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Waiver for conference registration fee
Usually there are some ACM/IEEE conferences which takes registration fee around 350 to 550 US dollar. For a student, it might not be possible to deposit such amount of money.
Under this circumstance, is it ok to ask conference organizer for 100% waiver in registration fee?

You can ask, but running a conference does cost money and those costs need to be covered. Nonetheless, some conferences offer reduced registration fees for students and some will offer bursaries for students

You might also check with your academic department office to see if they provide assistance with conference fees.

Some conferences support student attendance by using them to, e.g. make sure the AV equipment is working. Look at the conference materials, and then email the conference organizers.

The dominant cost of attending most conferences is not the conference fee but the travel costs (e.g., airfare + hotel). Moreover, most conferences (including most ACM and IEEE conferences) offer a reduced rate for student attendees, often half or less of the rate for professors. If you cannot afford that lesser rate for students, you probably cannot afford the travel costs either.
There are two good ways to try to get around these problems, however:

Some conferences offer the chance to apply for student travel scholarships. These typically both waive registration fees and help cover travel expenses.
Many conferences draw on student labor to help run logistics, e.g., manning the registration booth, acting as ushers. These students are typically compensated by free registration. They are usually drawn only from the hosting institution(s), however.

The best way, however, if you are a graduate student, is to see if your professor or your department can support you.


text:
Should I submit my paper to a journal that accepts papers quickly?
Should I submit my paper to a journal that accepts quickly?
One of my batch-mate got accepted in a journal within 1 month. The journal was also listed on predatory journal's list.
Please advise.

Usually not, but only because most reputable journals take some time to review papers...

i'd say no, just by looking at the journal you linked. Without naming any, there are few recent papers that are very weak, where they use a very simple, out of the box algorithm for simple applications, that would never be published in any reputable journals due to it being more of a simple engineering project and not contributing to new science. I am just a random dude in the internet, so take my advice as you will (I may be wrong)

Counter-question: Should I use the steam driven high-speed printing press from 1811 only because it is faster and cheaper? Yes, because it helps to distribute knowledge to more people.

After looking at few article, I told myself to stay at least 100miles away from this journal (and the publisher).

Quick acceptance (a month) is pretty surprising for many disciplines, but that's not necessarily a bad thing in itself. But if the journal "guarantees quick acceptance", you should be very suspicious, since reputable journals do not bother with any rhetoric in that direction.
Being listed as a predatory journal is a very negative indicator... though, if we are scrupulous, we should note that those lists do not pretend to be infallible.
On the whole, I'd be suspicious. Better to go with well-known journals that do not promise such stuff.

The time between submission and publication is not a good metric of the quality of a journal. Some journals may be both reputable, and specifically designed for rapid communications. For example, in the field of Optics, there is a journal called Optics Express. This journal is well regarded, has a median turn around of 65 days (so approximately half of the papers are accepted in less than two months) and an impact factor above 3. There are many other reputable journals across many fields specifically designed to rapidly publish. This does not mean the review process is compromised.
A journal listed as being predatory is an entirely separate matter, and a far more important metric to consider when looking to publish. Personally, I would never consider publishing in such a journal because you cannot guarantee that your research has been correctly reviewed, which then casts a shadow over whether your research is worthy of publication. This may have negative consequences for your down the line when applying for jobs (depending on the career path you choose).
The best (safest) approach is to only submit to reputable journals, and to continue to work on your research until such time as it is suitable for such a journal. Given you have tagged your question with student, you may also want to ask your lecturers and other faculty staff what an appropriate student focused journal would be.

Great point, many journals exist for the purpose of rapid publication. These are often highly reputed and have high rejection ratios.

Only you can answer this question, because only you know what you want out of the publication. Just remember: balancing the upside of quick review and likely acceptance are downsides such as 1) you are less likely to receive detailed reviewer comments, and 2) it might do less good to your career if others identify it's a predatory journal, and might even be harmful.
I suggest reading articles such as this one and coming to your own conclusions about the costs vs. benefits. Ultimately, it's your paper and your decision.

You have your name to protect. Try to ensure the most trustworthy journals and peers endorse your work for publication.

The time before acceptance does not necessarily mean that the standard procedures for accepting a good paper are violated.

There are papers that have been accepted on initial review and they have been well received by the research community.

Quick answer: absolutely not - look at their Editorial board.
Long answer: a key indicator of the quality of the journal is the level of people at the journal's Editorial board. If you check the Editorial board of this particular journal, http://www.mecs-press.org/ijigsp/board.html, you will see that the people there belong to some obscure universities. Austin Peay State University, West Pomeranian University of Technology, KLE Technological University, Al Azhar University and so on and so force. I didn't find anyone from a "normal" place.
It means that your article won't get a reasonable referee and most likely will not be noticed by the scientific community. I strongly recommend to select another, normal journal for publishing your research.

NO! Absolutely not.  If the journal is on a predatory list, and people realize this, it will be held against you in many circumstances, v.g. scholarship applications, job applications etc.
It’s one thing to avoid journal where the process is extremely long, but usually it does not pay to shortcut the process and trade time for poor reputation.

When it comes to publishing papers, quality is much much more important than quantity. I would rather have 1 paper in a top tier conference, rather than 100 in some easy workshops.
Having too many papers in junk venues is definitely career suicide. When people look at your publication record, and cannot recognize any conference/workshops that you have been published, nobody will ever care about what you do.

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text:
How to deal with inactive students in a testing session?
In testing sessions that I proctor now, there are frequently one or more students who are not actually working on the test for extended periods of time. Perhaps they are just staring into space, or out the window, for most of the period. Or they may be holding the test paper up in the air and apparently scrutinizing it for a long period of time. Or a student may lean back in their chair and go soundly to sleep.
Excepting this last case, the student likely only has to adjust their eyes a few degrees to be looking at another student's paper. It gives all appearances that they are watching for me to turn away so that they can cheat. I feel compelled to watch them constantly for the entire period, which is tiring and stressful, and doesn't let me watch other students or answer questions. Frequently, the paper I get back is mostly blank after this hour-long staring match, but I can't know that in advance.
What is the best way to deal with inactive students in the testing session? Is it appropriate to demand that they leave the testing area if they're not actively working? (Students are already told in advance that they can turn in their paper and leave as soon as they're done with it.)
I'm teaching mostly lower-level mathematics at a large urban community college in the U.S.
Added: This is in a moderate-sized course with around 25 students in the classroom, taking the exam. The students are known to me and registered for the course which I am teaching. I made the exam and distributed a practice version, with identical directions for each question, in advance of the exam.

For "testing session" do you mean an exam? In my experience (in my country), in some courses where past exam papers were not made available by the professors (it happened especially in the past), some students would go to the exam anyway, even unprepared, just to take note of the questions and exercises given. So they would stare at the wall for most of the time. Sometimes students would take turns at the exams to compile a list of questions.

OK, they are clueless how to solve the questions and stare at the problems for an hour, waiting for a spark of understanding to ignite in their minds. Why should they leave?

@svavil: Because it complicates watching for cheating. Their head is up, looking elsewhere in the room the whole time. It's added stress for me to monitor them constantly.

@MassimoOrtolano: Yes, these are exams. I would think it unlikely that these particular students are copying questions. Practice tests in the exact same format are already publicly distributed. No materials can be taken away with the students. These are generally students who cannot remember any terminology or symbols from day to day.

Personally, I would say to boot them out, in a polite manner of course.  As they are likely distracting to at least one person in the room.

I encourage my students, on exams, to often pause and think, and not feel compelled to constantly be writing. If they're doing this, I assume they'll be staring off into space, or closing their eyes. I've done this myself as a student, and I did very well on exams! I really don't see why this should make you (the instructor) uncomfortable -- what's the point of an exam that doesn't require thought? If the issue is that the students are turning in blank exams, that's their problem, not yours -- you're not their parent.

Have you tried standing behind the students so that they can't tell whether or not you are observing them?

It seems to me that students are permitted to spend exam time "as inactively as they choose," and that barring some truly exceptional edge cases it is neither fair to them nor the best use of your own time to try to deal with inactive students during the exam itself.
I'm sorry the behavior is stressful for you, but I don't have a good understanding of why.  Not working or writing on the exam is not an effective cheating technique; falling asleep or staring out the window less so.  If you see students with wandering eyes in a way that actually makes you concerned: okay, tell them not to do that when you catch them doing it.  But that's a problem of unwanted activity, not inactivity.  Moreover, you write

Frequently the paper I get back is mostly blank after an hour of inactivity like this.

