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A team member of a coursework software development project didn't contribute in any way. Can I remove his name from the project?
I am the project manager of a small team of five undergraduate developers who have been working for months on a large system for our Senior Capstone project. Four members of the team, including myself, have put in an extensive amount of work on this project. The remaining member failed to contribute anything at all to the team project (not only did this team member fail to contribute any source code, he failed to contribute in any way at all).
I spoke with this individual multiple times about how failing to contribute, or even contributing minimally, could result in having to retake the Capstone course. Still the individual made no contribution. I spoke with the Professor leading our Capstone team on multiple occasions, and provided documentation supporting my claims. This documentation, along with several peer evaluations, should give the Professor enough information to make fair decisions involving each of our grades, which is really none of my business at all.
What is my business is that this fifth team member has his name displayed on work that he did not contribute to in any way. My question then, is can I remove his name from the completed system?
Edit: Coming back to this question a few years removed, and reading through the given answers, I'm glad that I did not attempt to remove my partner's name from this project. Although I was frustrated at the time, I am now in complete agreement with the wisdom provided in these answers.

So, what have they been doing all this time? Nothing at all or nothing good enough to be included in the main code?

The shorter answer: nothing at all.
The longer answer: The nature of our collaboration is that we hold scheduled meetings twice weekly where we distribute tasks and discuss any issues in development. Each member's responsibility is to perform their assigned tasks in a given time frame. This individual missed the majority of team meetings, failed to even contribute marginally toward any task, and when he actually attended meetings would agree to take on task assignments and to improve his communication, and then would fail to ever contribute solutions or to respond to remote communication.

Can you clarify what you mean with "his name is displayed"? Where is it displayed? In what form? I am imagining an open source system, and in this case why would his name even show up if he never commited code?

Excluding the student might loose you marks, because you "failed" to operate as a team. Yes, it is unfair. But, such projects are sometimes used to evaluate team working skills (under the fallacy that such a project mimics a real-world project; they don't, slackers get fired in the real-world). It might be worth checking the mark scheme and playing the game if there is potential for harm.

The footer of the landing page in the web system supporting this project contains the names of the developers. Furthermore, a poster being displayed on campus displays the names of the team members. Finally, a license required to remain with any portions of our open-source system includes the names of the developers.

I doubt that it is your place to do this. But you could ask the professor for the opportunity to do peer evaluations, in which each member comments on their own and the contributions of others.

What some colleagues of mine made in such cases was including the name of the guy in much smaller fonts. However, they still included it.

Can I remove someone's name from an academic software development project that didn't contribute a single line of code?

Just to focus on the title itself; lines of code contributed is not an accurate summary of contribution. This is a variation on the workman's fallacy of "management is useless because they don't directly make the product".
For example, someone can contribute by working together with the others, and due to working with everyone in different steps, they end up not writing the code and have only contributed to the design of the application. Or testing. Or analysis.
As a second example, maybe their initial code ended up being refactored due to a midway design change, thus technically not having their contribution added to the final product while still having contributed.
I'm aware that this is not the case here, but I want to advise you to refrain from using "not contributing a single line of code" as the main justification. When I read the title, before clicking the link, it implied that you were blindly measuring value by measuring LOC which would put you at fault for using a faulty metric.

However, as this person didn't do anything at all, let's address the real situation.
Whether or not removing the name is warranted depends on whether you are being graded collectively or not. If you all share the same grade, then this person should be prevented from mooching/piggybacking off of your results.
If the grading is done individually, and the professor is already aware (and has evidence) of this person's lack of contribution, then removing the name is unnecessary. It would only be a matter of principle/pride.
While I can certainly understand your desire to not give credit to someone who did not contribute; keep in mind that doing so may come across as petty and may even suggest to outside observers that this person was being ostracized by their team mates, which can end up as a mitigating circumstance in that person's favor.
In either case, I suggest you ask the professor on the right course of action. Since they are already aware of the issue (and presumably have not refuted your claim, since you didn't mention them doing so), having the professor agree to remove this person's name from the project safeguards you from possible negative inferences about having done so.

+1. Clearly the best answer so far. LOC is a terrible measure for contribution to a project. I once had a student I thought was not a contributor. But in the peer evaluations his teammates named him as the most important contributor. There are lots of ways to contribute. Entering code - even correct code- is only one of them. Not just "management" but research, coordination, testing. Not to mention overall conceptual design. I'm not sure that any of these apply in the particular case here, but in general, takes a nuanced analysis.

I've never seen a project where the members get individual grades.  The people doing the grading generally have few tangible metrics to decide which individuals made more or less significant contributions.  Typically the group all get the same grade.

@J...: That doesn't mean that exceptions can't be made. OP already proved the other person's lack of contribution, and I assume the professor did not contest the claim (as OP doesn't mention anything about it). If the professor is already failing the one person, they are effectively grading the contributers differently (even if they decide to give the same grade to all the others). However, I can't confirm whether these exceptions are possible in OP's scenario. If they are not allowed, then the only way to prevent mooching/piggybacking is to effectively remove their name from the project.

@Flater No, but the point was that excluding this student would generally have to be an exception - that the normal grading methods don't typically consider individual contributions and award all students in the group equally.  I'm not saying there isn't a case here, this was strictly in response to the paragraph : If the grading is done individually,...[etc] - all I'm saying is that this typically will not be the case.  Singling out and hard failing a student like this will create a minor shitstorm so profs will not go this (exceptional) route without a very solid reason.

I think you've misunderstood. "Didn't contribute a single line of code" is being used as an example of the idiom "Didn't even do [the smallest thing possible]." The asker isn't saying that writing lines of code is necessary for all project members.

@J... I’m a second year Computer Science student at university in the U.K. I’m completing a group project. At the end, I provide a peer review for all other member of the group (and vice versa). We also have an individual 3000 word report which counts for 30% of our individual grade. Finally, the professor has access to our git repository and OneDrive, and can see all contributions made by each person. It’s really not difficult to give individual grades

@Tim Capstone projects are different - these are exercises in project management as much as anything else.  The team are expected to produce a single, cohesive, body of work.  This is an attempt to have the project more closely mirror the types of project work that will follow either in professional employment or in academic research.

@J... I don’t see the difference. My team will produce a single product for an industry partner. We have a team leader and a member of staff observing. It is designed to give us real world software development experience.

@Tim Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying such a project couldn't be evaluated in the way you describe, only that typically it isn't.

Note: If the student is doing the capstone for a degree in computer science or software engineering, not a single line of code is highly troubling. Completely ignoring a core concept of your field isn't acceptable. Being not-so-good at it is one thing, but completely ignoring it and still passing is misleading.

To clarify, we are all scored individually based on how well we performed within our software development life cycle. In our case we used the waterfall method with three iterations. Each phase we did risk analysis, designed the next version of our system, implemented, tested, and evaluated. The four who contributed did so in various ways, as we are cross disciplinary. My emphasis is programming, and so I implemented a lot of the source code. The member who didn't contribute is also in the programming path. I would've benefited from his efforts.

