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Can professors arrange for an MSc scholarship if you contact them by e-mail and they are interested in working with you?
I wanted to know if one can get MSc scholarships just by emailing professors from different universities, by showing them that we have some interest and some experience in fields that they have research interests in.
I am thinking mostly about universities in Germany, Australia, and the UK.

When you say you are looking to do a masters, are you looking to do a masters by research (where you are basically doing half a PhD) or a masters by coursework (which is roughly one year coursework, and 6 months to 1 year research). In Australia there is a distinction, I don't think Germany has an option to do it by research, and I don't know about UK. If you do by coursework, often you'll be able to get to know potential supervisors during the first year

germany
Teaching and Research Assistants, not Scholarships
Compared to some other countries, scholarships in Germany are underdeveloped. (On the other hand, university fees are very low, but a student still needs a living.) What a professor may be able to give to a suitable student are paid positions as teaching or research assistants.

These assistants are employed by the university, but the professor who is leading a team will have a significant input on who gets hired. When a highly regarded professor is about to get tenure, he or she may negotiate with the university about working conditions, which may include a few such assistants working directly for the professor.
Assistants will usually have some academic credentials, such as a Bachelor or Master.
A professor will be thesis advisor to many more students than there are paid positions. Most of his or her students will not get one.

It is not impossible that a paid position goes to a student who did not work with the professor before. If you have a personal recommendation from your current professor and this professor knows the professor who is hiring, maybe. But a cold call expressing "some interest" won't do.

but if I am not mistaken, you have to be proficient in German to become TA right?

@edelweiss, some classes are using English. Depends on the particulars.

I have received many unsolicited letters of this kind. They are so often clearly from people who have no idea who I am or what I do (despite what they say) that I routinely flag them as spam. So even if your request is truly legitimate, it is unlikely to get any response.
You should simply apply to the schools you are interested in.
I suspect (but do not know) that funding for a Master's degree is rare.

May I know where you are from? And do professors have that kind of authority to provide students with scholarships?

I'm in the US. Individual professors rarely have this authority at the Master's level. In an individual exceptional case a recommendation to the department admissions committee might be effective.

Some universities give funding automatically to all accepted Master's students, I don't know how common this is though, an example is U Waterloo.

This may be true for MSc. But it is important to note that this is not universally true for PhD students. E-mail can definitely help. See my answer.

@AmerAl-Amry at least in physics it's common in Canadian universities, probably similar in most STEM fields, less likely in liberal arts.

As university education in Germany is free, scholarships are not very common, and they are (almost) never given out by individuals at universities. If you want to do a masters at a German university, simply apply--it is often not that hard to get a spot (see also my answer on this question). It might be possible that you get a job at the university as a student researcher once you are admitted, but if you want to find a scholarship to pay for your living expenses, look elsewhere (e.g. DAAD, as has been suggested in the comments).
But depending on where you are studying, finding a student job outside of university is also quite easy in most bigger cities if you are not terribly picky.

Australia as far as I know
Master of Philosophy (Higher Degree by Research)
It is important for you to check the website of the universities/institutions where the professors are working. All the information about scholarships will be available there. If you just email them without looking for information yourself, you are wasting their time.
Probably, there will be scholarships designated for specific projects which professors are looking for students. You may contact them to express your interest, and to ask them if they are willing to supervise you. Then you can proceed with application for the programs and the scholarships, yet it is worth mentioning that these scholarships are mostly for PhD students.
For general scholarships (many universities offer Master by Research/MPhil scholarships without specifying the eligible programs and projects), in my opinions, it is  not appropriate to send emails to potential supervisors solely to ask for Master (by Research) scholarships. You may send emails to them to express your interest, to know more about them, and to know if they are willing to  supervise you. If they agree, you (and the potential supervisor(s)) can proceed with application for the programs and the scholarships.
Professors are generally not in charge of giving scholarships even if there will be designated scholarships for potential MPhil/PhD students working on their projects, yet the support of potential supervisors will influence the chance of getting the scholarships, so the most important step is to convince them to supervise you first. Without this, no scholarship whatsover.
Moreover, make sure that you are eligible to apply for the programs and the scholarships.
Master by Coursework
If you are not interested in doing research, and you simply want to apply for a taught master, there will be probably no full (merit-based) scholarship from most universities. Probably there will be 50% scholarships from some (good) universities, but the required GPA is really high (min: 6.5 - 6.8/7). 15-30% scholarships are probably more common (min: 5.5-6/7), but given the high tuition fee and living cost in Australia, I think you already have the answer for this.
For most universities, you can get at most  ONE merit-based scholarship. There will be top-up scholarships that are worth 500 to a couple of thousands of AUD. Depending on the universities you are applying to, you can get a few top-up scholarships, but there will be a limit.
Professors will probably have ZERO influence on these scholarships mentioned above. You just need a good (or more precisely, a ridiculously good) GPA.
There is a prestigious scholarship from the Australian Government (the Australia Award) which covers everything, but you have to go back to your home country and stay there for at least 2 years? after finishing the degree program unless you repay every buck they give you. That is a limitation as you cannot apply to any working VISA after graduation (e.g 485), and cannot leave your country for a long period of time during these 2 years, but that is the purpose of that award which is to help developing countries. If you do not care about working opportunities in Australia after graduation, or you have no plan for further study after graduation, I think it could be a good opportunity. Just do not take advantage of it for unethical motivations.

No, or not in the UK at least. This approach is very unlikely to work, for many of the same reasons others have said: (a) individual academics are unlikely to be those controlling the purse-strings; and (b) there isn't much in the purse to begin with.
One of my institutions has relatively generous funding at the masters' level compared to some, but it is still absolutely the exception to get funding for a masters' level-qualification, and moreover they are incredibly competitive. Often the applicant has to be put forward to it by a bunch of academics in at least two committees -- one admitting them to the university and recommending that they are considered for one of the rare and prestigious sources of funding; and then the second committee awarding them the scholarship. Both of these are formal processes, and the academics on them are likely doing it as some form of their "service" for having a permanent job.
Note that there has been a big switch in recent years to the completely blind judging of applicants for these things: an anonymous CV is compiled with their name, gender, and the like removed and they are supposed to be judged objectively on their merits. In such circumstances even if the academic you emailed wanted to swing things in your favour and was in a position to do so -- all separately unlikely events -- this system would effectively make it far harder for them to do so.
However, talking to academics is a good thing to do if you are interested in the course -- but write a personalised, relevant email and not a "dear valued professor" spam that I get a lot of daily. If they tell you to apply, apply! Go through the process, and see if funding can be found -- and if not, well, there are other options ranging from professional loans to separate charitable bodies, to other institutions.

I haven't seen any "dear valued professor" before but it does sound like "dear valued customer"

Professors are not in charge of giving or not giving scholarships.
In most cases, universities or organizations are in charge of scholarships.
Here, in México, you can apply to a scholarship once you got accepted into a Master or a PhD program. Of course, budget depends on how relevant and/or important the institution where you're doing it is, as well as your research topic.
You may try asking to people in charge in the university if they have scholarships (for international students, if you're willing to apply in other countries).
Good luck!

For Australia, no way.   Scholarships are mainly for PhD students.  Further, it is quite rare for a supervisor to simply give you his/her scholarships, if any.
Scholarships funded by the industry or Australian government are usually advertised at 'THE Unijobs' or Seek.com.  Apply for them like any jobs, and compete with other applicants.

Actually, it is possible to get MPhil scholarship. Of course, the priority will always be given to PhD students, but if one wants to apply for full-scholarship for Master by Coursework programs. Impossible but waaaittt, there is actually only one option which is the Australia Awards, however, there will be no opportunity to work in Australia even in academia after graduating unless you repay all the money you receive, so it is quite limited.

In Germany: Nope
Not going to happen. Professors do not handle Master's scholarships, and hardly any universities offer them. Some NON-UNIVERSITY organizations offer scholarships, which is how to obtain them in Germany, because you get none from the universities. And even if you could: not as a master's student and not by emailing a professor. There would be a regular way to apply for it.

For germany we dont need scholarship anyway. But can we be granted admission by emailing professors?

@MJay: Did you read Susula's answer and its linked question ? Admission via the official process is rather straightforward, so your idea has obvious drawbacks and no clear benefits.