I find it kind of strange that you think that a student (whom you know is registered for your class; no funny business there) who turns in a mostly blank exam is somehow cheating.  Cheating means trying to succeed through illegal means; if they are pathologically avoiding trying to succeed, I somehow doubt that cheating is the explanation.
You write

It puts me on edge because it's so inexplicable,

Okay, I get you there: it certainly must be distressing as an instructor to witness students walking into an exam -- i.e., a situation which is a pressure-packed performance opportunity to most students -- and respond to the high pressure situation by basically doing nothing.  I agree that there's something going wrong here.  However, I don't think that you should fix the problem by proctoring the exam differently: rather, during the exam you should take note of which students are behaving in this way, and then make a point of talking to them about it after the exam (presumably after it's been graded rather than immediately at the end of the exam).  In my experience, if a student is otherwise even moderately engaged with the course (coming to class, turning in homework) then they are very likely to be responsive to such questions on the part of the instructor.  Maybe once in a blue moon you get a student who really doesn't want to work much on their exams and really doesn't want to talk to you about it.  OK: you tried, they didn't, they'll fail.  But they have the right to play it that way, it seems to me.
Let me end by commenting on another answer which suggests running future courses with a policy that says students' exams can be taken away from them if they are not working on them.  While clearly well-intentioned, I think that's a bad idea.  You simply do not have access to students' interior processes and you shouldn't pretend to do so: maybe a student who is staring out the window for half an hour is nevertheless working on the one problem that they don't know how to do and is going to write out solutions to all the problems in the last ten minutes.  (I mean, probably not, but maybe.)  It's just not defensible enough to respond to inactivity on an exam by taking the exam away from the student (and especially, with a policy to return it later on if they show suitable penitence).  A student who has an exam taken away can go to the department chair or the dean saying "My exam got taken away from me just because I was thinking rather than writing."  If I were the chair or the dean...c'mon: the student has a very strong case.

Let's see if I can help a bit on the apparent unclarity. When this happens, the student has their head up, looking elsewhere in the room. Their eyes are probably just a few degrees away from some other student's paper. I'm internally debating with myself: "Are they looking at the other paper? Or not? Now they're looking directly at me. Will they glance at the other paper as soon as I turn away?" At this moment, I have not received the mostly-blank paper yet. I cannot tell the difference at this moment from actual cheating or on-standby-to-cheat.

"Do I have to stand here staring at the one student constantly for an hour? What if I have to look at some other student, or answer a question?"

@Daniel: Okay, but the issue of students glancing at each others' papers seems like an independent one -- if anything, it's more pressing for a student who is actually appearing to work on the exam! If the potential cheating issue is what's bothering you, sure, go ahead and take steps to counteract it: e.g. requiring students to sit in ways that minimize line of sight to each others' exams and/or explicitly telling them not to stare off roughly in the direction of other students' exams.

Also, if despite your good efforts cheating turns out to occur, you have a good argument for getting another set of eyes for the next exam.  (In other words, though I do not agree with the rest of it, I do agree with the last paragraph of aparente's answer.)  But the lack of activity is not the problem then; it's the wandering eyes that result in cheating.

Thanks for those suggestions. However, at my institution, the facilities are fairly cramped (no way to minimize sight lines) and added proctoring personnel are not available.

@Daniel: I'm sorry to hear that, but if it's a big enough problem you can ask for help from your colleagues as a favor rather than a demand.  If you are experiencing this, then others teaching similar classes in your department (and based on what you teach I expect there will be plenty of those) probably also are.  So maybe you can agree to "shadow each other" in exams.  Also if the department as a whole mentions to the administration that the classrooms are inadequate for exam purposes and it is compromising academic honesty, you will probably get some action eventually.

Frequently the paper I get back is mostly blank after an hour of inactivity like this. It puts me on edge because it's so inexplicable

Have you tried finding an explanation by asking them? Don't try to appear like during an interrogation, make sure they understand you would truly like to know.
If the reason is indeed cheating in the exam, you might get a bogus answer, but chances are they are rather "cheating" (if you could at all call it that) the system in a bureaucratical sense. Massimo suggested one possible explanation along that vein, another one that had come to my mind is as follows: At a university where I worked, students were allowed to take an exam a second time if they failed during their first try. So, once a student realizes they won't score a good mark during the first try, they might rather choose to fail than pass miserably and try to get a better mark during the second attempt.

What is the best way to deal with inactive students in the testing session? Is it appropriate to demand that they leave the testing area if they're not actively working? (Students are already told in advance that they can turn in their paper and leave as soon as they're done with it.)

Based upon what you have described, no. Holding the exam sheet up in the air may be bordering on being inappropriately disturbing to others (who will, despite being focused, pick up unusual movements from the corner of the eye), but the other behaviours are simply remaining silent with a minimum of interference to other exam takers, as is appropriate while sitting in an exam room.
As a basis for your decision on how to react, try to weigh the possible advantages and disadvantages of taking action. While you may overcome your anxiety about "unnecessarily" having some more people to watch over (in particular if you can get a better idea of why that behaviour occurs), the two conceivable benefits that I see would be:

You might be preventing an act of cheating. (Unlikely, as based upon your description and pointed out by others, it is not clear how a cheating technique would work in the situation described.)
You might help other students who are distracted by the people in question. (Again, unlikely, given that they are virtually as silent/non-disruptive as they can be.)

The definitive disadvantage you are creating, on the other hand, is that anyone leaving the room in between - in particular when it's preceded by any form of communication when proctors ask them to leave - creates some commotion that will disturb most other students in the room.
As a final note, your question makes it sound as if some of these inactive students falling asleep were the culmination of inappropriate behaviour. Again, I'd like to ask you to check whether their sleeping actually disturbs any other exam takers. If they start snoring, sure - but otherwise, sleeping is actually a worthwhile way to spend the time while a student cannot do anything else, and at my university, we have actively recommended that activity to students in the past when for some reason they had to stay in the exam room without anything to do.

In your shoes, I would take their names, and sort it out later.
That is, if they are included in your roster of enrolled students, they are "clueless."
If they aren't, they are "sitting in" to try to get the test questions, and then memorizing them for future use by themselves or others.

Can you expand on what "sort it out later" entails? In my case, these are definitely known students registered for the class.

@DanielR.Collins: I meant "make a decision," based on whether or not they were registered for the class. (If they are then they're clueless).

In short: I find this behavior of theirs normal and suggest you consider the larger scope of dealing with possible cheating.
A couple of anecdotal examples from a student's POV:

During some of the school exams, I would finish the assignment way early and have nothing to do; requesting me to quit the room to not distract others by idling is reasonable and was occasionally done but was not always logistically feasible as it would leave me stranded while someone was arranged to pick me up at a later time. Other times, we would have arranged to hang out with fellow students after the exam. To a student, it is not obvious if you are causing a disruption that way, and the classroom may in fact be the most comfortable place to idle at. To the same tune, many students are taught to make the most of their time during exam, check their results multiple times if they have nothing else to do and only leave as the exam ends: I know of many cases, not just myself, where parents would scold their kids for being done with the exam early even if they aced it. Sometimes, being bored in the classroom is the path of the least effort when the alternatives are entering a conflict with one's parents or lying to them, and this is oddly common for people normally considered functioning adults.
There was a case when I was given an assignment far beyond my capabilities at the time, and a few cases where I would complete most of the assignment quickly and then get stuck on the topic I did not understand well enough. This is closer to what you describe. But most exams do not have IMO/IPhO-style problems and are not tuned to the model student who puts their pen to paper the moment the exam starts and barely finishes it by the end of it. Ergo, some students (myself included) would just stare into nothingness until they get the insight required to solve the problem. In fact, even for something routine-heavy like trigonometry or integration, I would normally prefer doing calculations in my head instead of writing everything down - which is a lot of staring into windows, at ceilings, at the assignment paper while actually doing the work. I am sorry if it made proctors uncomfortable in the past, but that is often the best way for me to work on problems, no malice intended.
Finally, we had exams with no proctoring whatsoever and students still failing, not because of an honor system but because of topics being advanced enough it is essentially impossible to cheat in a way that is not blatantly clear to an examiner.

I am a firm believer in that in good assignments, cheating is very obvious and/or not at all helpful. It is a lot harder to do for lower-level courses, but if the entire grading system hinges on preventing a student from glancing over to a neighbor's assignment, that is not great. So, then, is it that crucial that you watch them like a hawk and under no circumstances must they be able to copy some parts of other student's assignments (=cheat)? I think that if you decide to let it go, you might see their (statistically) previously blank papers now filled with a bunch of mostly incorrect answers, which should, ideally, still not be enough to earn them a passing grade. Given your previous experience of teaching that class, if I were in your shoes, I would try to adopt a more relaxed attitude during, say, midterms and see what happens and if that results in a perceivable grade inflation.

A student who is not able to do any meaningful work on the exam is probably feeling embarrassed and somewhat paralyzed.
It's not your fault.
I would suggest adding something like the following to your course syllabus:

During exams, if you are not making any progess on your exam, then a proctor will politely ask you to put your name on the exam and turn it in.  You will be offered a short, optional alternative assignment.  After five minutes, you may ask for the exam back if you feel ready to make some meaningful progress on it.

Here is one possible alternative assignment:

Please write a couple of paragraphs that will help me get to know you better as a student.  For example, you could write about your academic and career goals, what your favorite course in high school was and why, and what special challenges, if any, are you currently facing as a student at XX Community College.  Is there anything I can do, as your instructor, to make the material in my course more accessible for you?

