text:
Postdoc in China. Looking on advice about culture shock and pursuing a career in industry
So I was recently offered a math postdoc position in China for 2 years. A bit of additional background:

I am a US citizen and have never left the US; I've hardly left my home state (except for grad school).
I intend to go into industry. It's been a good several months since I graduated with my PhD and I am getting wary that my resume is becoming more and more stale as time passes.

I had a few questions for those who know better than me:

Given that I've never left the US, how big of a culture shock with this be? The postdoc is in Shenzhen, so I'm told that it's a pretty international city. I am just concerned with coming home for Christmas and having enough time to visit my family during vacations (as I did when I was a grad student). How different would this be from working at a US university?
Given that I'm planning to spend at least part of my time on buffing up my resume for industry (particularly data science and software engineering), what does a PhD from a top US school and a postdoc at a Chinese university look like to employers (I know this is the academia stackexchange, but I just wanted to fish for some advice on this).
Lastly, do you think my plan is doable? Do you think that I will have enough free time to work on industry skills, conduct small math research projects and fulfill my postdoc responsibilities?

Some clarifications:

I have not been successful in finding an industry job; hence, my plan to pursue the post-doc so I can pay the bills while I gain some industry-relevant skills
There are no other international post-docs at this school, hence I cannot ask them about their experiences

Please read the question Postdoc in China: what are the possible difficulties and disadvantages?. I am a native Chinese speaker living in Taiwan. In my opinion, this question is extremely important to you.

Comments are not for extended discussion nor for answers; this conversation has been moved to chat.

Condensing a few of the outstanding questions for OP: (1) Can you speak Chinese? (2) Do you have any particular interest in Chinese history, culture, or language? (3) Would you be interested in staying in China long term?

If the core of your answer is whether a Chinese PD would help you find a data science job, Academia is maybe not the best and most reliable place to ask. Also why do you think a PD would be industry relevant?

i am from Shenzhen. It is an extremely cosmopolitan city with a very large American expat community. You can get by without speaking Chinese; people are used to foreigners. If you really, really don't want to adapt (though I wouldn't understand why), you can pretty much get by with an American lifestyle. For further discussion, I can continue in chat.

As someone from England who did postdocs in Thailand (for 4 years) and then taught in high schools in Shanghai (for 3 years), not so recent, but within the last ten years:
Working conditions depend a lot on the people you happen to be around, and Shenzhen is not Shanghai (although in terms of "internationalisation", they are similar), but based on my experience (the following was all TRUE for me, although everyone's experience is different):
Another factor which is sadly crucial but you haven't mentioned, is your ethnicity. If you are white then people will stare at you and you will be a target for rip off/con artists/people trying to sell you junk everywhere you go. The violent crime rate is zero (although, there are pickpockets; and the official train ticket seller in a railway station tried to overcharge me once), but you will have to have your guard up at all times.
If you have darker skin then you might have a hard time. I have heard Chinese friends say things about Africans and non-Chinese Asians which would be unbelievably racist in most western countries. However, I don't know what practical differences in behaviour/treatment might arise from this.
If you look Chinese then people will assume that you are, which means you will get pushed around more on crowded public transport, etc.
(I myself am white, but my Korean-American friend was always complaining about being shoved around on the trains, even more than me - this is just how people behave towards each other in China, and queuing is nonexistent).
Culture shock: You will find it hard to buy certain basic things you are used to in the US (although you will not know which until you are there). You will find that many products are of much lower quality than in the US, that you cannot obtain higher quality products at all.
You will also find a lot of people hawking up phlegm and spitting on the street, dropping litter, and smoking indoors (even in restaurants, even where there are non smoking signs).
Food: someone on the street tried to sell a live hedgehog to me to eat. Even in large supermarkets you will find live frogs and very strange animal meat on sale. If you do not eat such things, you will find it surprisingly hard to find restaurants which sell edible food (I don't regard KFC or McDonald's as edible either). Some people in the comments think this is an exaggeration. I have seen dog carcasses hanging outside restaurants in Shenzhen. OK, I suppose you are not likely to get served something like this accidentally, but that doesn't mean it's not there and cooked in the same kitchen, with questionable hygiene standards (food inspectors are routinely bribed). China is notoriously bad for animal rights. Remember also the poisoned baby milk powder scandal ten years ago.
Language barrier: Very few signs will be in English (let alone people who speak English). For getting on buses etc., you really should have your address or road name written down IN CHINESE CHARACTERS to check. (By English I really mean "Roman script" - if something is written in Polish or Swedish, or some other European language I don't know, at least I can read, copy and memorise things. This is also a problem in Thailand of course, although at least Thai is alphabetic).
Working conditions: make sure EVERYTHING is written down and agreed in GREAT detail. You should expect your employers to lie and cheat about everything. Do not expect any reasonable behaviour or holidays from them. Maybe you will be pleasantly surprised, but plan for the worst. "We missed Monday due to a public holiday, so therefore we will all work on Saturday". One time, both Monday AND Tuesday were Chinese public holidays, so we had to work over Saturday and Sunday (and still work the following Monday - Friday as normal). So, we were forced to work 10 days in a row!
Prices: China is nowhere near as cheap as Thailand, say, nowadays. A good meal in a restaurant will cost you >10 US dollars, easily, unless you are willing to eat strange and/or low quality food. China is fine for buying cheap, low quality junk, but even expensive products will still be low quality, you just cannot escape it. (E.g., I have had DVD players, washing machines, etc. break down within a few months).
"International" cities: absolute nonsense. People say the same about Shanghai, and it is not international at all. All the ways in which it is "international" are very superficial. Nowhere in mainland China is "international" in the proper sense of the word. Only Hong Kong is international (although I don't know about Macau).
Money/exchange: you will find it very easy to change US dollars to yuan, but very hard (within China) to go the other way when you finally leave (and international bank transfers will be very hard). China discourages you from taking foreign currency out of the country. (Yes, even staff in the Bank of China will blatantly lie and pretend not to have foreign money). For cash exchange, by far the best option is to go to Hong Kong. You will have to pay for almost everything in cash.
Freedom/internet: yes, China really does spy on you, block websites, block Hong Kong TV news broadcasts, etc. etc. You need to show your ID at internet cafes, to buy petrol for cars/motorbikes, to buy long distance bus/train tickets, etc. etc. When you first arrive, someone from your apartment building will speak to you and be very friendly. That is the communist party representative who lives in your neighbourhood (EVERY neighbourhood has at least one, who reports back everything they see, especially regarding foreigners). There really are undercover spies everywhere watching you and reporting back to the Communist party.
General evilness/legal problems: if relations go bad between you and your employer, do not expect any kind of fair treatment. They might, e.g., collude with your apartment owner to have you thrown out or overcharged; they might forge documents and try to charge you money for false compensation/refuse to pay salaries owed, etc. etc. Even though the law theoretically protects you, in practice very few people will help you (and even if you take them on and win, you will not be compensated the amount you deserve). Always have your passport handy and be prepared to run if things start to go badly downhill.
At least you are not actually at risk of imprisonment unless you do something really bad.
Shenzhen does have one advantage, that you can easily go to Hong Kong for brief escapes (unless the border is closed due to Covid etc.); if you are working in Shenzhen then you will get a multientry Chinese visa, and Hong Kong I believe allows US passport holders to enter frequently for short tourist visits without fuss.
Shenzhen is newer and less polluted than Shanghai, although it still seems about the same as London to me, which I think of as quite polluted. To be fair, I think Shenzhen is the nicest large Chinese city I've been to (and I have been to quite a few), although there is no history (unlike Guangzhou, Shanghai, Beijing and even Hong Kong).
Make sure you are not the only foreigner who works there! At least they will have dedicated staff members who will help you to find an apartment, get visas/work permits/etc. etc., because they know that most of these are basically impossible if you don't speak Chinese.
Health: they WILL test for diseases like HIV, Hepatitis, Tuberculosis, etc. etc. I don't know where to find the full list of diseases, but if you have anything like this, you might find yourself stuck in China abandoned by your employer (with hefty medical bills) if you fail the medical test. Also, doctors in China are NOT TRUSTWORTHY; some WILL overcharge, recommend dubious or unnecessary treatment, etc. (Of course this may also be true in other countries). Also, what actually will happen if you catch Covid-19 or some other disease? Make sure you ask in advance and have it written into the contract what they will do in this case.

"If you do not eat such things, you will find it surprisingly hard to find restaurants which sell edible food (or, run a high risk of being served such food if you make a mistake with the menu)." This is a total overreaction. "Standard" protein options (pork, chicken, beef, lamb) are, well, standard, even in China. I guarantee that you will not accidentally order hedgehog, or bat, or cat, at ordinary restaurants.

I am a frequent visitor to Shenzhen, and I don't think staring or spitting is a thing anymore and has not been for many years. It's a bit difficult to get around without some of the language though (subway is easy, taxis and Uber-like transport less so). Food is absolutely not a problem, lots of fast food, nice restaurants etc. and even easier once set set up with Wechat payments. Walmart and Carrefour department stores, nice malls such as MixC, even a Sam's Club.