@DavidRicherby: Even if it was intended that way, it does not come across that way. The statement very much suggests that OP uses LOC as a measure of value, the assumption of which can massively undercut the rest of their claim.

@J... Capstone projects are different - these are exercises in project management as much as anything else. Quoting you for a different discussion here, but that exactly contributes to why LOC is a really bad measure of the value of someone's contribution.

@Flater Sure, but I think it's also pretty clear from the context that OP is using LOC somewhat metaphorically - it seems quite the case that the non-contributor in question actually did next to nothing on any front.

@Flater The asker explicitly says that the person "failed to contribute anything at all", "made no contribution" and that "he did not contribute... in any way" (and all of these quotes have been there since the original version of the question). If you thought that the question was based solely (or even significantly) on the belief that "lines of code" is a good measure then, honestly, you can't have read it very carefully.

@DavidRicherby: I specifically addressed this in my answer that I merely suggested to not lead with the LOC argument as it can be misinterpreted in a way that detracts from the actual message. I'm well aware that this person didn't contribute anything at all, hence the second part of the answer addressing just that. If you believe that my answer only focuses on OP's LOC argument then, honestly, you can't have read it very carefully.

@J...: The only reason I brought up the LOC is because leading with it can lead to wrongful implications about OP measuring contribution by LOC. It's perfectly possible to provide a meaningful contribution without having (m)any LOC in the end result, so OP shouldn't use LOC as their main justification. That is all I addressed. I didn't say OP is wrongly using LOC to gauge contribution, I said OP may be assumed to use LOC to gauge  contribution when OP leads with that argument.

@Flater agreed, yes

@Flater another somewhat amusing illustration of how LOC can be completely misleading - at work we played around a bit with extracting basic LOC contribution statistics from Git and you can get some very strange results if you only focus on LOC. For example, a team member may contribute 0 lines of because the total of + and - lines is zero (a changed line is counted as  - and +), even if they did a lot of work. Another thing was a junior member had the highest LOC contribution of all, even the system architect because he added some a large CSV test data.

There are two aspects to this:

Who gets academic credit for this project? Who gets a pass, and what grade (if any)? In my opinion this also includes who shows up in the university's online system as team members for this capstone project, as well as on the poster you mentioned.
Who has copyright for the project source code? Who is listed as a commiter for the project, if it is published as open source software?

You already did all the right things with regard to the first item. You alerted the professor, and provided supporting documentation. As you correctly say in your question, it's now basically in your professor's hands how they want to handle this case further. If you disagree with their decision (if they, for instance, decide to go the path of least resistance and don't do anything) you are free to go one step higher, and discuss the case with your program director (or whoever is in charge of your overall programme). However, ultimately, it is not your decision to grade the project or to decide who has sufficiently contributed to receive academic recognition for the project. In that sense, you can't really unilaterally decide to kick out the student from the team, or not mention them in your poster.
The second item is a different story, though. If your team mate did not contribute code, they can't have any claim of copyright on the resulting project (hanging around in meetings, or formally being part of a team, does not give you copyright to code that you did not write). They have no grounds to require you to acknowledge a (non-existing) contribution if you decide to make your work public, independently of what the university says about this. You may decide to acknowledge them anyway in some way (as in, thank them for some unspecified collaborations or contributions in the README file of the project), but you certainly don't have to list them as authors (e.g., in the source code of files that they have never touched). The easiest, and also most generally useful, way to handle this is to be explicit with what team member did. Have a header in each source file that mentions who edited the file. Have a "contributors" page that lists, rather detailedly, what each team member did. A team member who did nothing will just not show up in either of these lists, making it fairly clear that they were not in any way instrumental to this project becoming a reality.

But you could put on the poster a brief resumé of the work each contributed... and "nothing" would probaqbly be a valid entry...

Regarding your second point, if OP is based in the US, the IP almost certainly belongs to the university.

@CHenry: On what basis?

@CHenry IPR != copyright.

@R.. Most universities (in the US and elsewhere, but notably not in Sweden) retain at least a fraction of the right to commercialisation on works produced by their students and faculty. However, this has little bearing on my answer, as this does not mean that they can pretend somebody else actually authored the work. They can just claim parts of the profits if the authors decide to make money from the project.

@CHenry: That doesn't avoid the problem.  Having an inaccurate author list can void the university's rights (for certain with patents, where a wrong list of inventors is a cause for the entire patent to be thrown out, even if all inventors, correctly and incorrectly listed, owe assignment to the same entity).

I'll clarify that the system in question is an open-source web system designed to be used by my university, but any university could use or modify the system. The stipulation is that a license including our names as the original authors is included with any copy or derivative work, which is where I'd like to remove this student's name. This license is in place so that I can verify my authorship to potential employers interested in my experience with development.

First and foremost, I think this is a question for the instructor of the course.  If the instructor is not willing or not able to remove that person from your team, they are part of your team and that fact should be reflected in the deliverables.
I would suggest that in your final report you and your team-mates make it clear who did what.  E.g.
Team members:  V, W, X, Y, Z.

Requirements definition: V, W, X, Y
Development and testing of module A: V, W
Development and testing of module B: X, Y
Development and testing of module C: V, X
Writing of final report: V, W, X, Y

I will offer an answer contrary to most of the others.
Since he was officially a member of the team, list him in the documentation and project report.
You have discussed this person's (non)contribution with your professor - that's all you can or should do.
I have taught lots of capstone/project software engineering courses. One thing students learn is how small a part of the work the actual coding is. Another is how hard it can be to work on a team, particularly when some coworkers lag. That's a lesson you have absorbed. In your job interviews point with pride to the project and your role - even frustration - as team leader.

It depends on how the documentation is structured.  If you're naming the team, then yes he was a (non-contributing) member of the team.  If a list of authors, you have to go with the legal definition of authorship, which would exclude the non-contributing student.

Anyone not giving contributions in any form to the project shouldn't be named, it's as simple as that.
You should inform your professor for your decision, and go ahead removing the name.

I would add to this that justification is very much required to stay above board when doing so, as a lack of justification leaves it up to outside observers whether the other person did not contribute or is being unfairly ostracized.

I cannot give you an answer on what would be the moral or legal thing to do (for that, I think it is best to ask the course supervisor), but I can give you an anecdotal answer.
Because last year, I was in the exact same situation as you!
For one of our courses, there was a semester-long project in which we had to work in teams of 3.
Me and one of my teammates, while we did have some issues combining our different programming styles, worked hard on this and even got close to winning the inclass-competition.
The 3d member however, didn't write a single line of code. (The only thing he pushed to git was a text file containing a TODO-list which I dictated to him while we were brainstorming...). We had git-logs to back this up in case it was necesarry.
Me and the 2nd teammate were both aware of this problem, and we both dealt with it in our own ways. I was the one who finished the final report and sent it in. I didn't put his name on it at all, because I didn't feel like he was in our group at all. There was no communication during the project, he didn't ask what he could do, and he didn't contribute anything. Maybe he even joined a different team, without telling us? How could I have known?
My partner however sent an email to the course-supervisor explaining how the other classmate didn't contribute anything, and that he wanted to let him know that.
During the peer-evaluation, we were asked how much each member approximately contributed to different parts of the project. We split 50-50 between us on all parts, but gave 0% to the 3d mate.
This might seem very harsh, but you can't have someone graduate by using you or others.