Follow that up with some placement-type math problems.  I suppose the students have all been through the placement process, but clearly, something's wrong -- so let's try to find out what.
If a student is sleeping, you may put a hand on a shoulder, offer a bottle of water, and ask if s/he would like to work on the exam or turn it in.  (This is a gentle discouragement to continued sleeping in the exam room, and an opportunity to wake up and start working on it.)
Additional note: If you're on edge, that tells me you need one or two additional proctors, and/or a larger room.
Edit:

(from comment) "At my institution, the facilities are fairly cramped (no way to minimize sight lines) and added proctoring personnel are not available."

Thank you for explaining this.  You can buy or make cardboard carrels, also called privacy shields.  You need a full set of these to use on exam days.  Not only do they make proctoring easier and more effective, they can also reduce exam anxiety.  Each student feels more in his or her own world, with less comparing of self to others.

It might be a good idea to offer an alternative assignment to those who are clueless about the exam. However, it's never a good idea for a proctor to initiate it, which your answer suggests. It should be the student's option and the student's choice.

@svavil - I agree it should be optional.  Maybe I wasn't completely clear about that in my answer?

Maybe you wasn't. You might want to phrase it in the most liberating way possible.

@svavil - Maybe I weren't? What's that? // I don't know what you mean by "liberating."  // If what I wrote doesn't indicate clearly that I'm suggesting an optional alternative assignment ("I would suggest adding something like the following to your course syllabus: [...] You will be offered a short, optional alternative assignment") then I would invite you to help me phrase the optional-ness more clearly.

Cardboard carrels would make it much easier for students to use unauthorized materials during an exam (since depending on where the proctor is in the room, many students' workspaces will not be visible - and the students can tell exactly when the proctor can't see them.)

@ff524 - I guess I haven't understood how easy or hard it is to get a phone into an exam room undetected.  When I visit my local courthouse I have have to go through a metal detector, and cell phones set it off. I wonder if there's an affordable gadget to check students coming into a large exam?

@aparente001 I hear there's this crazy new thing called paper, on which you can write unauthorized notes, that you can hide somewhere on your person or inside your clothing and that is virtually undetectable without a strip search ;)

@ff524 - Which one is a more significant form of cheating, I wonder -- paper, phone or copying?  Or would this need to be a formal Question?

I don't know what you mean by "significant". I imagine the prevalence and the potential benefit of cheating by various methods depends on the specific exam.

@ff524 - Most significant = primary.  In other words, I'm wondering which of these is the primary or most prevalent form of cheating these days, paper, phone or copying from a neighbor.  Cell phones were only a figment of Ray Bradbury's imagination when I was in grad school, and I'm still trying to wrap my head around its use for cheating in exams.

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Are college instructors in the U.S. generally mandated reporters?
Almost all U.S. states have mandatory reporting laws, that specify certain professions, especially those dealing with children, as being obligated to report evidence of abuse to a state agency. These laws vary by state.
Usually these laws prominently specify that teachers are among the mandatory reporters. For example, from a summary page on the New York State government website:

School official, including (but not limited to):

teacher
guidance counselor
psychologist
social worker
nurse
administrator or other school personnel required to hold a teaching or administrative license or certificate
full or part-time compensated school employee required to hold a temporary coaching license or professional coaching certificate

My question is: Are college instructors generally considered mandatory reporters in the U.S. (i.e., in most states or jurisdictions)? I suppose for the NY State example, it hinges on whether "colleges" count as a "schools", whether "professors" count as "teachers", etc.
I am not currently in a situation where I have any evidence of abuse, nor do I think I ever have been. However, more than once I've had a conversation with someone (usually a grade-school or high-school employee) who make the assumption/assertion that like them, I'm a mandatory reporter -- and my hunch is that's incorrect. I'd like to be prepared in advance if the issue ever does arise, and also to set expectations in conversations like these.
I'm hoping this question is answerable -- possibly with a clearinghouse site that's studied the issue, some professional association or major union guidelines on the issue, or a case finding from a federal court proceeding.
I'm limiting the question to the U.S. because I think it may be troublesome enough with different state laws around the issue.
I'm also most interested in reporting obligations to a government agency outside the school (aside from the fact that some institutions set their own internal reporting requirements). That is, do U.S. college instructors usually need to call to the same state agency that grade-school teachers are required to contact in these cases (e.g., in NYS, the SCR)?

Googling "college professor mandated reporter" pulls up, amongst many hits, things like "College employees (with the exception of the confidential resources), are mandated reporters of sexual misconduct and relationship violence and are obligated to report any incidents they learn of to a Title IX Coordinator or the Office of Public Safety."

I don't know about genuine legal aspects, but my own university in recent years has a policy that faculty or staff who become aware of an issue are not to talk to the person reporting the issue, but only to refer them to designated campus offices. Whether there is (university-) mandated reporting (to whom?) is unclear to me.

@JonCuster: Ok, the first Google result is as you quote, from the Providence College site. The second result I get right now is from Wake Forest University, and says, "Faculty members are not considered mandatory reporters unless they fall under one of the categories listed above."

I've voted to close on the grounds that this depends very much on institutional policies.

@DanielR.Collins - Correct, so what does your institution say?

@JonCuster: That's not the question.

Although dated, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/02/04/faculty-members-object-new-policies-making-all-professors-mandatory-reporters-sexual may prove interesting. My guess would be that in the 8 years since then the number has only increased. I showed you one result where it was required, various other hits show a variety of other institutions. Is that "generally" applicable or not? Your call.

There are differences between mandatory reporting requirements in higher education that come from the federal government and reporting requirements in K12 education that come from the state government.

@JonCuster: That does lead to a useful 2013 AAUP report that judged faculty to not be mandated reporters under the Clery Act, at least (in Part IV): https://www.aaup.org/report/campus-sexual-assault-suggested-policies-and-procedures

Note that almost everyone that college instructors deal with is a legal adult.

I think there is going to be fundamental confusion on this question because the term "mandatory reporter" means very different things in the K12 and the university/college space. Our university uses this term for things like campus sexual assault, but the k12 meaning is specific to abuse and neglect of minors and also certain groups like elderly and those with developmental disabilities.

@DanielR.Collins - but also points out that some states have specific laws. Seems quite a mess, hopefully individual institutions have clear guidance for all employees.

@Buffy - well, I started at 17, turning 18 my freshman year, no skipping grades or such. I knew younger freshman. And I doubt that the university gave our actual ages to anyone.

@JonCuster, and Buffy... actually, now that you mention it, the math dept at my university has a program for somewhat precocious high school and even middle school students, many obviously under 18, and under 16. There certainly have been epochs in which criminal background checks were done on proposed instructors... though I'm not sure this has been consistent. And I strongly doubt that the instructors have been prepped about reporting apparent child abuse (though, by this year, maybe that is part of their warm-up...)

I wonder if you’d get another category of answers at law.stackexchange.com

Laws in the US vary by state. I question the value of determining "generally", as generally it depends, and for any individual it matters most whether it applies to them.
Generally I'm familiar with the phrase "mandatory reporter" referring to people mandated to report suspected abuse/maltreatment of children. There may be other things that it is mandatory to report but that doesn't necessarily imply the same thing as "mandatory reporter".
In my state, there is a statutory definition of mandatory reporter that would include a lot of university employees that interact with children, including employees that work in healthcare or childcare.
There is also an executive order that makes university professors, administrators, and other employees who are employed by the state mandatory reporters as well. This would not apply to professors at private institutions.
For compliance with other reporting requirements, it seems my institution avoids using the phrase "mandatory reporter". For example, Title IX comes with reporting obligations, but there the people-who-are-mandated-to-report are called "responsible employees". There are also state requirements for reporting sexual assault that apply to all campus employees; that doesn't make them "mandatory reporters". Other examples I can think of would include requirements to report violations/leaks of HIPAA/patient information, or requirements under animal or human subjects protocols from IRB/IACUC. All of these comes with non-optional reporting requirements, but they don't make anyone a "mandatory reporter".

According to this link: https://www.childwelfare.gov/topics/systemwide/laws-policies/statutes/manda/ there are 18 states where all members of the public are mandatory reporters for child abuse and neglect. These are: Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina,
Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah.

You might add this link - state-specific statues can be searched here: https://www.childwelfare.gov/topics/systemwide/laws-policies/state/

The same report referenced above says that several states specify that university faculty are mandated reporters as of 2019: Alabama, Arkansas, California, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa (includes only instructors at community colleges), Louisiana, Oregon,
Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Washington.

@Dawn Seems useful, though not comprehensive; for example, it doesn't have reference to the executive order I mentioned which is highly relevant to university faculty, since they are not otherwise included in the legislative requirement.

Yes, I am surprised they don’t have it, since this the most up to date report on childwelfare.gov

There are situations, at least in Virginia, where mandatory reporting includes vulnerable people who are not necessarily children, such as the elderly and disabled. Employers usually (might required to) clarify mandatory reporting guidelines to employees who are mandatory reporters.

@ToddWilcox  - yes, this is true - probably need to write a separate answer to deal with this since Bryan doesn't seem to want to incorporate this feedback into his answer.