While some parts of this answer seem accurate to me, some are just downright ridiculous. I have been living in Shenzhen for a year. If you eat noodles and rice, it is completely trivial to find good food for at most 5$ everywhere around you. That's not even including dumplings, bread etc. Regarding ethnicity, yes you will stand out, but almost always people will treat you with respect and curiosity, not disdain.

There's a weird obsession amongst Western countries that everyone should have English available everywhere for the convenience of Western tourists.  If we go by the number of total native speakers, Chinese and Spanish should also be served on every restaurant menu and road signs.  I have been to China multiple times and most of the items mentioned are either no longer applicable or have been greatly exaggerated.  I do notice that Western people tend to aggregate in KFC and McDonald chains instead of trying the more local cuisine.  I think that they're missing out due to their bias.

The not being able to buy basic food items is certainly not true in Shenzen. You can even get things like proper German bread or fancy French pastries that are impossible to get in the US outside of some major international cities. The will cost what they cost in the US, if not slightly more and you will have trouble finding some Western food outside of the major cities but in Shenzen you could eat a pure Western diet if you wanted to.

@Babyburger "There's a weird obsession amongst Western countries that everyone should have English available everywhere for the convenience of Western tourists." That particular reasoning is misguided (and used by some), but the goal itself is not weird, nor just for the convenience of Western tourists. English simply is the lingua franca of the modern age and it's massively useful to anyone in the international community. While you may not like that it's specifically English due to the wrong (geopolitical) reasons, it's here, it's useful, gets people connected - embrace it.

"I don't care how politically incorrect some people might think it sounds" is both irrelevant and distracting, and should be removed. Being judgmental about other people's opinions adds nothing to the answer.

Re: signs: the problem is not so much that things are not written in English; the problem is that you cannot copy something if not written in a writing system you are familiar with, and it is much harder to remember things. (It's Roman script, not English script!) I don't speak Polish, but I can still read and copy things written in Polish (even if I cannot pronounce them). Similarly for Russian, just from my knowledge of Greek, although it is more difficult. E.g. if you write down an address in English, not in Chinese characters, then many taxi drivers will not be able to work it out.

There are a couple of things right in this answer, but there are several gross and unfair exaggerations.

How anyone would upvote this obviously biased answer is beyond me. The fact that you lived in China for 3 years and has nothing good to say about it automatically disqualifies your answer, cuz why would you stay there for 3 years then?

A math postdoc typically has no formal responsibilities (except teaching if the postdoc is also a teaching position). That makes it a bad idea for anyone who isn’t at least seriously considering an academic career to do such a postdoc: the problem for such a person is that the incentives for doing research are not aligned with their personal career goals. Any postdoc I know who decided to leave academia, essentially stopped doing research the moment they made that decision, as from that moment on they had every reason to spend all their time on other things.
So, it seems to me that the question you need to answer first is why you want to do a postdoc, since if it’s just a temporary slot to fall into while you work on learning to code for two years and prepare for the move to industry, that’d probably be cheating your employer, and largely a waste of time for you.
Once you answer that question, there’s still the China issue to consider, but I don’t know what to say about that. For some people living abroad for two years in a country with a vastly different culture from where they’re from is their idea of a good time, for others it isn’t. If you don’t know which of those groups you belong to since you’ve never experienced that, I don’t see how you can realistically expect strangers on the internet to know any better than you. Anyway, it’s certainly an interesting opportunity - good luck!

I mean, I was hoping someone has had a similar experience that could inform my decision.

@HarryReed well, the living abroad part isn’t specific to academia, so you can try asking about that on travel.stackexchange.

@HarryReed there is someone who might be able to answer (https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/104541/persistent-issues-with-salary-pay-as-a-postdoc-in-china-what-can-i-do) but I wouldn't know how to contact them.

@HarryReed: I'd say that if you have never lived before in China for at least few months, you should not even think of going there, unless you want to personally experience the sunk cost fallacy.

@HarryReed building on this answer, there are industrial positions that are happy to train mathematicians to be engineers (my organization is one). Also, if you intend on joining certain US government agencies or research labs after the two years, your time in China could complicate this.

Maybe you should be aware there is a new coldish war between five eyes (US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes) and China. [Plus Japan, India, and the EU].
If your area of expertise is in any area of strategic interest to any of the above six nations you may run into future security problems.
EG. Two days ago the boss of ASIO (like FBI counter intelligence) made this warning -

Australian security agencies will give universities an expanded list of emerging technologies that should be protected from foreign interference as concern grows about local academics giving China access to their critical research.

The list will go beyond the military or “dual-use” technologies that Australian universities have traditionally been told to protect from foreign governments.

From https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/asio-boss-says-foreign-governments-using-deceptive-means-to-obtain-australian-research-20210311-p579qq.html
This is a list of some technologies as defined by China -

Information Technology  - AI, IoT, smart appliances

Robotics  - AI, machine learning

Green energy and green vehicles  energy efficiency, electric vehicles

Aerospace equipment

Ocean engineering and high tech ships

Railway equipment

Power equipment

New materials

Medicine and medical devices

Agriculture machinery

From Made in China 2025 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Made_in_China_2025
China also engages in hostage diplomacy, maybe you'll be the next one -

Australia has joined an international coalition of 57 countries condemning hostage diplomacy, in a move designed to ramp up diplomatic pressure on China and other nations which have arbitrarily detained foreigners.

Signatories include Japan, the UK, US and the vast majority of members in the European Union

The declaration does not specifically mention any nation

It is reportedly sparked by concern over arrests of foreigners by China, Iran, Russia and North Korea

The declaration has been led by Canada,(external link) which has been caught in a protracted diplomatic battle with China over the jailing of two Canadian citizens, former diplomat Michael Kovrig and consultant Michael Spavor.

China has made it clear the move is in retaliation for the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver in 2018.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-16/australia-joins-canada-end-arrest-foreigners-hostage-diplomacy/13158578
Also war is expected by some US military commanders within 6 years - you don't want to be there when/if that happens. See -

China could invade Taiwan within the next six years as Beijing accelerates its moves to supplant American military power in Asia, a top US commander has warned.

Democratic and self-ruled Taiwan lives under constant threat of invasion by China, whose leaders view the island as part of their territory and which they have vowed to one day take back.

“I worry that they’re [China] accelerating their ambitions to supplant the United States and our leadership role in the rules-based international order... by 2050,” said Washington’s top military officer in Asia-Pacific, Admiral Philip Davidson, on Tuesday.

“Taiwan is clearly one of their ambitions before that. And I think the threat is manifest during this decade, in fact, in the next six years,” he told a US Senate armed services committee hearing.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/10/china-could-invade-taiwan-in-next-six-years-top-us-admiral-warns

I’m English, and I lived and worked in Shanghai for 9 years. I had some contact with Chinese universities, but not a lot.
I would have two concerns about your plan:
(1) Some Chinese academics treat grad students and post docs as indentured servants, to be used for their personal profit. Don’t be surprised if you end up doing work for which some senior prof gets paid. This might be less prevalent in mathematics, but it’s common in computer science and engineering. Maybe this is not unique to China, but that’s where I have observed it most.
(2) The culture shock will be considerable. The answer from @english_mathematician has some examples, but that’s the tip of the iceberg. EVERYTHING is going to be a frustrating confrontational battle, and you will almost always lose. It’s utterly exhausting. I’d suggest you go spend a few weeks in Shenzhen before you commit. And don’t stay in a fancy international hotel. Go try to rent an apartment, get a mobile phone, open a bank account, or visit a doctor. You might well find that this experience alone is sufficient to discourage you.
The major Chinese cities have large ex-pat communities. Within these, you will find people who speak English and are happy to provide you with certain services. The reason they’re happy is that they get to charge exorbitant rates. The foreigner often doesn’t care because the bills are being paid by some big corporation back home. On a Chinese post-doc salary, you won’t be able to afford any of this. So, as mentioned above, you can forget the “international city” idea.

"EVERYTHING is going to be a frustrating confrontational battle, and you will almost always lose" -- this sounds like hyperbole -- could you clarify? When OP loses the "battle" for food and housing, does that mean he will be starving and homeless?

No, it means he (or she) will often be overcharged. If lacking sufficient funds, it means settling for low quality food and housing. The “EVERYTHING” is an exaggeration; breathing and urination probably won’t be a battle, for example.

what does a PhD from a top US school and a postdoc at a Chinese university look like to employers

It looks like a PhD.
This is very dependent on the countries (I can speak for France, Germany and Italy - and overall EU) but a PhD (not a postdoc) is a nice to have, but not much more. Germany is a bit special as PhDs are very much recognized as a social position (broadly speaking).
My PhD helped me in my jobs because it is a mark of seriousness but the actual topic is not really relevant (provided it is more or less science). I work in IT and have a PhD in physics, as an example.
If you intend to work in Data Science and you have a PhD in Data Science then fine, but you will be only a notch above someone with a Masters in that subject. An employer wants someone who will be able to work on a problem, from a practical aspect. If your PhD is about an esoteric part of DS, then it does not count at all. Even if it is applicable to the job do not expect someone to really realize that.
So a PhD is nice.
Now the postdoc. (putting myself in the shoes of an interviewer)
As someone working in industry, I do not know what a postdoc is. Or I have a faint idea that it is an extra PhD. Or maybe som extra work in research you had to do after your PhD? Some kind of internship?
Anyway, it does not matter because I have questions about how to address a problem of classifying something based on something. Pouf! the postdoc part is gone from my mind, and the PhD is slowly drifting away as well.
Of course YMMV. You may get into an industrial research job, your interviewer may have aa PhD and understand what a postdoc is (but still, it does not make much difference), etc.
If you want to go to China to get some international experience - great. This may count as an international experience, not a postdoc. What you did there is irrelevant if you did not work in industry.