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Can a "maitre de conferences" be called "professor"?
In the French system and other francophone systems, tenured faculty is divided in two categories: maitre de conferences, equivalent to associate professors if I understand correctly, and professeurs, equivalent to full professors.
I'm preparing a list of people for a meeting. I am required to distinguish between no title, Dr., and Prof. The question is simple: should I call the maitre de conferences "professors"? On the one hand, their title is not formally "professor". On the other hand, their rank is equivalent to "associate professor", and so they deserve to be called "professor".
I am interested in a general answer. Not necessarily only for my situation. Call this curiosity if you wish.

I think your question reduces to https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/37037/can-i-call-an-assistant-professor-professor

Yes, you can. (I did my PhD in France). There is actually a big distinction between maitre de conf. (French position) and associate professor. It is not a limited-time position, it is a full tenured one. On her CV in English, my advisor would usually indicate this as Associate Professor (permanent position). Besides, when in doubt always err on the side of caution with academic titles.

@user91248 On this list would you call a UK lecturer or reader a professor? This can also be an equivalent position to an associate professor. And what about faculty at institutions which do not have professorships like Max Planck Institutes?

Why not use the French terms, if you need to be accurate?

See also Translate academic titles (lecturer, assistant and associate professor, tenure track, instructor) in French

This is a very general answer, so for your case you may wish to wait for an answer specific to the French system.
My opinion is that you should never 'translate' someone else's title in this way. You said that a maitre de conference 'deserves' to be called professor. However, the title 'professor' is not a value judgement on a person, it's just a job title.
In the US, this job title is used quite liberally. Outside the US, the title is often restricted to the most senior staff. In the UK, for example, the job positions of lecturer and reader are equivalent to a US associate professor and full professorship respectively. So a maitre de conference wouldn't be equivalent to a professorship in the UK. If you call a maitre de conference a professor, will you also title British lecturers and readers 'professor'?
Many scientists work at institutions which are not universities, and hence, cannot be professors unless they have also have a university appointment. For example, even the director of a Max Planck Institute is not (automatically) a professor. Are academics employed in such institutions also to be upgraded to professor?
It would be strange to invent a professor title in any of these cases. At best, it will cause bemusement, at worst they will think that you haven't properly researched their background.

@NajibIdrissi Yes, but my understanding is that you would only be called Prof. Idrissi if you were a university professor, which I think is what the question is about. My knowledge of French is not great, but I think that students would call their teachers Mme./M. X rather than Prof X. Is this correct?

Yes, Maître de conférences is equivalent to Associate Professor. There is the equivalent table between all the countries and it is equivalent to Associate/Assistant Professor.

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Besides salary, is there any difference between "classes" of faculty in France?
While learning about the different faculty jobs in France, I discovered that the two different ranks of faculty are subdivided in classes: maitre de conférence are sorted in "normal class" and "outstanding class", while professors are sorted in "second class", "first class", "exceptional class". You start in the lowest class and if you're good you can be promoted.
From an outsider perspective I could not find any difference other than salary. However reading the history of these ranks they used to correspond to, I think:

maitre-assistant -> new maitre de conférence
old maitre de conférence -> professor "second class"
non-titular professor -> professor "first class"
professor titular of a chair -> professor "exceptional class"

Today, other than salary, does the class change anything? Does a higher class faculty have more weight with the university or something? More responsibility? Or is it purely financial?

Generally speaking, it is financial. The responsibility difference is between HDR-holders and non HDR-holders (HDR = Habilitation à diriger les recherches).
Maîtres de conférences are not always allowed to supervise research alone (for example: you cannot supervise a PHD student alone).
To do so you need to hold an HDR: it is a university diploma, something like a smaller PhD thesis that proves that you can supervise others. It's similar to Habilitation in many European countries, like Germany for example.
All "Professeurs" have an HDR : it is a condition (but not the only one) to get promoted. Some "Maitre de Conférences" have an HDR, some do not.
Please note there are two fields in French universities where the "Maître de Conférences/Professeur" distinction is different, for historic reasons : Law and Economics. You become a "Professeur" by completing a competitive examination: "l'agrégation". HDR is this case is not necessary.

My understanding of the French system, from what I was told during my stay there (so I don't know personally, else I'd answer; this is hearsay, but it's consistent with your answer), is that it is a completely flat hierarchy.  Senior professors who have won many awards can be teaching the problem sessions to a lecture run by fresh hires, for example.  Not to say that there's no departmental politics, and so people who have a little more pull than others, but the positions themselves don't intrinsically encode or enforce this.

Yes there is some hierarchy in the council representation, but not overall in day to day work. A Prof. is not a MdC's boss, there are roughly considered the same by students and other academics. Some MdC have a lot of weight at the university. For example, the Deputy Director of my faculty (Engineering) is a MdC (it's a position that not many people want to fill, but one with responsibility nonetheless !).
This is very different in Law studies (using the aggregation system) where there is a big gap in prestige between both positions, and that has consequences in teaching assignments.

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The assistant professor doesn't answer e-mails
I'v already read the similar questions here, but i'm sure those are not applicable in my case.
The assistant reminded us during the last session that we can contact him via email, he is only responsible for a chapter not the whole course. Usually my professor teaches the theory and his assistants handle the exercise sessions.
I tried to contact the person twice via email about fifteen and five days ago respectively, but I have not received any response yet, and I'm not expecting any response at all based on his behaviour before.
I really need an answer before the deadline, so I decided to to contact the professor himself, explaining why and pose my question to him, but after consulting with some academic people this is going to be highly irregular. I don't really know how to handle this in an academically manner.

Are you confident that there is no technical problem? Can you ask other students if they got replies?

@quid 100% positive, in the second email i asked him to upload the slides online which btw he should have done on 14/12 and he did it in about an hour after i sent the second email that could be a coincidence, but still i didn't get any answer on my question. I received an answer from other people so i guess no technical problems at all.

You probably mean 'professor assistant', as in someone that assists the professor. This is different from being an assistant professor.

Consider also that he may be receiving your emails and even replying to them, but his replies are for some reason not getting to you.  I assume you've checked your spam folder; that's the first place I'd look.

@WayneConrad had a student complain to me that I had not replied and they did this in the middle of class : they were embarrased when it was their spam box...

Have you asked your peers ie fellow students? We did that a lot with problems and revision exercises...

@WayneConrad yes i did, i wasn't clear before, i deal with someone who enjoys suspense and not being responsible to anyone.