@MJay also nope. Leave the profs alone, they have a) already enough on their plate and b) absolutely ZERO say over anything administrative for Masters students. Germany is very much against special ways into programs, there is a regular path, all documents are almost certainly also available in english so there is no reason to try and be special

E-mailing a professor to be their student is possible, and happens, but only in case you really really are a good fit!
If you are clearly not a good fit, and this is usually the case and shows clearly, in most cases you are unfortunately going to get ignored (i.e., the professor viewed you as spam).
Unlike the previous answers here, I definitely think, and know for a fact, that e-mailing a professor may be even a necessary condition to get you a scholarship in many schools. Unlike in some US schools where the recruitment is supposedly central, and even in these US schools, a specific professor who supports you can be crucial to get accepted. (But mostly for PhD, not MSc, and again, only if you are really fit and top student.)
Note from experience: I receive many such emails. 95% are clearly not a good fit, but sometimes I do get excellent students.

OP specifically asked about masters.

@BryanKrause, there's a difference between Research Masters and taught masters. For the latter, admission is usually central. For the former, admission can be done based on individual considerations, hence an email can help (depending on the institution/country).


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How do you have time to hit the gym during your PhD?
I'm currently working as an accountant, I work out regularly, 6 times a week, and my gym sessions are around 1h, but I could reduce them to 30-40min if I'm focused. I'm about to start a PhD and I'm asked to dedicate 2.5 days per week to research, around 8 and a half hours per day. I'm currently looking forward to working as a teaching assistant, which I assume is around 20-30h per week, 4-6h per weekday. I have no problem in reducing my workout sessions to 3 days per week.
How do you find work-research-exercise balance?

Don't be so focused to the exercise part (although it may help, endorphines are powerful :D ) . Exercising is an important part of your life, and it is as important as other activiteis people are doing. Try to look at the topic "work-life balance" for full researchers (i.e. PhDs without TA duties, PostDocs). The median picture is grime, sorry for bringing it to your attention.

I mean, that's only 6 hours of time a week. Many people have hobbies that eat a lot more time than that.

That’s a lot of hours teaching. Are your fellow students also spending 20-30 hours? In my experience more than 15 hr/wk is pretty unusual.

@xLeitix 6 hrs per week, or, if counting that you should sleep 10 hours per day and work 8 hours per day, let's count also 1h per day to eat,  it is only 1/4  ~ 1/5 of your available time during the Mo-Fr time frame ...

@EarlGrey Still, my point stands that many people, myself included, have hobbies that they spend more than 6 hours a week on. Of course if you work 8 hours, sleep 9 hours, eat for one hour, and look after the kids for 6 hours you won't have enough time, but not because you are a PhD student.

@xLeitix I was confuting the only part, not the rest. We have very limited time on this planet, and although our productivity increased something like 50 times since the 1950s  (thanks to computer and technology) , we still work +-40h per week (with a comparatively lower power of purchase) ;)

I'm not a graduate student myself, but I have seen graduate students and even professors (from my department) make use of my campus gym.  Generally they do have to pay an additional fee though, while undergrads already have it covered in their tuition.

I pumped iron about 3 times per week, at least hour per session, and still had time to do research and socializing, with schedule just a bit less tense than yours.
I could do more, but I am too lazy. I think that workout time is the smallest issue here. After all, you can ponder your research while exercising. But the biggest limitation could be commute to and from the gym. It's boring, tedious and inconvenient to think/work.
Just make sure your gym is no more than 30 minutes away from your home, and you can enjoy them gainz the way you like.
Important note: I can't FULLY comprehend your workload, so before you take my advice, just get one month gym membership and see if it's feasible.

Actually, an hour or so break during the day, especially for somewhat aerobic exercise, can increase productivity. This was my experience, though not at a gym; bicycling (25 miles or so), racketball, ...
It is easy to get stuck on problems and research. The brain benefits from periods of rest. It doesn't stop working, but lets things come in to focus subconsciously. It is to easy to over-focus when working on some sorts of problems. Many people have had the experience that the solution to a tricky problem suddenly appears after a period of rest or a change of focus.
Exercise breaks also help you avoid burn-out, which can be an issue for some in doctoral study.

Most universities have their own gymnasium onsite, which makes it pretty easy to steal an hour for a work-out during a day where you are on campus doing research.  Many students and academics who are interested in this will do a work-out in the morning or evening while they are on campus, or sneak a break for it during the day.  Moreover, a great deal of research is done by mulling over problems outside of the office, while walking or exercising, or even while sleeping.  (Many a PhD student can attest to the research breakthrough they dreamed while asleep.)  It is possible to exercise while mulling through research problems and this type of break can actually contribute positively towards your health and thinking --- don't see these things as mutually exclusive; instead look at workout time as a time to get some physical exercise while you mull over problems at your own leisure.

Leave the gym, get a bike and integrate the workout in your commute. You can easily get 60-90 minutes workout every day you go to the office if you want. Rent places accordingly such that you have a good set of routes between home and work. Prepare some answers for weird questions of colleagues. Find out where you can use a shower at work (universities usually have some, or those at the university gym).

While in my own PhD, I did make a point of reserving an hour a day, 7 days a week, for various exercise bits... which I did in my small apartment, to avoid the complications+time of going to a university gym. And I did bike everywhere. Also, at least 5/7 days per week, practiced piano for an hour.
Not necessarily morally virtuous, but mainly substituted for other, relatively non-constructive, activities. Yes, some things sacrificed were social... but/and socializing does all-too-easily soak up huge amounts of time. Possibly fun time, yes, but, ... Yes, there are quite a few hours in the day, but not an unlimited number.

Your estimates seems to me a bit too rigid.
Calculating the time you work in such a "corporate" way is probably a healthy thing to do to correctly assess and preserve your work-life equilibrium.
However, if you do that estimate about PhDs work, interviewing recent graduates, you would probably discover that to finish the median PhD, it takes 5 years of dedicating 5 days per week to research on top of 3.5 days per week to TA role. You are lucky that academic are able to create negative time, where they actually relax -1.5 days per week, which means they not only not relax, but they actually get more and more tired every week that passes.

There are many practical solutions suggested in other answers. Two thoughts about what worked for me:

At least where I was a student, the University had a gym and there were personal training sessions that were relatively inexpensive. Setting up a time with a personal trainer can force you to keep to a regular schedule, since you are investing some money and also since you have an appointment. (It also gives you a legitimate reason to say "I'm sorry I cannot meet at X time because of a regular appointment" -- just try not to schedule sessions during hours you'd normally be expected to be available).

If you ever find yourself wanting to give up the gym to have more time for research, please consider that you can't do research if you don't have your health. Maybe occasionally you'll need to move a time around to accommodate work, but don't compromise on making time for yourself to do important things that are not research.

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Two different recommenders asked me to draft my own recommendation letter for my faculty application. How to distinguish the two?
I am applying to faculty positions and two of the people I asked to be my references requested me to provide a draft of the recommendation letter. I am in a STEM field. Is this common practice even when applying for faculty positions? Should I take it as a really bad sign and try to find other references for the next application I submit?
Writing one draft is daunting enough, but writing two seems even more difficult. I do not know how much the draft will get edited in the end, and I also worry that the two letters might end up looking too similar.  At this point I do wish I had asked someone else, but I do not think I can retract my request.
How can I distinguish the two drafts I write? An obvious thing to take into account is how these two people know me (which will distinguish them). I can also try to introduce differences in tone and style, but doing so feels just wrong. Yet not doing this risks that it will show through that both were written by the same person. This is of course assuming that the referees will make only few edits. Unfortunately I do not know what they will do with the drafts. If they take the approach form @BrianGPeterson's answer, then there shouldn't be a problem. But I was not asked for a general description of myself or the position. I was asked for a draft.

Related: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1452/points-to-remember-when-having-to-write-recommendation-letter-yourself

Should I take it as a really bad sign and try to find other references for the next application I submit? -- Yes.

Have you already tried asking at least one of them to write the letter themselves? If you explain the situation they will surely understand.