In terms of culture shock it goes something like this for you:
US < Canada < Other English-native-countries (UK, Australia) < Western Europe < Eastern Europe, South America < Middle East/Asia/Africa.
So you are going right in at the deep end moving to China.
Why don't you try out travelling to a closer country first to see if you like it?  Try Mexico, say Mexico City or a smaller town where people are less likely to speak English.  Try to eat in local restaurants etc, buy a train ticket etc.  You'll either love the experience of being somewhere very different, or hate it.  If you hate it, forget China, which will be as different again as Mexico is from the US, and you just saved yourself a lot of time and money.
I am from the UK but spent quite a bit of my childhood in Africa and holidaying in Europe, so I'm familiar with non-home-countries.  More recently I lived in Malaysia for several years, quite a big culture shock compared to Europe but relatively painless because my wife is from there.
We visited China for a few weeks - it was much harder than being in Malaysia because (for a start) almost all the signs are in Chinese script and you can't pronounce them in your head, unlike a country where they use Roman script.

Nice image of the cultural shock (+1). I think however it is more US ~ Canada ~ Other English-native-countries (UK, Australia) ~ Western Europe ~ Eastern Europe < South America << Middle-East/Asia << Africa (except south and NW/NE).

Canada is way more like US than UK is, they even copied things like the daylight savings when US changed.  You might be right about Africa, I only know SA, Morocco, Tunisia.  I grew up in Zambia but don't remember it well.


text:
I uploaded my test questions to a website (so I could cheat), but then thought better of it and didn't use the answers. How to proceed?
So, I was taking my exam, and there were two questions I really had no clue on, and I was running out of time on. So I quickly went to a website and posted pictures of my exam questions and asked for answers. I immediately regretted doing so, and went to delete them, when I realized, it wasn’t possible. I then started freaking out, shaking, crying, etc. I know it was wrong, and I really don’t know why I did it. I just didn’t want to fail. They haven't seen it yet, and I hope they don’t ever, I didn’t even use it on the test, and was too frazzled to even fully finish the exam. I don’t know what to do, and my heart has been racing for 12 hours now, and I haven’t been able to sleep. The schools policy is essentially that the teacher will decide what happens, unless I already have a record, where the school will decide to expel me. I know I haven’t even been caught or anything, but I just want to do the right thing here, because I know it was wrong. But I also don’t want to possibly get expelled.

There was some discussion here about whether this question is duplicate of this one...since the discussion is not converging, let us move the discussion to chat and/or make a post on meta. There were also a few answers-in-comments; please avoid this. The existing comments have been moved to chat; please see this FAQ before posting another comment.

BTW, Everyone got the same questions, right? Test was not personalized?  Find that out ASAP.  Software on your phone or computer? Installed for the duration of the test?  Like a VPN? Hope not. Finding out that you are the kind of person who'd do this kind of thing, seems to have been an unpleasant surprise apparently, but self discovery is one of the great benefits of higher education.

Does this answer your question? I was caught cheating on an exam, how can I minimize the damage?

Interesting. You are actually not asking an ethics question here; that one you could answer yourself, and very quickly.
I think your question has two aspects:

You are asking for psychological advice. You are suffering because your mighty superego just doesn't shut up. If that's any consolation, to me this means you are a good person. But you would like to come clear in order to have moral and mental closure.
You are (that's the on-topic part) asking for academic advice: You are interested in the likely consequences because they play a role in whether you will decide to confess. If it's likely that you'd be expelled you'd rather try to sit it out. If the likely reaction is stern admonition and a grade reduction you are perfectly willing to trade that in exchange for moral and hence psychological relief.

I cannot really answer the academic question; it probably depends a lot on the country, the school and the teacher, none of which you can reasonably disclose.
But if there are clear guidelines — whatever they are — it may not make a great difference whether they find out or whether you confess. Or it may work to your disadvantage: Unless your name or a unique identifier is on the photos you posted (and if you were that stupid you don't deserve your degree anyway) they will have a hard time proving that it was your exam, and not somebody else's. Unless you go and confess! All jurisdictions accept the right for the accused to be silent. No jurisdiction requires you to indict yourself. This is the time to call on this privilege and observe the prime directive for all accused: Do not talk.
My advice: Take this as a lesson. You'll remember it for the rest of your life. Don't go and serve them your own head on a silver platter. We all have done things in the past we were not proud of; we all have probably hurt people emotionally by acting less nicely than we wish we had. If we could, we would go back and fix it. But here, no damage has been done; there is literally nothing to fix here except your future behavior.
Unless you can't bear being a "pragmatic coward", I'd simply live with having been an idiot, not do it again and hope not to get caught this one time.

Sometimes the best answer is to the question unasked... and the psychological part of this is definitely in that ballpark.

Another pragmatic approach: try failing the exam somehow without disclosing what exactly happened. That way even if someone finds out inn them future, the consequences well likely not cost you your degree. Depends on the school if this is possible.

+1. Sensible advice. Confessing to an inconsequential and victimless crime that’s not likely to be discovered is just plain dumb, in my view.

This answer overstates how unlikely it is the university finds out the identity of the poster. For example, on chegg, lots of student identities are regularly shared with universities. That process isn't 100% obviously, but it is also not as close 0% as suggested in this answer.

-1 "Unless your name or a unique identifier is on the photos you posted (and if you were that stupid you don't deserve your degree anyway) they will have a hard time proving that it was your exam, and not somebody else's." Consider the WSJ article last week, featuring a NC state professor who's 200 students cheating like this by individuating and watermarking test questions: https://www.wsj.com/articles/cheating-at-school-is-easier-than-everand-its-rampant-11620828004

Just because he OP is seriously troubled is not enough to tell he/she is a good person. He/she might just be worried about getting caught and the consequence. People are sorry only because they get caught.

@stackoverblown You mean, some of us are genuinely good and some of us need a superego to keep us in check? ;-) I have no means of looking into people's minds and hearts, so I basically stick to a moral Turing test, judging observable behavior ;-).

Actually arent basically all smart phone fotos marked? Like a unique indentifier in the exif table? https://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/34651/what-is-the-image-unique-id-exif-field

@lalala Good point. Although it would need a criminal investigation and a subpoena to obtain the serial numbers of the cameras (smartphones?) used by the students, if the phones insert the data at all in the image. I'd be more worried about the GPS location data pointing right to my desk, during remote education! ;-). But some sites remove meta data from images. My homework cheat site would do that!

First of all, I understand that you ultimately just posted your questions but did not look at the answers. So technically you may have committed some kind of an academic violation, but not as bad as you could have. This is, at least ethically, a good thing- you overcame the temptation of cheating!
There’s a small chance that you’ll get caught in the attempt and then it will be very difficult for you to prove that you didn’t look at the answers. If somehow your request is discovered by a TA/student who dislikes you/bad luck, and it’s not anonymized then you can get in trouble.
You can try and explain the situation to your professor. Tell them about your emotional state, that you did not cheat and just did something stupid which you immediately regretted.
What happens next is really up to your professor and how seriously they take cheating vs. how much they want to reward honesty. I personally would have checked your exam, asked for the website where you posted the questions (to check you didn’t ask anything else), and let you off the hook. However other professors could feel differently, especially if you cheated before.
If it’s highly unlikely that you’ll get caught then perhaps it’s not worthwhile to risk the above scenario. You seemed to have learned your lesson and hopefully won’t do this again.
Another alternative is to speak to a student councelor or ombudsperson in your institution. They're usually required to uphold student confidentiality, and won't tell anyone about what happened without your consent. If anything - they will be able to assure you and help you figure out what to do with the specific professor better than strangers on the Internet.

I was too scared to use it, I wanted to throw up once I realized what I had done. I’d never done anything like that, I have studied for this exam for hours. But when I search for the question online, word for word, it doesn’t show up. I don’t think they’d find it, but I also don’t know if the consequences would be worse if I wait til they do. I just feel so bad, and I could care less if they kick me off campus, or take away aid, I just don’t want to be kicked out. I fully understand my actions, and will never do it again.

Perhaps a consultation with a student affairs person/ombudsperson is in order. Ombudspersons are obligated to maintain confidentiality (at least in the US), so you can tell them what happened and consult with no concerns.

+1, though I'm unsure about 'You seemed to have learned your lesson...' : seems to me that OP chose not to cheat due to the possibility of being found out rather than realizing its not the right thing to do.

@AppliedAcademic I think we can at the very least allow the OP the benefit of the doubt. They're already doing a lot more than many other students who would either cheat with no remorse/not ask what to do to rectify the situation. Judgment isn't helping here is what I'm saying.

As an aside- the part of having a student report another student for cheating did happen to me in one of my classes. I was given screenshots of a forum discussion between students. If you cheated on the Internet - it stays on the Internet!

