research. In CS, good industry labs (like the ones at IBM or Microsoft) are preferable options for many researchers, so they would not take a professorship even if offered.
As already stated by commenters above, the title professor means different things in different places. In Austria, for instance, many high school teachers are officially "professors" (tenured even), despite not having a PhD or ever doing research. In Great Britain, very few people are professors (most are lecturers or senior lecturers). In Madrid I know an academic research lab (not affiliated with a university) that calls their staff members research professors. Job titles are almost never clear-cut.

That being said, I do think that there is a problem. If we assume a reasonably stable system (number of professors in a discipline stays more or less constant), then every tenured professor is in average allowed to see one of her/his students through to also become a tenured professor. Given that many tenured professors (at least here in Europe) maintain groups of 15+ PhD students at a time, I is pretty obvious even without digging into the data too much that the job market for professors is insanely competitive (which, incidentally, captures my personal experience hunting for tenure-track positions pretty well).

I have seen this graph in Physics Today, and would like to come to the defence of the authors: all your caveats were pointed out in full in the caption accompanying the graph.

Correction: It was Physics World, not Physics Today.

Coming from a field and country (chemistry/Germany) where the normal thing to do if you want a job in industry is to do a PhD (of course also if you want to stay in academia, but essentially here > 90 % of the graduating students go on with a PhD) I very much agree with the first point. Note also that this inflates the denominator of the fraction, making the fraction smaller compared to other fields where a PhD essentially means that you aim at a professorship. (The diagram would show this if it started with undergrad students: the main stream would just go all the way BSc -> MSc -> PhD)

An article in Physics World has more information, and appears to be the source of the figure in question (I'm not entirely sure if it is the original source, as the article draws it data from elsewhere).  The article is available to subscribers, and the full citation is:

Harris, Margaret. "The academic pyramid." Physics World 25, no. 10 (2012): 54-57.

It appears to be presently mirrored here, and my information is drawn from the mirror.  It answers some questions on data sources that were lost when the image got its own life without proper context.  Data are for STEM fields, and are relevant for the United Kingdom.  The figure caption reads:

Transition points in typical academic scientific careers following a PhD. Based on data from the Higher
  Education Funding Council for England, the Research Base Funders Forum and the Higher Education
  Statistics Agency’s annual “Destinations of leavers from higher education” survey.

Furthermore, the article states:

Statistics
  suggest that the vast majority of people who
  complete science PhDs will never obtain a
  permanent academic post. This is vividly
  illustrated in a diagram published in 2010
  by the Royal Society as part of a report on
  the future of scientific careers in the UK
  (figure 1). Drawing on data from various
  UK sources, the diagram follows a “typical
  academic career” through a series of post-
  PhD transition points, when large numbers
  of people leave the university environment
  for careers in, say, government or industrial
  research. These data show that less than
  0.5% of science PhD students will ever
  become full professors, while just 3.5% will
  obtain lower-ranking permanent positions
  as research staff at universities.
For physicists, that 3.5% figure is probably a little low.  Slightly older data collected by the Institute of Physics and the
  US National Science Foundation suggest
  that the fraction of physics PhD students
  who obtain permanent academic jobs has
  historically hovered between 10 and 20%.

(...) But many more do want to stay in academia:

Indeed, according to an August 2012 survey carried out
  by the American Institute of Physics (AIP),
  nearly half (46%) of new physics PhD stu-
  dents at US institutions want to work in a
  university. The next most popular career
  plan among those surveyed, attracting 18%
  of responses, was “unsure”.

For more information, the article points to the UK group Vitae, UK science advocacy group Science is Vital, and the US NSF Statistics page.
So, for physics, it appears between ¼–½ of PhD students who want to get permanent academic positions, ultimately succeed in doing so.  That's a quite different figure than 0.5% (but still problematic, as the article discusses in some detail).

The statistic in your second quote is for new PhD students, though.  Other statistics I have seen (I think for mathematics, but possibly for all subjects, in the UK) show that the proportion of PhD students intending to pursue an academic career drops off considerably later in the PhD.