+1 Yep. In Oregon, where I teach, professors of public universities are mandatory reporters. I have also been advised by an attorney that my mandatory reporting duty has a universal jurisdiction—i.e. if I encounter elder abuse or child abuse while traveling out of state, I am still obligated to report.

@Dawn Well, it seems like a useful resource, but since it's wrong for my institution I felt like it was best to leave it just as a mention in the comments.

What is the definition of a child in this context?

@Dawn: You mentioned probably writing an answer based on your findings from childwelfare.gov? Pinging you back if you're still willing to do that -- I'd be prone to pick that as the selected answer, just based on your prior comments.

Note: This answer relates to mandatory reporting laws in relation to child neglect and abuse, not "mandatory reporting" imposed by employee requirements in Title IX or other instruments.  There is often some confusion on this site about these distinctions.
As a general principle, laws imposing mandatory reporting obligations on teachers in "schools" generally includes primary and secondary education but not higher education or professional accreditation (e.g., universities, technical colleges, professional association, etc.).  The reason for this is that the latter institutions are primarily created for adults (though they do sometimes enrol minors).  This means that legal obligations imposed on "teachers" in "schools" do not usually apply to lecturers, tutors, etc., in universities or technical colleges.  Some legal instruments refer specifically to academics and university lecturers as a separate profession (see e.g., laws relating to qualified persons to act as justice of the peace, etc.) and this adds weight to the interpretive difference.  For some references to case law on this matter you might be interested in this entry in Black's Law Dictionary.  In some statutes that impose mandatory reporting you will find a dictionary that includes interpretative information for the terms in the statute, and this might include a definition of "teacher" or "school".  However, these are not always included and so judicial interpretation is used.
As an example, the NY mandatory reporting law you refer to is Section 413, Title 6 of the NY Social Services laws.  The school personnel covered by the mandatory reporting requirement are the following:

§ 413. Persons and officials required to report cases of suspected
child abuse or maltreatment.

(a) The following persons and officials are required to report or cause a report to be made in accordance with this title ... school official, which includes but is not limited to school teacher, school guidance counselor, school psychologist, school social worker, school nurse, school administrator or other school personnel required to hold a teaching or administrative license or certificate...

This legal code also contains a dictionary of general definitions (Section 412) but that dictionary does not define "school" or any related terms.  Nevertheless, the above section refers to "other school personnel required to hold a teaching or administrative license or
certificate", which suggests that the previous references to teachers, etc., is for those required to hold a license or certificate.  This augments the general interpretive principle that "school" does not include higher education by a university, technical college, professional association, etc.  This would exclude lecturers at a university.
(Note of course that people who are not mandatory reporters are still able to make reports of child neglect or abuse through the same reporting channels as mandatory reporters; they are just not under a legal obligation to do so.)

In many cases, by institutional policies, faculty are mandatory reporters.
Some institutions have policies that exclude faculty as mandatory reporters, but those institutions run a legal risk- if a faculty member or other employee becomes aware of a reportable matter (under Title IX, Title VII, or the Clery Act, federal laws with mandatory reporting requirements) and then doesn't report it, the institution could be in legal trouble.  Individual states can also have mandatory reporting requirements.  The conservative way for an institution to avoid this problem is to make every employee a mandatory reporter.
Since this varies by institution, and might also vary depending on the particular circumstances under your institutional policy, you should learn about the policy at your institution and ask questions if it's unclear.

In your reference to Title IX, I think you may be confusing mandatory reporting within the university and mandatory reporting to the state government. I think the question is about the latter.

My answer was entirely about mandatory reporting within the university.   The OP edited the question after my answer to ask about mandatory reporting to state authorities.

@BrianBorchers: The question has always been about state laws since the first version. I did edit in an attempt to further clarify.


text:
How best to phrase short feedback to students?
I'm a CS professor who regularly gives feedback on 1st-semester student programming assignments around code styling issues (i.e., grammar, punctuation, spacing, etc.; following the format of our textbook). Frequently I find myself torn between two possible ways of phrasing the feedback. Moreover, I'm now currently developing a tool to help automate the process for my needs, and I'd like to make it as useful as possible.
I can see two different ways of phrasing the feedback:

Say what went wrong. Example: "Missing blank line before comment." In some way, this seems most natural to me, as it resembles most software error messages, etc.
Say what right would have looked like. Example: "Place a blank line before each comment." This is a little longer, perhaps not as direct, but in some way points in a more positive direction.

Since I usually have quite a number of these coming at some students in each assignment (maybe up to a dozen), I want them to be short, clear, and easy to parse (e.g., certainly don't do both, or a "feedback sandwich" triplet).
Is one of these approaches clearly better than the other (or maybe some other alternative)? The best response would address the issue of student understanding and responsiveness to the feedback -- with a research reference to back it up.
The issue is not solely for CS coding assignments, either. I think the same phrasing formulation should be applicable to essays in literature, philosophy, or history, thesis citation styles, etc.

I would feel silly answering a much more experienced educator than me, but saying what went wrong and not how to fix it seems more pedagogically useful for a non-trivial example, no?

First of all, I never had my professors correct my code formatting and stylistic issues, and I really wish they did. Your students will be glad you're doing this. I know I would be. Secondly, it's harder to come to a conclusion with your given example (the two are very similar). If you can give an example that better highlights the difference between the two approaches, it would be more useful.

Philosophically, I'd think the first is better, though it seems immaterial in the example you give.
But (a) engaging the student and (b) giving minimal hints should be the goal. The first choice is better at (a), but both of them fail a bit at (b). For the example at hand, an overall comment that the code is too dense and line spacing improves readability might be better.
But the habit of "minimal hints" is worth acquiring in general. Not just for coding. Get them to look critically at their own work. Even creative writing benefits.

Unfortunately, most of my starting community-college students are so weak they simply cannot reason from general principles to specific use-cases. E.g., this whole issue is because even after giving general (and precise) rules, these problems are still occurring. Most can only respond after being pointed to specific examples; hence the brief-linter-like tool I developed to automate the feedback.

It is subtle and you need to think about it, but "precision" can actually impede comprehension. Examples are good, of course, but being given answers is much less good.

To be clear: This won't be the selected answer, because it doesn't clearly answer the given question, and it doesn't help in the case at hand.


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How to intervene with a student struggling in the major?
As a lecturer, at the start of each semester in all of my courses, I have students complete a first-day diagnostic quiz on topics from the prerequisite course. There are usually a few significant under-performers (say, 40-50% success where most students are in the 70-100% range).
I then follow up with those under-performers by looking at their prior total course history. I always find a few cases that look like seriously troubled fits for their academic major. For example: Failing core courses one or more times and then passing with a "D" before repeating at the next level (e.g.: Introductory Programming for a C.S. major, Precalculus or Calculus I for a math major, etc.). Failing 5, 10, or 15 core courses over several years in the major (so far).
I feel like I want to do something to counsel these students, reflect on their choice of major, find the most profitable use of their time and resources, and/or find how to support or remove roadblocks if appropriate. But as the instructor, I'm not sure how best to do that.
One option would be to have a meeting in the first week and ask, "What difficulties can we improve on?", etc., so as to get off on the right foot and make the most of the time in the current term. Another option might be to say nothing until they likely fail my first exam and then use that as a wake-up call in the course.
How should I, as an instructor, intervene or counsel students who are struggling greatly with their major over a number of years?
(This is at a large U.S. community college.)

Do you have an office of student success? Or similar? My school has a lot of struggling students and we adopted this process a few years ago where we can report students who we think are in danger of failing our course early in the semester so they can be counseled about their options.

Do you think the students would be able/ willing to pay a tutor?

@Dawn: We have a multitude of different student support services and counselors; since arguably they're not helping in these cases, I'd like to focus on what an instructor in the major can directly do to advise. I'd assume that students cannot pay for extensive outside tutoring (approx. half of the institution receives financial aid grants).

If they've failed multiple courses before, another failed exam in yours is unlikely to become a wake-up call, don't you find?..

Added detail on student support services: We have a new software system in place as of last year, and I used it to report students in danger of failing. I could see that the response from advisors was to throw it back to me: "Please contact your instructor, as they have indicated you are in danger of failing the course."

@Lodinn: Yes, I agree. I don't have any viable options that I've come up with.

I know - I couldn't think of any good options, either, and the same question bothers me, too.

I can tell for you from a troubled student's perspective. I have some friends with similar kinds of problems here at Brazil in USP, and I think our academic cultures have similarities (including eventually diagnostic tests).
Some of my troubled colleagues have to work a part time job to pay for living in the city where the university is. Some have psychological problems triggered by pressure of university, or self induced pressure by a lot of expectations. A nonnegligible number have the three problems combined in different proportions. I think the culture of my generation (near 22-28 years) aggravates that scenario. People - having grown up with video games, the internet and shiny special effects everywhere - think to live fast and expect constant and fast feedback. This makes some throw things in the air when progress looks like very slow. Even when it needs to be because the situation - the expected reality and the experience don't match
There are educational sites, like coursera.org, duolingo.com, brilliant.org and even the Stack Exchange that have adapted for the expectations of new users with fast feedback. Maybe giving some 'landmarks' so people don't resign in the middle of the way can be helpful if is this kind of problem that is occurring. This can be real, I know a lot of strange examples, but the most intriguing for me is the case one friend of mine who had completed all calculus courses in coursera.org but got stuck for 3 years in calculus 2. (Now he works as a data scientist in a good enterprise.)
If the problem is triggered by some kind of anxiety, I think that if students feel they can count on you for a little and sincere talk in the final of some lecture or another, without being harshly judged - because probably they had heard hints for changing the major or something like that, a kind of talk that could be uneasy and even kills the trust - I just can think a good outcome being constructed along the semester.