@Spark - Fair point. I can't help seeing the similarity between posting here for help and posting for answers though. In both cases OP seeks damage control for a previous inaction/action (not preparing enough/cheating). Anyway, I do hope OP is able to minimize adverse consequences.

What can an Ombudsperson do? Am I able to have a conversation with them about my situation without it being reported first, so I can discuss my options?

"you just posted your questions but did not look at the answers. So technically you didn’t really cheat"  This is not necessarily true; if these actions helped another student cheat, even inadvertently, then many universities would consider them cheating.  Local rules apply.

I agree that this is a gray area, I don’t know whether it’s “enough” cheating to warrant action on the side of the professor.

Ombudspersons are (in some universities) obligated to maintain confidentiality. You can check this out on your university’s guidelines.

-1 Posting questions to a public website is inherently cheating. I've failed students for that. See answers here for comparison: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/165912/is-the-chegg-honor-shield-tool-an-effective-promotor-of-academic-honesty

I understand everyone who says that this is cheating, and updated my answer accordingly. But hear me out: by treating this as an equally bad case as full on copying answers from an online source (cheating is cheating is cheating sort of mentality), you raise the question: what’s the message to the student? You’re basically telling them: get into trouble even though your actions had zero positive bearing on your performance. Potentially fail the class, even though you de facto caused no harm. Is that sitting right with you?

I'll just point out that at this time, the answer still has factually incorrect assertions in the first paragraph, i.e., "you overcame the temptation of cheating". I'll quote from my (very large) university's policy: "Cheating is the unauthorized use or attempted use of material, information, notes, study aids, devices or communication during an academic exercise." This answer has so many signs of obfuscation that the OP would be wise to not rely on it.

"you just posted your questions but did not look at the answers. So technically you didn’t really cheat" -- Apart from what others said, it's next to impossible to prove that he did not look at the answers. And if there was no answer posted before the end of the assignment, then it's the same legal stuff as, say, attempted murder - whether it was or wasn't successful is (in many countries) irrelevant to the jurisdiction.

While I appreciate our zeal for academic integrity, OP didn’t try to kill anyone. They’re a student suffering from anxiety who made a bad initial call and didn’t act upon it. Let’s put things in perspective, and be kind to people who try to correct their mistakes. I think the best course of action is reaching out to student support; crucifying them here isn’t helping.

I would advise against reporting this to the school or the teacher. Not only because of the potential negative repercussions, but what is the use, if you'll do it again in the future? If you need to unburden your heart, confess to a priest, imam, a friend, etc.
If you regret it, remember good this experience. Maybe it will help you to fight the temptation to do it again in the future.
Footnote: Long time ago, at the end of an exam, I couldn't fill in an answer, and somehow I overheard another student whispered it to other student (not me). I promptly wrote it on my exam paper. Later I got almost perfect score, and I regret writing that just one answer I overheard. Even without it, my score would still be very good.
Afterwards, I don't care if the students before or next to me cheat during exams. They should know better for themselves. I just don't do it anymore, except that once. My score whether perfect or not, is mine alone. I rather flunk an exam or even a course, but I know I pass it on my own, without cheating. Something that I can be proud of myself.

Re: footnote, I don't know if I'd consider that cheating. What are you supposed to do, wear earmuffs in case students around you are dishonest? I'd say taking advantage of information that was made available to you through no dishonesty on your own part is not cheating. If a poster on the wall says the answer to the capital of Missouri, is it cheating to accidentally notice it? Worse yet, if a student had shouted out the answer for the entire hall to hear, should all students intentionally miss that question?

It's okay to feel a bit guilty about that, and obviously going into the exam with the intent to gain information from outside sources is cheating. If you knew the people next to you were going to cheat and you were making an effort to eavesdrop, that's wrong. But if you gained information through the normal course of taking the exam in an honest manner, then that can't be cheating, can it? If it eases your conscience any further this many years later, I have a hard time believing that what you did would be considered counter to academic integrity principles in the slightest.

Thanks for the comments. You might have noticed that most answers and comments here are based on ethical value from the one who gave that answer/comment. The ones who have higher ethical value wants to "punish" this poor student, or at least make him face consequences. The ones with less strict ethical values want to absolve this poor guy.

The value he shares here is just a data point for me. Like all different definitions of cheating from the students I've known in the past and present. That includes my own. What interest me most is how this student reacts with emotion while doing something he or she clearly not enjoy. Rather than imposing my own ethical value on him/her, I would like to offer him/her another perspective. What if this just the beginning of a long list of cheating in the future? Or the other way around. That this would be his/her last one? Of course, he/she is going to decide about that. It's his/her own choice.

I recommend you report the incident to your course convenor as soon as possible.  What you have done is a breach of exam conditions (the other answer is wrong: what you did is cheating), but if you self-report then it is likely that this will be taken into account in your favour, and will mitigate the punishment.  It will also make it more likely that the university will accept your version of events (e.g., that you did not use any answers from your posted question) and aspects of this may also act in mitigation of the offence.  If you decide not to self-report and the university finds out about this conduct then you will not receive mitigation for this, and you will miss out on the opportunity to develop good character.
As to how to stay calm, that is not terribly important right now.  What is important is to act swiftly to ensure that you obtain the benefit of self-reporting your own wrongful conduct.  Once you self-report, you may experience the calm that comes from the fact that any conseqeuences are now out of your hands.  You will also enjoy the psychic benefits that come from starting down the road towards honesty and good character.

I imagine that once OP self-reports it, they'd become calm.

I agree that this is technically a breach of exam conditions. My point is that the OP did not benefit or actually follow through on this issue.

@Allure Until the proceedings against them start. Which would likely not happen otherwise because no-one would notice. Be 100% honest and expelled or silent and still at the uni? To each what they desire.

Breaching exam conditions is not necessarily cheating or even attempted cheating (-1 for that). Extreme example to get the point across, but if someone picks up a gun and holds it to your head, then puts it down voluntarily and repents, you wouldn't say that's murder or even attempted murder, right? Similarly with going to the bathroom against the rules, or showing your exam to your 4-year-old brother against the rules, or whatever. You'd still bear responsibility and it'd be a great idea to explain yourself (and maybe people won't believe you), but they don't imply you've cheated.

It will vary by policy.  At my school, unauthorized sharing is specifically an honesty violation

@user541686 Inapplicable analogy. The ethical violation of the intention to cheat constitutes cheating. Just like soliciting a bribe is illegal whether or not you actually receive one.

@Spark: I agree with your assessment that the student did not benefit (assuming their account is true), but I disagree with your assessment that the behaviour is not cheating.  Soliciting outside help is already an honesty violation, even if the student does not ultimately use any help provided.  It is definitely less-bad cheating, but it is cheating.

@user541686: That minor quibble (which I think you are wrong about in any case) seems a very harsh downvote to me, but each to their own.

@Ben: I'm kind of amused actually. Everyone's gotten out their pitchforks ready to crucify a student who's repenting and not even benefited from a violation of exam conditions, and yet merely losing 2 internet points is suddenly "very harsh"...!

@ElizabethHenning: Illegal != dishonest. Cheating is about dishonesty. "Attempting to be dishonest" might be a breach of the exam conditions, just like "attempting to give a bribe" might be illegal. It's obviously against the rules. Deal with it accordingly. What I'm saying is it's not "cheating". Call it "initiating attempt to cheat" if you want; that's what it was. That doesn't mean the cheating actually happened; the attempt was voluntarily ceased. If you can't be honest about the crucial distinction here, you're being even less honest than the student you're accusing of dishonesty.

@user541686: I'm not sure I agree that people want to crucify the student.  If the offence were self-reported to me (e.g., if I were the convenor), I would be inclined to impose only a minor penalty on the student (e.g., write a two page essay reflecting on the importance of proper discipline in exams; no further penalty imposed).  My answer already acknowledges that there are several mitigating factors that would reduce any penalty.  It is likely to be considered a minor breach, and I would expect only a minor penalty (presuming it is self-reported).

@Ben: Well it seems other folks here see it differently... if the upvotes on the comments don't already make it clear, see e.g. https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/167674/i-cheated-on-my-exam-and-immediately-regretted-it-how-do-i-stay-calm/167679?noredirect=1#comment451640_167675

@user541686 Fine, call it "attempted cheating" if you like, but it's still academic dishonesty. Splitting hairs about which word should be used to describe different forms of academic dishonesty kind of misses the point. Twice, in fact.

@ElizabethHenning: It's not even "attempted" cheating. It was the beginning of a ceased attempt. Imagine someone "stealing" an item 1 foot out the door, but immediately changing their mind and going back to pay, with nobody finding out until he tells the cashier the story. IMHO a (truthful) cashier would have a hard time even getting police to show up, let alone get him arrested, let alone get a jury to convict him of "attempted theft". IMHO you'd be ridiculed out of court (& you'd miss the point) by complaining the diff between that action and "attempted theft" is "splitting hairs".

“if you self-report then it is likely that this will be taken into account in your favour, and will mitigate the punishment” Maybe. Maybe not. There is some risk of running into authorities who say “you cheated, so you’re expelled”. Why run that risk??