Let me answer this from a somewhat different perspective.  I'm an industrial researcher and have written a fair number of letters for former interns applying to faculty positions or sometimes other research labs.  I always write them myself and focus on on the experience I had with the student.  And I definitely wouldn't want them putting words in my mouth.
But I've written a number of support letters for visa requests too.  These are typically extremely flowery prose, talking about how absolutely wonderful the applicant is.   And I hate to write such a letter because I know I won't do it in the same style that the immigration lawyers write it, and I worry my own letter won't be helpful to their cause.   So in the rare case that they don't provide a template, I ask for one.  Then I edit it to make sure I agree with what's said.
The closest example to the case at hand is when someone who has worked in my office asks both me and a colleague to provide a support letter for the same application.  We're both asking for a draft, and the poor guy has to do exactly what OP here has to.  To the extent that we describe our joint involvement, we're both going to describe the same project, and there is only so much they can be distinguished.
This case is a bit different, though, because such letters go back through the applicant. It means if we don't diverge enough after the recommenders edit the provided example, they (or their immigration attorney) can at least make a determination that more has to be done.
Getting back (at last) to the comparison with a faculty letter, it seems to me there are two questions:

How do you make the "voice" of these letters seem different enough that they're not apparently written by the same person?  This question applies to the immigration case too, and I think the same answer applies: if you can't figure out how to make it different enough on your own, find a trusted advisor who can take the framework (similar to the answer by @Brian-g-Peterson) and rework it on your behalf.
How do you make sure that in the end they aren't too similar?  One aspect is to make them as different as possible in the first place.  Cover some points with one recommender and others with the other.  Also, if there is any opportunity to review the letters, or have someone else get permission to review them on your behalf, they can be sanity checked.

Bottom line: I assume whoever takes the letter is likely to use it only as a starting point, but much of it (and possibly all of it) may survive.  If they overlap, even with one (not very commonplace) sentence, it will be a huge red flag.  Saying "I give XXX my strongest recommendation" is common.  But not much else, if in both letters, can be explained away.  Tread carefully.  Or find other recommenders who'll do it themselves :)

I request that the students I am to write recommendations for, including recommendations to faculty positions, provide me with an executive summary of the position they are applying for, and a bullet list of the strengths which they would like me to highlight that they feel would be relevant for that position.
I do not ask them to write the letter for me, just to give me enough input to help write an effective letter.

That's a good point but it does not directly answer OP's question. We do not know if the purpose of asking the student to write the rec. letter is that the professors want to see the strengths or highlighted points made by the students and then edit the draft, or not. For all we know, the letters could be used as they are.

@PsySp true. The answer could be rephrased as advice to OP to request clarification if the draft merely serves as inspiration or will be used as is.

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Is there such thing as a “quick paper”?
Is there such a thing as a "quick paper"? My experience is that whenever someone proposes writing a "quick paper," it turns out to take much more time than expected, and/or gives poor results. But perhaps I am approaching it wrong.
In your experience, do "quick papers" ever turn out to be quick and worthwhile?

What do you mean by this? Is this some sort of field-specific term of art? I write papers quickly from time to time...I'm going to write one at the end of the month over the span of about 4 days.

You can always write quick papers, yes. If you want the papers to be any good or even accepted through peer review, then that is a completely different topic...

I have had "quick papers" with, what I like to believe, substantial ideas. They may have expressed the condensation of thoughts over the last couple of years, but the computations and write-up of the paper may have taken perhaps just a few days. Of course, the basic code I used had been written as background over long time, but never with a concrete publication in mind. Does this count as a "quick paper"?

In my field, there are various dedicated publication tracks for the type of papers that is quick to write. For the most desirable type of publication, it's impossible to get one in a quick and easy way.

I have done "quick papers" before, in the sense that they didn't require as much time or effort to produce as most of my other publications.  But there are some important reasons for this.  In particular, these papers were almost always the result of my becoming aware of a very specific publishing opportunity which serendipitously overlapped with research that I was already conducting at the time, and which was being arranged by a venue that was much more specialized in scope than the top-tier conferences and journals I usually aim for.
For example, my colleagues and I recently developed a method for automatically assessing rhetorical devices in a particular type of text, and we published a paper on this in one of our field's top conferences.  A few months later, we coincidentally read a call for papers for a shared task for the evaluation of methods like ours, albeit on a somewhat different text type.  It was no great effort to adapt our method to deal with the new text type, run some experiments on the data provided by the organizers, and then submit our results along with a description of our system.  The development and experimental work took only about a week, and it took only a day to write the paper.
Despite the minimal effort we expended, we don't consider ourselves to be "dishonest" or "ignorant".  First of all, this wasn't a junk conference: the call for papers came from a workshop associated with an established and respectable conference organized by a national scholarly association.  The conference is certainly not the most prestigious in the field, but that is more down to its niche and regional focus.  Second, we weren't just resubmitting the same paper to another venue.  We (anonymously) cited our previous method and made it clear that the system we were describing was a modification of it.  The paper therefore focussed on the nature of these modifications and on a quantitative/qualitative error analysis.  We believe that this constitutes an important (albeit not particularly groundbreaking) contribution to the state of the art.  Because it was specifically targetted to a rather narrow audience, the paper is probably not going to rack up a very high citation count, but neither is it going to pass entirely unnoticed.  In short, we think the impact of the paper will be commensurate with the effort we put into it, neither of which was negligible.  We don't regret taking a week of our time to work on it.
Of course, this is not to say that this sort of "quick paper" approach should be the sole focus of one's research career.  As I previously mentioned, my colleagues and I aim for (and frequently achieve) publication in our field's top-tier "broad church" venues.  But sometimes an opportunity presents itself to spin off a strand of our main research into a relatively quick contribution to a more specialized but still-respectable venue.  In these cases we'll certainly consider the cost–benefit tradeoff.

Quick papers exist. I have a number of papers that I wrote in a matter of days. Publication obviously took a bit longer, say one or two months, because of the peer review process. However, these are a rather specific type of paper: These are very narrow in focus, very short, and often more pedagogical than presenting new results. If you are in a field where there is an outlet for this type of articles, then quick papers are definitely viable. Though they should not be your only output. I see them more as a service to the community than a way of advancing my career.

But I bet it was only quick as far as the writing was concerned -- but you took just as long as for other papers to think about the issue and come to conclusions that were worth publishing.

The thinking part mostly happened for other projects. So, these were really that quick.

There is no categorical answer to this, as it depends greatly on many factors. One of them is the field: the paper output rate in mathematics is for example considered to be slower than in other fields (see here). Even inside the same field it might greatly vary. In my field (electrical engineering) it is not unheard of that three-month student projects lead to a paper.
But most importantly, it depends on the project itself, and how advanced it is. A project might consist of taking an idea that has already proven effective in one setting, and testing it in another (maybe more practical/realistic) setting. Depending on how different the settings are, you might get a more or less valuable and more or less quick paper. In general, the higher the "novelty" of the paper, the longer it should take to have it ready, and the higher the uncertainty. But this is just a general statement and there are exceptions. A research group might also have unpublished intermediate results and need your contribution to finish the job.
I would personally advise against blindly falling for promises of quick papers. Instead, I would form my own opinion based on the topic, and decide based on how it fits my own goals: for a short student project, I might be interested in quick, not so novel papers, while for a longer research project I might find an interesting or novel topic more valuable. Of course you might be wrong in your evaluation, but this is less relevant at the beginning of your career, and you will get experience as you progress.
TL; DR: quick papers are not impossible, but as a researcher you should try to decide based on your own evaluation of the project.

There are many quick and good ideas.
But without someone doing a rigorous and systematic study to investigate them, which paper do you think will vanish in nirvana and which one will become the most cited referring to that idea.
Academia is not much about who had an idea first, but who elaborated on that idea at first and extensively. I doubt quick papers can be much more than noise in the literature on a mid-long term perspective.
Quick, short papers without depth will vanish in increasing publication noise very fast in comparison to former times, the dynamics of citation and group citation have completely changed. In physics more and more groups in age of publish or perish focus on longer interdisciplinary hybrid theory-experiment studies and papers to have a impact or get published in good journal. "Quick papers" cannot become more popular/impacting with exponential growth

"Academia is not much about who had an idea first" - citation needed. Case in point: Darwin vs. Wallace - Darwin had by far the more elaborate work, but nonetheless seriously feared loss of priority. Boltzmann vs. Gibbs is another nice one which was only relatively recently rebalanced in fairness to Gibbs. See also "Stigler's law of eponymy"; it's not who discovers first, but who is listened to first who matters. And, of course, let's not go into Leibniz vs. Newton.

@Captain Emacs, good examples,but nearly all dead :-) I'm sure it's something completely different to publish before or after age of internet. Quick, short papers without depth will vanish in increasing publication noise very fast in comparison to former times, the dynamics of citation and group citation have completely changed. In physics more and more groups in age of publish or perish focus on longer interdisciplinary hybrid theory-experiment studies and papers to have a impact or get published in good journal. "Quick papers" cannot become more popular/impacting with exponential growth

I am not convinced. Hopfield's paper is not long and the idea very compact. Ok, you can say it is pre-internet, but really I think the so-called "good journals" are becoming overrated, just because of the easy publication. What will be more common will be multiple simultaneous discoveries of which only one or two go viral.


