text:
Dvorak keyboard accepted for testing purpose?
Have you ever heard of Dvorak keyboard being accepted by a testing department due to health reasons (carpal tunnel)?
I type on Dvorak keyboard and have realized that computer based admission tests for Masters programs may pose an issue.
Dvorak is the closest thing we have to an alternative standard to Qwerty which is preinstalled on all modern operating systems.

What do you mean by masters admissions programs? Are you wondering about admissions tests (e.g. GRE, which only allow Qwerty by the way) or tests in courses once you've been admitted?

@Anyon GRE is a good example yes.

Ask the relevant testing department - they may, or may not, take into account other circumstances...

Just to be sure: you are fine with touch-typing Dvorak — you don't need a physical Dvorak keyboard?

@gerrit of course I have never actually owned a Dvorak keyboard.

@William Just make sure you clarify this when making the request, non-technical people may not even realise the possibility of configuring a keyboard that looks like QWERTY to type like DVORAK (once, 13 years ago, I worked on a Solaris where it wasn't possible to change the keyboard layout, at least for ordinary users, for the keyboard told its layout directly to the OS, I was quite annoyed)

When it comes to the big standardized admission tests for (mostly) US graduate programs, such as the GRE and TOEFL tests, typically only Qwerty is allowed. See below for their policies. That said, they do make some accommodations for disabilities. Being a Dvorak typist does not count by itself, but if you have carpal tunnel it can't hurt to ask for special accommodations ahead of time. By the way, that link leads to a Dvorak community on Reddit. You might get better answers there.
For admissions and placement tests administered by individual universities, you would have to ask them. No universal rules there. For computer based exams and similar once admitted to a program, I think your chances are quite good. Few people would care about what keyboard layout you use, and even if they would, student disability offices tend to be quite flexible.
GRE

The GRE General Test uses a standard English-language (QWERTY) computer keyboard. It takes its name from the first 6 letters in the third row of the keyboard. If you haven't used this kind of keyboard before, practice on one before test day to become familiar with it.

The GRE Bulletin Supplement for Test Takers with Disabilities or Health-related Needs does mention some keyboard-related accommodations (e.g. ergonomic keyboard), but I don't see anything about layout. Unfortunately, I don't know how likely they are to make other accommodations.
TOEFL

The TOEFL iBT test uses a standard English-language (QWERTY) computer keyboard. It takes its name from the first 6 letters in the third row of the keyboard. If you haven't used this kind of keyboard before, practice on one before test day to become familiar with it. In some countries, the common keyboard used is configured to QWERTY and a template is provided to each test taker to help with locating the few keys that are in a different location.

I would suspect the biggest hurdle is that the people administrating the test may not know how to change the layout or how to change it back. Also, OP should make sure to clarify he doesn't need a physical Dvorak layout, but can touch-type Dvorak on any physical layout (if not, OP should clarify that in the question, for that raises the bar of preparation considerably).


text:
Retroactive Withdrawals
My administration has a retroactive withdrawal system in place but they are not responding to emails or in person.  I have a hunch they are waiting until the next semester starts this week so the can legally/ethically deny I did not do what was correct.
What should I do?

This depends on the rules of your university. Deal with them.

How does it work out for other students who need to contact the respective offices?

@Buffy: The way this is described makes it very possible said university doesn't necessarily adhere to its own rules.

How exactly are they “not responding ... in person?” You show up and someone pointedly ignores you?

See if you can lookup any documentation on the policy, such as in their student handbook or similar, and read every line of it. Do as much of it as you can without their official input, whatever it is - fill out a form, serve notice in writing, etc. In short, make it difficult on whatever bureaucrat is dropping the ball to say you didn't make a sufficient good faith attempt at following their policy.
This can include sending whatever your local equivalent of US "certified mail" (provides proof of sending and receipt, requires a signature of acceptance on delivery) to the registrar's office. Some legally recognized equivalent of this will make them much less likely to be able to successfully pretend you did not follow the written policy, and in so doing will make them less likely to even attempt it. This assumes the whole institution isn't a sham, of course, but I assume here they are at least attempting to  function properly but are having a very typical bureaucratic failing of this sort - especially as it nears the beginning of a new semester and they are likely very busy.
As I've run into these sorts of issues before, it is also good to loop in your assigned advisor, if you have one (in writing/email at least to leave a paper trail), and possibly also the chair/department head of your major/graduate school program.
Most things in academia end up coming down to needing some department head and/or dean to sign off on it, so if you've served proper notice to the relevant academic departments you will find dealing with the administrators on the institutional/infrastructure side much easier. Most places like to play at least a little bit of ping-pong, sending you back and forth for signatures or the like, so good to cover all your bases. But most of all, it is important to know the policy to the best extent you can, so really put in extra time and effort to find a written policy (online or in person), read it closely, and keep a copy of it for reference.

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text:
Transcript rewrite
I took a class that I thought I was auditing and got outside help.
Is there any way to fix this?
I did this at a community college.
Grades have gone out and I realized there was a mistake made.

I don't see how your four statements fit together.

@Buffy when I signed up for classes I made a mistake.

Do you mean that you accidentally registered to take the course for credit, instead of registering as an auditor? How is “got outside help” relevant?

Did "outside help" result in a charge of dishonesty?

Most colleges and universities do have some sort of mechanism to correct errors in a transcript.  It usually requires some fairly high-up administrator to sign off.
Your case is tricky because the error was apparently yours, not the school's.  It's generally the student's responsibility to decide how to register for courses, and to verify their enrollment at the start of the term to check that it's what they want. And saying "I meant to audit that course instead of taking it for credit" is extra tricky because it's exactly what a dishonest student might say if they actually always did mean to take it for credit, but simply didn't do well in the course and now want to erase their low grade.
In order to get such a change approved, I expect you'll need to present some sort of evidence that you really thought you were auditing.  For instance, did you discuss your audit status with the course instructor, or some other neutral person, during the course?  You could try to get a statement from them.
You'll probably also need a good explanation for why you didn't catch the mistake sooner.  Did you have some sort of life disruption going on?  Were there IT problems?  Does the college enrollment system display your registration in a confusing way?  Did the course instructor or some other official mistakenly tell you that you were signed up to audit?

Check in with your registrar office and see what they can do. You would have student portal to sign up for courses if you're enrolled in school/for the academic year. I don't think there's a way to "edit" your transcript per se, but you can always retake the course.

"per say" or "per se" ?

Yes, thank you @Solar Mike. I knew there was something wrong when I typed it. I just returned from Asia and my English, unfortunately, has deteriorated quite a bit.

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text:
Paper rejection based on unfair review
I have seen couple of questions related to rejection of submissions to conferences (CS). Coming to my case, this is my third rejection, I agree that first two were fair decisions as the paper was not clear and needed more thorough experiments. However in this third submission I have put in all possible effort to make it the best considering feedback from prior submissions.
I received initial comments from 4 reviewers with no scores and based on their comments it was on borderline. Since there was a rebuttal phase, I have sent a response clarifying issues raised by them. I received my final notification today and it was a 'reject' decision. The final reviews had comments from an additional reviewer. His comments are atrocious and unfair. He pointed out that he is rejecting the paper as some issue X was not addressed at all. However we have addressed X with a thorough evaluation in a subsection and results put up in a graph. I'm sure that this reviewer has not read it properly. If he raised his issue may be on the way we solved X, it would have been more appropriate.
I know that appealing to the PC chairs would be a futile effort but at the same time I do not want an unfair review. This feeling of rejection based on unfair review is depressing me. How do I go about it. I feel the only way out is to resubmit it for another conference in near future.
Please advise.

If the paper was borderline after the four reviews you feel were fair, there's a good chance that it would have been rejected even without the extra negative review. It's unfortunate that the extra reviewer doesn't seem to have read the paper properly but you can't say that s/he alone torpedoed the paper.