@user541686: Your legal analysis on this point is wrong in many respects.  The beginning of a ceased attempt is precisely what is regarded in law as an inchoate offence and there is no doubt that the shoplifter in your example would be technically guilty of the offence, notwithstanding the change of heart.  (As a secondary matter, he probably wouldn't get a jury trial at all; prosecution of minor offences is usually done by a judge, not a jury.)  Inchoate offences have been recognised at law for centuries.

@Ben: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inchoate_offense#Abandonment

@user541686: I am aware of the defence of abandonment; that does not change the fact that inchoate crimes exist, and it does not change the fact that beginning a crime can constitute an "attempt".

@Ben: Whatever floats your boat...

What's done is done. You could go admit your guilt to the professor and be destroyed. That sounds like a really bad idea to me.
I recommend you:

Vow to never attempt to cheat again. As you can see, cheating is bad
for the soul.
Improve your study skills so you're not tempted.

That the episode upset you so speaks well of your character. Everyone makes mistakes.

I agree, that's a really bad idea, also from the viewpoint of the professor. A professor is somebody who wants to be done with grading exams as soon as possible. They want things to go smoothly. A student that walks in and starts telling a story such as the present one asks for a lot of attention and decision-making, which is a considerable waste of time and energy.

If I were you (and I’m not), here’s what I would do ...
First, keep quiet. It seems highly unlikely that your posting will be discovered. Teachers might search the internet for people posting their exam questions, but searching won’t find a photograph. Even if they do find the posting, there’s no way to know who it came from, is there?
If your school somehow gets proof (and I don’t know how this is possible) then you can admit to posting the questions. Your exam paper proves that you didn’t use the answers given on-line, so you can just say (truthfully) that you realized the posting was a mistake, and didn’t follow through. Maybe no answers were posted. Did you look?
If you confess now, then, if you’re unlucky, your school authorities might decide to make an example of you, and your life could be ruined. I don’t think you deserve that, so I wouldn’t take the risk.
You did a stupid thing, but you realized this, and you didn’t gain any unfair advantage from it, so no great harm done, in my view. Don’t do it again.
Of course, this plan is somewhat dishonest. I could live with the dishonesty, but maybe you can’t. No-one can make that decision for you.

Yeah, I deleted the account immediately and was unable to find the questions when searching. So I was unable to even use it. I realized immediately after that it was stupid, hence why I tried deleting the questions before they could even be answered (though I don’t even know if they ever were). I knew not to do this beforehand, yet still did it. But it teaches me to just listen to my conscience and not do it at all.

"...searching won't find a photograph." Be aware that many of these types of sites automatically transcribe all text in pictures into searchable text. I've seen this occur even in the case of handwritten questions. Some of these sites will also disclose student information upon official university requests. (Of course, if the account was made with a burner email address, then in that case it may be difficult to track back to the asker.)

-1 A lot of this shows insufficient knowledge of the domain. E.g.: (a) The most-used sites translate photos to text specifically for easy searching. (b) Posting test questions online is inherently an academic violation, possibly up to expulsion from a college. (c) Consider the NC State professor in this WSJ article from last week who's caught over 200 students cheating this way by individuating and watermarking test questions: https://www.wsj.com/articles/cheating-at-school-is-easier-than-everand-its-rampant-11620828004

@DanielR.Collins. I don’t think the OP deserves to be expelled. So I’d prefer to not give the authorities any ammunition to do that. But, that’s just me. I’m willing to break some rules to protect myself, especially if it doesn’t harm others. Some people have higher moral standards than I do. As I said, that’s the OP’s decision.

This answer overstates how unlikely it is the university finds out the identity of the poster. For example, on chegg, lots of student identities are regularly shared with universities. That process isn't 100% obviously, but it is also not as close 0% as suggested in this answer

It seems that several things all have to happen in order for the OP to get caught: (1) The prof must suspect cheating. No reason he would, from the OP's test answers.  (2) The prof must ask the right answer site for posters' identities. Not likely.  (3) The OP used his real identity when posting. He didn't (I think). So, seems to me that the chances of getting caught are very small. Am I missing something?

source: Stack Exchange

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

authors: Vladimir F Героям слава

sort: votes


text:
Do missed patterns warrant correction to a published paper?
hoping some scientist academics out there can provide insight into a question I've been ruminating on for a while.
I spent multiple years working on a large computational data set, and it was published in a journal this year. There were millions genes and many interesting patterns in this project. I am now working on another large data set, collected with different organisms, and going back to my original code to optimize and try out new methods for data exploration. In doing this, I discovered better ways of carrying out my original analysis. I wanted to understand how these modifications changed the biological outcomes in my already published study. In doing so, I discovered a pretty interesting gene that I missed the first time around, that was overall not very abundant in the scheme of things, but definitely responsive. It's a part of a module that I discussed during a section of this paper. It doesn't change major conclusions, but if I could, I would rewrite a part of the paper to take into account this missing gene. The concern is that I will lead people astray who have a very specific interest in this gene process.
My question is, how should one handle this? Do I correct the paper? If so, do I merely mention this gene I missed or re-do the entire analysis using an updated (and better) pipeline? I have not seen this done in practice, and the corrections/errata I see are due to technical and specific errors, not to add in extra information. It seems like a Pandora's box because I now know so much more than I did the first time I did the analysis, and could probably keep updating every time I find another new important gene that was previously missed or a better way of carrying out the analysis. Another option is to write a new paper expanding on this subsection.
I can't tell at what point I'm crossing the line from being a diligent scientist to obsessing over every detail. I know things like this must happen to other people, but I don't hear of them being discussed. Is anyone else concerned about how scientific methods (especially computational ones) and our own data analysis skills improve over time, and how this influences previous results? How do others deal with this in academia?

Is a follow up paper possible? Sufficiently new?

Yes I think so, it will take me a year+ to write it though

What you are describing does not sound like a correction to me --- it sounds more like something where a follow-up paper would be warranted.  There are many cases where an initial paper is published with an analysis of data, and then later follow-up papers use different models, account for additional variables, etc.  If you think that the new analysis you are proposing is better, and adds to knowledge on the topic, I would say that this is a good reason to write a short follow-up paper with your new analysis.

If I understood you correctly, what you are describing is really a new research result. You designed a new method, and using that new method on old data you discovered a new result. In retrospect you realize that you could have seen a hint of the new result with your old methods, but it was not obvious without your new way of approaching the problem.
A correction should generally be for an error that invalidates some result or conclusion. Here is a definition from the Physical Review style guide (this is a common journal from my field -- I realize this is isn't directly relevant for genetics, but I think the principle should be universal and it gives you an idea of what to look for in the journal you are interested in publishing in):

Errata: The Errata section contains notices regarding errors or omissions in papers previously published. Besides standard Errata, other categories of documents may appear in this section. Each has bidirectional links between the original article and the document in the Errata section. The category of the corrective document is indicated in its title and in the link from the original article. The standard Erratum is a statement by the authors of the original paper that briefly describes the correction(s) and, where appropriate, any effects on the conclusions of the paper.

In this context I would interpret "omission" to mean "failing to mention an important piece of context" (eg: a reference, a crucial detail in the methods, a counterexample to a trend reported in the paper), and not new research on old data. There are several major disadvantages to publishing a correction, rather than a new paper: (a) most people probably won't notice the correction (far fewer people compared to a new paper), (b) the people who do notice will probably assume it was a mistake (which is neutral or negative), as opposed to what really happened, which is a new discovery enabled by improved methods (which is a clear positive).
If anything I think you should actually be excited about your result and want to tell people! I can think of two common approaches to this kind of situation:

If the result by itself is interesting enough, you could write a follow-up paper which describes the new result.

Otherwise, as part of a followup paper describing the new method applied to the new data set, you can have a section entitled something like "re-analysis of old data set" where you show how your new method enables a new insight.

In either case, I would suggest you describe both how you discovered the new insight with the new method, and how you could have seen hints of the result with the old methods (but it would have been harder). People like stories, and it sounds like this will tell the story of an interesting result and the power of your new method.

When you find new information which adds a small amount to work that is already published, that new information should be published in a "comment" or "matters arising."  Unfortunately, some journals do not publish such comments or matters arising.
If you use arXiv you can just update your preprint.

I wouldn't update the preprint. You should upload a new shorter paper to the arxiv, and publish it in a journal if you think it is important enough. It is a new result.

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


text:
Writing a paper after leaving the institute
I was working on a project related to the biological domain at a German institution. I have created ontology and knowledge graphs using public data from DSMZ. After working on the project for two years, I was fired due to slow working speed (the original reason was different).
I am thinking of writing a paper on an ontology graph which I built. Is it possible to write and submit the paper? Is there any legal issue if I submit a paper after leaving the project?

What does your old contract say about IP?

@Buffy not sure

My field is math, not biology, and in math it is not a problem at all to publish such a paper, one just has to acknowledge the financial support from the institute. But Buffy's advice is good: find out what your contract says.