While there may be exceptions, I think that in most places it would be proper to ask the question of the professor. You could also mention that you haven't yet received an answer from the TA. That might get things moving better in the future.
I would't phrase the comment about the TA as an accusation or complaint; Just the fact that you asked, haven't yet heard back, and need the answer.

15 days ago was the weekend before Christmas, 5 days ago was new years day. I am not surprised the assistant hasn't answered: my university is closed till Monday. Since I have children and the school and kindergarten are also closed till Monday, I have very little time for answering emails. Moreover, this is the time of year to focus on other things than work (why am I writing this answer?).

This answer seems to assume that the OP is from a country where Christmas is celebrated. I think this is not the case in most of the world.

Hi, i thought it through but we ended the course on 13/12 and from now on till Monday is time for us to get prepared for exams, and on Monday exams starts, this is common sense to answer back in this periode. He said the professor always begs him to prepare the questions for exam and he is always late, that's why i don't expect him to answer me back.

Assuming you are in a country that celebrates Christmas, it is not common sense that (s)he responds in this period. It may be inconvenient, but it makes perfect sense to not work in periods that are holidays. That is what holidays are there for.

Quite frankly, if you tell students explicitly that they can ask you questions by email yet you plan not to respond to emails for the two weeks right before the exam due to holidays (which is arguably legitimate) then you better also mention that. (If the situation is as described in OP and the questions are reasonable, and they do not respond by choice, I'd consider this as careless behavior on the side of the assistant professor.)

@theL I'm atheist and I don't celebrate Christmas. But I still have a long vacation, and I don't want to read work-related emails during my vacation. Make sense?

@MaartenBuis,  I guess the mentality you mentioned about 'not answering work related emails' rules so i expect him from Monday on. Thank you for not being loyal to that theory and gave an answer.

@qsp Do you live in a country where Christmas isn't a thing, and how do your colleagues see you suddenly having a 2-week long vacation?

@theL The vast majority of Stack Exchange users come from a country where Christmas is celebrated.

@JiK i'm from Netherlands

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Should exploratory and incomplete work be part of a thesis?
I just finished the first draft of my thesis in computational neuroscience. It contains all the published work and some other material that is relevant to the main theme of the thesis. I deliberately kept some very recent work out of it because I thought it won't add any value to the reader.
Now I am tempted to include this exploratory work into the thesis as well since I've put quite a lot of time on it. This work is an attempt to extend the main results of the thesis. The problem statement is well defined with a good literature survey but no concrete result.
I can probably add to the appendix? Or epilogue (doesn't sound great for a technical document)? Or is it a bad idea altogether?

All scientific research is exploratory and incomplete to some degree.

That may be something to add in a "further work" section as part of the conclusion.

Actually "further work" is probably wrong unless the implication is that it is all the work of the OP. But it sounds like it came from the literature review, instead. In that case, "supplementary papers" or similar might be more appropriate.

And, if it is the work of the OP, then "work in progress" might be worth a note.

Firstly, talk with your supervisor/professor. Likely it need not be included since you mention it  won't add any value to the reader, and this is an important argument. Remember that a thesis needs to read as one piece (not as a concatenation of papers). If it is already sufficiently complete, it does not need to be included. Only if it builds on your thesis' topic and thus strengthens its value, you could still opt for mentioning it as future work in your discussion. However, this is best discussed with your supervisor, since we cannot judge the completeness nor relevance of your recent work.
Don't place it in an appendix, since appendices are best used for additional yet complete and often technical information to support main chapters of the thesis.
Also, don't fear that your recent work will go to waste if you don't mention it. A thesis is not the terminus of a research project. You (usually) have the right to publish your recent work and to extract publications from the thesis even after its completion.

Including incomplete work is risky: An examiner may find fault with negative consequences, omit your unfinished results.

I deliberately kept some very recent work out of it because I thought it won't add any value to the reader...Now I am tempted to include this exploratory work...since I've put quite a lot of time on it.

You don't believe your recent work adds value, so don't include it. The time you've spent needn't go to waste, you can finish and publish later.


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Including reference writer titles in CV for jobs in academia
My question is about including reference writer information in the CV as an applicant.
If a particular reference has lots of illustrious titles (ex: Fellow of the Royal Society), should those be included to add weight?
The is particularly important because the person is not in my exact sub-field and hence many in my sub-field may not recognize him by name.

What's typical for CVs I've seen (in math, mostly in the US) is:

Not listing references
Listing names and affiliations, and possibly some basic professional information (contact info, job title/rank)

Honestly I don't remember much about what people exactly listed in 2 because 1 is much more common nowadays and I don't really pay attention to that section anyway.
Even if someone is not in my exact sub-field, if they're a big shot in a nearby area I've probably heard of them.  Or if I see they're at a top university or have some sort of distinguished professor demarcation on their letter, I'll guess that they are a top researcher.  Conversely, if no one reading your letters has heard of your letter writers, it's not going to make a difference if one of your references is a Fellow of Hoity-Toity Toithoiters.
So my suggestion is don't include such titles as (1) it's not standard (at least in my experience), and (2) it will start to look silly listing loads of titles for references.


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Recommender Too Busy to Submit Letter
I've actually just finished applying to 12 graduate programs all around the country and so far, things have been pretty smooth but there is one thing that I am concerned about.
I have three people that I asked to write a letter of recommendation for me. Two of them have all sent in their LOR's already which is great, but there is one that I'm kind of having issues with sadly.
I told her last week that I'm still missing LOR's from her. Her response was that A) she didn't know that I was applying to that many schools and B) she's way too busy to send out those LOR's. I totally understand the amount of stress she probably has to deal with for someone as busy as she is, but at the same time, I'm really bummed out about it because she did initially agree to write them for me before the application submission season even started. To add, I also sent her a list of all the schools I was applying to at that time.
Now fast-forwarding to this week, she sent in LOR's to four of the schools I'm applying to. That's a start! But I reminded her again that I'm applying to other schools as well, eight more to be exact, and they're all currently waiting for her LOR to be submitted. She responds that no, she sent it in to five schools--and I hope this is just my online checklist lagging, but this doesn't seem to be the case--and that she's too busy to do even more. She explicitly said that she wants this to be the last time she'll have to turn in any more letters due to how busy she is on the last email she's sent me.
I'm awfully depressed about this situation and I'm not certain about what to do. I'm not the richest person in the world so I literally spent a good portion of my savings just to apply. Those application fees add up. To have that money and all that time I spent working on my apps go to waste just because one single component of my application was missing would be a major disappointment. At the same time, I really don't want to cause tension between her and me. I totally sympathize for her situation, and I really don't want to burden her, so I'm a little hesitant to try to talk to her again. I definitely don't want to come across as pushy.
Any suggestions on how to tackle this? I get a bit teary-eyed and anxious when I have to think about this.