I feel the only way out is to resubmit it for another conference in near future.

That about sums it up. Negative reviews and rejections are hard to swallow. They are common in academia and you cannot let them get to you. The best thing to do is step away from the manuscript. If you need to cry, cry. If you need to scream, scream. After a while, generally for me a week or so, try and look at the reviews again. If they still piss you off, step away from them again. Once you can read the reviews objectively, start to tackle them. This might mean agreeing with the reviewer, or seeing where the reviewer got lost, or that the reviewer is simply a fool. Once you have taken everything from the reviews that will improve the manuscript, file it away and if necessary cry and scream again. Then resubmit the manuscript to the next conference.

Thanks @Strongbad, I agree that I should vent out my frustration first, next consider only constructive comments and refine my paper for next submission.

I really wish someone said this to me at the start of my PhD. Perfect answer.

@kris Unfairness is much present. Usually we are inclined towards sadness, anger etc.  But in retrospect those are some of the pearls. When we look at it after a few years, you will see them from a higher plane - no more the tress, but the forest.  We will realize there are some new things we learnt which we would not have.  And also all the people were also in situations themselves.  So, dont forget them so that you are safe.  But forgive, understand from the experience. Later may things will all get better.  This world is the best pulp fiction. :)

As you said, the paper was on the borderline after 4 (fair) reviews. I would advise first to discuss the paper and the results with your supervisor / colleagues, and if you are still determined to continue, rework it significantly, taking in account the criticism of four referees, that you consider as fair. Make sure the result moves far from the borderline (and in the right direction). Then re-think the remarks of the last ("unfair") referee and decide what you want to do with them. Probably, you should not trash them away completely — try to find a motivated comments and suggestions apart from the "unfair" ones.
When a new version of a paper is ready, you may wish to show it to your supervisor and send to several colleagues outside your group asking them for some pre-submission comments — this may save you a lot of time.

Are we talking about the same paper that is rejected a total 3 times? If so, you should seriously consider if this paper (however you improve it) will ever be good enough. Perhaps the problem you solve is not interesting enough or your solution does not promote the state-of-the-art significantly enough. In that case, maybe aiming too high is your problem. Also, note that in prestigious CS conferences (I assume this is your case, due to a rebuttal phase), borderline papers never make it. At the end, there are enough papers who pass with flying colors and the rest fail.
You should start considering submitting to a lower ranked CS conference or perhaps a workshop. You have already wasted a full year or more (that is what probably the time required for getting those 3 rejections)and wasting another 3-6 months for the next conference, might not be feasible. You should seriously start discussing this possibility with your supervisor.
I understand that rejection hurts but many of us had works that were rejected, kept improving it and got rejected again. At some time, it is time to cut your losses and move-on. I think it was @JeffE that said "The universe has spoken. Move on" and he is right. Submit to a lower conference / workshop to at-least patent those results and lower your sense of rejection, but without wasting too much time further improving those results. Instead focus on more interesting variations and move-on. But most-of-all discuss all these possibilities with your advisor

thanks for your comments. The paper was rejected twice owing to writing quality and rigorous evaluation. Overall they liked the idea however. I will try to resubmit for a lower rank conference now.

Whether or not there is a rebuttal phase depends on things other than the prestige of the conference. I'm not aware of any conference in theoretical computer science that gives authors the opportunity to rebut reviews.

In Hebrew there's a saying:

צרת רבים - חצי נחמה

which means

The trouble of many is half a consolation

Unfair reviews seem to be very common. I just got a set of reviews a few months ago with one reviewer saying (roughly) "section X was great but section Y was weak" and another reviewer saying "I really liked section Y; unfortunately, section X was sub-par" and they made conflicting suggestions regarding what to expand on and what to mention in passing. And then there are people who seem to just not be close enough to your field of research who review the paper in a way that makes that fact abundantly clear. etc.
So while this answer isn't any sort of practical advice, at least know that you're not alone with this experience.

"[T]his answer isn't any sort of practical advice" - it should really be a comment rather than an answer in that case.

I think that the real problem that may however be hard to address, is that there is a schedule to visit certain conferences well in advance and that you are supposed to come up with research results that will be good enough for those conferences. This is not what I am used to doing, but then my field is not CS. If you could simply work on your research program until you get outstanding results, then getting those results published in a decent journal won't usually be a problem. There will still be cases of bad refereeing but then you won't mind if the referee wants things that are already explained to be clarified if the report starts with the statement that the paper is excellent and should be published.

Not all computer scientists decide which conference to publish in and then find a result to publish there. There are plenty of us who find a result and then decide which conference to send it to.

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Expected undergraduate semesters and requirements for graduate students
I have been wondering recently about how graduate schools and in general anyone who reviews my academic record views coops. By coop, I mean a semester taken off from undergraduate studies to work in a related industry. If the student takes more than 8 semesters to graduate, is it a problem? Should the student (if they can) extend their studies by an additional semester so that they graduate in the spring, or is a fall graduation equally acceptable. Do grad programs accept students to start in the spring, or only the fall?
I tried to keep the question above general pursuant to the guidelines in the FAQ, however I will appreciate anyone who is willing to review my specific case.
I am a sophomore in CS at a strong US engineering school. I have 2 summer internships, and now a coop under my belt. My problem is, I do not like any of the work I have experienced. I don't mind programming, but it is not something I can do for 40 hours a week without getting really bored. I only really enjoy the difficult math problems, which don't come up that often for most CS jobs,and I absolutely hate wires, soldering, network-admin and low-level computer work.
I want to switch to Math and pursue a graduate degree in either data science or applied math. I can graduate on time by dropping to a math major and a cs and stat double minor, or I can add a semester and get a double major in math and cs or stats, or take graduate classes. I should also mention that my GPA is currently at 3.2 largely because I have tried to alter the CS curriculum to incorporate the things that interest me (a realistic expectation is a 3.4-3.5 graduating GPA). My final consideration is that the math dept at my school is somewhat low on most academic rankings, whereas my CS dept is in the thunder-weight category trailing the likes of MIT. It would not be hard for me to find research opportunities in either department, which I intend to do either way.

I have been wondering recently about how graduate schools and in general anyone who reviews my academic record views coops.

Coops are fantastic.  Especially for programs in computer science / applied math / data science, relevant industry experience is a strong advantage in graduate school applications.

If the student takes more than 8 semesters to graduate, is it a problem?

No.  Nobody cares.  Even if someone on a grad admission committee noticed, the longer time would quickly be explained by your coop semesters and your change in majors.

Should the student (if they can) extend their studies by an additional semester so that they graduate in the spring, or is a fall graduation equally acceptable.

Acceptable to whom?  If you mean graduate admissions committees, then I repeat: Nobody cares.  In particular, graduating in the spring is no barrier to starting a graduate program the following fall.  (Of course, you have to eat, but that's a separate issue.)

Do grad programs accept students to start in the spring, or only the fall?

Some do, some don't.  Every grad program is different.
One last point: You mention coops, GPAs, and program reputation, but those are not the most significant bits.  Graduate admissions committees at top departments are primarily looking for strong evidence of research potential.  Assuming my quick Google search correctly identifies your university, you should have lots of opportunities for undergraduate research experience with world-class faculty.  Take advantage of them!  Start now!

Thank you JeffE. Your answer takes care of my major concerns, I am planning on starting a serious research position once I return.

-1 for "nobody cares." Admissions committees might not care, but the undergraduate institution might, particularly with respect to financial aid. Check with your school before deciding to extend your study time beyond eight semesters! (My undergraduate institution, for instance, refused to allow students extra semesters, whether it was for coops, internships, study abroad, or almost any other reason beyond serious medical or financial problems.)