That's always tricky.
I assume (please correct me if I am wrong) that you worked with other people on this project. Commonly, there is at least a PI (primary investigator --- i.e., project lead) and there might have been some Master/PhD students/Post-Docs helping with the workload.
If it was collaborative work, you need to at least inform them.
Most likely: you need to add them as co-authors (anyone who contributed).
You should be aware that many things can be a contribution: library access, equipment access (i.e., your working machine), ideas, feedback, data, funding, and the work of people.
Depending on how important the contribution is, the contributor needs to be an author or can be mentioned in the acknowledgments.
Note, that this goes both ways. If they write a paper about the stuff that you did, they need to acknowledge you too.
So, the chances are significant that you need to acknowledge them somehow.
Safest would be to let them know and add the PI as a co-author.
Note: This is how it is handled commonly in academia and maybe an ethical point of view. Legally, I would recommend looking for legal advice regarding intellectual property.

It is possible to write and submit a paper. Depending on the journal there may be issues if you currently have no affiliation. The editor's decisions may also affected by a lack of affiliation.
The legal aspects depend on your employment contract, in particular any language in it concerning intellectual property (IP). Often all IP created during your employment belongs to your employer, which would mean that you may run into legal issues with publishing your work.

Generally, legal issues should be addressed by speaking with a lawyer. Answers on an internet platform like StackExchange provide no warranty.


text:
Solving open problem with elementary method, is this publishable
I believe I solved an open problem in my field, but the method I used is elementary, is the result still publishable?
To make it more specific, I found a problem and solved it. The method I used is neither advanced nor new. It seems that no one is trying to solve it, except one famous person in my field mentioning that it is an open question. Under this situation, will my result be worth publishing?

Does that famous person live? If so, is there a reason not to ask them? After all, they might be interested in the problem.

I think he is still alive(but very old), but I can't find any contact information

You could ask his university department?

There are lots and lots of open problems, an infinity of the beasts. Whether the community finds any specific one interesting, well that's something else altogether. But one must follow one's dreams and callings. So yes, proofs by elementary means can be interesting (in mathematics see "Proofs from the Book") though not to everyone. Have fun, good luck!

In mathematics (at least), a simpler proof is more interesting/important/publishable than a complicated proof.

If you have found something new which other people in the field would be interested to read, then it should in theory be publishable somewhere.

On a first read I thought the question was "Is this punishable?" and I was going to answer: Rather!

I believe that the main thing is to reflect the state of the problem in this area, justify the application of this particular method and clearly show the solution to the problem with its help.

Is this a reference to https://mathoverflow.net/questions/391863 ?

Yes, it's publishable.
Example of such a paper.

This paper solves a problem of Euler, so it’s not exactly a typical illustration of OP’s situation.

I think the question is not "was there ever a paper that was like this and was publishable" but rather whether "generally speaking, is a paper like this publishable". In that case, the example you have posted proves little.

Random remark: an even shorter version of that paper was published.

@JimmyK4542: Gotta love the brute-force approach to problems!

It is; I just published a paper like that myself. The criterion for publishing is simply that people want to read it. If it's a known open problem, especially one with a pedigree and a famous name attached to it, it's probably of interest to a fair number of people. For that matter, the fact that the proof is elementary may be an advantage. There was interest for a while in an elementary proof (i.e., without complex analysis and results like Tauberian theorems) of the prime number theorem, for example, well after the result itself was established.

What is publishable is up to the publisher with advice from a few of their reviewers. But if they don't see it, they can't publish it. So, you should consider submitting it to an appropriate journal.
However, it is probably worth the effort of getting some local advice. Things may have changed since the report that it was open. Some open questions are very important and a proof would be interesting. Perhaps especially interesting if it uses elementary methods. But the reviewers and the editor will be the judge.
The editor might, however, suggest that you publish it as a "letter" rather than a full paper, so be prepared for that.

Thank you for the answer. I am still new to publication process, what is a "letter"?

A "letter" is a very short paper - maybe a couple of pages. There are some journals that specialize in such short publications. Some others will include them also.

@DanielHatton thanks for mentioning this. PRL papers ("letters") are typically 4-5 pages which is by no means "very short". I'd also not refer to them as a "normal paper" and a "letter", as well as "normal" and " very short" papers. Those are just two different formats of publishing, and the difference is much more structural than just length.

Yes, it is definitely publishable. One prominent example from recent times is the resolution of the sensitivity conjecture in discrete mathematics/theoretical computer science.
It is sometimes the case that a conjecture is considered important not just because it has been open for a long time, but instead because experts believe that a resolution to the conjecture will use new methods or techniques that will prove fruitful in solving other related problems.
So, while it's great that you've managed to settle an open problem in your field, moreover one that has been publicized by an expert in the area, this alone may not be enough to have it published at a top journal in your field when your solution is elementary.
However, that does not mean it is not publishable anywhere. It would be best if you can contact a senior researcher in this field, say in your department, who can evaluate your work and suggest which journals have a high probability of accepting your submission.


text:
How to utilise university resources when doing an independent research masters?
I'm planning on undertaking a research masters in Earth Science or Geography within the UK.
During my undergraduate, there were many lectures, exams, courseworks/reports and workshops. I utilised my lecturers to ask questions about all of these things. Yet, my dissertation was very independent with minimal guidance or advice from lecturers (they mostly just nodded along).
My research masters will only have a single thesis/dissertation to hand in (no exams, lectures or reports). How should I use my university to help me in this? The obvious answer is lab equipment, but my thesis is most likely to be a desktop based study. Another answer is guidance from supervisors, but as I am required to come up with a thesis proposal before applying I will probably already have figured out much of what I need to do.
Summary
If you're applying for a research masters in which there is only one piece of assessed work (your independent thesis), there is unlikely to be lab work (no need for uni equipment) and I must pre-decide a thesis proposal before applying (staff not available for guidance), how do I utilise the university to best help me?

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


text:
highly technical skills: is it possible for uni staff to provide these skills for a thesis or must you teach your self?
Note, by highly technical skills I mean anything that isn't directly taught by your course (i.e. programming/coding, use of specialist lab equipment, mathematical expertise)
I am student of Earth Sciences/Geography within the UK.
I'm planning on doing a masters and in brainstorming ideas for my application's thesis proposal, I often run up against the issue of lacking specific technical skills needed to conduct the study. Should I let this hamper me? I worry I'm restricting my potential by only choosing topics in which I can wholly conduct every step of the research/analysis independently.
For example, my undergraduate dissertation required large datasets and modifying open-source software, meaning I independently taught my self to code. Another student looked at microfossils which required the use of a spectrometer.
Although both of skills were not taught to us, I independently taught my self to code while uni staff operated the spectrometer machine for my peer, meaning he didn't have to learn it.
If I want to study, say, microplastics in fish, will I need to be able know how to use the required lab equipment and interpret the results or is it acceptable to outsource this?
Summary
To word my question another way, University thesis: How can you utilise highly technical skills without falling into the rut of teaching your self everything from scratch?
I taught my self coding for the sake of my undergraduate dissertation, at the cost of a loss of free time which could be spent on my area of study (Earth Science, not Computer Science). Coding is not the direction I want to take in life despite the effort to learn it. I, therefore, do not want to invest so heavily in another one-off skill for my masters.
My two main concerns are:

Restricting my potential research topics to studies which I can wholly conduct and interpret each research technique.
Become stuck teaching my self a skill which I do not desire to follow up in the future (i.e. a statistical technique, coding, lab equip)
Use up a lot of time independently learning said technique

Real life example
In the question linked here, a SE user discusses how during his masters two programmers were hired to help with programming. Would it be reasonable to request the university for someone to help with a skill I've not been taught (i.e. coding or high-level statistics) for my master's thesis?

Expensive experimental equipment will often be operated by staff. The purpose is not to make some student's lives easier, but instead to keep the equipment up and running for all users. Those students still spend their own time learning things too. Sorry, but your question comes off as a rant. If you learn a lot, you get to tell future employers (or potential advisors) how you are a self starter who learned a lot.

Unfortunately, the question "is it possible for staff to provide these skills" is not answerable here because it depends on the specific school.

@JonCuster. Apologies if it comes off as a rant. It's not something I feel negative about, it's just something which I'm seeking advice on in order to better place my productivity on where I want to improve. There's lots of skills out there to learn and I believe it's best to devote most time to those which will serve you most in later life and potential career path, if possible, or else you can end up learning plenty and doing little.

@MadJack Understood. I just mean it in a general sense for university level research, not specific skills, but I take your point. Should I re-word it?

Perhaps you could reword the question to focus on what is common with respect to who is supposed to run the key pieces of equipment, etc. for students in your field (you could also update your question with your field; where in the world you are could be important, too).

Thanks. Edited to provide a bit more background as well as a real life example.

I'm slightly offended by the suggestion that coding is a "one-off skill" as opposed to a fundamental prerequisite for modern science, like reading, typing, or basic statistics.

but not a prerequisite for an every individual to be a great scientist — If you say so.

@JeffE Wow, yes, so much yes. To the OP: a huge part of the value of academic education is picking up these sorts of skills. Work on a project you are interested in: all of the skills related are by definition related to what you are interested in and therefore relevant for the future.

Your original post said: "If I want to study, say, microplastics in fish, will I need to be able know how to use the required lab equipment and interpret the results or is it acceptable to outsource this?" - yes you have to do this. When people are hiring programmers or statisticians, its usually whole research groups rather than a programmer assigned to an individual master's student - that's an entirely different circumstance.