@TaraB That may be because they realise the poor opportunities.  One could argue that the observation at the start is more appropriate, as it's more independent of probability of succeeding.

At the risk of thread necromancy, since PhDs (at least in the UK) have something like a 30% non-completion rate, the choice of counting at the start or end of the doctorate will have a rather major effect on the numbers...

Under stable situation, this probably can always be approximated by dividing the number of professor positions by the number of the PhD student positions, and normally makes numbers below 10 %. Same way you can calculate your chances of getting any other reputable, sufficiently well paid position below professor.
Apart lots of hard work, making to professors also requires a great deal of success. Counting on this is same as counting on getting a gold medal in Olympics: somebody does, but if this is the only your reason to participate, be ready for disappointments.

In the US, only a minority of "tenured professors" work in departments which grant PhDs: I would guess probably 1/3.  Is it similar in Europe? (I would guess not so much.)  I mention this as a possible explanation for why my percentages (which are US-centric, because that's what I know and have data for) are different from yours.

Then multiply the number of professors positions by the factor you assume before calculating the proportion. In Europe, "professor" is normally a very highly ranked position in a university or the like.

Audrius: Okay, good.  That brings our calculations/estimates in line then.

Another related data point quoted from the article "The disposable academic" in the Economist.

Indeed, the production of PhDs has far outstripped demand for university lecturers. In a recent book, Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus, an academic and a journalist, report that America produced more than 100,000 doctoral degrees between 2005 and 2009. In the same period there were just 16,000 new professorships. Using PhD students to do much of the undergraduate teaching cuts the number of full-time jobs. Even in Canada, where the output of PhD graduates has grown relatively modestly, universities conferred 4,800 doctorate degrees in 2007 but hired just 2,616 new full-time professors. Only a few fast-developing countries, such as Brazil and China, now seem short of PhDs.

The ratio of doctoral graduates to new professorships reported here (16% for the U.S. figures, 54.5% for Canada) is orders of magnitude higher than the statistics quoted in the question (0.45%).
Though the quoted numbers are not directly comparable with those of the question (quoted numbers are not STEM while those of the question are STEM; quoted numbers are from US/Canada while those of the question are from the UK; etc.) it is hard to understand why there would be an orders of magnitude difference.
(Perhaps there is some semantic difference in what "professor" is interpreted as, perhaps having a stricter meaning in the UK -- suggested by Mark Meckes in his comment -- as being something closer to having an endowed chair.)


text:
Can I cite an old book in my research proposal without having read it?
Here's a small dilemma. I have a few ideas that I am putting into the form of a research proposal. It borrows heavily from the insights of David Ricardo's Theory of Comparative Advantage. Now, the notion of comparative advantage is pretty much common knowledge in economics. However, my proposal is for research in Complex Networks.
Should I cite David Ricardo's original book from 1817 in which he published the idea, without having read it? (I doubt I'll be able to follow the argument easily in Enlightenment-period English) Or should I cite a secondary paper by someone more modern that talks about and analyzes comparative advantage? I would prefer the latter route as I would actually be able to read the material that I'm citing, but then I will not be going to the source of the original idea.

You need to read the material you cite.  That does not mean you need to read an entire book if the relevant portion is in one or a few chapters, but just plopping in a citation without ever cracking the cover is reference padding and is academic misconduct.
You've been given good advice by J. Fabian Meier about also citing newer material, but you can't cite something you haven't read.

I disagree with the implication that you should necessarily read the material you cite. In my field (theoretical CS), it is common to attribute definitions, theorems, etc., to the original paper where they were introduced, just to give the reader a kind of historical pointer. In many cases, authors do so without any familiarity with the work they are citing, and the citation only acts as a kind of unique identifier. I don't see the harm in this -- it is common practice, and people in the field don't expect authors to have read such references, so I don't see how it would constitute misconduct.