It's hard for me to understand how this can really be an issue for the professor, because in this day and age of online submission, once she has written a letter, it takes very little time to submit it to each additional school.  Twelve schools is a little on the high side but certainly not ridiculous.  However, it won't really help the situation for you to tell her that.  Of course, overwork and burnout are definitely things for faculty, and there could be issues like that in play.  But my point is that based on what you've said, it sounds like your request is totally reasonable, and this is unprofessional behavior on her part.
I would suggest you discuss this with her department chair.  You could share your email chain with the chair, making it clear that  you requested the letters well in advance and the professor agreed to send them; that she has actually already written the letter; and that the reason for her balking is not apparently related to any concerns about your qualifications.
The chair will be better positioned to speak to the faculty member about sending the letters.  Departments have an interest in seeing students succeed, and I think most chairs would not be happy about seeing this obstructed for relatively trivial reasons.  The chair may also be able to offer to adjust the professor's workload, or have the letters submitted by some other staff member.  As a last resort, the chair may be able to lean on some other professor to write a substitute letter at short notice.
Be prompt about this, but don't panic too much about approaching deadlines.  Graduate programs are usually able to have some flexibility about letters submitted after a deadline, as long as the student's portion of the application was in on time.
This might hurt your relationship with the professor somewhat.  However, I would say she already blew up your relationship by refusing to submit your letters.  That's a breach of a very straightforward professional obligation.

Thanks for your response! I think that's a good idea. I'm not sure if this is relevant to note but I might as well just throw it out there. My recommender is an instructor that taught a class at an extension course, and not in an actual university. Still, I'm sure I could talk to the department head of the extension about this.

@jessica: Yeah, that does affect the situation somewhat.  I would say any instructor of a university-level course has a similar obligation, but the department head may have less leverage over her in this case.  But I think that is still your best bet.  The only other idea I can think of is to approach some other professor who knows you well, explain the situation, and ask if they can write you a letter fast.

On the other hand, it's possible that the department head has even more leverage, since future hiring of the instructor may depend on being in the department's good graces. In any case, I agree with the answer, and I wish the poster luck!

@Raghu Parthasarathy - Thank you! I'll see how it goes. I hope the dept. head can help me out, but if not, I guess I can try applying again in the future. Just a little disappointed about how much effort, time, and money I've put into this round.

"it takes literally one minute": this is not true. We can recycle the main letter, and a few graduate programs are happy with a simple PDF, but many also require that you fill in their specific awkward form. If you include European programs, some want the letter sent by (snail-)mail.

@MarcGlisse: Edited to "very little time".

"I would suggest you discuss this with her department chair."  Really great suggestion.  If this person is literally too busy to submit already written LORs, that would suggest to me that there are more serious issues needing to be addressed.

@industry7 - I thought something awful happened in her personal life like a family emergency or whatnot, but I pray for her that's not it.

(I agree entirely with Nate Eldredge on this, but anyway...)
I don't get angry easily, but when I hear about cases like this - and there are examples among my students and even my colleagues applying for jobs every single year - I'm always briefly enraged. Letters are quite a small time-investment and they're of enormous importance. Most admissions committees are used to letters trickling in late, sure; and if some faculty members dislike writing letters, they're allowed to feel that way. But nonetheless: when a student requests a letter (an unremarkable request) and we say yes, aren't we agreeing that we will not torpedo your plans for your future (or at least set it back a year) by messing up and/or backing out at the last minute? Few other things I do are that consequential in terms of the price of failing to follow through. I mean, if someone has a legitimate emergency or some major health issues, that's one thing. But otherwise I don't understand not making every effort to see those letters written, sent, and received. Yikes.
Over time I have stepped in for several students, sometimes with only a day's notice, who have found themselves in this kind of situation and (quite justifiably) getting panicky. Is there anyone else you could ask for a letter as a backup plan? A letter from a pretty-good-if-not-perfect referee for you is better than nothing.

I try to write personalised letters to reference to different faculties, andp perhaps she wants to do that, too. But, given the number of letters you ask for, why doesn't she just produce a standard letter that is invariant for all recipients? It's certainly better than not writing at all.

@trikeprof - You sound like an awesome professor then. :) Wish I had you as a reference! Haha.
I don't have someone else in mind, truth be told, which makes this even more frustrating.

@Captain Emacs - I could try suggesting that to her. I don't know what the letter looks like but if she's tailoring it for every institution I'm applying to, I can see why she's stressed. Thanks!


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How to deal with possibly lazy referee?
I have received the referees' reports for my paper. The reviews were both positive, however I am quite baffled/disappointed with their content.
The comments of both referees regard the easy part of the paper, the other, more complicated part which also has some calculations in it got no comment at all.
It seems that both the referees have been... how to say?... lazy? Should I complaint with the editor?
The journal is not predatory and has a good reputation in the field (theoretical physics).

Were the reviews positive? Sometimes the "easy" part of a manuscript is already so bad that I comment on that in my review and don't bother looking at the "complicated" part, because if the authors improve the "easy" part, they will need to scrap and redo the "complicated" part in any case...

@StephanKolassa As a reviewer in similar situations, I have occasionally pointed out in my review that I didn't read the whole paper but focus on the issues that lead to a level of concern and/or confusion that made a full reading pointless.

@StephanKolassa They were both positive

@mattiav27: Well, then what precisely are you concerned about?

This might be an X-Y problem. Keep in mind that it's your job to make sure your published results are correct, not the referees'.
The main job of a referee is to assess whether your results deserve publication. It's possible they skipped the most technical parts if the results looked plausible. Their most valuable input is a high-level view of your paper, and an assessment that it's valuable enough to appear on a journal.
Good referees will also note minor errors, typos and the like, but it's not their job to do it. Ideally, your paper should be correct and typo-free at submission.

Why are you picking fights with positive reviewers, again?

@JochenGlueck I simply find it hard to believe that in a 20 pages paper all comments are for the first 7...

@mattiav27 Is 20 pages roughly average for a paper in your field? If not, chances are that your paper is simply way too long, so the reviewers gave up halfway through because they have other things to do than spend a week on a paper.

What're you looking for from the reviewers?  Like, are you looking for acknowledgement as a form of personal validation?  Or do you want them to edit your paper for you?  Or do you want them to help you with a theory?  Or what?  Like, say, hypothetically, that they accept your paper without comment: what would be the issue?

@TooTea Dang, how short are papers in your field?

@Nat I think the concern is that the reviewers didn't consider the paper thoroughly. They're focusing on the stuff that's easily understood and ignoring the stuff that's hard. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality.

You submitted a paper, not a draft of the paper.  Reviewers have no responsibility to turn your marginally acceptable paper into an accepted paper.  Their responsibility is entirely to the editorial staff to make a recommendation as to whether the journal should publish the paper.
You don't say what the tone of the reviews you got back were, but if the referees see a real problem in the "easy" part that would preclude publication, and they have problems understanding your "complicated" part, no, they don't owe you a review of the complicated part.
Where I tend to see reviews that don't address many of the issues in a paper is when there are real basic problems that will have a clear impact on the paper as a whole -- in other words, when the paper needs some real work before referees can really offer a comprehensive review.