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How to handle someone propositioning me to collude/cheat with them on an assignment?
I am in my final year of undergraduate. Another student, call him John, sent me a message on Facebook saying basically:

Can you send me the solutions to the assignment from unit X, that you
took last year. In exchange, I will tell you what the future minitest
questions are for unit Y that we are both doing this year.

Attempted Collusion is not explicitly mentioned in the Universities Academic misconduct guide. But, the mini-tests say at the top of each page:

IT IS NOT PERMITTED TO TAKE THIS PAPER AWAY FROM THE TUTORIAL SESSION OR TO DIVULGE ITS CONTENT

since students in the later tutorials could learn the questions from the students in the earlier tutorials (exactly as John proposed).
A complicating factor is that I really dislike John. He doesn't seem to have realised this.
I find him personally annoying, and consider him a poor student.
I don't understand how he has managed to pass enough units to have not been suspended for poor performance.
It may be he is very good at exams, or it may be that he has been cheating all along.
I have a number of options, and could do one or more of them:

Ignore it, and block him on Facebook. I'm worried this could reflect poorly on me if the message ever became public.
Tell him no, and refer him to the universities plagiarism/cheating policy
Speak to the Professor of Unit Y about it (that we are both studying).
Speak to the Professor of Unit X about it.
Speak to the Head of School (sub-department), who is above both units
Speak to the University Dean. Who is in charge of enforcing the Academic Misconduct policy. (Will probably mean going though channels)

If I speak to a professor about this, he may be suspended.
I worry that I am a bit too willing for that possibility as I don't like him.
On the other hand it isn't my job to decide the consequences of his actions. Which is the best option?

Update: I spoke to the coordinators of units X and Y. Both said they would look into it and get back to me. I also responded to John, saying no, and referring him to the Academic Misconduct policy.

Once, I agreed to help someone cheat on a test, and gave him all wrong answers. Well, except one I had wrong...

If an assignment from last year substantially overlaps with this year's then the professor is not doing their job properly. Usually the student keeps the copyright to their work, so they are free to publish their assignments (as long as it's well after the deadline) if they wish. Unless they are forced to sign an agreement limiting their rights. It annoyed me to some extent when professors took the lazy option and reused assessment material from previous years, opening the door to cheaters, which a big chunk of the class then became.

"I also responded to John, saying no, and referring him to the Academic Misconduct policy." kudos!

Putting such a request in a written, verifiable manner as this student has done is incredibly dumb, and frankly merits whatever punishment is associated with this.
Although in principle you could simply ignore the request, I think this is one of those cases where you're better off reporting it. Otherwise, there's still the possibility that "John" could bring you down with him (he wrote you a note, after all!). So I would write to him declining the offer, and then report it.

Who do you recommend reporting to? Which proffessor/ the head of school / all of the above?

I agree that declining the offer in writing has no downside and is a good idea, but what is the rationale for reporting this person?

@FaheemMitha: The same as the rationale for calling the police if you witness a crime. Attempting to cheat should have negative consequences.

@Oxinabox You report to the professor (who will escalate if (s)he deems fit) or to the institution's honor board.

"Putting such a request in a written, verifiable manner as this student has done is incredibly dumb," Oh, please tell me that they did it on university provided email as well. Then we'll have a bonus round of dumbitude.

I would not call the suggestion of cheating in this context a crime. A crime has victims. Granted, it is (the suggestion of) immoral behavior, but small potatoes in the grand scheme of things. Personally, if this happens to me, I would not report it, I do not consider it my business to police other peoples morality. But it really is up to the poster, I think.

@FaheemMitha: It's not a crime because no law is being broken. However, it is a clear case of academic misconduct—and, depending on the poster's school's code of conduct, not reporting may be tantamount to a violation in and of itself!

@Oxinabox: Check your school's code of academic conduct (if one exists); how to report a violation should be listed there. If no such guidelines exist, start with the professor of the courses involved.

@aeismail: Ok, if failure to report is a violation, that is a good reason to report, certainly.

@FaheemMitha There are victims of cheating: anyone (and everyone) who did not cheat and loses a later opportunity to the cheater. Grades are going to be important in getting into grad school or having graduation honors on your diploma to show prospective employers. This is why people cheat! Because the results matter to their future prospects, and they want to steal someone else's chances.

Just because you can't see the damage here and now doesn't make it unreal.

@dmckee It is unfair to the people who are not cheating, certainly.

I'm not sure how 'verifiable' Facebook really is.  Even if you could obtain logs from Facebook itself, that would just indicate that someone using some IP address sent a message.  Anyone can create a 'fake' Facebook profile, and plenty of Facebook profiles have been hacked or even just a student leaves the lab without logging out.

Given the specificity of the email, it's unlikely it's a hack, unless someone pranked him. But in that case, the burden is still on the instigator.

Another reason to report: There is a very real possibility that John has been cheating all along in school.  Reporting him for attempted cheating (even if it is not an actual violation of the honor code) means that his past work may be placed under extra scrutiny.

To be fair, I think we have to check the premise: is the proposed act even cheating? It seems to me that 'John' proposes to exchange somewhat public information. The evaluation system seems to rely on security by obscurity (using the same questions at differents point in time, assuming students don't talk), which is dumb; reusing last year's questions is lazy. So this may be a case of students exploting sloppy work of a teacher with fair means -- talking -- not strictly cheating.

@FaheemMitha As has been pointed out, this is not a criminal matter. But, since you mention it, most jurisdictions do have "victimless" crimes: for example, conspiracy to murder is usually a crime, even if the murder doesn't happen.

@aeismail - wondering if the fb messgaing could be used to turn the tables on OP. Culprit could claim that the deal was struck, but went sour and now the OP is complaining to take revenge. What do you do then ? OR, I came to know OP was into cheating, so I wanted to trap OP and report him to authorities ? Checkmate ?

@BoratSagdiyev: Unless the other person has equally tangible evidence, the original message is too damning to be ignored or explained away.

@DavidRicherby: Agreed, generalized inchoate offences (conspiracy, attempt, solicitation, accessory) are a principle of English common law and similar systems. In some sense the crime of murder, plus the general principle of conspiracy, yields a new crime of conspiracy to murder. It's characteristic of an inchoate offence that no act causing criminal harm is performed by the offender.

I generally agree with aeismail - the profound stupidity of putting a request like this in a way that provides evidence is staggering.
Whether or not you should report them for cheating may not be a decision you have to make - I would strongly suggest you check your institution's student handbook or honor code. I've been in more than one university where if you suspect or have evidence of someone cheating, you're obligated to report it.

wondering if the fb messgaing could be used to turn the tables on OP. Culprit could claim that the deal was struck, but went sour and now the OP is complaining to take revenge. What do you do then ? OR, I came to know OP was into cheating, so I wanted to trap OP and report him to authorities ? Checkmate ?

@BoratSagdiyev: I think generally speaking the authorities won't look kindly if John claims to have been carrying out a solo sting operation on the questioner. Presumably the questioner isn't cheating, so unless John can whip up a clever frame job at short notice the tables aren't turned. At best John will wriggle out of it. But it's a good caution as to why the questioner shouldn't "play along" with John to any degree at all, since doing so would put the questioner in the position of claiming to be a sting operator, which is uncomfortable even when true.

As a student, I would like to answer this, apparently everyone has a different perspective here, but mainly 2 sides. Students vs Professors :)
He asked you for last year's answers. What is wrong with this? I sometimes ask my friends for previous years' answers as well. This does not mean I am going to copy them. I can go through their work, understand the concepts better and do my homework. The reason is, not every question type is covered in classes or books and guidance might be required to solve them. First you learn how to solve something, then you apply your knowledge to questions. And questions with solutions are the perfect way to master the knowledge. When I use my friends' past homeworks, it really helps me learn the material and all the time I spot their mistakes and prepare my own homework with no mistakes.
Of course, his intentions might be directly copying your homework. In such a case, a proper department should keep old homework solutions and it is the TA's responsiblity to detect them.
So, if someone who you think has intentions to learn from your homework is asking for it, it is very normal to give. But if you think his intention is to directly copy, then you can simply decline his request. You can say you don't have them anymore or you do not wish to share them. No person is guilty unless they commit the wrong and again, you shouldn't worry about them. The university pays graduate students for these matters, it is their job.

However he didn't just ask for my solutions. He offered to tell me test questions, before they should have been released to me.