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text:
A place to host static HTML+JavaScript that can be referenced from a paper?
My PhD supervisor always told me that we write papers "for the ages". The publication system being what it is, we cannot go back and update any links, so we should not cite or reference a source that may be gone in five years.
With that in mind, I'm looking for a place to host a small open-source web-application, consisting only of static assets (HTML, CSS, JavaScript), and I would like to link to it from my paper. GitHub being as big as it is, I suppose I will trust them for storage, but they do not offer hosting. Ideally, someone reading the paper should be able to go right to a URL and run the app.
Any thoughts?

"they do not offer hosting" - yes they do.

Aha. So they do. :-) Because of the existence of services like rawgit, I guess I just assumed they didn't. In keeping with the spirit of stackexchange, would you like to put this in the form of an answer?

Thanks but there's more to say though, and I think you want an answer from someone who's actually put something in their papers like this. You could also e.g. just register a domain name and put that in your papers; it's then up to you to maintain that I suppose but that ought not be too problematic.

Does your university have an institutional repository? They're designed for long-term preservation.

@menzenski: Sure. But I don't think it's suitable for this. It's meant for documents, and I believe they are strict with the file-types it accepts. Even if it somehow works, they never intended it to be used for hosting web-apps, so I do not trust that any solution I come up with will continue to work in the future. To top it all off, it's the kind of repository that locks down the content once a URL is generated. I can see the point of that policy, but in this case I want to be able to fix any bugs that crop up in the future.

@NajibIdrissi: Indeed, none of this is ideal, and I'd be taking a risk with GitHub. Still, unless someone shows up with a better solution before I publish, I'll take that risk. At least GitHub is still hugely popular, and github-pages is meant specifically to host web-content. Furthermore, I'm somewhat reassured by the fact that when you rename a GitHub project, the old URL will auto-redirect to the new one. I don't believe they'll invalidate my URL willy-nilly.

GitHub Pages web hosting really is perfect for your needs, but you might also want to consider FigShare. You'll get a DOI, which makes it easy for people to cite your HTML application. You could zip up your application using only local references so your app will be downloadable and usable as long as HTML 4/5 browsers exist. Until March 2015, content on FigShare was shared through an international alliance of libraries (CLOCKSS), but alas no longer.

While not exactly what I need (because it is not meant to host web-apps), FigShare is pretty cool! I'll keep it in mind.


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What does it mean for a review to be "synthetic"?
The term "synthetic" is often used to describe review papers, such as in the title
Multi-touch tables and the relationship with collaborative classroom pedagogies: A synthetic review
What does it mean for a paper to be "synthetic"?

see https://www.researchtoaction.org/2020/05/synthetic-literature-reviews/

Or https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/196574 "Synthesis: [...] The putting together of parts or elements so as to make up a complex whole; the combination of immaterial or abstract things, or of elements into an ideal or abstract whole."

In my opinion, the term "synthetic review" is a meaningless tautology because all literature reviews by definition synthesize the literature. For a definition to be meaningful, it needs to specify not only what is included but also what is not included. Obviously, a "synthetic review" synthesizes the literature. But then what is a "non-synthetic review" supposed to mean? A review that does not synthesize the literature? That is nonsense. So, the term "synthetic review" is a meaningless tautology.
So, this is not a question that can be answered in any absolute way. What one author means when they call their review "synthetic review" might be different from what another author means when they use the same term. It is not a standardized term and, in my opinion, it cannot be standardized because all reviews are "synthetic" in the sense that they all provide some sort of synthesis.
If you really want to know what a specific author means when they use that term, then you need to read what they say about it. For example, with the specific article you mentioned, other than in their title, the word "synthetic" occurs only once:

In the light of this, and aware of the equivocal overall association between digital technologies and learning (Weaver 2000; Fuchs and Woessmann 2004), this synthetic review aims to identify more precisely design relationships between the technological characteristics of large multi-touch surfaces (such as those in Fig. 1) and their pedagogical possibilities, so as to increase the likelihood of improving learning, and collaborative learning in particular, as they are adopted in classroom settings.

So, in this article, I would say that "synthetic review" is a fluff term that means nothing other than that their review synthesizes the literature (which is what all reviews do, anyways).
Although you might not like this answer, I recommend that you drop the question and not bother to try to "understand" what people mean when they use a tautological term that adds no meaning.

Synthesis implies that new result/insights are obtained by combining results available in the literature. A literature review, may or may not provide such additional insights. In certain contexts novel synthesis may be undesirable, see for example Wikipedia's strict ban on synthesis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research#Synthesis_of_published_material

@TimRias First, the difference between "additional insights" and "combining results" is very subjective. There is no objective criterion I know of that can say that compiling all results in one place is NOT an "insight" even if nothing more is added beyond bringing things together. This would be like saying that a telephone book (old example, I know) is not a synthesis because it adds nothing--I would say it is a valuable synthesis that brings things together that are otherwise very scattered. Second, Wikipedia is not a literature review, so I'm not sure how citing its policy is relevant here.

@TimRias As a counterpoint, can you provide an example of a literature review that clearly does NOT synthesize literature in any meaningful sense? I am unable to find such an example, unless you insist that an accumulation of results cannot possibly be considered to be "synthesis". But I hope you see why that is a subjective opinion that reasonable people can disagree with.

I would say that merrily collecting results in one place -- while clearly adding value -- does not constitute any synthesis. Moreover, there are quite a few reviews that are simply a summary of who obtained what result when without attempting to derive knew insights from  combining the results in question (most literature review sections in papers are of this type). Then there are pedagogical reviews that don't really synthesize earlier results by combining, but rephrase them in way that is easier to understand.

Here is an example of a review that does not strive to do any synthesis: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0264-9381/32/12/124006/meta

@TimRias What about writing your own answer?

@TimRias I only glanced through the article you linked, but I find it hard to understand why you would say that such an in-depth historical tracing of a major scientific development is not a "synthesis". That would suggest that it does not take much originality to select the appropriate historical cases and arrange them in a meaningful order. However, I most certainly consider such a historical review to be a "synthesis". But again, I maintain that the idea of what counts as synthesis or not is essentially subjective, so I respect if you disagree.


text:
Information technology requirements and issues for academic research
I am on a committee tasked with advising my university's Information Technology  office on institutional needs and issues regarding IT.  They are pretty knowledgeable about how to support the university's general administrative IT requirements (office applications, business IT infrastructure, securing personal data, etc) as well as instructional technology (smart classrooms, learning management systems, etc).  But they have less insight into the needs of academic research.
I try to bring up issues that I face in my own research, but I am only in one discipline (math), and I am sure there are many things I am missing.  It would help to be able to anticipate some of these issues, rather than reacting after discovering problems or omissions.
What special IT resources or support are commonly needed for academic research?
I am looking for issues that are fairly unique to research, that wouldn't be as commonly encountered in other generic large organizations, or in other university business.  (So no need to mention general things like email, wifi, etc.)  It needn't be limited to STEM disciplines, though I imagine they will have the most.
It would be especially great if there are lists developed by professional societies or the like; this would be more "authoritative" than general suggestions from the community.  Especially if it explains the rationale for the benefit of non-researchers.
A few that I thought of, to get started:

Specific operating systems that might not match the organization's "standard" OS
Installing third-party and open-source software without waiting for administrator intervention
Storing and backing up unusually large amounts of data
Transferring large amounts of data between institutions, through firewalls
Access to a variety of communication and conferencing tools that might not match the organization's "standard" conferencing solution
Remote login access to work computers

The "hot topic" Research Data Management could be an additional pount, including persistent identifiers, repositories and research data management plans.

Just one small point: Access to online resources (subscriptions to journals, etc.). If possible you should get access just from being in the university network, without difficult login processes.

As you already have "unusually large amounts of data" i would add HPC (high performance computing) for processing it. You don´t want to analyse gigabytes or terabytes of data on your laptop...