And I don't think you sound like a slacker, I think you just sound very naive if you think coding (or statistics) is a one-off skill, for the same reasons that @JeffE pointed out.

@BryanKrause and JeffE: in some fields coding can be surely considered a one-off skill. Imagine that you are a physicists and for a certain experiment you need a specialized amplifier: will you spend years learning how to design high-performance amplifiers just for one  or two experiments? Certainly not. Well, in some fields programming is exactly like that.

@MassimoOrtolano I am not (nor is JeffE, by my understanding) suggesting that it is necessary to know every specialized technique (i.e., you don't need to program a new unix-based OS to use one), rather that programming is a highly flexible skill that can come up in unexpected places in a career, it doesn't belong in a "one-off" category. There's also a big difference between needing to use a specialized amplifier(or software) versus build one. If you need to use it, you have to learn to use it, not necessarily how to build it.

@BryanKrause Being able to code is exactly like being able to build circuits, just in different fields (and depending on the application being able to do the latter can be much more useful than being able to do the former). Anyway, the purpose of my remark is just to highlight that each person judges the importance of certain skills depending on their background, and if one doesn't know all the details it's better to avoid contending certain claims so strongly (that said, I'm certainly one who encourages people to enlarge as much as possible their working toolbox).

@user3200293 you mention you want to devote time to skills which will help your career, so it might be useful to know what career you would be interested in pursuing once you have finished your Masters (to be honest, even if you are not planning to stay in academia, I am inclined to agree with Jeff et al- learning to code is a valuable investment for your future and programming skills are sought by employers in all fields).

@user3300293 sounds like doing sci comm or outreach might be good options for you, or even working for an educational charity. In this case I would be conservative with a research proposal and limit yourself to achievable goals (if you're not planning on a research career then the content of the project is less important than gaining a good degree).

I've considered sci comm and charities, but I always feel that doing a job with a higher wage or higher influence (even if it's not related to a charity) can give you a greater ability to help. For example, I know someone who completed a chemistry PHD at Oxford and wishes his friend's children approach him for advice before making life choices, as he is in contact with company directors and thus could help obtain internships. This type of influence I think a charity worker would struggle to wield. Thanks for your thought out and informative replies Astronaut.

p.s. Aber was my first choice, though I opted for somewhere else in Wales a little more easy to reach with less flooding!

@user3200293 not Bangor I hope ;)

The answer to your question is very simple. If doing your research requires coding, you will have to learn how to code. Period. You can teach yourself, or take a class, or hire a tutor or whatever, but one way or another, you won't get very far trying to get your university, or anyone else, do the coding for you. As @JeffE and others were politely trying to help you understand, coding in the science and technology worlds today is such a basic skill that your comparison to operating specialized lab equipment simply isn't appropriate. A more proper comparison would be to things like typing up documents or using Microsoft Excel. Would you consider asking your university to get someone to help you with Excel because you can't be bothered to learn it? No? Didn't think so...
As for other skills which your question might be applied to, I think the answer would be it depends, but it seems pretty clear you are mainly interested in coding.

I downvoted this answer for the reasons outlined in my comments below the question. I'm sure that you wouldn't have objected if instead of coding the OP asked about being able to use a lathe, and you'd have said go to a workshop.

@Massimo you are correct, I don't see coding and using a lathe as analogous in this respect. Your hypothetical scenario where OP has chosen to work in a field where he/she will only need coding skills for one project in their entire career is simply not realistic. If they are on a STEM career path and their research project involves some coding, my premise is that it is essentially certain that future projects they will be involved in (either in academia or in industry) will also require at least basic familiarity and proficiency with coding. As others have said, it is not a one-off skill.

Having just finished my Master's in a subject area in which I had very little technical expertise before starting, I hope I can provide a reasonable answer. (My project involved some mathematics and statistics which were new to me before starting, as well as learning a new programming language from scratch.)

I'm planning on doing a masters and in brainstorming ideas for my
  application's thesis proposal, I often run up against the issue of
  lacking specific technical skills needed to conduct the study. Should
  I let this hamper me? I worry I'm restricting my potential by only
  choosing topics in which I can wholly conduct every step of the
  research/analysis independently.

I think the key here is working out which skills you can reasonably expect to learn during the project and do a sort of cost/ benefit analysis. You need to be realistic about what is feasible. If the barrier is a particular statistical technique that you're unfamiliar with, it may be relatively easy to pick it up as you go along- you may even understand it better by using it "in real life".
However, if the skill is much more difficult, for example, learning to program if you've never typed a line of code in your life before, then it is probably unrealistic to plan a study using such a skill. This comes down to your judgement and your judgement alone; we don't know how easy or difficult such skills may be for you to learn.

To word my question another way (...) how can you
  utilise highly technical skills without falling into the rut of
  teaching your self everything from scratch?

In my own (small) research experience, I found that learning tools on the job actually meant I learnt more, and faster than if I had taken a course on it. I learnt more about programming by teaching myself to write code in Python than I got from two years of lectures and workshops on Fortran during my undergraduate. And you know what, I also enjoyed it more! Learning is fun-- but the most valuable part was that I learnt how to teach myself skills. I started to learn how to be an independent academic. And if you want to do any kind of academic research in the future, knowing how to learn independently is important. In fact, I'd argue that's the whole point of the degree.

Would it be reasonable to request the university for someone to help
  with a skill I've not been taught (i.e. coding or high-level
  statistics) for my master's thesis?

As Mad Jack says, this depends on the individual department/ university, but I think you are underestimating the help your supervisor will likely provide. If the skills or techniques are common in the field, they will help you learn them (or point you in the direction of a friendly PhD/ post doc who can).
Ultimately research is all about learning new things. You never know, the skills you learn now might seem useless, but in ten years' time may be vital to your research. I don't think you can get stuck in a rut when you have the whole world around you to learn more about.

I think this is a good answer, but my impression from the OP wasn't that they wanted their advisor to help them learn techniques, rather they are wondering if the university will provide them people to do parts of their research for them.

@Bryan, indeed, but I think the answer to that question is simply no, they won't (unless, as pointed out by Jon Custer, they need to operate expensive, university owned equipment).

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


text:
Is it legal/ethical to go to a postdoc interview even after signing another contract?
I have already signed an agreement for a postdoctoral contract. Now I got an interview call after getting the first contract, which I have signed to join. Can I appear for that interview? Is it possible to navigate the first one somehow, if I get the second position?

Carefully review the terms of the postdoctoral contract you've already signed. Pay special attention to any clauses related to notice periods, termination, or commitments you've made. And you can always contact the institution offering the interview. Explain your situation honestly and express your continued interest in their position.

No, it's not ethical. You already accepted one job. Other candidates are informed that they are not successful and move on. If you intend to leave this job now, you are compromising the project of PI who hired you, as they won't be able to quickly hire another postdoc. If you are not going to take the second post, you are wasting time and effort of the interview panel without a good reason.

If you inform the second place about the situation and they agree to have the interview then it should be fine. If they are paying for travel they might want to cancel, of course. But you should also be clear that the interview can't lead to employment in the short term as you have an accepted offer for the next x years.
But, since a postdoc isn't a permanent position, you might want to keep your options open for the future and if they are interested enough in you to wait, then it might work out.
Just be honest with people. If you follow the above suggestion then you wouldn't (IMO) even need to inform the place at which you have accepted the offer.
There might be other situations in which such a thing is proper, such as a tentative offer/acceptance that isn't yet formalized but I wouldn't advise trying to break a valid contract, even for a better offer now.

It is ethical as long as the contract you signed is not 100% legally binding for both sides. Or if you believe that it might not happen even though it is legally binding (say someone signed a legally binding contract to hire you, but doesn't have the money to pay you).
It is always legal to go to the interview, unless you signed a contract that doesn't allow it. Like "We pay you $X to take the job. We pay you 20% more if you cancel all future interviews right now"; that's unlikely to happen. Signing two contracts will of course cause you problems, but even the signing is legal. You will just be very likely in breach of at least one contract, so it will be a very very bad idea.

A lot of people will tell you "no it is not ethical" or "no it is illegal", truth is that the majority of the employment contracts includes a trial-period, both sides.
If it is your case too, you are all set.
This mean that you can decide any time, during the first days/weeks/months, to leave an employment. For whatever reason. And the reason "I found better working conditions somewhere else" is very real and very rational, if someone get offended because of that, someone is not a very human person.
Said all this, if you resign during the trial period and you start immediately afterwards at the second institution, you are clearly burning some bridges with the people that offered you a postdoc first.
C'est la vie, you cannot be friend of everyone.
ps: the resistance of science&academia people to interpreting and understanding that a contract is "an agreement to work together (often temporarily)" and not "a concession from some superior kin person to provide you some money for the privilege of working with them" is appalling. Sure, position in research&academia are scarce, but come on!


text:
Is it a good idea to do a Master's project which is a new collaboration between two labs?
I am discussing starting a Master's project that would be a totally new project and most likely a collaboration - the collaboration may be negotiated solely based on my project at the initiative of lab A (not discussed with lab B yet).
It would be in service of a fundamental science lab (A) but the majority of the project would need expertise from another, more clinical lab (B) to use a more advanced biological model.
So I'd be building a model using expertise and cells from lab B but to use for the research of lab A. What should I discuss with both labs? I'm worried that if I do end up spending time in lab B because of practicality I'd be seen as an "outsider" and on the reverse if I am set up in lab A that I wouldn't have access to enough advice and supervision from lab B.
I'm also wondering if the question of who would supervise me may cause conflict or one of the two labs to be less interested in helping me achieve my project.
How should I go about this and discuss these worries?