@a3nm  "Pointers" go in a bibliography.  You can even write an annotated bibliography, and many of us have had to do so.  Citations are to material you have read, understood, and have assimilated.

OK, so I think there might be a difference in terminology across fields. In a theoretical CS article, every time you refer to a different article, it is called a "citation" and gets an entry in what we call a "bibiography". There is no material difference between pointers and what you call a citation. Hence, there is no formal expectation for the author to have read the material in citations.

It is common in discrete optimization to cite a bunch of references in the introduction - something like "a similar problem was also considered by [X,Y,Z]". It is usually a waste of time to read all of them thoroughly. I agree, though, that you should not cite a source that you have not looked at or of which you do not know the method or result.

In general, using the original source is a good thing. But if the original source is very old, and much discussion and development has happened since, it is not advisable to only cite this original source but something more recent. This does not mean that you cannot cite Ricardo in your introduction, but if you go into the details, I would cite a recent, respected work that offers a modern view.

In your place, I would read just enough of Ricardo’s book to support whatever point you're making, and cite it. As Bob Brown wrote, you don’t have to read the whole thing to cite a single claim from a single section.
I’m also a little unsure why you consider Enlightenment-period English so unreadable. Here’s a sample of the prose I encountered when I looked up Ricardo’s 1817 book online:

There are some commodities, the value of which is determined by their scarcity alone. No labour can increase the quantity of such goods, and therefore their value cannot be lowered by an increased supply. Some rare statues and pictures, scarce books and coins, wines of a peculiar quality, which can be made only from grapes grown on a particular soil, of which there is a very limited quantity, are all of this description. Their value is wholly independent of the quantity of labour originally necessary to produce them, and varies with the varying wealth and inclinations of those who are desirous to possess them. These commodities, however, form a very small part of the mass of commodities daily exchanged in the market.

This is easily comprehensible to me even as a non-economist, and a far more clearly written than a lot of present-day scientific articles I’ve read.

Thanks. Yes, I was a little hasty in assuming that the English was hard to read. You're point on not having to read the entire book is well taken. That was more precisely what I was trying to convey in my rather poorly framed question.

(from the question above)

...  a research proposal. It borrows heavily from ...

Always read the original work, unless perhaps you'd have to learn a whole new language. Shakespeare's English is easy enough to understand once you've gotten into it, a text half as old shoudn't be a large problem.

It is usual to cite a lot of papers that you have just skimmed through. It is a waste of time to read everything if there is a high probability that you find nothing interesting in the text. You might say: So if I do not want to read it, don't cite it. But the culture of many research areas demands that you cite 10+ papers if you write one.

@J.FabianMeier If you are not prepared to read ten or twenty papers to write one, you should simply not write scientific papers. And why on earth would you cite a paper which has nothing interesting (for whatever you write about) in it?

My last paper built upon 5 other papers which I thoroughly read. But in the introduction, I need to mention all relevant papers that also considered the problem, even if I knew, after skimming through them, that their method and their results where no help to my research.


text:
Should I withdraw a submission?
I worked on a paper in computer science (CS) from half a year approximately, so I decided to send it to the JUCS journal. They kindly informed me that they were not able to find enough reviewers for my article and so I decided to send it somewhere else. After that, I sent it to another journal that covers general topics in CS, but it got rejected. The justification was because they said the article lacked of the necessary algorithmic formalism but the problem is that only one reviewer sent out their comments after almost six months. I thought my paper was almost forgotten, because when I wrote to the editor I never got an answer.
After this rejection I submitted my work to a conference, and it finally got accepted. The recommendations were to proofread the paper, and well just to add more references. I consider that is valuable to mention that the journals and this conference are indexed in Scopus.
The problem that I have is that I found that there is a top ACM conference in this field. So, I do not know if I should withdraw my paper from the conference that already accepted it and re-submit it for this new conference. The reason for doing this is because I am very curious about what would be the feedback of the reviewers in this conference. I know that maybe it will get rejected, because I saw that the submissions come mostly from well renowned universities such as MIT or Stanford.
Bottom line, what should I do in this situation? Any advice? Should I just present my research into the conference that already accepted it, and after that to send it for comments to a professor in this area?
Thanks