Just my couple of cents, mostly from things observed back in my student years.
Quite a few students couldn't keep up for one reason or another. Our associate dean was kind, wise and experienced, and the nugget of wisdom I gained from them was that "successfully" graduating the program is not necessarily the best option for the student. At the end of the day, what you want is them living a happy and fulfilling life. You also want to help them use their potential to the fullest extent possible, but not everyone can get to the same level.
Now, this is trivial - what is less obvious, however, is that many of these young adults have been following a path in life without that much consideration. Some of them are actually not in a position to not think of themselves as of failures when being unable to reach what they dreamt of.
The third realization is that they usually don't even know what that dream is, and the goal itself is foreign to them - it could be tiger parenting, peer pressure, seeing how everyone around is seemingly successful at completing their assignments. Such mental health issues are well-documented at this point and are best resolved with professional counseling (given that you are in the US). Our local culture is much different, so the aforementioned associate dean had to don the counselor hat every now and then, and facilitated transfers to less intense programs or even other universities, talked to parents and whatnot.
The above was about the dean office directly responsible for managing students, but instructors typically communicated their concerns to them, sometimes through the chair*. As an instructor, then, you could offer a set amount of your time to help these failing students and/or advise on modifications to their programs. From there on, it would be up to the dean's office to handle. And hey, even if the students end up quitting, it might be for the best for them in the long term. You can not - and should not - strive to live their life for them. But you can and should try to help them. As an instructor, you are not in the position to help them personally, but you are in the position to help them professionally. To a limited extent.
*I am not quite sure about the world choice here, academia is diverse :)

It's fascinating that the dean would get involved and have that attitude. Where I am, dean-level administrators have publicly said things like, "If any faculty member doesn't believe that every student can succeed, then that faculty member doesn't belong here".

@DanielR.Collins Well, in my alma mater deans are pretty hands-off with the students but the dean office is very very involved (associate deans, secretaries - they would know every student's situation and try their best to help them out). Since well, "academia varies more than you think it does", YMMV. AFAIK, we have it structured differently - in here, deans have fairly limited control - if any! - over chairs/faculty (ugh, word choice again!). And with education being state-funded, universities have no issue discarding students - some EXPECT (or would, back in a day) to expel 40% of freshmen.

So yes, quite a different mentality/situation. I'm sorry I couldn't be helpful here and assumed you would have some kind of similar facilities to leverage. I would hate to be entangled in such a classic kind of conundrum. In here, faculty would push back with "we can't make black white, it is in your power to allow students to retake the course but there is no way we would agree to mark this performance a pass". Instead of retaking ad nauseam, students usually get advised to change the program or get extra help.

Yes, in prior years our faculty have pushed back with overwhelming no-confidence votes, and lawsuits which we've unfortunately lost. There's a book by Ginsburg, The Fall of the Faculty, about the situation in the U.S.

Thank you for the suggestion, I will look it up.

So, a few thoughts based on my past experience in such a case:
What you can do to help such students improve is partly dependent on how many students are in your class(es), and by extension, how many students would fall in the category of needing help.  I did my undergraduate at a large university, so take this with a grain of salt.  The average class size of an introductory lecture was ~150 students; since you said you teach at a community college, what you want to do may be more manageable, but still there is only so much you can do as an instructor at the college/university level.
On the note of advising/counseling students, there is absolutely nothing wrong with e-mailing students individually to express concern about their ability to perform well in your class or recommend them to make use of advising or office hours if necessary.  However, it is also on the student(s) to put the time in to learn the material to set themselves up for later success.  My thought would be to let students who fall in your category of concern about your concerns of their ability to succeed in your class once at the start of the semester and see if any of those students would like to consult your advice regarding major/career choices or study habits.  Likewise, if any issues persist after the first examination, you could reach out to struggling students individually in this regard as well.
If a student has failed a class or several classes before and you want to advise, a place to start for me would be how much time did you dedicate to this class, and how difficult was it to grasp the material?  Perhaps what are/were your study habits like?  (I failed my introductory programming class and barely passed my linear algebra class after bombing the final in my first semester of undergraduate, and these questions, including the latter, were what I reflected on between that semester and the next semester, when I retook the former class I failed)
Do note that there are a variety of students who may be dealing with a variety of issues (as a previous answer mentioned) and that addressing student performance issues is really a case-by-case situation.  Also, as unfortunate as it is, there is only so much you can do as an instructor while drawing the fine line between instructor and student.  Not sure how the case is for a community college where class size may be smaller, but at my undergraduate university, at least a few students failed a class every semester.  As said before, it is on the students to ensure their own success; instructors have very limited hours (especially if they also have to do research) to help students and they are best spent with the students who are more actively seeking help in any given course.


text:
Should I send a letter of recommendation directly to a student?
I teach at a U.S. community college, and commonly write letters of recommendation for students applying subsequently to either bachelor's programs or graduate school. I am accustomed to sending such letters directly to the school/program in question. Looking at other Academia SE questions, this seems to be the general practice.
However, once in a while I get a student who says something like, "No, this school requires that I include the recommendation with my application packet; give it directly to me." I may or may not be informed as to the school or program in question. Should I comply with such a request, or decline?

Related answer: http://academia.stackexchange.com/a/71440/20058

Possible things you could do: (1) Put it in a sealed envelope and ask the student not to open it. (2) If you really trust the student but don't want the letter read, just ask the student not to read it. (3) Somehow mention without suggesting the student may be lying (if possible and applicable) that it's more difficult to write a good, candid letter if the student may someday read it.

In brief, in the U.S., for top-200 colleges and universities, the student's claimed requirement is entirely false, so far as I know. All (to my knowledge) top-whatever-number U.S. grad schools (for sure) do not want the students to have had any possibility of tampering... and the LOR is submitted electronically, not physically, in any case. So the student either grossly misunderstands or is lying. (Sorry to be negative-sounding, but something's amiss...)

@paulgarrett It can be a non-US school.

@paulgarrett For obvious reasons, some students are going to seek enrollment outside the top-X grad schools, for any X less than the total number of grad schools.

Recently received info shows that my current case is a U.S. college, in the top 60 of national rankings, and it accepts recommendations either by an online system, or by mail or hand-delivery by the student (although the latter are noted as not preferred).

In ye olden days we had to get them in sealed envelopes with a signature across the seal, to send along with the application. One can still read them a bit through the envelope, plus of course one could decide not to apply to the school after all and just open it and read.

As an admissions officer in my service role, I often see less-qualified students submit letters which are dated 5+ years ago or longer.  I don't like the idea of my letter of recommendation being in the possession of a student whose skills are limited for them to submit anywhere at any time.

In general, this is a generous thing to do, if you are comfortable with the student.  I would make sure to ask what school/program it is being sent to, and then you can double check (and decline if it's fishy). You can ask this question without acting suspicious, just say you want to tailor the letter for the position.
I have had to include my letters for a few postdoctoral positions I applied for (in Italy and Croatia), and I cannot be more grateful for the fact that I had some senior researchers who were willing to send the letter directly to me so I could include it with my application materials.

I like this answer.  I would add: To ask what program it is, you can start out by saying yes, you'd be happy to, and then explain that you only write recommendations when you know what program the person is applying to.  If you state it matter of factly, and then don't budge if questioned, that in itself could be a litmus test as to whether there is anything fishy in the situation.

As a student, it is nice to read what your recommenders think about you, too, even if you know it is somewhat fluffed up for the purpose of a recommendation you know that it'd only be fluffed up if the writer actually felt you were a good candidate for whatever you are applying for.

I've never heard of it being a requirement, but sometimes it is recommended that you include all application materials as one packet.  For instance, once when I was applying for a travel grant, it was highly recommended that all materials be put together so that everything arrived on time.  However, they required that the letter was on official letterhead and that it was sealed in an envelope and signed across the the seal by the teacher giving the recommendation.  This ensured that it was indeed an original copy and not tampered with.

I'd check the web site of the school in question.  In the absence of an answer, write to the registrar.  If all else fails, decline, because I believe (without much evidence other than my own feelings) that schools give less weight to recommendations not confidential from the student.

The few recommendation letters from my previous supervisor that I actually was able to read (e.g. some for travel grants, where I also had to attach them directly to the application) are among the top 10 things in my life I am proud of.
So in case your students do good work and you will write lots of positive stuff, I see nothing wrong in having the students read it. It will give them a push in confidence and motivation, and will inspire them to work even harder!