@Oxinabox Talking about test questions is not allowed? That is called collaboration and the professors should know better not to ask same questions. Don't care more than your instructors care.

That is not collaboration.
It may or may not be reasonable to talk about test questions. But collaboration is not the word for that.

This answer raises a good point.  I think many of the other answers (including mine) were taking for granted the OP's judgement that the proposed activity would constitute cheating, and giving an answer to the general question "what should I do when someone proposes cheating?"

Sorry, I'm old school. You don't lie, cheat or steal.  Additionally you don't tolerate anyone who lies, cheats or steals, particularly in an academic environment. I believe all students have a duty, an obligation, to report someone breaking those rules, period.  That's part of being a responsible adult. Accepting that poor behavior among your peers erodes the quality of your education. Yes, when the peer group doesn't always support it, it does take a lot of character, strength and personal courage to do the right thing. Oh.. and just imagine for a moment.. what if this person was your best friend?  That decision takes lots of courage and is very difficult.  Good luck with your dilemma.
Oh, and whom to speak to first? I would start with either of the two teachers involved.  I'd hope you'd get the same response from either of them.  They have been trained for this situation, and will direct you as to possible next steps. Note: is there a university policy on this with a specific process to follow? If so follow it.  If not talk to either teacher.. probably the one who knows your integrity and credibility better.

You seem to be expressing a lot of 'attitude' in your answer. "welcome to the adult world. Accepting that poor behavior .... speaks volumes about your lack of character ...".
That reads like you are insulting me.
I'm not sure if you intended to.
Perhaps you would like to reword it to use a more neutral tone?
You also fail to recommend who to report them too, which was a major part of my question.

You are absolutely right.  Apologies. I just had that argument with a 25 year old family member and it totally didn't go well.  His peer group believes strongly that you shouldn't report others, mind your own business.  I apologize for projecting my experiences onto you.  Your first step, sharing the question with this forum has shown your courage to address the issue.  I will re-write.  And thanks for rekindling my hope in a younger generation!

Thanks. Your improvements to the answer are appreciated.

Here is my evaluation of the options that you mentioned.

Ignore it, and block him on facebook.

This option is fine, but in my opinion is a bit lazy.

Tell him no, and refer him to the universities plagiarism/cheating policy

This couldn't hurt, but probably he will just ignore it.

Speak to the Professor of Unit Y about it (that we are both studying).

A good option.  Another related option that I don't think anyone has mentioned yet is telling the professor about the request but not mentioning John's name.  Most professors would (or should) appreciate hearing in general terms about ways that students are cheating in their classes.

Speak to the Professor of Unit X about it.

It is probably better to speak to the professor in charge of you and John at the moment.

Speak to the Head of School (sub-department), who is above both units
Speak to the University Dean who is in charge of enforcing the Academic Misconduct policy. (Will probably mean going though channels)

I don't think it is a good idea to go over the professor's head unless you think that he or she is not taking the matter seriously.

Let me defend the middle ground here.
First of all, we're hearing only one side of the story here. Although, the case may seem straightforward, I do find the proposition of John strange. If he had simply asked for the solutions from last year's course without offering anything in return, this wouldn't have been an issue at all. It's like asking a girl out but also offering her money to improve your chances.
Also, everyone seems to be taking for granted that his suggestion of cheating necessarily means that he has cheated before or even that he will cheat again. In fact, this person, who is a student, and whose case is relayed to us by someone who admits to disliking him, has already been labeled a serial cheater and is even considered to be very likely to use cheating as his primary means in obtaining a job!
Anyone who has given a little thought to the problem would realize that there is a limit to cheating. Cheaters do not pass all exams with 100%. You can't cheat your way through answering interview questions unless you actually understand what you're being asked.
One of the suggestions given here, which I think is the most appropriate, was to ask the instructors in general terms about the exact form of cheating and its consequences. Then you will be better positioned to decide whether or not to report someone directly.

I finished a good university which helped me find a wonderful job. Cheating in the university is not the best thing to be done, but sometimes people have to do it in order to win - if you don't understand me I doubt you understand life - watch Arnold Schwarzenegger six rules of success. And I would like to tell you that reporting your colleague is very stupid in my opinion - why you need to do such a bad thing to him? Did he do something bad to you - no... Maybe it's best that you ignore it, but for sure you don't need to report him - you will make him unhappy, and if you ignore it nobody'll be unhappy, right? If you obey all the rules (I'm talking about the rules, not the law) you won't go far in your life... If you don't believe me check the most successful guys in the planet - what do you think, they obeyed all the rules and never cheated on anything??? Think out of the box. I know intelligent guys with great academic experience and at the same time guys who only graduated school and are 100 more successful than the first. Be cool, don't take things so seriously - it's not a robbery or a rape, as I said - take action when somebody's been made unhappy, this is not the case. And now you're about to make someone unhappy, why?

Hi John. I see that you are new here so I won't vote you down but there are several problems with your answer. Consider how a teacher would mark this answer. First, you say nobody gets hurt but others do get hurt. Those who do not cheat are measured lower than they should be, compared to the one who did cheat. As far as success, how do you define success? If it is by material acquisition, then anything done by the wealthy is acceptable? Your logic is on a slipper slope.

But cheating does make others unhappy, just like cutting in line does.  (And does Arnold Schwarzenegger let people cut in front of him in line?  I wouldn't try it.)

Did he do something bad to you — Yeah, actually, if I followed the rules, he did something bad to me by breaking them.

John Parcker, You probably want to read those six rules again, IN CONTEXT.  (http://www.graduationwisdom.com/speeches/0067-schwarzenegger.htm) Rule #2, Break the Rules is not about cheating, its about NOT listening to other's stereotype beliefs of 'it can't be done that way'.

This answer strikes me as a justification for avoiding responsibility. It makes me want to make the answerer unhappy - why? - to snap him out of a nasty frame of mind. Such "success" comes at a price, both for the cheater, and those around him.

The large downvote reaction to your answer should prompt you to recognise that such behaviour as you tolerate, advocate or even seem to admire will serve you very badly in life. Once you are found out, you will be shunned and will not succeed.


text:
Can a self-supported finance student in Japan earn schoolarships, other than MEXT?
I've been looking into LLM programs in Japan. As far as I know, an international student can apply for the MEXT scholarship or as a self-supported finance student. I don't believe I can compete with all of the other students who apply for MEXT, so I believe it is a better idea to be a self-supported finance student.
Are there options for finding funding in Japan, other than MEXT? I did find this link, but I'm not sure if a self-supported student can apply for those.

Welcome to Academia.SE. Note, we will not be able to advise on Kyushu specifically (among other reasons, it's highly unlikely that anyone here has studied there). But your general question is interesting, I suggested an edit to increase your odds of getting an answer.

The link specifically says: "The following information is for the self-supporting international students." So it seems like you're already looking in the right place. Also: is LLM a law degree? If so, I trust you've already thought through the implications of this (e.g., a law degree from Japan probably won't be useful unless you stay in Japan long term).

Thank you for pointing this out, I had not noticed this line.

Have you already read this document ("Scholarships for International Students in Japan")? Study in Japan Website You can click on the image on the left side to download the PDF.


text:
Can I dedicate my dissertation to my previous advisor?
My dissertation advisor & Chair was professor A. He all of a sudden was severely ill and left the program right before I proposed my dissertation study. I built the study under his supervision, including part of the data analysis, but he didn't have a chance to read even the first draft of the proposal.
Professor B (from my department) took over as the committee chair. The dissertation was not exactly her area of specialty. She served as the chair (someone needs to and the department decided that she would take the role) and arranged the defense by signing off on paperwork and making sure the procedure functioned. Her advising role did not involve major, valuable feedback. She's acting like any other committee member by asking a few questions and checking the final revision.
I thanked both advisors in the acknowledgment.
Would thanking professor A in the dedication be too much? I frequently see people thank families and friends but advisors/professors are always in the acknowledgment. Also, this might make professor B feel bad if she sees the dedication.

My immediate reaction is that a dedication to A is permissible, but it might be good to include in the dedication the reason for it, something like "To Professor A, who initiated the research reported here but was prevented by illness from participating in its completion."

This might be highly dependend on local culture, but to me the idea to dedicate your thesis to your advisor seems a bit odd anyway (no matter whether they have left in the mean time or not)

Maybe one way to resolve your issue is to focus on the fact that a dedication does not play the role of an acknowledgment section. They are two quite different things! You can dedicate your thesis to your grandma (and I'm sure people have) while acknowledging the help and support of your advisor (and librarian and IT support...) during your doctoral studies.