+1 for "You submitted a paper, not a draft of the paper" - how true. And how much do I wish everybody knew this is the case.

The OP mentioned in a comment that both reviews came back positive.

@Idran True, and the response deals mostly with a critical review. But the first sentence is true in any case. The responsibility for the correctness of the paper lies with the author. Frankly, I wish this would be far better understood in our religiously "peer review"-driven system.

Unless they were "lazy" and also suggest rejection, then you have nothing to gain from a complaint. You don't actually know why it got no comment.
I think you are far better off dealing as necessary with any suggestions that were actually made and moving forward. A complaint, at best, will delay publication.
And, even if rejection was recommended, make what improvements you can and move on.

There is a possibility that the reviewers were only vaguely familiar with your exact topic - and might not have felt very confident in reviewing what you describe as the "difficult" part, but more confident on the general parts, which is why they commented more on these. It is not that uncommon that the research area and the paper one gets sent to review don't really overlap.
If you really feel that you need more feedback on the "difficult" part, you can reach out to the editor and ask for an additional review, although that might definitely delay publication, as already mentioned by Buffy.
I wonder why you want more critiques - others would be happy with only minor remarks, do you not feel confident about your submission?

If OP needs critical reading of the difficult parts, they should ask some colleague to do so. The reviewers may or may not do so, but it's not their job to ensure correctness.

No vote on your answer by me, as I agree with your first paragraph but totally disagree with the second one. As CaptainEmacs said, it's not the job of reviewers to do your proofreading.

Quite possibly the editor was not very happy with the quality of reports they received, but nevertheless decided that it is not appropriate to delay publication of your paper while they find another reviewer (who might not be any more thorough than the first two). That is their decision to make, and since they decided that way for your benefit I can't imagine they will appreciate it being questioned.

Although chances are my reviews by and large don't look like the ones you received, as a reviewer I sometimes comment far more on earlier and potentially easier parts of the paper than on the later "beef". The reason is not that I don't read and think about the more complex part. Possible reasons are:

I may think that the main part of the paper is just fine, but the introduction (and maybe also the conclusion and review of other people's work) has some questionable statements, issues with how related literature is commented on (or even misunderstood), some statements that are overly general for marketing reasons etc. Certain issues are more likely to show up in the beginning, and it may well be that your main results are fine but there are these other issues.

Sometimes I start to read a paper and write down all issues I can think of, even though some of these are not strictly necessary to have in the review (such as language issues). I may then realise that I have a time management problem, so from some point I only write down things that I find really necessary to note in order to get the review finished, even though I do read the paper properly and convince myself that the hard part is fine, even though I could've noted some minor issues there having taken more time. I may still put the more detailed earlier list of issues in the review because it is information to the authors and editor that may make some sense to have, even though the review may in the end look a bit unbalanced between detailed early criticism and just giving green light for the more difficult core part. There is some "lazyness" regarding the writing in this, but it doesn't mean that there's anything seriously wrong with the later parts.

I'm not saying your reviewers were like this, but these are potential explanations why reviewers may only (or largely) comment on the early bits other than having actually ignored the rest of your paper.

Also, the later parts of the paper aren't methods and data.  They tend to be conclusions, and reviewers are often generous in letting authors wax philosophical and/or lay out unproven possibilities for the community, so long as they don't overstate the straws being reached for.

First, are you sure you received the full comment from the reviewers? maybe there has been an update in the editorial system and the reviewers letters/reviews have been cropped.
Unlikely, but worthwhile to investigate.
Otherwise, you are free to ask the editor to find other reviewers and the editor is free to put your paper in the bucket "to be done tomorrow" which means "tomorrow is forever tomorrow".
A short historical digression: the peer review as we know is a rather recent thing. In the past centuries, scholars were sending some details of their scientific publications to peers (sometimes to their worst enemies) hoping to receive a feedback. They were then carefully collating the feedbacks and using them as suited them best.
This process of looking for peers and shoveling them your work is cumbersome and sometimes annoying. A much better version is when interested peers can reach your papers and read your papers and eventually comment on them, without you having to bother them asking to read and comment your work.
It would be great to have such an estabilished process. Hey, wait a minute, if your paper is accepted it means that it will be available to this large pool of peers, mission accomplished!
If, on the other hand, you are afraid publishing because your paper has not been thoroughly reviewed ... do not delegate to others what you should do!
Every paper you submit should be in its best possible form and you should be sure that it is free of errrors, at best of your knowledge (which does mean you have no doubts about it being error-free, but it does not mean that the paper is error-free).
If your paper is still at the stage you have doubts about it, and you feel you need the peer review to assess if it is error free, then your paper is not mature enough for publication.
Otherwise you are just offloading to the reviewers the due diligence you should perform on your own work, which is not the idea of peer review.


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How to come up with ideas that will actually be worthy of a paper?
I'm a researcher (completed PhD) in CS. I have a very clear pattern: I can certainly come up with "punchy" sounding ideas, but they are suitable to write up a small workshop paper about but will never make it to a full conference paper. They're simply too impractical, they won't have real impact; they're not deeply theoretical contributions, but I also will not be able to implement my ideas enough to show (even for a paper figure) that they're potentially useful. It's more like a clever idea that someone will think "that's fun!" but no one would seriously encourage me to write a full paper on it. My research record is absolutely littered with such ideas that either get written up as a short abstract or (more often) get abandoned. A couple ideas have seemed more promising and those turned out to have been done already. If I pitch these ideas to potential collaborators/mentors I pretty regularly get shot down/discouraged from continuing to work on it.
I don't seem to be short on creativity or motivation, but I struggle very seriously to come up with any ideas that are both interesting and also suitable for a full conference paper.
I'm losing faith in my ability to be an independent researcher rather than just being known as someone who is good at executing other people's ideas. But I'm currently trying to address my issue by doing just this - intentionally focusing only on helping other people's projects until I figure out how to direct my own ideas in a better way.
Can anyone here provide advice on how to resolve this particular failure mode I have?

First step: Read as much as possible, of the field of your interests, both old and new.

Possible duplicate: I'm having trouble coming up with research problems I can solve. What should I do?. Also: How do I know what the important problems to work on are?

The key to research is to extend old research by others without plagiarizing by adding new research of your own and relating the two.

Don't get overconcerned by being "practical".  If you could create a working program, even if it takes hours to run, it could be optimized later.  Of course, not all research in CS would produce a working program, but I got a degree in EE (though I do CS for a living now).