I know this is an old question, but I'm a little surprised no one pointed out that in the US, the student is legally entitled to see letters of recommendation because they are part of the student's academic record. Many applications ask that the student waive this right and don't take seriously letters without the waiver. But in principle there is absolutely nothing wrong with a student seeing their letters. Even if the student signs the waiver, there is nothing wrong with the letter-writer voluntarily giving the letter to the student anyway.

I believe the default should be handing the letter to the person who asked you for it, and if requested, sending a copy someplace else as well. Why should the contents of your recommendation be hidden from her/him? To make it easier for you to badmouth him/her? If you don't feel like making the recommendation, just decline.
So I'd oblige the request regardless of the justification you were given.

I do believe it is different for a doctorate than for someone say applying for a clerical position. The reason I say this is I have worked various colleges or universities and whenever I have asked for a letter of recommendation from a boss or supervisor and they are not credentialed they have always handed over to me the typed letter. On the other hand when   and have asked one of our doctors for a letter I have they have always asked for the email address so they may send it. When I explain to them that the letter is on the list of things I am to include in my packet they have always complied but many have said they have never heard of it being done this way. I think the difference is the credential, at least in my experience.

You should accede to the request, but make it clear that what you write is likely to be less helpful than if you were writing a bespoke reference sent to the relevant institution directly and confidentially.
In the UK, we would call this a request for an "open reference" -- that is, a reference which the candidate can see and is at liberty to forward where he/she wishes. Some people publish "open references" on their online profiles. You should consider carefully what you write in an "open reference", since your comments and reputation may end up far more public and be remembered for far longer than would be the case for a bespoke and/or confidential reference.
As a result of this consideration, an "open reference" tends to be more generic (because it is not tailored to a specific application) and focus on facts. Given that many academic institutions want a referee's detailed evaluation of a candidate (rather than confirmation that the candidate was at X during yyyy–yyyy), this makes the "open reference" a disadvantageous medium. In any case, praise in an "open reference" might not be taken as seriously as in a bespoke and/or confidential reference.
[Possible exception: if you are a notable authority and your praise is very strong (e.g.:

"Josephine Bloggs is the finest young physicist I have ever taught, and I have no doubt that her pioneering work will soon make my theories of relativity obsolete." -- Prof. Albert Einstein

), the fact that you are happy for it to be published all over the world wide web might work in the candidate's favour.]

I believe that you should hand the letter to whoever asked you for it. You aren't handing in some super secret document that no one but the school is supposed to read. It's a letter of recommendation.
Back when I was in school and asked for such letter, professors would even sit down with me and write it out, asking me what I thought. One professor told me:

Let's cut the mumbo-jumbo. You're an adult and you know what your qualities are. Tell me what you think you think about yourself and then I will show you what I wrote in the letter. Let's compare notes and see if you value yourself as much as you should or if I think you need to change a few things before you go to this school.

They then printed out two copies. One to send directly to the designated school in question and one for me to keep.
While I know this is not what you're used to doing, I think you have to treat it like what it is; a letter.
I will add that several schools I applied to all wanted the letter to be sent in by me with my application or brought in personally by me when applying in person.

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


text:
Relearning how to work (becoming much more efficient). Is it even possible?
I’ve been considering a career in academia ever since I was an undergrad. I’m turning 30 this year. I think I should either get to it (PhD and beyond) or give it up once and for all.
The key source of anxiety for me is the hyper-productive nature of contemporary academia (cultural anthropology in my case). Everything I learned over the years from books, blogs, mentors, and peers leads me to believe that academia is a place where only the most efficient knowledge workers can hope to thrive.
My issue: while I love anthropology, I am a SLOW knowledge worker. I read slowly, I take reading notes slowly, and I write unusually slowly. Then there is memory; everything I want to commit to long-term memory takes a conscious effort and planning (which again, is rather time consuming).
As a HS/university student I often got on simply by throwing in as many hours as it took. However, during the MA (and especially BA/MA dissertation writing) my slow pace became a severe hindrance. I finished the BA with a 3.7 GPA (4.0 within major) from a decent R1 university. However, I was leading an increasingly unhealthy life, definitely not sustainable in the long term.
My understanding is that serious PhD candidates and junior faculty in my field are estimated to work 65h/week, and are expected to be high performers in terms of their output/teaching/service. This leads me to believe that at this level I can’t expect to succeed by throwing in some extra hours. I’d run out of hours to “throw” fairly quickly.
When I feel optimistic I think that perhaps I can relearn how I work – how I read, take notes, memorize and most importantly, how I write. I can learn to work faster/smarter/better. I assure myself, PhD programs are also about figuring THAT part out. They are also about learning how to cope with the workload.
At my lowest, I recollect late paper submissions, or the debilitating anxiety associated with being months behind schedule on dissertation work. Then I think: someone who wants to do this for a living should have breezed through BA/MA. If I haven’t figured out how to handle it better back then, perhaps it’s delusional to think that it will all magically come together now.
A part of me is afraid of investing many years only to discover that I can’t handle this type of work. To learn at 35 or 40 that I can’t do this job well. Please tell me what you think. For those who might have dealt with a similar problem, how did you overcome your SLOWNESS and become more effective?
TL;DR ---- I want to be a professor. Love the field. Had good GPA/feedback on past work. But I’m a hopelessly SLOW reader/writer. Is there hope?
EDIT: Regarding the question "How should I deal with discouragement as a graduate student?" This recommended thread is similar, but does not focus on the main issue important to me: the question of efficiency.

You will have to learn how to read quickly. This is something students usually pick up at the latest in the year before graduation. There's plenty sources out there and also on this site. When it comes to writing, consistency beats speed. The crux is to write early on in the project and to separate drafting from editing. Most people who have a hard time to put words on paper conflate the two, i.e. they are too self-critical too soon.

It sounds to me like the workload involved in trying for a PhD would be very stressful and difficult for you. I don't want to be too discouraging, but honestly, why put yourself through that? The goal (becoming a professor) is much harder than getting the PhD itself, and may take even longer than the PhD. As for learning to read more quickly, the key is the same as with any skill you want to get better at: practice, practice, practice.

Possible duplicate of How should I deal with discouragement as a graduate student?

@henning – I've tried many techniques, some led to small gains. But so far no breakthrough. If you have any specific recommendations let me know (here or via msg).
As for writing, I totally agree with you. I think the only solution for me is the complete relearning of basic skills from the ground up. My writing habits have not been consciously developed. Rather, they are a "whatever works" kind of an improvisation that evolved since h.school. Same goes for how I read, take notes, commit things to memory, etc. The question is: can books/workshops/practice help me to relearn these skills?

@astronat – don't worry about the discouragement, I'm here for the real talk. What you write is absolutely true. Compared to what's beyond, the PhD itself is the easy part! That's precisely what gives me anxiety. I more or less know I could force my way through a PhD, but is just squeezing through enough to even hope for a job... of course not.
What I ask myself is, can I learn to cope with this workload and ultimately excel during the PhD phase, and then repeat the process as a career hopeful. [Similar to, how university seems daunting to most high school kids, but then everyone adjusts]

"Is there hope?"

The simple answer is yes, there is always hope.
The reality, of course, is not so simple. The physical volume of work is only one component of a PhD; other factors to consider are how well you work independently, how creative are you when problem solving, how determined are you to persevere and find solutions? (The list goes on...)
In your question and comments you mention you have a lot of anxiety, and speak of being afraid of the work and in particular your ability to complete it, especially before deadlines. You say

"Then I think: someone who wants to do this for a living should have breezed through BA/MA."

Do not listen to the imposter syndrome.
I strongly recommend that you seek professional help for the anxiety (either through medication, counselling or both), especially if it is preventing you from working to your full potential. It sounds like you've struggled in this way for a long time, and while yes, academia is a demanding environment to work in, it should not be making you ill.
Your main concern seems to be the speed of your work, in particular reading and writing. While I am not well positioned to give advice about specific techniques, I will say that I don't think any beginning PhD student is expected to be as quick at reading and writing as a fully-fledged professor.
A PhD is essentially training you to become an academic, and part of that is developing your academic reading and writing skills. As with any skill, the key is to practice as much as possible, so you could start now by finding some short papers in the field you're most interested in, to get a feel for the writing style. This will also help you to figure out if you really will be able to cope with the work (i.e. reading and writing at that level).
Finally, I want to emphasise something mentioned in the other answers: take your time in finding the right supervisor for you- someone you gel well with and whose working style and expectations match with yours. This will hopefully make your PhD and its difficulties that little bit more manageable.

Thanks for your insightful answer. It's true that anxiety is a factor for me. I'm very self-critical and tend to overthink things. I like to be in control at all times. For these reasons alone, contemporary academia might not be the right fit. But if I do decide to give it a shot, developing a positive outlook and guarding mental health will be a top priority for me. I believe stressing over the many factors makes sense during the decision phase, but once I commit, it's time to let go and just do my best.

The above makes me think of a passage from "How to Build a Life in the Humanities." Alex Galarza: "Once you have made an informed decision to complete your degree and found answers to the fundamental questions, your next goal should be to develop a positive outlook about the process you’re about to undergo; doing so will help you weather the various setbacks you’re bound to experience along the way."