One example I know of -- but it's U.S. and from 1955 -- is the Acknowledgment on p. ii of On the symmetric structure of unconditioned point sets and real functions by Herbert Charles Parrish.

Given that your advisor A became sick and left the university, I see no problem with dedicating your thesis to him and thank your committee and especially advisor B at length for rescuing you. In a certain sense, you can claim that this was the last thesis ever written under A, so that a dedication seems appropriate.
However, do not underestimate cultural differences. What is appropriate in my culture might not be appropriate in your culture. In the US, dedications and acknowledgments are in general not taken as serious as you seem to take them. There, you might be overthinking the issue.

Thank you for the suggestion! Professor B who rescued me actually immigrated to the states so she is not completely US-ish, and this worried me a little!

I think you are over-thinking it. As long as you  thank your committee and especially B for rescuing your thesis, you will be fine. In general, the cultures who would put a big value on a public expression of gratitude seem to be the cultures which honor the elders as well.

The acknowledgments, like the preface to any book, are personal remarks and you are free to thank anyone in any way. Your remarks are permanently and publicly part of the record, so you would usually want to avoid saying anything negative. Anything else, including whimsical thanks to baristas, is your business.

Absolutely, do dedicate it to your former advisor if that's who you most want to honour that way.
In your acknowledgements, be careful to be clear about contributions but also to be clearly sincerely grateful for each. You don't need to harp on about who has done more or less, don't say someone has "only" rescued you. Be positive, graceful, and succinct about everyone you mention.


text:
Who should I ask for help? a conflict with my academic advisor
I am an international undergraduate student in the US. My university sponsors my visa. I will graduate this quarter as a civil engineering major.
Before the Spring term started, I met with my academic advisor (who is also a professor in my department) to ask if he could remove the prerequisite for a class that I wanted to register for. He offered me a placement exam, but refused to let me schedule it at a convenient time. I had to take it right then with no preparation, and I could only use half of the allotted time due to a preexisting appointment. Despite this, I still managed a 40%.
The advisor decided that not to waive the prerequisite, but said that he would let me audit the class. But this was not a good option for me, due to my scholarship and other factors. Further, he said I would not even be allowed to talk to the professor, turn in homework, or take exams. So, I told the advisor that I would not take the class.
When the term started, I attended the first lecture and talked to the actual professor of the class. He interviewed me and agreed to waive the prerequisite. So I went to the registrar and they added the class.
The very next day, the advisor sent me an email and went off on me. He then scheduled a Zoom meeting, where he yelled at me some more. He said I was disrespecting him and the department. I apologized and tried to explain, but he threatened to report me for misconduct, and said that if I were his employee, he would definitely fire me.
That happened 3 days ago. I am so concerned and stressed about this. I have two main concerns:

I am not sure if the advisor will or will not drop me out of the class. So far I am still registered for the class. I will not drop the class.
This advisor is also my professor for a capstone class. I am worried that this will be awkward and that he will retaliate.

Welcome to Academia.SE. I suggested some revisions -- feel free to make further edits if I botched anything, but please try to keep the length under control.

"I wanted to register for" I do not get it: you could attend the course, you could learn all the material, but you still wanted to take the exam?
Has this exam any relation with your visa?

It sounds like OP has a scholarship that will cover regular courses, but not audited courses.

@EarlGrey This is in the US, where the course would not just constitute and exam, but also likely a series of long assignments, and it makes complete sense that the student would want to take the course for credit, in order to receive graded feedback for those assignments and have access to the professor. Additionally, if the student had to take ANOTHER course to fulfill his visa requirements instead, naturally they would have less time to devote to this course. Of course, the student may want this course on their resume, too, as it may be more directly relevant to their interests.

No one likes it when you go over their head and get their decisions overruled. However, it sounds like your advisor has no one to blame but himself: he does not teach this class, so why in the world did he take it upon himself to give you a placement exam? Particularly a haphazard one? And his threats about "misconduct" seem equally bizarre: he may not like what you did, but he must know that accusing you of misconduct would not go anywhere.
At any rate, to your questions:

I am not sure if the advisor will or will not drop me out of the class. So far I am still registered for the class. I will not drop the class.

By definition, it's hard to predict what irrational people will do. But it seems like this decision is up to the course instructor, so I rather doubt that the advisor will try to drop you. Even your advisor probably realizes that having a disagreement with another faculty member over something as trivial as this would not make much sense. It's possible the advisor will try to convince the instructor to drop you, but this is unlikely, and even more unlikely to be successful.
So: I think there is not much to do here; this matter seems like it is already resolved. If an opportunity presents itself, you could consider whether to preemptively warn the instructor about this issue. I would definitely not go into all the details as you did above. But you could say something brief like: "By the way -- I had a bit of a misunderstanding / conflict with Prof. X when I tried to register for this course. No need to go into all the details here, just wanted to give you a heads up in case he says something."

This advisor is also my professor for a capstone class. I am worried that this will be awkward and that he will retaliate.

This one is more difficult. Normally, the best response to something like this would be to avoid the professor for the next 10 weeks. But if he is teaching you in a different class, that obviously won't be possible.
Is there another professor who you trust? If so, it may be worth asking them for advice. You'll need to do this carefully: it is not their job to solve this mess. But if you keep it fact-based and concise ("Prof X shouted at me for 10 minutes and threatened to report me for misconduct, so I'm not sure how to deal with him in my capstone class"), you may get some useful insight.
Other than that, I don't think there's much to be done here. Trying to explain to the advisor seems to be making matters worse, not better. And going over his head to complain about him is a last resort. So, all you can really do is move forward under the assumption that he will treat you fairly despite his personal dislike of you. If he continues to be abusive, or if he does something that is correctible (like giving an unfair bad grade), then you won't have much choice but to complain to higher authorities. But it's hard to students to win in such scenarios, unfortunately.

Update: if I understood your comment elsewhere correctly, the advisor did in fact drop you from the class. In this case, I recommend discussing with the course instructor -- they should be pretty ticked off that someone else dropped you from their class after they approved you. Discussing with a trusted professor as recommended above seems like a very good idea too.

No student should tolerate being "yelled at" by their advisor, certainly not an undergraduate advisor and especially not over something as trivial as a prerequisite waiver.
Luckily, since you are an undergraduate, changing your advisor is very simple. You may find you are much happier if you ask your head of department for a new one. You could explain the abusive behavior, or you could simply say you didn't feel that you were a good match. It happens all the time and shouldn't be any trouble to switch. I'd suggest doing this before your current advisor takes it upon himself to behave unprofessionally a second time.

This is a bit naive. Not every university makes it easy to switch advisors. And it leaves out the issue of the capstone course that is taught by the current advisor. Yanking in their chain isn't likely to make them happy.

@Buffy it may be true that this is a case where changing to a new advisor is less straightforward than it is in some places. However, the alternative course of action (or lack thereof) exposes this student to further abuse. The advisor began the punitive behavior when they administered the placement exam with no notice, and it has only accelerated since then. Upholding the status quo that students have to accept this type of abuse from professors is everything that is wrong with academia, and I won't support it. In many cases, students have more options than they realize.

I have been dropped by the advisor (he requested from the department as the registrar told me). This class is so important to the field I am working on and is directly related to it. I don't know what options I have that can fix or allow me to register for it.

@AcivilengineeringStudent just to clarify, you are saying that the advisor went to the registrar and told them to drop you from the class, not that he dropped you as an advisee? I would go to the head of advising or the department head, explain the situation as you have done here, and formally request another (scheduled) opportunity to take the placement exam. If they deny you, then you will have to accept their decision. I would still explore options to switch advisors, as this one seems to be intent on making this a power struggle when it really is a triviality.


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My advisor completely ignores me what should I do?
My advisor became an assistant professor nearly two years ago. I worked with him for one year but did not publish a paper, and he thinks my progress is too slow. He asked if I want him to assign a new PhD student on this project. I replied that this was not necessary; I had been slow due to personal factors but things were improving. But he did not seem to understand. After that, he completely ignored me and stopped funding me (though he never formally "fired" me). I also find our research interests are not a good match. The project he gave me requires something new to him and me, and I think that’s a hard problem which needs more time.
What should I do? I want to change advisor and don’t want him hate me. Should I go to his office directly to talk with him, because he did not reply me after I send him several emails. I am just afraid the bad relationship will influence my reputation in department. I do have a TA position through the department, so the lack of funding is not too much of a problem.