A lot of the things you bring up are serious issues even for the industry, and I don't see why it would be any different for academia. You should have a dedicated IT team just as if you were a generic industry organization, even if the information is open source and non-proprietary.

Installing third-party and open-source software without waiting for administrator intervention

This is fine on a personal machine, but on a network machine, you could potentially take down everything.

Storing and backing up unusually large amounts of data

Typically, you'd need to have backup servers, as all the research stored on-site is a great backup until, say, the sprinklers go off and wipe your data. I'd wager an acceptable plan for academia would be the same as industry. Every week or so, send a tape off to an off-site safe area to store and recovery in case of a serious IT disaster. Losing a week of work is usually more salvageable than losing everything, as happened above with those hospitals and ransomware.

Transferring large amounts of data between institutions, through firewalls

Depending on the data, you will likely need to encrypt and password protect stuff. Especially PCI medical data. Sometimes, out of simplicity and for records-keeping, you could send a physical media like a DVD or flash drive (also encrypted) instead.

Access to a variety of communication and conferencing tools that might not match the organization's "standard" conferencing solution

IT typically provides this as a service, i.e. e-courses. Not sure what you're expecting out of this, but "buyer beware" is typically sufficient for those that don't follow your recommendations or provided wares.

Remote login access to work computers

We have two-factor authentication for remote log-in. If information is sensitive, that's typically how we'd store things.

Please no. Academic departments are nothing like companies.

@StrongBad They have the same accountability as companies.  Sensitive information is sensitive, regardless of whether you are in academia or in industry.

What special IT resources or support are commonly needed for academic research?

That is a very difficult question to answer for a community like this because it most likely won't be efficient-wise. First because people might give you issues that you do not have and second because the issues people present here might not be fixed by your IT staff. Taking the latter into account, my advice for you is to better understand the problem that goes on your own university.
What I mean by that is that you should ask this to your own researchers. There are various tools around (for example, Google Forms) that allow you to quickly build a online survey and depending on their answer, you can identify what challenges they face and work on an optimal response.


text:
Should I publish my software independently or publish it along with a case study in higher journal?
I have built a software that handles protein clustering data in specific format. It is able to draw several plots on that basis along with many other analyses. It has more options than its existing competitor. Should I just try to get it published as a software/technical issue, or try some
case study data (research work on a logical data) produced by the software
+
the software,
   in a better journal?

That's a pretty domain-specific question. I am not sure whether academia.SE is the right place for this.

In my discipline (political science), one would typically do both. Write an applied article that uses the software for an actual research project and submit that to a substantive journal. Then, separately, describe the software and write it up for a software journal (e.g., Journal of Statistical Software, R Journal, etc.).

In my field (Bioinformatics) you would need to test that the software works as intended. Many researchers use simulated data to evaluate performance under controlled conditions, and then apply the method to a case study to demonstrate its validity with real data. Although not explicitly required for (most?) journals, if I was reviewing your paper I would most likely request that you demonstrate its utility with real data. That, however, does not require a lengthly study, any appropriate dataset would suffice. That being said, if you include some real data some referees may ask you that you demonstrate your software in a broader set of (real) conditions. That has happened to me before- referees are insatiable :-)


text:
Keeping advisees aware of literature
When advising students performing research in one's group, what's the best way to make sure that they keep on top of the literature?

Is it best to forward any article of interest to the student?
Should we keep a list of journals the student should follow independently of me?
Are there other practices (reading journal, etc.) to make sure they stay up to date?
Is this something that can be pursued at a group level instead of on a one-on-one level?

As a current student, I find that the constant barrage of requests makes it very hard for me to keep up with the literature unless it is very pertinent to my staying afloat. Thus, reading should be tied to my staying afloat.
The most effective way seems to be a journal club with the advisor with the duty of presenting rotating between the advisees. As a side note, a journal club without the advisor falls apart rather quickly. There should be mechanisms to make sure that attendees actually read the papers as well as the presenter doing a good job with reviewing the prior literature. I've personally learned quite a lot in this format.
The other method would be to set up a system to share papers. Using an RSS feed is pretty effective along with using NCBI's email updates. Internally, Mendeley groups or Google+ work well.

It depends on the structure of the group, and the research area. I'm in computer science, in a specific subfield, and so I know when the main conference paper lists come out. I try to publicize these lists, and have meetings where we discuss papers that sound interesting - I also point out papers that have done something significant.
This only works well though when the research group is relatively homogeneous. If different students are working in different areas, then the basic principle is the same as above, but the sets of conferences tracked might vary.
The same could be done for journals that tend to release issues on a regular timeline. Or even with the arxiv.
Ultimately, the goal is to instill some good habits, rather than actually keeping the students aware of the literature. They have to learn to do it on their own.

If you really want them to keep up to date, just forwarding things will not be sufficient. You could organise something like a reading group where people present advances in the field. This would make sure that they not only know of new literature, but have also read and understood it to some extent.
What actually works will depend on your group though. If people can't be persuaded to take part in a reading group, you'll have to do something else.

At the beginning, I require the student to read certain papers and explain them to me, as preparation before starting any research.  Afterward, I consider it the student's responsibility to keep up (and even to help me keep up) with the literature related to the thesis topic.  To make it easy, we usually establish a Mendeley group and each of us posts relevant papers there.


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How do I appropriately penalize late projects?
I am teaching an elective course in which students' grades are determined on the basis of a final project. Due to unforeseen circumstances, this year I had to grant a one-week blanket exception to all of the students. However, several students asked for, and received, an additional extension beyond the general extension, based on legitimate issues related to other academic commitments.
Unfortunately, some of these students have still failed to turn in their project, and this is leaving me at a loss for how to proceed. For this year, I have decided on a policy of deducting a full letter grade for each 24 hours beyond the deadline, but this at once seems too harsh (to the individual students affected) and also too lenient (because everybody else managed to turn things in on time).
Is there a reasonable way to handle tardiness in submissions of final papers or projects, particularly when they are the sole basis for determining a grade?

Is there an option to give an incomplete ?

I do emphasize being harsh is a lot more justified when announced in advance.

Here are some ideas of how I try to handle this sort of things. Maybe they will help, maybe you already are aware of these points.

As students, they aspire to become professionals, and you want them to. So, to a reasonable extent, treat them as professionals. In real life, finishing a project late triggers penalties, which can range from small to catastrophic (“the missed deadline? come back next year”). The rules are usually announced in advance, so they know how important each task is, and can weigh their own priorities.
It is not common, but for long projects, I have once used the rule of “late projects will simply receive the failing grade of incomplete”. Needless to say, noöne was late.
Also, as in any professional setting, there is always room for negotiation (as you did). If they realize they will be late, they should come and make an well-argumented pitch, and asking for a specific extension.
Not reporting on your progress is the worse possible action. I mean, simply skipping the deadline and coming two days later asking for clemency will not fly. In fact, I wouldn't consider listening to anyone who has not at least come forward on the deadline to indicate they are late, and try to work out a solution.

Of course, there always are special cases: hospital, tornado, the usual… :)

I'll highlight another method for evaluating student projects, which I find very interesting but have not had time to put in practice yet (but my wife did). In that approach, you set the project deadline so as to leave the students ample time, and you allow them to hand you their reports at any time before the deadline, for you to review. And you state that after the deadline, they will fail (if they have not given you anything yet), or be graded on the last version of their project you saw.
Then, obviously, grade fairly strictly… because their work will usually be very good, since you already reviewed it once or twice (for most groups). This has been found (don't have the reference right now, I will ask) to improve acquisition of knowledge over the usual method.

I sort of do this. My approach is to make students hand in incrementally more work over the course of the semester—a one-paragraph overview after a few weeks, a one-page statement a few weeks later, a plan to finish a month before the project is due, and then the final report.