It is not possible to give you a satisfying answer. The best I can offer is two anecdotes a friend of mine told me today (and they are first hand and 100% legit).
First, he goes to the supervisor, for the second time, with a bunch of paper, asking whether he should study them. The supervisor takes the papers, throws them to the ground and walks over them. Then says: "Studying is useless."
Second, the supervisors asks him to do a computation by the next day. Friend comes back and shows the calculation. The advisor writes a line of code on the computer and presses enter. The computer shows the same answer of the computation which took several hours.
Bottom line: there is ample room for improvement in terms of speed. Achieving it might require, surprisingly, to understand less and to study less and to give up on many preconceived notions about the subject and about how research work as well as about how yourself.
If you feel like the subject is important and close to your heart, give it a try. Many people start a PhD in their 30ies. But don't be silly, do:

Ask for advice before making choices.
Think carefully when picking your advisor.
Lay out many plans B and be ready to execute them.

The supervisor takes the papers, throws them to the ground and walks over them. Then says: "Studying is useless." -- At this moment, the student was enlightened.

Love the stories! Not sure if I could put up with someone this eccentric. Sir, please don't walk on my notes to make a point, k? Deep down, if all other factors were unimportant (dismal job market, time, age, ability) I would just go for it. Scholarship is the only thing that truly excites me. That being said, I don't want to be delusional. Perhaps my inability to work fast coupled with the hyper competitive job market is enough to call it a day and just do the Plan B. The opportunity cost of a PhD+ is huge. This is why I'm here. To determine if my plan is impossible or just unlikely.

Don't get me wrong, this guy advisor was a nightmare, but he made a couple of good points on how you get faster, which is not by studying more. It's good you are making a careful decision, but in the end your question has no answer until you go and do it and see what comes out of it.

A point that I always keep in mind:

If you are not good at something you wish to achieve, work 100 times harder at it

Though this cannot always be theoretically true, it really is a mental boost to think nothing is impossible with hard work. It goes without saying but practice makes perfect.
I too was a slow reader and (still am) a slow writer and personally don't like reading much either. That didn't stop me from going over 400 papers for literature survey. With enough practice, I was able to pick up speed at reading papers, recognizing good papers from bad ones and so on. I strongly believe my writing speed would improve as well.
Most of my colleagues who are doing PhD are 30+ and some in their 40s. The final point is that if you are really passionate about academia, go for it. Do not be hurdled by your weaknesses, overcome them. Also bear in mind the last three points of @ThreeDiag's answer; getting the 'right' advisor is crucial for your career.

Ébe Isaac, did you find ways to improve your speed while working? (reading / writing / absorbing information / other) If so, could you share some techniques that worked for you? As far as work efficiency is concerned, did you feel like you made significant gains during your PhD?
Also, as a slow reader, what's your pace? When reading (not skimming) an article in your field that's important to your work, how many pages per hour can you read?

It was at the time I had my course work for PhD. I had to learn two subjects and handle 4 hrs of lab per week. At first, my speed was around 10 (2 col.) pages a day and then it gradually came up to 30 pages a day. I prefer reading as PDF as opposed to printed pages and store notes as a LaTeX Bib doc. Whenever I download a new paper, I take the BibTeX info using Google Scholar button and create a annote field to store notes and add my own keywords for grouping. The grouping changed as my knowledge in the domain grew. I didn't record my pages/hr yet; maybe I'll do so and report it soon :-)

Something not directly addressed here is that your colleagues are probably not reading every word. You should not, either. Indeed, in fields that tend to publish books (rather than concise, pithy articles or proofs), it is a key skill to learn how to evaluate a book and skim for the content you currently need.
A great resource I recently found was Paul Edwards' advice on How to Read a Book. Also, finding systematic ways to take notes can really help you. (E.g., this set of questions may or may not fit the kinds of literature you read. You'll need to memorize less, and you'll have to reread less.
Finally, the time and effort you have spent so far demonstrates your commitment, and your slower reading might also be deeper or more effective than others'. There is research that when reading is physically harder to do ("disfluency" based on fonts, for instance), this leads to greater understanding, apparently through the pathway of disfluency-> lower confidence -> nervousness -> increased attention to material.


text:
What the difference between full research paper and WIP?
Recently, I have got a notification from a conference saying that my research paper has been accepted to be published in LNCS proceedings as Work-in-progress paper. Therefore, I am asking if there any differences between WIP or full research paper when it becomes to be public and available online.
Will the reader differentiate whether the paper is a full research paper or work-in-progress paper? also, will the paper be citable by others(has ODI or ISBN)?

Haven you asked LNCS what they mean by this term?

@einpoklum as their website state:  Each paper will undergo a thorough process of peer reviews by the Program Committee. Reviewing is single-blind: author name(s) should appear. All papers accepted in any of the conference tracks will be included in the conference proceedings, which will be published by Springer-Verlag in the LNCS series. Proceedings will be made available at the conference. Submission implies that at least one author will register and attend the conference if the paper is accepted.

@einpoklum "LNCS" means Springer's Lecture Notes in Computer Science book series, which includes several conference proceedings. Nobody at Springer can answer OP's first question. The right people to ask are other people familiar with the research community that publishes at the conference—for example, OP's advisor.

Not knowing the minds of the reviewers I can only assume that you left enough questions unanswered, at least in their minds, that they didn't consider it finished. They might be right or wrong, but I'd look to the paper itself to try and see why they might come to such a conclusion.

When you later publish the full research paper, you can (should!) cite the conference proceedings as that work will have been incorporated into your research paper. Many researchers that find your conference paper will look for some follow-up to the conference paper, particularly if you make a note in the paper that it is a work in progress.
With online publishing there are often citation connections made in both directions, so as well as the reference list showing which papers are cited in that paper, there is often a reverse-reference list showing which papers cite that paper. This makes things considerably easier, although I have no information about how comprehensive such reverse referencing is, and it may vary by field.


text:
Conference Registration Fees are so high, is it normal?
My colleague research paper got accepted at a conference named (International Conference On Trust, Security And Privacy In Computing And Communications http://www.cloud-conf.net/trustcom18/). They claim that the conference is A-Ranked according to core2018 when you check it as IEEE Trustcom. Is it correct that this conference is A-Ranked conference (http://portal.core.edu.au/conf-ranks/790/)? is it really the same conference or they are taking advantage of this misunderstanding?
Also, I got shocked when I noticed that the student registration fee is $1095.00 for regular research papers. The full accepted paper has only limited 6 pages in length to be included in the final proceedings. My research paper is 12 pages.
The program committee wants to charge me $150.00 for each extra page. This in total will be around $2000.00 just as registration fees.
Is it normal too?

It sounds like SPIE. That is to say, it's an important conference where everyone in the field is expected to go, and it's outrageously expensive.

is it really the same conference or they are taking advantage of this misunderstanding?

I am not in the field of security, but yes, this appears to be the right conference. Your advisor should be able to clarify with certainty.

Also, I got shocked when I noticed that the student registration fee is $1095.00 for regular research papers.

It's quite expensive even in comparison to other conferences, but it's the same ballpark as other IEEE conferences, so (unfortunately) this seems to be the direction we are heading to. However, I cannot help but wonder if you did not check the prices prior to submission?

The full accepted paper has only limited 6 pages in length to be included in the final proceedings. My research paper is 12 pages. The program committee wants to charge me $150.00 for each extra page.

Yeah, that sounds pretty terrible. I would be interested in why the community does not push back more on what certainly appears to be a shady "hidden cost" model that is unworthy of a good academic conference. I know that some other conferences allow one or two extra pages for additional charge (which, frankly, is also ridiculous in times of Web-based proceedings), but limiting the "free" number of pages to 6 (clearly too little for most scientific contributions) and then letting the author pay for the same number of extra pages to get to what is the normal length of full conference papers (10-12 pages) seems completely fishy.
I would complain as well, but realistically there really is not much that you as a student can do (aside from withdrawing, and you probably don't want to do that).

To give you some more context, it is unfortunately true that academic conference are very expensive and that they have only been getting more expensive over recent years. To me it subjectively appears to be the case that IEEE conferences are particularly prone to overcharging, but this may just be my impression. Some communities have started to push back on this, though. For instance, one of the main promises of a current candidate running for the position of SIGSOFT chair is to reduce the price tag for SIGSOFT sponsored events.

''However, I cannot help but wonder if you did not check the prices prior to submission?'' They made all of that information available after the acceptance notification...

Many conferences do not have the fees up on the same page as t(e call for papers. You’d need to dig up the archives to figure out the costs.

@aeismail I tried to edit the url to minus 1 for 18 to make 17 in order to check archive 2017 but did not work. Searched directly and I found it. wonder why Conference keep changing the name of their websites? makes a lot of confusion...

That’s generally a sign that the local organizing committee is responsible for producing and hosting the website.


text:
Conflict of interest for phd external review
If an external reviewer is invited to review phd thesis, will it be considered as (conflict of interest) if the reviewer was previously the applicant bachelor thesis supervisor?