If your advisor has stopped funding you, it has already affected your position in the department.
You should consult with the graduate chair of your department and see what your options are. I’d like to say that there are solutions, but this is unfortunately very much a function of who has funding and is doing a project in an area you’re interested in pursuing. You may need to apply elsewhere, if you can’t find a solution at your school.

How is it possible for an advisor to pull off funding from a student mid-candidature without reviews and institutional agreement?

Can happen if you know the reviewers are your friends and will back your decision without any consequences for you.

If a professor does not fund you, officially, the student is free to work with anyone of interest. There is not any official constraint between you and the professor. It is crucial for a student to be independent, active, and dominant by himself for a successful Ph.D. career since it is your life, not others.
Meanwhile, since he does not fund you, any academic outputs from you with other faculty members are not related to him. Also, remember to protect all your academic copy rights. The professor cannot use any of your academic results if they are produced 'solely' by the student's efforts.
To be concrete, if funding is not an issue, find someone else and just work with anyone who suits your interest. Record all your own research efforts and make it your own IP published such as on Arxiv to protect your own idea. Ignore the current one and do not let him know any of your research progress and efforts.
Just do not let the professor take any advantage of you. No worry about any unnecessary concerns.

"If a professor does not fund you, officially, the student is free to work with anyone of interest." This is not true in many places. Changing supervisors is an official process in these places.

I notice this is a self-answer -- thanks for the follow up! I assume this is what you did, and everything worked out? Good news. Still, in addition to the above comment, I would also note that your comments about copyright may be more complicated depending on location and your university's policies...i.e., work produced when your professor was funding you may belong to your professor in an IP sense (though you would still normally qualify for authorship).

Also, careful with the language usage - talking about IP or "copyright" (not sure that's applicable here) is commonly seen as something industry-leaning, uncooperative or, possibly, even slightly offensive. It's one thing to visit someplace and ask whether the wardrobe door is locked before leaving your coat there, and completely different to say "by the way, make sure there's absolutely no theft!". Not everybody interprets this phrasing that way, of course, but every collaboration with people using it turned out to be nothing but trouble, personally.

This is how I processed it. If the professor does not fund the student, there is not any official relationship between the student and the professor. Besides, funding does not necessarily qualify the authorship and copyright given that ideas and paper writing is completely conducted by the student, and the professor did not fund the student. Be straightforward, the professor does not expect to take any advantage of the student.


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Head of the department said statistics exams must be done without software, otherwise it's cheating. What can I do as a lecturer?
I am a statistics lecturer at a university. For midterms and short exams, I have students use software such as StatCrunch or Excel for computational questions, but not theoretical questions.
The head of department, from a physics background, said to me that using such software to answer computational questions is just a type of cheating to get marks. She said any statistics exams must be conducted in the traditional way. Is what she said correct?
NB: I am the instructor and required my students to use software as we are in 2021 and no one needs to compute it manually as they are finance and economics students.
Clarifications:

The chair's concern seems to be that if students are allowed to use software, the course is too easy and the grades will be too high. This is obviously false, since there is much more to the course than just computing numbers (students have to understand the theory).
The chair does have a history of being very controlling and abusing or firing instructors who don't submit.
Traditionally, instructors in this course have mentioned that statistical software exists, but have not necessarily required that students use the software extensively.
I do not believe it is just a miscommunication; she clearly said that "students using software is an attempt to cheat and get better marks" (even if I allow them to use software)

How to run exams (e.g., must be conducted traditional way) is either opinion-based or an institution-based (e.g., department, course lead instructor) policy. Either way, that's off topic for this site.

Changing how exams are done at the last minute (this late in the semester) seems a pretty evil trick to have to play on your students. Sorry you are in this position, and your students as well. Perhaps ask your department head if their physics students have to memorize the trig and log tables...

Also, FYI The ASA's GAISE Reports also support you not making students look up values from tables. Consider them as a source for your argument.

Could the course title be "Statistics and the application of software for statistics for finance and economics students"? Then the use of software in exams would be required.

"Software" can mean almost anything.  I can't imagine doing stats today, even without using statistical software, without at least using some package to manage data and do simple arithmetic on it.  It's torture to enter more than two or three data points into a calculator to calculate a mean, a sum of squares, or a sum squared error.

Various attempts to clarify the question have been edited into the main post (feel free to edit what I wrote if I got anything wrong).

@cag51. I really do not know how to thank you. So much thanks. I appreciate your help.

As a little aside, you should do nothing that even suggests to your students that Excel is a good tool for performing stats.  https://www.ibm.com/downloads/cas/7YEX9BKK

There are two issues here: the pragmatic and the pedagogical. On the pedagogical front I think your head of department is just wrong. Being able to do the arithmetical computations in statistics is useful only to the very limited extent that it helps with intuition. The American Statistical Association agrees

Modern data analysis involves the use of statistical software to store
and analyze (potentially large) datasets.  While there may be value to
performing some calculations by hand, it is unrealistic to analyze
data without the aid of software for all but the smallest datasets.
At a minimum, students should interpret output from software.
Ideally, students should be given numerous opportunities to analyze
data with the best available technology (preferably, statistical
software).

From a pragmatic point of view, then, what can you do? Nothing, probably, for a course in progress. In the longer term, you might try to get a department colloquium talk from a statistics education researcher -- easier now that remote talks are standard -- to get some discussion. The American Stats Association documents might help to provide some external authority, and I think the Royal Statistical Society may have something similar

To fix the pedagogical side one could consider having part of the grade come from a project instead of an exam and in the project the students could work with the software. Probably a bit late for this term but might be an option next term

@AccidentalTaylorExpansion thanks a lot for your comment. Yes, there is a project and a presentations and both have part of the grade.

University policies need to be followed and, in most cases, specific instructions from the head need to be given serious consideration. If you are tenured faculty then it might be reasonable to oppose the head on something like classroom/exam management, but for low level faculty it might not be wise - or even possible.
But that leaves the philosophical question and for that there can be a difference of opinion. My own would be that in the earliest courses, when data sets are mostly small and students are learning principles, manual calculations are probably valuable. Later, when doing serious things with serious data, tools might reasonably be employed. After all, those tools weren't developed for the simplest of cases.
So, doing manual calculations at the start might help the student gain insight, whereas a tool might just be a magic box. Students not only need to be able to get answers, they need to be able to make quick judgements as to the likely validity of the answers so that tools aren't misused accidentally or by design.
Of course, your opinion might be different, but you need to be able to make some reasonable argument (to the head) to justify it.

Thanks so much for your answer. The policy of the university does not prevent using software during exam. It left for instructor choice. In addition  the stusents need excel to find anova tables, regression result and so on. But this is not all the story after finding the result the students need to interpret the result and that cannot be done without knowledge. So, software only used for computational parts to save exam time. So, my point is can we said software is just a way to ease cheating in exam?

I am A.Prof in statistic and the head is A.Prof. in Physics and have no idea about statistics as she always said.

I think the head has an opinion. It isn't necessarily wrong or necessarily correct. And tools can give the wrong answers depending on the inputs. Your opinion and mine and that of the head might all be different, but you need to consider whether the local rules require you to follow their instruction.

It sounds to me like the comments from the head of your department were made in some sort of informal chat.
The question of allowing use of computational aides beyond a pocket calculator is an significant pedagogical decision. It is therefore important that:

This matter be discussed seriously at least at the departmental level, if not the university level, rather than decided semi-off-hand by each instructor of each course. (And that's true even if the instructors have the autonomy to make their own decision.)
A clear policy be set, at whatever level the decision is taken, on this matter: What instructors will use when teaching; what students will be encouraged to use in class, in homework and in exams; and what students will be allowed to use in class, homework and exams.
The matter be reflected to students consistently, at the very least throughout a semesterial course.

I therefore suggest that you:

Check whether discussions have been held on this question (and locate the minutes/summary/recommendations).
Check whether official policy has been set on this matter (and whether it's binding).
Consult instructors of statistics in your department in previous semesters, and other departments currently, about the practice in their courses (not necessarily to  copy it).
Assuming this matter has not been given thorough enough treatment in the past - schedule a meeting with relevant members of faculty and the head of the department, or bring it up in a department council session or another appropriate forum, to start such process.