In my first programming class, the policy was that after turning in the assignment, you'd get a grade and get it back with the opportunity to fix problems for a slightly lower grade than if you had turned it in perfectly the first time (I think we had about a week). Since we had an opportunity to fix things, the teacher was able to grade very strictly (memory leak = 0, compile warnings = 0, output doesn't match perfectly = 0, etc.), so I got used to writing actually good assignments instead of "good enough that the teacher would feel bad about failing me".

@aeismail, what grade level and subject material do you teach?

The courses in questions are upper-level undergraduate engineering electives.

For a course in which the final project is the only (or the majority of the) grade, one letter grade (or a 10% penalty) per day is not too severe. Compare to the final exam. If a student needed to make up a final exam due to legitimate extenuating circumstances, how many days would you give that student to make up the exam? Not many.
I would also encourage setting a date after which you will not accept the project. At my institution, and likely at most, final grades are due by a specific date. If the project is not submitted by that date, I would assign a zero grade for the course.
Regardless of severity, most students would respect a policy that:

is communicated upfront, preferably in the syllabus.
is enforced uniformly.
has some small amount of wiggle room for true emergencies.

Here is an alternative way of thinking about the issue.
Some argue that punishing students for late assessment is counter-productive to the learning goals of a course. For instance, this blog post presents a good argument for this case. The author argues

Students should be graded on the quality of their work (their ability to meet the desired learning targets) rather than how punctual the assignment is.

I've also read this elsewhere in books such as Biggs' Teaching for Quality Learning at University: What the Student does or Ramsden's Learning to Teach in Higher Education.

True. But, well, it depends what your goal is. In most cases, your goal is not only to get them to learn as much of your course, but also to teach them how to interact in a professional setting. The latter may be especially true if you work on projects…

I suspect that your "most cases" may very well be topic and university dependent.  But you are right in that it depends upon what learning goals there are beyond learning the material.

I don't give late penalties, but in exactly the opposite sense as the blog post Dave points to.  By default, the deadline is the deadline; if it isn't in on time, no credit, full stop.  On the other hand, I'm quite happy to give extensions in small classes, or forgive assignments entirely in large classes, for either unavoidable circumstances (like sudden illness or accidents) or sufficiently advance notice.  (I was horrible at getting things in on time as a student.)

@DaveClarke I fully disagree with the author. In the real world people do not get extended periods of time to complete an assignment simply because they think they can make it better.  Deadlines exist for a reason and often are critical to whatever the student intends to pursue. If its late its late.

@DaveClarke: The students in question have already asked for an extension. Students at some point have to accept responsibility for failure to follow the rules. I work in engineering, where missed deadlines have significant consequences. I also think that it's unfair to the other students, who could have done more or better work if they had the same time as the "latecomers," but chose to follow the rules.

Certainly, if producing results to a deadline and learning to suffer the consequences if the deadline is not met is one of the learning outcomes, then I agree.

@BrentPabst Who cares about the real world? Whenever something like this comes up, it's always, "but in the real world ...", and then if someone says "Well then why don't you teach us practical skills?", it's, "Oh, we only teach abstract concepts, you can learn practical things after school". The two goals are conflicting, so I wish universities would just pick one.

@BrendanLong Yes, I wish universities would start actually preparing students for the jobs they are expecting to get after finishing school instead of generating lots of "abstract" students who cannot DO anything in "the real world".

@BrentPabst In the real world, creative open-ended projects are almost never on time, often taking a few times more resources than expected. Think about John Carmack's "when it's done". But you are right for mundane projects sometimes it does not matter how good they are, if they are after the deadline.

@PiotrMigdal I'm thinking more along the lines of keeping a job, not large organizational projects. If you consistently fail to deliver when expected you can expect to not keep your job.

@BrentPabst Surely. But e.g. in academia you are more judged on quality, not punctuality. I.e. a project can be delayed (sometimes a week, sometimes two years) but need to be of almost-perfect quality. And actually a typical coursework does no prepare for it - it provides tasks known to be doable in a given time limit, with a given skillset.

@PiotrMigdal You are a level too deep. Is the purpose of Academia at the undergraduate level to create new knowledge or to prepare students for life after school? I would argue again that undergraduate degrees are meant to prepare for the workforce while graduate level studies are meant to add new knowledge. After all, part of any program is to create a practitioner of sorts, not just a scholar.

@PiotrMigdal “in academia you are more judged on quality, not punctuality” — try getting funded by submitting all your grant proposals one week after the deadline, and tell me if you still stand by this quote :)

@F'x Yes, application deadlines are often of the type "one day late? no problem, apply the next year". However, I always count such things as "administrative" not "research". And, (arguably, it would be an off-topic) the more administrative things, the less creativity, BTW: http://www.jbc.org/content/281/11/6889/F1.expansion.html. But anyway, somewhere there was an important advice for PhD students, to learn which deadlines are strict, which - aren't.

Disagree. The vast majority of undergraduate students have the objective of entering industry. In this setting, grades are nothing more than a signal to an employer of the student's capacity/value. In the employer's perception, this is not only their ability to produce outstanding work; it's their ability to submit things by a deadline. By only evaluating their ability to produce outstanding work, you're reducing the value of grading as a signal.

As far as timeliness goes, Woody Allen is often quoted with the famous, "80% of success is just showing up."
If students realized that such a slice of the grade could be the result of schedule adherence in the real world, would we have this problem?

At my high school in the US, every English and Social Studies class (two courses certain to have term papers) required both students and parents to sign a document at the beginning of the year acknowledging a ZERO TOLERANCE POLICY for missed deadlines on projects and papers as well as the late policies for homework.  These deadlines were established at the beginning of the term in the syllabi, much like university policy.
Students could turn in any paper ahead of time without gain or penalty, but without documented family/medical/extenuating circumstances, no work was ever accepted past the deadline. Zero tolerance = 0%.  This was the perfect timing for a wake up call on making excuses for high school students.
Later in university in Québec, there were even more explicit reasons defining extenuating circumstances, which could take months of arbitration, i.e. your name in a mass-media, published obituary being the burden of proof necessary to miss a deadline as a result of the death of a family member.
Most recently, as a middle school teacher, I hit the middle ground of the -10% per school day (not per class period) for homework assignments.  Otherwise, I need a note from a parent or guardian excusing the tardiness by the due date or upon the day of the student's return to school from an excused absence.  I'd like to require a doctor's note in some notorious cases, but we all have to conform to the school handbook, don't we?


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Research "employment" options for students graduating midyear?
Some students, particularly in the US, face the dilemma of graduating at the end of a fall semester or quarter, but then have the prospect of not having a PhD position start until the following fall. For students for whom working would be an important means of trying to support themselves, what options are available? Companies are typically reluctant to hire someone for a few months (not enough return on investment in such a short period of time), and there aren't a lot of academic programs available. What's a prospective PhD candidate to do in such a case—particularly with reference to students entering science and engineering fields?

My experience is limited to anecdotes. What I have generally seen is that students usually attempt to get either a paid industrial internship or an paid/unpaid research internship with a particular research group.
In fact, I have been mentoring an undergraduate who is graduating in the middle of the semester and is preparing to spend the next 6 months working as a research assistant (paid ~$15/hour) for a research group in our university before joining a prestigious PhD program in another university.

+1 RA positions are usually more flexible in terms of contracts/eligibility/duration/etc. Though I can tell you that 15$/hour sounds very low to my European ears.

The pay scales could be different in different schools but in mine, this is generally what it is. $15/hour for 40 hours/week work is actually a really nice salary comparable to what graduate research assistants actually get paid. :)


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What happened to the Piled Higher and Deeper comics?
Without dating myself too badly, I have enjoyed PhD comics since the beginning. For the past few years, there have been about 2 or 3 new comics a week, but there has not been a new comic in months. I don't really follow all their social media contacts, but it does not look like there has been a tweet or a facebook update in a while.
Was there any announcement about a break (or the end)?