It is just something that should be revealed. If you are the student, then ask your current supervisor first. If you are the external person, just communicate that you have a prior relationship and its nature.
An external review isn't an adversarial role. It is an attempt to verify good work.
Attitudes matter, of course. If you had an attitude that you had to "bring down" the student at any cost, then it is a clear conflict. Erring on the opposite side is also possible. But that isn't normal or expected.

Inform the people asking you of the possible conflict of interest and they can tell you their rules. In circumstances I’m familiar with, this scenario would not be a problem at all.


text:
Can I share the review of my Phd thesis with my external reviewers?
I have submitted my Ph.D thesis for review. My main supervisor already finished her task and sent me back the review with the grade. The three external reviewers just got their copy from the faculty committee office to review it.
The external reviewers are asking me about the instructions and the review format that my university want. Am I allowed to share my main supervisor review with them (without showing the final grade maybe?)?

@Roland Yes I understand. But can I share the review also with them?

The whole point of having several reviewers is that each reviewer is asked to provide their independent opinion. To allow some reviewers to see the opinion of another reviewer before they‘ve submitted their own independent opinions would risk prejudicing them, and would undermine the review process. Such practices are a recipe for groupthink and poor decision making.
I don’t know if your university would frown on this practice. But from an ethics perspective, it’s pretty obvious you should not do this.


text:
How to handle relevant, but disruptive, questions
I've seen on this site several posts about how to handle silly or "trolling" questions, but I recently faced the opposite situation. Several students in a class I'm teaching continuously bring up questions that are relevant to the lecture and/or interesting; however, they ask so many questions that it tends to disrupt the lecture by throwing off the pace and flow of the presentation (e.g., I lose my train of thought or I have to speed up to finish the lecture on time). I don't want to discourage questions, but at the same time, I don't think it is fair to entertain so many questions if it results in a lowering of the lecture's quality.
A solution that I tried is telling the students that they can come to office hours or make an appointment with me to talk. However, most of them don't take me up on those offers, and those who do take advantage of my offer sometimes come with so many questions that I cannot answer them all within the time I've set aside for office hours/teaching appointments.
Since this is limited to a small (but vocal) subset of my students, I don't think the issue is with the quality of my teaching. Otherwise I would expect (and hope) that more people would be asking questions or giving some other indication that I'm not being clear.
Is there any way to handle this sort of situation without coming across as uninterested in student questions or discouraging questions from being posed? I truly am interested in making sure everyone is understanding the material, but at the same time, I cannot be devoting large amounts of time above and beyond what I'm already devoting to teaching.

It sounds like you do plan for some time for questions. Try allocating all of that time at the end of class in a question and answer session. This would let you cover your material fully, and then answer questions until class is over. That way you cover everything you wanted, and answer as many questions as possible.

I would recommend something like piazza.com for these types of questions, where students can post these questions and you, your TAs, or other students can help answer them. This way, you can limit class discussion to urgent questions relating to understanding the material at hand.

It sounds like you are trying to cover too much material in lecture.  Slow down.  Teach less (but better).

What @JeffE said.  What is the point of "finishing the lecture on time" if people are already not understanding what you are already covering?

As a student, I find that waiting to ask all questions in office hours or the end of class is not a great solution. I don't mind delaying non-urgent questions, but sometimes if I don't understand something presented in the first ten minutes of the class, I might then miss out on the rest of the lecture if I don't have a chance to ask a question. So I appreciate when instructors give students some chance to ask questions during the lecture.
A good way to allow this and also control when and how many questions are asked is to invite questions in each class at times of your choosing (and let students know you'll be doing this).
At the beginning of the lecture, say, "I'll pause and ask for questions at regular intervals, so you'll have a chance to ask your questions then."
Decide ahead of time where you will pause and ask for questions (at convenient places to break the lecture, or places where you know students often have questions).
During the lecture, pause at the predetermined places and say something like:

"I'll pause for questions now. We have time for three or four questions."

(and you can decide how many questions to take depending on how the lecture is going, time-wise.)
Students with too many questions in office hours are an entirely different issue. You should ask these students to schedule a separate appointment, and determine whether the questions are a sign of a problem (i.e. they may need tutoring or similar services) or a good thing (i.e. they are looking for enrichment and need some pointers on how to find it).

This is good. In particular, it avoids questions which can be answered by "you'll see in a minute". One quick augmenting idea I have zero experience with: allow them to post questions (during class) to some service and access them in the "question zone"? In particular, questions can be anonymous then. (I know that some students are reluctant to expose themselves.)

@Raphael And further to those, I'd love a 'ban' on "what are some applications", and "can you give an example?" questions when the course has a problem class, or a later lecture is titled 'Applications of foobar'.. Sometimes feels like so much time wasted going around in circles - I imagine it can only feel worse for the lecturer.

I too have struggled with this as a teacher, particularly because I don't want to stifle engagement from students.  My main approach, which I think works well with relatively small classes but would not scale well to more than a couple dozen students, is to change my lecture structure so that rather than just presenting material, I am asking students to actively reason about what should come next.  That way, the exploration of ideas is built into the lecture and becomes part of the education rather than distracting from it.
To illustrate this, let me give an example from a lecture that I gave last semester:

I started by presenting a basic algorithm on the topic of the lecture.
Next, I worked an example, having the students say what would happen at each step.
We then worked an example of a situation that was problematic for the algorithm the same way, and we talked about what more general circumstances would cause the problem.
I then led a discussion where the students tried to figure out how they might change the algorithm to improve its behavior.  After a little while, we'd come close enough to the ideas of the more sophisticated algorithm that was the next thing I wanted to present, and I moved to presenting that algorithm, explaining how they had nearly reinvented it.
We then did the same thing for one more cycle, covering a total of three important algorithms in the lecture and ending with a discussion of the general trade-off space they were representative of, as well as assumptions and pragmatics to be concerned about in real-world usage.

This approach requires a lot of thinking on your feet, but I think it can be rewarding because it illustrates the students not just how the material works but also where it comes from.  I think it also helps build confidence in their own intellectual abilities when (with a little coaching) they can develop the same insights that created the advances they are learning about.
The downside of this approach is that you probably can't pack as many things into a single lecture.  I think this is often OK, because you end up teaching more about principles and how to think about a subject, which means the students will be more able to pick up related material if they need it. You also need to be really confident in your material.  I also have no idea how it could scale to large classes.
Other things that I think are important for making this type of approach work:

Call on different "areas" of the class (e.g., "let's hear from somebody in the back", "let's hear from somebody who hasn't spoken yet"), to keep things from being dominated by the same students.
Be willing to let a silence stretch long enough for students to think and gain confidence to speak.
If any chunk of discussion is going on too long, you can say something like, "These are really good ideas, and they lead right into the next thing I wanted to show you..." or "That's an excellent question, and we'll come back to it later in the lecture..." and just move forward.  It won't feel as much like discouraging questions in this mode, since after all you've just been leading a discussion!

Sounds like you're talking about replacing lectures with seminars, not altering lectures.

@LightnessRacesinOrbit Call it what you like, the students still learned the material for the course (at least judging by their marks).

Well, having names for things is quite important. For example, it's how I know that the OP is asking about lectures, and not about seminars, or egg friend rice, or maple syrup, or jazz music.

@LightnessRacesinOrbit Sure, but that does not mean that those names mean the same to everyone. To me a seminar is not at all what is described in this answer (but rather a talk given by someone about their latest research).

@Tobias: It's the overwhelmingly common meaning.

@LightnessRacesinOrbit The description there disagrees with the use I have encountered of the term in 4 different universities.

Off-topic comments have been removed. Please take extended discussion to [chat].

This sounds as if you want to flip your classroom. While this may certainly be a good idea for content that requires/encourages lots of discussion (great!) I agree that it's not an answer for dealing with questions in a lecture. (It's still worthwhile having the answer here -- it proposes an alternative approach outside of the OP's box.)

The downside of this approach is that you probably can't pack as many things into a single lecture. — This is not a downside.

It sounds to me like there are 2 types of question relevant here

What did you mean by ...?

The answer is brief and not answering would affect a student's ability to follow the rest of the lecture.

What are the implications of ...?

This is a question that might lead to a longer answer or some discussion.
I suggest that the first kind should be answered when asked, the effect on the flow of the lecture should be small.  The second kind is more amenable to deferring to one or more of

the end of the lecture or section
office hours
the next lecture
a seminar/problems class

In many of these cases you and more importantly the students can take some time to read about the question (you might need a 5 minute refresher, it might take them an hour).
Of course at first it will be up to you to say "let's save that question", but you can be clear about what's a good question to handle inline and what is best kept to the end.  This distinction may serve them well in, for example, postgrad seminars if they go on to such things later.

As an option, consider answering interesting questions with long answers in writing, i.e. in a document you provide to all students. (Over time, this document is likely to evolve to cover most questions that arise during that same class.)

Frankly it sounds like you are the issue here. As the questions are on topic you are a lucky teacher to have students as interested in the topic. As a student (of the questioning persuasion) I can't stand to be told that my questions are "out of the scope if this class" etc. Learn your material backwards and forwards an in-depth. You aren't there to read the text book to them.

If he knows the answer but it would take an entire hour-long class session to completely cover it, then the question is out of scope of necessity.