While you're doing this, I also suggest that you get back to the head of the department, explain that you believe that this issue merits more thorough treatment - flattering them for bringing up this point, so that the main impression is not that you're brushing them off, but rather that you've taken their words to heart. Emphasize the need for a consistent policy vis-a-vis the students. Assuming the department head agrees with your general outlook, that will set the background well for you to argue that it would be inappropriate vis-a-vis the students to change course policy mid-course, and that based on the more thorough treatment of the matter, you will reconsider the policy before next semester.

Cheating is behavior that violates the rules on what is acceptable to use during the exam. If you didn’t make a rule that using software is forbidden, students who use such software cannot be considered to be cheating.
It sounds like your department head and you have a disagreement on whether there should be such a rule, that’s related to a conceptual disagreement over what skills students should be tested on. Whether she can dictate to you whether you should have such a rule depends on the policies of your institution. In my institution and all others I’m familiar with in western countries, the decision on what aids students are allowed to use during an exam lies with the instructor as part of the instructor’s academic freedom. A department could make recommendations to instructors about what sorts of policies are a good idea to implement, but individual instructors could decide to do things differently if they thought that was pesagogically appropriate.
Finally, even if your department head doesn’t have the official power to force your hand on this issue, there are situations in which it might be a good idea to do what she suggests anyway.

“In my institution and all others I’m familiar with in western countries, the decision on what aids students are allowed to use during an exam lies with the instructor as part of the instructor’s academic freedom.” — Really?  In the universities I’ve worked at (in the US, Canada, UK, and Sweden), many parameters of most courses are fixed in a syllabus at the departmental level, often including examination rules.  It hardly seems a violation of academic freedom — just a practical means to coordinate course content, and ensure consistency if a course’s instructor changes from year to year.

@PLL if we are talking specifically about a question of what material or aids are allowed to be used on an exam, then: yes, really. This is my experience, I don’t claim it’s universal and if your experience is different then feel free to propose an alternative opinion. And other things such as exam duration are often regulated by university policy and not considered a matter of academic freedom, so in that sense there is certainly some truth to what you are saying.

Agree with everything except for the suggestion in the last sentence.

I think it is high time to sit down and discuss the intentions and options.
What the head sees is a test, like any other before and later, and students are allowed to use somewhat blackboxed tool that reduce efforrt needed significantly.
What you see is a new technology that allows all to focus on the core problem and leave the number crunching for a machine.
It is very same as times where forst calculators became available...
If you left the tests and evaluations same as without the aid, the head is right; the resulting marks will be increased without increased level of student performance.
On the other hand, if your tests and marks are adjusted to this aid, then you are "right" and should be able to convince the head that there is no tech-created bias.
I can remember one of my toughest exams. We were allowed to use any aid we could bring in the room, except for laptops and phones. Quite rich help, aint'it? The questions were formulated the way nobody without knowledge would be able to find the answers in the papers.
And my most favourite teacher announced that any student can go and use Wolfram Alpha for their calculus exam, and distant students were allowed to use any help. It was a trap; without the knowledge, Wolfram's answers were useless and "smart cheaters" all left soon after because the knowledge they didn't learn led them to fail in all other subjects...
Back to your problem. Try to convince her the number crunching is not the critical skill for the course and that the bigger picture is. Meaning, as the students have tools for simplify their work you have made it harder elsewhere.
But, by the way, sometimes the old number crunching is a good exercise and forces people to go down and look "under the hood".

If in the end you need to go with a non-computer-based exam, here's a handful of suggestions which hopefully get at the same pedagogical points:

Set up multiple choice questions where the students have to determine which distribution or function is most appropriate.
Make hypothetical spreadsheet data with an error to find and correct.  For example, one column labeled as (x-mu), the next labeled as (x-mu)^2, but with some cells clearly not squared.  Or a sum that doesn't contain all of the terms (see e.g. Reinhart-Rogoff).
More theoretically, write subtly incorrect formulas and have them correct the errors. For example, neglecting a square root.
Looking at a data set and estimating the standard deviation/variance or mean or linear coefficient.
Solve the results yourself (using computer software), and have students interpret that data.

All of these are meant to highlight points that a finance/economics student would come across in their own use of statistics.

Here are my two cents on avoiding the problem rather than trying to actually address it, which could make matters worst - as others have noted above.
Perhaps one way to work under these guidelines is short answer questions on using the software and testing whether the task is possible or not, without (excel) add-ons. Worst case there is the option of pseudocode on paper.
For example, asking whether linear regression is possible in R, and what should be the input and output be, in terms of the dimensions and data structure.

I have upvoted the most popular answers as they cover all the ground very well. As a human being who spent decades as a leader in academia, I can read between the lines. This chair is not up to the job and therefore being overly controlling, unreasonable, and outright horrible at times. You must keep your nose down until this person is no longer chair. If that is more than you can bear for the years to come, look for a transfer or a position elsewhere.

I'm old enough to remember taking many quantitative exams where only pencils carried in were permitted and sometimes a slide rule. Typically, grading made allowances for these limitations (e.g., lower precision required) and were usually thoughtfully (fiendishly it often felt) designed to probe conceptual understanding. Being a little dyslexic, I often foundered on "dumb math errors." Many extra point problems of that era could probably be solved with a few keystrokes on a cheap present-day calculator or a smart watch. So, if that's one's frame of reference, using such a device would have been ipso facto cheating.
I'd guess the "cheating" part of the dictum is at least partly motivated by a desire to avoid evaluating superficial skills in the use of portable computing devices and surreptitious cribbing via the internet, and instead evaluate conceptual fluency in essential subject matter. As @Dave notes, questions can be formulated that are independent of aids, which could support exams given mit or mit out.
As others have noted, ex post facto changes to rules (by any party) are certainly questionable.

You could just disallow software, but take off no points for computational errors.

This is a good suggestion but it does not cover all possible conflicts in pedagogical approaches. Say, I see very little, if any, value in students doing t-test with pen and paper and would rather not have them waste time on computations they should be doing in software anyway. Not only it makes students feel detached from future real world applications, it also takes valuable time from what's actually important like choosing the appropriate method.

Amazing! Yes, that is the reason.


text:
Do US university professors consider papers published in IJERT
Do US university professors consider papers published in International Journal of Engineering Research and Technology (IJERT)?
For an undergraduate student applying for research program, what do professors check? The journal in which the research is published or the quality of the research, because I personally have had seen many papers getting desk rejected not because they are not up to the mark considering quality, but the editors had more better papers to publish.

This seems to be several question in one, and questions about specific journals are off-topic. For what it is worth, IJERT looks very suspicious to me just based on what they write about themselves.

Sorry but ...
It’s on the blacklist of predatory journal so yes it is considered, but considered very badly.  I would see this as a black mark against anyone, and in fact recommend you take it out of your CV if you are co-author.
The suggestion that a paper cannot be published because the “editors had more better paper to publish” is in itself a statement about the quality of the submission.


text:
How should I know if my supervisor is deliberately ignoring my emails or he is simply bad in responding?
I am a Ph.D. student in the third year, and I am working on my dissertation with two supervisors since my thesis is interdisciplinary. I recently noticed that my 2nd supervisor has not responded to my last 4 emails although I see he is active on his email. The answer to two of my emails could be even a simple affirmation! The first time I sent him part of my argument and asked his opinion, which he didn't respond. The two next times I sent an email to both my supervisors, which he didn't respond either. The fourth time, I sent him again, a very short and polite email, asking him if he could answer my email since I am defending my prospectus within the next few weeks and I need his opinion on it. Again, I didn't get an answer. It is really irritating. I don't know how to ask him if something is wrong! Due to this new virus, the university is closed, and the only way I can reach him is through email. What should I do? I've been thinking of changing this supervisor but his field of study is so close to my topic, and he is really knowledgable that I regret missing him  :(

As you day you are in your 3rd year you shouldalready knoow your supervisors - both 1 and 2. It may well be that the supervisor is receiving many more emails at the moment given the times we live in.

Your situation has the first thing I would try built in - ask your other adviser for help.  Your committee probably communicates with each other, even if they're in different departments at the same school.  Tell the adviser who is responding that you're held up because the other adviser hasn't replied, and see what they suggest.  If they are indeed in contact with them, then they might be able to nudge a reply.  They might also be able to inform you of anything going on that might be causing this, like an illness.
If that doesn't work, or if your responsive adviser is so far removed from the unresponsive one that they can't help, go to someone else in your department.  Do you have other junior committee members that might be able to help?  What about a grad student adviser?
The bottom line is that, while professors being bad at replying to emails is sadly common, it isn't professional, and you should keep at it.  With as much politeness and tact as possible, of course, since this person has a lot of power over your future here.