This is clearly a judgement call and I can only offer opinion. But if you withdraw from the conference at which it was accepted you won't be able to resubmit there if you are rejected by the other. This narrows your future options for this paper.
I'd therefore suggest that you stay with what you have (a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush).
But this is just one paper. Write more papers and expand your knowledge about good places to submit them. One paper is just one paper. It isn't your entire career.

I strongly recommend that you not withdraw the article for the reason you have given. You probably have not thought about it this way, but I would consider it disrespectful to the volunteer editors and peer reviewers who took the time to review your article and give you feedback with the expectation that you will present your research to the conference to which you submitted. Although there are many good reasons to withdraw an accepted article, I do not consider yours to be one of them. You would be wasting their time without giving them the reward for their volunteered time: the opportunity to help participants in that conference for which they volunteered to see good research like yours.
Even though many people might disagree with my view, please be aware that if ever in the future you were to submit an article somewhere and the same editor might handle your article as an editor or reviewer (and computer science peer review is usually single-blind), this experience would probably stamp your name in their mind, and not in a good way.

On top of what Tripartio said, you've already had a couple three rejects.  Clearly this work is not clearly in demand.  You don't even know if you'll get into that other specialty conference.  Bird in the hand...  Just go with what the current plan is and move on to other things.  You don't want to keep messing with this, more.


text:
Long Delay from Springer Journal: Should I Continue Waiting or Seek Alternatives?
I submitted an article to a Springer journal 13 months ago. Each time I inquire about the status, I receive the same response:
"The paper is currently with the editor for evaluation and the editor will render a decision directly or will initiate the review process."
My main concerns are:
Decision Timeline: If the editor decides to render a decision without initiating the review process, is it more likely to be an acceptance or a rejection?
Review Process: If the editor does initiate the review process, how long might this take, and would it require two positive reviews for acceptance?
I am particularly worried about wasting more time as I need this article for my PhD program. Should I continue waiting or consider withdrawing my submission and seeking another journal?
Thank you for your advice and insights.

13 months seems too long. I would withdraw it from further consideration with a formal request to the editorial staff.

Is the paper such that reviewers might be especially difficult to find?


text:
Choose master thesis topic
These days I'm going to take the subject of my master. I'm wondering how to search about the subject and how to decide which master thesis I can take and work. The one option is to go to a professor and take anything that he gives me and work with if I like it. Is any other way to search about hot topics on my research area? So far, I have search on google scholar for related work on my area... Any other suggestion that I can do before decide for the subject is more than appreciated.

My advice would be to go visit not one professor, but a few. Don't ask them specifically for a thesis topic, but tell them you are looking around and ask them to talk to you about their research. Ask about weekly seminars at your department, and go listen to a few of those. Get a broad view of the different topics that groups around you are working on, then decide on something.

You should have a research methods teacher who will guide you through the process of identifying a good area of research for you.
Your thesis will take a significant amount of work and you need to consider many things. For example, what are you interested in? If you select a topic which you are not interested in then you will likely lose hope and go nowhere or do a poor job, receiving a poor mark.
Another consideration is access. This is a significant issue in research related to business management. For example, if you want to study how telecommunication companies do something specific with regards to recruitment, you need to make sure you actually have access to telecommunication company HR departments. Without that access even if you are interested, you will find yourself very frustrated, again turning in poor quality work receiving a poor mark.
Basically, you should have a teacher who will walk you through this. If you don't, you should have an adviser who can walk you through this. If you don't have that, then I would definitely take advice from @F'x and ask several professors to get some ideas and narrow it down from there.


text:
How to cite a database from R or another source
I use data() from R, i get the following info from the sunspot dataset:

Yearly numbers of sunspots from 1700 to 1988 (rounded to one digit).
   Source: H. Tong (1996) Non-Linear Time Series. Clarendon Press, Oxford, p. 471.