Odd to see such an obviously off topic question from a mod. You know about the chat rooms, of course.

@Buffy why is it off topic? If Google scholar or pubmed went down, or had a major unannounced change, wouldn't that be on topic? Something like XKCD comics has a non-academic following, but my guess is PhD Comics is more or less only followed by academics.

So the close vote must be from a NON Fan... Got to be better than a "I want..." question...

I would not consider it off-topic, since it is clearly related to academics. It is just hard to answer, as Guest already has indicated. Maybe Jorge Cham has run out of ideas and is looking for our contributions?! I guess some of the funny to bizarre situations we encounter in academics are worth telling.

Don't know what caused the break, so won't write a full answer, but: (1) I saw Jorge speak live several years ago and he confirmed that the last strip will reveal the protagonist's name. So probably not the end, assuming he is still alive and well. (2) I think the 2-3 per week frequency has not been true for several years now, more like 1-2 per month. Most likely because he has been more active in his "explaining science" endeavors (sigh). But I agree it has been ~3 months since the last one, which is unusually long.

@cag51 the dates are all listed here and you are correct that 2-3 a week is way too high of an estimate. Last one was 11/23/18

One of the stretch goals in last year's kickstarter campaign (which was successfully reached) was that one of the main characters would graduate ("the storyline will complete before the end of the year"). This obviously has not happened so far.

The problem with this being adjudged on-topic is, it will act as a precedent for similar me-toos, and even more so because the OP is a mod. Also, unless somebody gets a horse's mouth account (i.e. from Jorge himself), any other answer is essentially speculative.

Alas, 1060nm, you went offline far too soon.

He took a break, but the comics are back now.

According to the latest comic, the series is on hiatus until November 2019. The unsubtle message behind the comic is that the author doesn't owe an explanation to anyone.

Just to be clear I wasn't asking for justification or even an explanation, but was just looking for the email Prof Smith sent. I still haven't recovered from losing homestar.

When was this comic published, just a couple of days ago, right? I'm going to assume there's a mistake in PhD comics archive http://phdcomics.com/comics/archive_list.php (since I don't remember that comic being there last year) and it was actually published 6th May 2019? (and apparently the author feels like he does owe his readers an explanation, despite the message the comic is trying to send -- seeing as he published this "explanatory" comic more than 6 months after stopping other activities).

Not sure what happened with PhD comics, but Jorge Cham seems to be actively involved in this other project: https://www.danielandjorge.com/
It looks like the last comics were around the time of his Kickstarted book celebrating 20 years of PhD comics.  Maybe he got burned out by that endeavour?

I noticed that a lot of the more recent comics were credited to someone else, as sort of "thanks to ___ for this idea!" - the comic's been around a long time, might be running out of creative novelty.

+1 -- following that link shows that this other project is putting out 2-3 updates a week. I suspect he just doesn't have enough bandwidth for both, so the frequency of the comics has fallen off (though you'd think there would be a note).


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Is it a good practice to indicate the desired handling editor when submitting a paper?
In submission forms of academic journals, I often see the possibility to give names of desired / non-desired reviewers for the submitted papers. But very rarely I see fields for choosing an editor who handles the submission from the journal's editorial board.
When the submission form does not offer the choice of a handling editor, should one indicate a desired editor in the cover letter? Do some researchers (e.g. specific fields) commonly do so?

I would only do so if you have a very good reason to want a particular editor (or to avoid another one): while there can exist valid such reasons, it could also be a warning sign for editors. For example, if you ask that the editor not be the “usual” editor for your particular subfield, it may be regarded as you trying to avoid careful scrutiny. So, if you are not asked about it, and you don't really care (or trust them to make the right call) (which should be the majority of cases), just don't do it.
Regarding usage: most of the chemistry journals I know allow you to pick your handling editor directly from a list (although availability and workload management might lead to changes after submission), and some journals allow you to pick both preferred and non-preferred editors.

In general, I agree with F'x's answer—special requests for editors beyond the standard process should generally be avoided. The exception to this rule would be if you feel that your paper, may end up being improperly assigned if you do not specify an editor. The primary reason I can think of why this might be the case would be if your paper is multidisciplinary, and you would prefer it to be in a different section of the paper than the one it is "normally" affiliated with. Again, however, this would appear to be a rare enough circumstance that there's little to be gained, and more to be lost (for the reasons F'x has laid out).

To ensure the journal picks the right editor, the standard approach (in my research group) is to ensure the abstract contains enough information for choosing the appropriate editor/reviewer. This also helps people who skim the paper to figure out whether they should read it. (Disclaimer: we are a Computer Science research group, so the process is rather different as we submit to conferences).

In my experience, more often than not math journals ask you to submit to a specific editor or indicate which editor is closest.  If you're asked then it's certainly best practice to do your homework and suggest the right editor.  As the other people's answers indicate this seems to vary by field.

I actually have been in this situation, but it was mostly a "Conflict of Interest Issue", since my adviser was the appointed editor for the journal I was sending my paper to, and he was also an author on it. There had to be some email exchange, and it did took sometime. I agree that it is quite unorthodox. Mostly because it reflects on the editor as well.
Once, actually, I could not submit for some conference because he was the organizing chair of the session and the conference had strict rules against it.


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Is it okay to ask references for their opinions on other faculty candidates?
I'm head of a search committee and will be checking references for finalists for a fixed-term position. Two finalists worked with the same non-profit and gave the names of different people who work there. When I am talking to one person at the non-profit, is it okay to ask what they think of the other person too, or should I ask their opinion of only the candidate who specified them? If it matters, I am in the United States.

Talk to your HR contact and see what they think (or will support).

In Germany, referees are sometimes asked to write a "comparative" reference about multiple candidates. This is considered perfectly above water there. No idea for the US, though.

Is it an academic non-profit? For example, a research institute or a research hospital?

@CaptainEmacs In fact, this is the standard practice in Germany. Though the referees are then chosen by the search committee, of course.

In Academia, you do not disclose who has applied for a job unless you have the candidate's permission.  Since academics work in teams on long-term projects, sometimes they have to keep their job search a secret.  If they do not, they may be excluded from teams.
Ask the candidate for permission before contacting any references the candidate did not provide.
It is common to even ask for permission before contacting references when the candidate provided the references in their application.

That makes no sense to me (working in private company in France). What is the point of giving references if the candidate can tell you NOT TO call them ? What prevents the candidates to put bullshit references then ?

@FlorianCastelain If the candidate tells you not to contact the references, presumably you do not hire them.  I agree that the last sentence does not make sense, yet in my experience it is commonly true.

"In Academia, you do not disclose who has applied for a job unless you have the candidate's permission." This statement is too strong, and can be misleading to candidates. I strongly doubt that this is how things are done in practice, even in the US. In other places, sometimes candidates can not only provide a list of references to contact, but also a list that should not be contacted (for reasons that should be obvious from some of the questions asked on this site).

@FlorianCastelain "What prevents the candidates to put bullshit references then?" The reputation of the reference matters. In academia, people have very public reputations, e.g. most of the work you do is public. The choice of reasonable references is not that large for any candidate.

@FlorianCastelain you make the job offer conditional on the reference not contain anything information that makes the candidate an unfit person for the job.   Eg they were sacked from the past job.

What? Considering how much people on hiring committees openly tell people, about who applied and who interviewed, I don't agree with the sentence "In Academia, you do not disclose who has applied for a job unless you have the candidate's permission." Candidates doing on-site interviews including a public talk, are also not asked for permission for their name to be used in the advertisement for the talk, even though it always is.