If I were to speculate (without further details it's difficult to diagnose where the problem might be), it sounds to me like your pattern is: focusing on the details and not on the big picture. A key skill to learn as one matures as a researcher is how to place one's work into a bigger narrative.
It sounds like you are starting with a very particular idea, but then struggle to fit it into a motivating narrative that will actually make it worth people's time to read your paper. This is a reasonable way to proceed if your particular idea is very clever and seriously non-trivial and therefore pursuing it produces real progress on its own, even in the absence of a compelling over-arching narrative. However, in other cases, you end up with neat tricks disconnected from issues of real interest.
Instead, I suggest that you learn how to proceed in the opposite direction: start by identifying places where the narrative of your field can be expanded on, and then hone in on the details. That is, start with the big picture, and then slowly zoom in, instead of starting with a particular place where a trick can be applied and then struggling to motivate your work.
In other words, learn how to do "narrative thinking" instead of (in addition to) "detail-oriented thinking". As for how to do that, I don't have much useful advice other than simply getting into the habit of zooming out and locating what you are doing inside a bigger picture. Reading papers by mature researchers where this kind of narrative thinking is exhibited helps. You can also ask your collaborators or mentors why they are doing what they are doing, i.e. what is the higher-level goal they are trying to achieve by writing a particular paper. In science, it's never a bad idea to stop and ask (yourself or other people): wait a second, what is actually the point of doing X?
Overall, my experience has been that a productive way to write papers is: "here is a vague idea based on some analogies and speculation, if I succeed in gradually fleshing out the details, then this will make for a good paper". In contrast, "here is a neat trick, if I succeed in finding a way to motivate it, then it will make for a good paper" has been less useful for me. But, note that everyone's style of doing research is different. I figured out my strengths lie more in the former area than in the latter, but yours might lie somewhere else.
A related but distinct factor could be focusing on projects that are "too small". Here I don't have much advice other than: don't be afraid to be more ambitious and jump into deeper water, i.e. to tackle problems where you don't immediately see a way out. This involves developing a greater tolerance for situations where you don't know what to do. "Knowing what to do even when you don't know what to do" is another key research skill to learn (easier said than done).

Being an "independent researcher" doesn't necessarily mean working alone. The best advice I could give would be to increase the collaborative efforts you seem to have already started. But don't just work on other people's ideas. Find a way to share ideas and to evaluate them in a small group. University working groups are like that, as are coffee rooms, in fact.
In CS, conferences are excellent for that sort of thing. Think in terms of joint papers. And, the more practice you get, the more likely it is that you bring forth your own ideas.
One idea can lead to another. A simple idea can lead to a deeper one. Trivial stuff can be easily cast aside.
It can also be that you are devaluing your own work, thinking that things are not of general interest. You could try to submit a few papers based on those ideas and see how it goes. And, some "simple" ideas are of interest to the teaching community, who have conferences of their own.

I need to qualify that I'm still only a research trainee, and that I'm in chemistry, but I think my experience may be applicable here.
I relate to your desire to create something "good" or publishable. However, that standard is a moving goalpost (see this thread for some encouragement). The most important thing I'm learning as I do my own research is to treat the work as a journey, not as a goal. I would encourage you to spend a small amount of time working towards some of these "impractical" ideas - they may be easier than you first considered, or the process of considering them deeply may spark your thinking in a new way! You also mention that many of your ideas have already been implemented. This does not mean that you are incapable of making "good" ideas; instead, it's an indication that you are thinking about publishable ideas! Be persistent, and as you gain a deeper understanding of the work that exists in your field, you will gain a sense of the gaps of knowledge that exist.
Know that you're not alone in that struggle!


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How do I politely decline a professor who's really keen on having me for a PhD position?
I wrote an email to my potential advisor, politely declining an offer for a PhD position. And he has replied saying that he's sad to hear that, and asking if there's anything he can do to convince me otherwise. How do I reply to this?

Are you accepting another offer or deferring your studies?

I'm accepting another offer (haven't accepted yet) and had mentioned that in my initial mail to him.

I don't think you need to reply.  All professors know (I hope) it is hard to retain good students.

@user3306356 Even so, the advice wouldn't be substantially different.

I would just reply that you thank him for his interest but that it isn't possible to work together at this time. But suggest that you would be honored/happy to stay in contact for the future if your fields of interest intersect.
Over the long run you want to build up a set of contacts like this and you have an opportunity to start it. He might be a future source of advice on your research or your career. But such contacts need to be nurtured.
I would, however, hold off on such a reply until you have a firm and accepted position elsewhere.

Thank you, I'll follow your advice! I do have a confirmed offer in place.

First,  tell no lies.  Second, thank the professor for their vote of confidence in your ability.  Be gracious.
If you are accepting a placement with another advisor or at another institution then say so.  You need not provide any reasons justifying your decision.  Simply be polite and state the bare minimum required to convey your situation.
If you have chosen not to pursue a degree at this time then say that.  Again, you need not justify this decision.  Just say that you are not pursuing this any further for the time being.
Brevity and courtesy are your allies here.

In my initial email, I had mentioned that I'll be accepting another offer. I'm just not sure what more to say to convey the situation. I definitely don't wish to list my reasons for choosing one over the other.

Then just reiterate what has already been conveyed, that you made your decision based on the information available and do not wish to revisit the issue.

There is nothing out of the ordinary here - they made an offer, you declined, they inquire if there is anything they could do to change your mind (presumably you did not provide a concrete reason for declining, otherwise they would have probably made an offer that potentially changes this reasoning or, if that's not possible, wouldn't even have asked).
How to go forward is completely up to you: If you declined for a reason that can potentially be fixed (most importantly if another university made a better funded offer) you can let them know and see what happens - but you are also completely in your right to not tell them and just go forward with another option. In this case I recommend phrasing your answer politely but generically (e.g., "Other position was a better fit for my research interests.").
I would recommend the latter option particularly if your actual reason may be offending, such as because you went for a higher-status university or because you did not find the project exciting. If your reason is rather neutral but cannot realistically be changed (e.g., you would prefer to move to city / country A rather than B, your spouse likes the other place better, etc.), you can just let them know truthfully - no reasonable person should think less of you because of this.

Well, he wanted to have you and is trying to find out whether there is any condition that he may change to convince you otherwise (e.g. pay, conditions or something else).
If there isn't way to convince you, then you can simply make clear that you made up your mind to pursue some other option, and, if you wish to be more specific, you could say what you decided: to change location/take up a PhD somewhere else/go to industry/become a stay-home father or just state that you have decided not to pursue a PhD at this time, whatever of these is the case.
EDIT
Of course, you should not invent a non-existing reason, but this should go without saying.

That sounds like an invitation to lie. Don't do that.

@Buffy Why? Where did I say OP should lie? OP should state whatever is the case for them or, if they choose so, not give a reason at all. I never ever advocate lying. I just gave a selection of possible reasons why OP may decide not to pursue the PhD with above supervisor and what are perfectly valid reasons to state. Tick what applies. If my response is misleading, please propose a suitable change.

Thanks for the update. Your second paragraph seemed ambiguous. Like making up a reason.

@Buffy Ok. I said "whether there is a reason to convince you otherwise", the second starts with "If there isn't..." - so basically, I am trying to say that it should be made clear that OP made up their mind, either with a reason or without. I didn't quite see the ambiguity, but if you saw it, maybe others do, too. It looks as if the other answers covered the field, so I will consider removing my response.

A small edit would fix it, for me, at least. Consider ending the second paragraph with "... what ever is accurate and honest".