But in the way I need to reference it, It seems that it is not enough information. The data I need:
@misc{anudc:4896
author = {Claire O'Brien},
title = {{Impact of Colonoscopy Bowel Preparation on Intestinal Microbiota},
doi = {10.4225/13/511C71F8612C3},
howpublished= {\url{http://dx.doi.org/10.4225/13/511C71F8612C3}}

Im not sure about how to reference properly a data set, in terms of which info is enough, not the style of references.

Those examples seem like they contain enough information to me. If you’re not sure how to reference a data set, why not read the APA, MLA, or University of Chicago guidelines? They’re easily available on google.

Please I re-edited, there's no enough info I think

What about this?
@article{tong1990non,
title={Non-linear time series},
author={Tong, Howell},
journal={A Dynamical System Approach},
year={1990},
publisher={Oxford Univ. Press}
}

I used google scholar to find the right citation. Took less than a minute :)


text:
Publisher (online, refereed journal) is not publishing the volume containing my paper - what are my options?
In 2010, I had a paper accepted for online publication by a refereed journal.  I was given a URL for my article, and told which volume would contain the article.
The journal has never published that volume. Repeated inquiries (via emails) with the journal editor have produced nothing that indicates the journal ever intends to publish that volume (containing my paper).
The Journal is IJAMT (International Journal of Applied Management and Technology). It is published by Walden University. When you go to look at the listing of volumes, Volumes 8, 10, and 12 are published. There is no mention at all for the volumes Volumes 9 and 11.
At this point, I am considering submitting to another journal - however, am I 'bound' to IJAMT, seeing as they have not actually published the article?
What are my options here?  Can I 'undo' this, and be free to submit to another journal?
Update: Thanks for the comments, All...  I am not employed at Walden - my submission was 'external'...  There was no signed agreement.  I think I'll take the advice to send them an email... it has been a few years now, so I'm of the opinion that sufficient time has occurred.  Thanks again!  Pete

Welcome to Academia SE and thank you for your question. Can you please [edit] your question to specify whether we are talking about a special issue here and whether later issues of the journal were published, as this may be relevant.

Is this actually a reputable journal, or might it be a predatory fly-by-night shop?

@CaptainEmacs Why not turn your comment into an answer? Maybe adding that universities normally have a legal department that might offer legal advice on such topics, as long as Peter is employed at one.

@DirkLiebhold Followed your suggestion. I removed the comment to avoid duplication.

Have you signed a copyright transfer agreement?

If you have never signed your copyright over to them, you're probably in the clear legally. If you also mention the situation in your cover letter to the editor of the next journal you submit to, I don't think anyone could fault you for your actions.

Can you find a telephone number to ring them? If not, you write an email and state that, if there is no response until [some reasonable time frame], you assume that they are not intending to publish the work, and having invested considerable time in the development of the paper, you will consider yourself fully entitled to publish the paper elsewhere.
Note that I do not know what the legal situation is (this is not the place for legal questions).
However, as per Dirk's suggestion, I add that universities have a legal department that might offer legal advice on such topics, as long as OP is employed at one.


text:
What are some important questions to ask former alumni of a PhD program we will enrol in?
After a long and nerve-racking application season, I have finally managed to get into one of my top-choice PhD programs. As luck would have it, one of the recent alumnae of the same PhD program happens to be an assistant professor at my current university (though our research areas are slightly different, and she had a different advisor in that program).
Following the advice of my current MA advisor, I have set up a meeting with this alumna to get information from her about the program. I have tried to think of some basic questions to ask her, such as how much flexibility is allowed to the students with regard to taking courses, choosing co-advisors, as well as about how the PhD process works, what the most important milestones are and what particular challenges one should be wary of, etc.
But I understand that there may be many other questions that are hiding in plain sight for me, simply because I am a "greenhorn" graduate student. I believe that there are more experienced PhD students (as well as PhD degree holders) on this website, and I was wondering, after all those years you have spent as a PhD student, what would you wish you had asked a former alumnus/alumna before starting your program? I am especially interested in knowing which questions you think are "the important questions that almost nobody thinks of asking."
Thank you!
P.S. I have already accepted the admission offer, so I will be asking this alumna for advice on how to be successful in that program, not on whether I should choose this program or a different one.