@user1271772 "also not asked for permission for their name to be used in the advertisement for the talk"  Not true in my experience.  It's just that the other option is turning down the job.  Often "plausible deniability" is maintained that the talk is not part of a job interview.

@AnonymousPhysicist That's likely culture-specific. In Europe, I have seen cases where even all candidates got invited in the same few days for interviews, and this was openly advertised in the department, and among the students (who have a (small) say in the committee).

Stick with the reference you were given
Are you going to track down ancillary references for all the candidates?  You want to be as fair as possible in your faculty hiring.  Getting extra references for only a few people is unfair to both the people getting extra references, and people who didn't get a chance to provide an extra reference.
If the extra reference is great, that will likely sway your opinion of the candidate.  Other candidates may have plenty of great reference, but you didn't ask them.  If the extra was a bad reference, that'll change your mind too - even though you didn't ask anyone else to produce another great reference, or go reference hunting for them.
Job hunting is tough - especially for academics.  By asking extra references, you could end up tipping the current organization off about someone's job hunt, which could jeopardize their current job.  It also might be illegal (I'm not a lawyer).

Good reasoning here. I especially like the second paragraph.

There may be law about this, but I would consider it improper unless you ask the candidate first for their OK. Otherwise, you are using a non-official, potentially unfair, informal, "off the record", process to help choose candidates.
You have a defined process. You should stick to it, even if not required by law.

Thinking about the law, defining and publishing one process while using another, might be construed as a kind of fraud, even if it would be difficult to charge.

I like your first two paragraphs but the 3rd is off-base and probably best left to law stackexchange. The OP's scenario does not fit within the definition of fraud in most jurisdictions. Fraud almost invariably involves a deliberate and dishonest action (e.g. you knowingly lied to the applicant about the recruitment process) and a deliberate intention for personal gain or to cause a loss to someone. Merely failing to follow a published process isn't sufficient. See e.g. ss 1-4 of the Fraud Act 2006 in England / Wales / N. Ireland.

@JBentley, I was merely speculating. And the question is about US.

The Fraud Act was just an example. The definition of fraud is broadly similar in most common law jurisdictions. It's best not to speculate on legal issues - "might be construed as a kind of fraud" is misleading because it cannot be construed as any kind of fraud. Best to leave such issues to law stack exchange, which exists for exactly that type of question.

It may not be fraud but it likely will upset your HR professionals because you are treating some applicants differently than others.

This is quite different in the US (and UK) as compared to other countries. In Germany, the candidate never provides references (at least, it didn't use to be the case, not sure if it changed). References are solicited by the search committee. But I agree that the process must be clear from the outset, and should not be changed midway.

@Araucaria-Nothereanymore No, what you are describing is in no way fraud because it lacks the required elements (dishonesty, intention to gain, etc.). It's important to realise that crimes have very specific elements which must be proven beyond reasonable doubt. A vague idea that the person did something which doesn't seem right doesn't mean the criteria for fraud have been met.

Unless your search process description (and the job advertisement !) explicitly state that you will solicit opinions from further, secret to the candidate, references, I would stay away from doing so.
It is a thing that makes lawyers panic about the potential of failed candidates suing the university --
at my institution (large state university in the US) I imagine such an action would be considered sufficient procedure violation by the HR department to lead to the search being stopped.


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How to communicate college's financial problems to faculty candidates?
I'm a faculty member at a small liberal arts college with significant financial problems, which make the long-term viability of the college questionable. In addition to faculty pushed out, junior and senior faculty have been leaving for other institutions.
My department gained approval to do a tenure-track search. I am wondering how and when to communicate the situation to candidates. The normal sequence for a search is:

Solicit applications.
Interview the stronger applicants at the big annual meeting in our field.
Invite the best matching 3-4 candidates for an on-campus interview.

Our reasons for wanting to let candidates know about the problems are:

It's the right thing to do.
We don't want them to reject us after we've used up a campus visit on them.
We don't want one to leave a year or two after accepting the job because they did not understand the extent of the college's problems.

When should we let candidates know about the problems and how explicit should we be? For example, we could point them to news articles, put them in touch with junior faculty not involved in the search, etc.

Why are you hiring if you do not think you can pay the employee according to the contract?  Is hiring an accreditation requirement?  I think the ethical thing to do is to advertise the position as being available for the period where you are sure you can pay.

@AnonymousPhysicist but that assurance nominally would come from the Dean and if the Dean says there is TT position, I would take that as a sign the university is willing to honor the contract.

@AnonymousPhysicist I don't think the college will fail in the next 6 years, and ours is not one of the departments under threat.

Are the financial issues public to any degree? Public enough that somebody doing their homework on you would find it relatively easily (e.g., Sweet Briar College)? If so, asking the higher-ups what to say when asked explicitly would be a good thing.

@JonCuster Yes, the information could be found if you searched for " financial", but it's not national news, just local and higher ed news.

As a member of the search committee, and as a department in general, you want to aid the department in getting the best candidate possible. Misleading the candidate and losing them after the campus visit, or even after a few years, hurts the department. Doing the right thing may have long term benefits but might cause short term problems.
I would pass this off to a higher up. If you are not on the search, ask them how they are dealing with it. If you are on the search committee ask the chair of the search and/or the chair of the department. Once you get to the university level, they should be able to produce some numbers that presents the university in the best light. While this seems like it is deceiving, what you basically want to do is convince the candidate that whatever they have heard in the news, there is still a good reason to think the university will pull through the difficulties.

The chair of the search committee asked my advice. I am sure our higher ups would not volunteer information about the problems and would play them down if asked.

@Embarrassedtenuredprofessor I would ask the dean if you should preemptively say something or if asked how you should respond. Hopefully the dean is still on your side. If the Dean says don't worry about it, then I don't think I would go against them.

We don't have a dean, just a provost, who is part of the administration, although nominally a faculty member.


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Difference between "faculty member" and "faculty person"
I've occasionally heard the phrase "faculty person" used, apparently as an alternative to "faculty member".
Are these exactly equivalent, or are there any subtle differences in meaning, connotation, or usage?  Is there any reason to prefer one to the other in any particular setting?

Seems unlikely that there is a difference. Note that the US, at one time, had a lot of local dialects. That mostly disappeared in the age of television, though. Still some remnants of it. Some months ago there was an online "test" that would predict where you were from by the words you described things with: "soda" vs "pop", for example.

It's somewhat reminiscent of the shift to gender-neutral terms for professions, e.g. "fireman" -> "firefighter".  I wondered if perhaps there was something similar here, that one was more inclusive than the other, in a way that I hadn't understood.

It might be that "person" has become a favorite word lately.

I've seen ambiguity of the term where sometimes "faculty" is implied to include only tenure-track professors (gathering other research and teaching folks among the "staff"), or perhaps tenure-track and professional track, and other cases where it applies to a broader group. However, I don't recall any place that this distinction rested on inclusion of some other word like "member" or "person".

The people I've heard it from were native English speakers and fairly senior.  Searching on this site, for instance, I've seen paul garrett use "faculty person", and as far as I can tell, those both apply to him.

Seems a sizable fraction of the occurrences of "person" here at academia.SE are from Paul: https://academia.stackexchange.com/search?q=%22faculty+person%22 whereas "member" is quite common https://academia.stackexchange.com/search?q=%22faculty+member%22 - guessing it's just an idiosyncratic synonym not intended to have different meaning.

"Faculty member" is idiomatic.  "Faculty person" is not.  Otherwise there is no difference.


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Math / physics conference with one week review period - reasonable?
I recently received an invitation to review a mathematics paper for a conference called "International Conference on Physics, Mathematics and Statistics".  It's not one I'm familiar with, but their proceedings are to be published by what appears to be a reputable publisher (IOP; Journal of Physics: Conference Series).
The invitation said "The review period will be 1 week."  This seemed quite unusual based on my experience with math journals - reviewers are usually given at least 2-3 months and often more, as it is necessary to carefully check the proofs for logical correctness.  It made me wonder whether the conference was "real" or predatory.
I declined the invitation with a somewhat snappish comment about the review period being unreasonably short, but I wonder if I was out of line.  I don't have a lot of experience with conferences that publish proceedings.  Was their timeline at all normal or reasonable by prevailing standards?