My 2c worth (and I don't know enough to post this as an answer) is that lab A (being your "home" lab, if I read this correctly) should know how to go about setting up a collaboration with another lab, B. They may well have experience in doing that, and have some "rules of engagement" in place to set up and manage such collaborations. (It's not clear if the labs are in the same institution, which may have a bearing on how lab A would engage with lab B.) So, to me it seems clear: talk to lab A about this, and get them to set it up. OR.... why not just do the project in lab B in the first place?


text:
Accused Cheating during exam?
I was taking the exam and our professor was letting everyone go to the bathroom for some reason. I had my phone in my bag during the exam so I’m not even allowed to take my bag. When I went to the bathroom, two other students from my class were going all out with cheating on their phones. As I’m washing my hands, the professor walks in to the bathroom and saw them cheat with their phones in their hand while I’m washing my hands. He then wrote down their names, including mine for some reason. I will be honest I got caught cheating two years ago for an online class which is probably on my academic record and learnt my lesson. Who should I talk to trying to explain what situation I just went through? Currently I am waiting for the email of the professor to see what he’s going to accuse me of.

What is your question?

Maybe he wrote your name because he needs a witness?

@NickS: It would be really horrible from the prof to not mention this ;)

I assume you are worried about being accused of cheating.
If this is the case, who to talk to is really dependent on where you are and what institutions your university has.
I'd say go to your student union (if any). If there is any person you trust among the faculty, ask them what you can do. Talk to the professor and ask them if they saw you did not cheat.
However, if the prof claims you cheated, the situation looks not good for you..
If you trust the two cheating people (and they saw you did not cheat), ask them if they can vouch for you.

I do not think OP should involve the cheaters initially. Only if there is no other way. OP does not want any connection to the cheaters. If accused (and only if!) OP should insist that they washed their hands. Being present when some offense happens does not make you guilty and you should insist on that. Remind them that you did not have a phone open (hardly possible when you wash your hands) and that this was a coincidence, which was unfortunate for you. If not believed, you should escalate.

Being accused of cheating can feel super scary and nerve-wracking, especially with the suspense of waiting on your professor's email. I would encourage you to talk with your family and friends (if you are comfortable with sharing this with them, and if you need moral support. To me, it sounds like you were at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Or, you could head to your school's counselling office or student union to sort out your feelings, the situation, and how to move from there. I want to make a reminder that sometimes, anxiety and feelings can cloud judgment.
If your professor does make an accusation, you should ask for proof. Is there proof that you didn't have your phone with you? And if you saw the other two students on their phones, would you have reported it to the professor?
Since you mentioned that you cheated in the past, reflected and learnt from it, is there a chance that you may think of the possibility of your professor writing down your name based on your past actions? I'm not too sure about that, but I don't think professors should be judging based on past cheating.
I'm not sure how your institution works, but if you are confident enough, perhaps you can ask to have a re-sitting of the exam to prove you didn't cheat.
But best of luck and I hope for the best for you.


text:
Include my former PhD advisor in publication or submit by myself?
I have been doing basic molecular biology research since 2001 and am now doing other things that I love, but I still work with molecular biology. I was working with my protein of interest during my PhD work. I left the program in 2013, basically because my advisor lost a lot of funding.
I have just finished writing a nice extensive review on my protein, with diagrams that I made, and I submitted it to a high impact journal (IF: 14.35). In short, I got an email back from the journal telling me that they "unsubmitted" it and asked me to do a few things and resubmit. To me, them emailing me back two days after I initially submitted it asking me to revise and resubmit is actually a good sign.
Should I just submit it as me, unaffiliated with any company, institution, or university, or should I now, email my former PhD advisor and tell him that we could get a review published in a really good journal based on the protein I was studying?

"To me, them emailing me back two days after I initially submitted it asking me to revise and resubmit is actually a good sign." Well, if this was after an initial quality check by journal staff I wouldn't read anything into it. Those checks tend to be very superficial, and don't look at the scientific value. If an editor actually looked at the paper, it probably only means that the paper is in-scope for the journal.

"without knowing the impact factor of around 14.35" what does the IF have to do with anything?

The usual rules of co-authorship apply: If someone contributed intellectually in a significant way to the development of what you report in the paper, then they should be a co-author. If they didn't, then they shouldn't.

@Trunk Well yes. My answer does not give a recommendation about what to do because I don't know anything about the adviser's involvement.

@Trunk indeed I was about to thank Wolfgang for his very straight forward answer, although you have probably raised a serious question that will resolve this. So, he had a lot to do with my POI and my work during 2011 to 2013. In fact, I proposed to write the review back in late 2012 when I was in the prog and under him. However, everything on the review, I wrote. Thus, I should probably reconsider having him on the paper, because yes, it was his idea for me to work on this protein??

@Trunk As shitty as it would be, it doesn't matter. They contributed to the work pre-publication. Not be involved in "getting the work to publication" does not disqualify them from authorship.

@AzorAhai-him- Thus, I am going to contact him Monday and tell him about the review, that would probably be the right thing to do and the next logical step anyways.  The thing is, is that I am not currently associated with any university, institution, and I have started my own businesses.  He is probably going to be very happy that I wrote it and I think it will take.  So, when I submit it again, the only thing I know to do to associated my name with something is to put down the company that I have founded??

@John If he should be on the paper, you really should not have submitted it without him. He may not take it well. Your other question is unrelated, and you should look up other questions on this site about it.

@AzorAhai-him- yes, you are right. I know him and he most likely will take it in stride and after a few minutes, will be fine. I wrote and designed the whole thing, his contribution dates back to 2011 when he was my advisor in the program and I told him that I was going to write a review, and he said ok. And if course, he helped my with the actual development of this project throughout my time with him. I will email him Monday and see what he says. But thanks for your help.


text:
Uploading latex files to the Editorial Manager
A few days ago I have uploaded my article to the EM system. Next, I downloaded the generated PDF and everything was seen perfect. However, yesterday the Elsevier support team sent an email to me saying "There appears to be an error in the file [ 00main.tex ] that prevents the PDF from building correctly. Please Edit Submission and reload the file."
Now, is it possible to get an error message on their side in spite of getting no error message on my side? How is that possible? I ask them immediately but got no reply.
Here is the manual provided by Aries Systems for guiding Latex files.
And here is the order of the files on EM:
The order of the files
Please let me know what I am missing about this EM system.

This shouldn't happen. If you are sure that the generated PDF looks fine (check it completely), I would just resubmit it and ask the journal office for more specific details about what is wrong. I see from the image that this is a revision, so the first submission must have worked fine, as well.

@Allure At the first submission I didn't upload Latex files, I uploaded the .pdf file and they didn't tell me anything. Now, they requested editable source files so I had to upload .tex files. And as I said, there were no problem in the generated PDF file, checked many times. I don't know what to do...

In that case, I would resubmit it and ask the journal office for more specific details about what is wrong, because the compiled PDF it looks fine.

@Allure I have started to think this: When EM builds PDF files one by one for each DOCX file, it puts a little explanation at the left-top corner of the pages and then merges all of them. At the first submission (not revision, the one I sent PDF file), there was the "manuscript" expression at the same location of my article's first page. However, at this time (the one with latex source files), this expression is gone for both the clean version and the changes-marked version. I am wondering if this is the problem:  It compiles my latex files but can't consider it as a manuscript file.

By the way, we have a [TeX.SE] sister site that handles technical questions about LaTeX. Without a minimum working example, I'm not sure this question would be "on topic" there, but you may want to check out their help center and consider whether they can help at all.

Also, you can have a different LaTeX version/distribution with respect to the one they are using. LaTeX has evolved quite a lot in the last years, so if you have a more recent distribution (or an older one sometimes, although it's more difficult) that could be the case.

One possibility is that the file simply got corrupted during upload/on their side. Another is that they have some issue with packages/build system overall, especially if you use some less-than-common setup.
In either case, do what they have asked you to do: reupload the file. Then, reply to the e-mail giving your perspective and requesting clarifications in case the issue persists.
Side note - it is not as much of an academia question as a LaTeX or, more generally, computers one. Can pipelines break for no apparent reason, especially when trying to build on a different machine than originally tested at? Yes, they do so all the bloody time.

It is definitely possible that error may be in their submission system. I will tell you my story, While i was submitting my latex files to one of the journals of Elsevier for pdf generation at their end, i always failed to get through their EM system. I finally contacted their Latex support system (elsarticle@river-valley.com) and they figured that the problem was on their end. Their submission system had outdated elsarticle.cls file (This is irony). I uploaded all the files again along with the elsarticle.cls (updated). This time i succeeded in generating the pdf.
Moral of the story!
Always ensure you have an updated versions of all the packages and files.
Note that order of the files is not important, unless you want the specific final pdf.