Are you trying to evaluate the program (you may choose another one) or position yourself for success, given you will attend the program?

Thank you for asking this! I should have clarified this point. I have already accepted the admission offer, so yes, I am looking for tips that will help me become successful in that program.

Any internal politics in the department or between another department.

You have a good start (how much flexibility is allowed to the students with regard to taking courses, choosing co-advisors, as well as about how the PhD process works, what the most important milestones are and what particular challenges one should be wary of).  Note that how the PhD process works is something you might want to leave out because the department materials should already lay that out, and it might take up a lot of valuable time for her to explain that in your interview.  But do make sure to read all the department materials before you meet with her.
I'll propose some questions to add to your list, but there are probably some things I'm not thinking of, and also you'll want to select a subset of these ideas, since it might be overwhelming to ask all of them.

Write a list of the key members of the cast of characters.  Give her a copy of the list when you meet with her, and take your own notes about what she says.  Ask her which of the names will likely be the most helpful for you over the years, and which ones have pet peeves to watch out for (and what the pet peeves are, of course).  Also ask her what other people might be important to know about, that you left off your list.
Advice for preparing for your qualifying exams.
Advice about course load (two courses vs. three).
Advice about work-life balance.
What do you wish you had known before you started at X University?
Tips for surviving TAing.
How to stay safe while working late and on the weekend on campus.
Suggestions for creating a support network.
What to do between now and then to prepare.
Fun things to do on campus and nearby (this will get your interviewee comfortable, taking a pleasurable walk down memory lane -- so it might be a good one to ask at the one-third point).

The more questions one asks, the more one might convey an attitude of anxiety.  But I personally think it's only sensible to ask questions.  Therefore I suggest that you try to keep the conversation light with plenty of humor, to counteract the possible anxious impression.

Wow, this is brilliant advice! I'll follow your tips when I meet her. Thank you very much for taking the time to write this!


text:
Should I consider university rankings while accepting a PhD offer?
I have two Ph.D. offers. One from a university in Germany which is considered one of the best in Germany and is ranked in the top 150 universities worldwide in my engineering field. The second offer I have is from a university in the US that is ranked at the 20th number in my field according to the QS rankings. My supervisor at the German university is more experienced in the field than my potential supervisor in the USA? Considering this should I prioritize the experience of my potential supervisor in Germany or the better university rank in the USA?

Have you searched here for other questions about university rankings? What did you learn and what makes your question distinct?

Who cares about rankings IMO. Go where you will have a passion for research!

@BryanKrause My dilemma is about the experience of my potential supervisors. that's what makes my question unique.

Thank you for your comment @Shinobii

@DanielSempere Have you actually searched here for other questions?

Being in a top German university (place 1-3 nationally) is probably slightly better on average than being in a top-20 US university. Just look up the names, and you'll probably see that the amount of successful tenure-track professors from the former is higher (when normalized, etc.). Indeed, for countries with a strong HE system, it's better to graduate from their top universities than from a rank-20 US university, on average.

There are a lot of things to consider and ranking probably shouldn't be at the top of your list. IMO, the supervisor trumps the university ranking by a lot. If you have someone helpful and skilled you will likely do well. And if they are also known, they can give you a boost in your later career.
But the country of the institution might also matter a bit. Do you want a career in Europe, especially Germany, or in the US. How about funding? How about general disruption of moving to a new place? Do you have family constraints or considerations?
Lots of things. Ranking is in there somewhere, but it would be a mistake to choose on that alone.