The name of the conference alone is a sure sign the conference is fake/predatory.

A review period of one week is, in my opinion, ample reason to decline a review invitation. As far as I can remember, the only times I've ever been able to finish a review in a week were when the paper was garbage (and I could finish the review in an hour).

There is a site at: http://www.pmsconf.org/ (no comment about it, I just searched for "International Conference on Physics, Mathematics and Statistics", judge by yourself)

Was the paper actually close to your research area, or at least something you could reasonably review?

@Kimball: It was in the right general area, such that I wouldn't have been too surprised to get a paper on that topic from any other journal.

Another red flag: its registration fees.

I see a few different aspects in your question:

Reputation of a journal / conference.
Conference paper review vs Journal paper review.
Acceptable behaviour when responding.

1. Reputation
A sure red flag is a single "international" conference that covers multiple large specialized fields of study. Each one of Physics, Mathematics and Statistics usually have enough size to warrant their own conferences, and in this case typically super specialized conferences. A conference that is so broad is not really valuable to any specialist that attends it. Another red flag is that the website has a date agnostic URL, which means you cannot go back and see past conference outcomes and attendance. Red flag number 3 is that this is the first run of that conference, so no reputation or track record has been established. You mention IOP but the two other's in that same list are both from china, that has to date not been at the forefront or quality reputable research.
2. Conference vs Journal review
You are correct, usually for journals one gets multiple months to review a paper, from my experience conference review cycles are much shorter, but still in the order of 3-6 weeks. This is heavily dependent on the conference and journal. A 1 week review time should raise another red flag with point (1) above.
3. How to respond when you want to say no
Always be polite, but clearly state why you said no. Snappish was maybe not the best way, but since this conference has a high probability of being fake, no harm done. Remember to also indicate if you can be considered for future reviews for that journal even if you said no this time (e.g. when your reason was that you don't have the time right now or that the time available is too short).


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Impacts of "professional advisors" for undergraduates
In my department (math, US, medium-sized public university), the current practice is that undergraduate students declare a major when they enter, and are assigned a faculty advisor. The advisor is always a full-time faculty member, and will normally continue to advise them until they graduate.  The student meets with their advisor at least once per semester to discuss what courses they should take in the next term; the advisor is also available to help with degree planning, academic difficulties, bureaucratic problems, advice about careers and grad school, etc.
There is a proposal from our administration to change this by hiring a "professional advisor," a staff member whose full-time job would be to fill this role for each student's first 1-2 years.  (After three semester, they would be assigned a faculty advisor as before.)  The hope is that this will somehow help with "student success", i.e. retention and graduation rates, which are lower than we would like.
I am curious about the pros and cons of this approach.  I assume this has been tried at other institutions, and it would be interesting to know what effects were observed (either anecdotally or backed by research).
Possible pros and cons that we have identified:
Pros

Saves faculty time
Students may be too "intimidated" to approach a faculty advisor with their problems.  A professional advisor might be easier for students to work with.
A professional advisor could come in with special training or education on advising students, and common student issues.  Faculty advisors usually just have to pick it up as they go along.

Cons

Students will not work with their faculty advisor for as long (about 2.5 years instead of 4).  This will reduce the strength of their academic relationship.
Math faculty may be better qualified to help address academic difficulties in math classes, which are frequently encountered by first- and second-year students.
The professional advisor would not only advise math students, but also those in other areas of science.  There are concerns that the advisor could unduly influence students to change their majors away from math, which is considered a "difficult" major, if they start to struggle academically.  There are even concerns that implicit bias on the advisor's part could lead them to do this disproportionately on the basis of gender, minority status, etc.
Math faculty are involved in designing the requirements of the math major, and so are best qualified to advise students on how to satisfy those requirements.  Also, since they actually teach math courses, they would be better able to help students decide which courses would best fit their interests.

I wonder how these work out in practice, and if there are other issues we haven't thought of.

Presumably faculty would continue to hold office hours to help students who need help.  I helped many students in classes other than my own.

Please keep the comments civil, folks.

I've been to schools with both systems, so I'll give my perspective as a student:
The Third pro you list (a professional advisor being more specialized) is HUGE. Students get very frustrated when their advisor doesn't have the answers that they want, and in my experience, most of the questions that students ask are for administrative stuff, like, "How do I sign up for classes" or "Can I skip this prerequisite?" that a qualified advisor would be able to easily take off of your plate, and would probably be able to handle more quickly, which would improve the student experience.
Addressing the cons: You should not be concerned about an advisor steering students away from your program. That would be horribly unprofessional for them to do, so that would be something I'd wait for it to actually happen before addressing it. As for the fact that they might not be as qualified to deal with certain problems, it would just be a common part of their job to come and find information that they aren't qualified to give. The lack of a long-term faculty relationship is a real concern though.
Additional thoughts:
Providing a single point of contact for students is a very valuable thing indeed. A person whose sole job it is to listen to students and address their problems has always been very helpful for me, because I never felt like I was bothering them when I went to ask them a question, which is how I felt any time I was talking to my normal faculty advisor. It also makes it easy to know who to go to with a question early on. You don't have to remember your specific advisor, you can ask anyone and everyone will know who the advisor is, and be able to point you to them.

About the "steering": I agree that it would be unprofessional, but some of my colleagues reported having experienced exactly this at other institutions.  It was not necessarily overt, so we're concerned that it might be hard to identify if it starts to happen.  There can be a fine line between helping a student find the right major for them, and this sort of "steering".

My university has gone through multiple systems for advising new students, though none exactly corresponding to the proposal you describe.  The biggest problem we in the math department perceive is the last on your list of cons: advisors from outside the math department don't know which classes a (potential) math major should be taking.  They can read the list of major requirements, but don't know to give advice like, "course A isn't a prerequisite for course B, but most students take course A first so it's probably a good idea to take it first", or "course C isn't required for the major, but can be counted as a technical elective and is extremely helpful background before going into the more advanced required courses".
(For interested math faculty, the examples I have in mind are: A = linear algebra, B = real analysis, C = "transition course".)
I haven't spoken to colleagues in other departments about this so I'm not sure whether they see the same problem.

Your example is something faculty should document for a professional advisor if there is one.  In fact, a colleague in another program prepared a flow chart with multiple paths through the program's courses, decision points, and decision criteria.  (The hard part is keeping such a thing up to date as the curriculum changes.)


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How widespread are electronic-only dissertations?
My university currently archives all our graduate dissertations as bound volumes in the library.  We are considering dropping this practice and archiving them electronically only.
How common is this practice among respected research universities?  Is there any data?
(Some of my colleagues feel that having paper dissertations on the shelves is an important mark of a serious research university, and that dropping them will harm our institutional reputation.  So it would be helpful to have data to indicate whether such a policy would be "mainstream" or "fringe".)

my alma mater still prints one copy of each thesis, but they are stored off site and, for all intents and purposes, don’t exist except that I needed to pay for this.

The first page of a Google search shows UVA and USC do this already.  You could try contacting colleagues at those schools and see how the experience has been.  (Sorry, I don't have a statistic.)
P.s. I am sympathetic to those who prefer the bound volumes.  I think you can in some ways scan a text and multiple texts more easily in the hard copy than electronic.  Also, there are excellent arguments that books on acid free paper are a superior storage media than computer files (longer lasting, safer, future readable).  Finally I think that the granting university is more likely to have future students working in the same general area.  Thus they benefit especially from a printout.