There are basically two scenario's here. The professor still has an open PhD position, and you're not going to take it. That means he'll have to find someone else. But why didn't you accept that position? Was that purely because of reasons that are particular to you? If so, tell the professor. That means he might have more luck with the next candidate.
But if the offer was structurally lacking in some respect, and the professor might be in a position to change that, then it's fair to let him know. It won't affect you, since you already declined. But you're helping both the professor and his future PhD student.

In addition to the suggestions in other answers, you might consider suggesting some collaboration without and independently of being his Ph.D. candidate. Perhaps suggest a visit. If you're super-interested in what he's doing, maybe co-advisorship might be relevant. Of course - you might not be interested and then it's not relevant. I'm just saying that interaction/affiliation with a senior researcher is not a binary "nothing" vs "I'm with him" choice.
Another point is - maybe there is something he could do to convince you:

He might be able to offer something you don't know is possible (e.g. in terms of payment, equipment, undergrads/M.Sc. students who could assist you, or other benefits I haven't thought of).
You might be making an assumption that's invalid about your chosen position, which he could disavow you of. Now, this is trickier, because he's obviously biased, but it's not impossible. I mean, people do sometimes choose Ph.D. positions based on such assumptions.

So if you like him / his research group enough to be open to such arguments, perhaps don't dismiss this opportunity and offer, say, an audio chat to discuss this, in which you would be more forthcoming about how you made your decision and he will make his "pitch".


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What should I do in this grading appeal situation?
The grade I received for Fall 2022 semester was not the grade I feel like I deserved so I emailed my professor as soon as I saw it. The professor did not respond to my email or any follow-up emails until the start of the next semester. A week after the new semester he agreed that we’d meet to discuss the grade.
We came to the conclusion that my grade would be changed.
It's now halfway through the new semester and no progress has been made to change my grade. I've messaged the dean of the department about it (with whom I've been in contact since the beginning), who recently started ignoring me along with the professor. I've since messaged the dean of all of the science colleges, and I am still waiting for a response.
I don't know what to do in this situation. I have never experienced this before. But it seems like the professor and now the dean of the department are waiting on me to "forget" about it. I'm so lost. This has been giving me anxiety since December and nobody seems to care but me. What more should I do? Since I've come to a "resolution" with the professor, I'm no longer eligible to submit a formal grade appeal for a "board meeting" since we are too far into the new semester.

Was the grade really unfair or did "you just feel like you deserved better"?

@Sursula well, if the professor agreed to change it, there should be some reason for that. Especially this "stalling" strategy by the professor is unacceptable. Probably it is not easy or possible to change the grade anymore because the professor did not follow the process in time, and now they are trying to get the student to give up.

@wimi with due respect the end of the fall 2022 would be near the holiday period and I personally would not expect an instructor to engage in reviewing marks during that period.  I don't exactly know when the new semester started, but instructors don't drop everything for student who think they deserve more.  If the OP has a legitimate case, they should state it clearly in one email.  Bombarding administration outside of due process is a sure-fire way of remaining ignored.

Why does the grade matter? In which year of your degree are you? Is this going to affect the next ~80 years of your life in a meaningful way (for example causing you not to get into grad school)? Once you get into grad school, your grades as an undergrad student matter for almost nothing. In academia your publications will carry far more weight, and for non-academic jobs what will matter (in cases where anything from your undergrad years matters at all) is the degree that you get, not the grades in your courses. Did you fail the course and tried to get the grade increased to a passing grade?

Is there any reason why you escalated things from the beginning? Why was the dean of the department involved from the beginning? How many emails did they receive regarding this issue, which should have been first handled with the instructor only? If it was more than 2-3 emails, this probably explains why they are ignoring you.

Your story indicates one of the reasons why it is always worth following formal appeals processes if they exist. Formal processes create audit trails that make it hard for anyone to deny the existence of conversations or agreements that were made. ... and very frequently, formal appeal processes resolve quickly with simple solutions such as exam re-sits, or re-marking of examination papers.
However, in your case, I would still investigate the possibility of a formal appeal, despite your remarks about a "resolution" with the professor and the apparent passing of the deadline for a formal appeal. I suggest that you go to your university administration and take with you any correspondence that supports your contention that you and the professor reached some sort of agreement about your grade. If there is evidence that is consistent with your claim that you talked to the professor about a grade adjustment and/or that you reached some kind of resolution, that might well be sufficient for the administration to ensure that the professor keeps the agreement that was made.

Agree about going the formal route. A verbal resolution is not a full resolution if it doesn’t result in grade change action.

It seems you reached a phase where administrators see additional emails as significantly annoying and thus prone to be ignored.
Instructors (at least all those I know) have a marking scheme or grid so you need a good reason - better than "I deserve better" - for them to review your copy. No instructor (at least none that I know) will agree to review your case on the basis of how you feel about your mark, else final marks would be assigned after a long series of quasi-endless negotiations to please individual students.
Just imagine for one moment that 100 other students didn't get a mark they don't feel they deserve and they all start emailing everyone in the administrative chain, and you can see why how the process is slowed down.
You seem to have resolved the issue with the instructor.  What was the outcome of this resolution?  Indeed if there is a resolution then what more do you expect the instructor or dean to do?  Do you have a formal email clarifying how the situation has been resolved?  If no you should ask for one. If none is forthcoming, then I would suggest you start a formal appeal anyways, as there is no record of this resolution.

I think this is undernessarily condescending. The professor, as I understand agreed to change the grade, so the student's feelings seemed to be right.

FWIW, many of my professors graded without any grid (some even metioning that in some exams they grade nicer or harder). Some of my collegues do too.

@user111388 if the professor agreed to change the mark, then what is the dispute about?  The resolution was fair?

@user111388 surely there must be some marking grid else an instructor would assign marks randomly.

As I read the question, the prof agreed to change the mark, but always forgets about it and doesn't answer to the student.

There is a lot of randomness, yes;) (obviously not between A and fail, but between A and B or similar, yes).

Also, often students just receive a grade without further explanation (even if there is a grid) and it is quite a "process" to get to see the grading. In this casey I'd recommend to only go through the process if the student feels the grade is not correct.

@user111388 you function is a system truly different from mine, where students have the right to see marked copies and get explanation on the marking. Of course there’s some subjective element (do I give 7/10 or 3/10 for this answer) but students can appeal and the appeal will often involve comparing copies so establish is the marking was fair (compared to the other copies).

Yes, our systems are different (yours seem to be better). My students only see the final grade (of course, a prof can do it differently) - they have the right to see the exam (not photos or copies), but profs often conveniently "forget" to answer such emails or give only a very inconvenient date. (Usually, the exam is also the last meeting - so no chance to give the exam back.) To see a exam, you should have a "feeling" that there was some mistake.


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Changing PhD supervisor before officially starting program
TL; DR: I want to switch my supervisor that I confirmed with before beginning my neuroscience PhD in September. I'm officially accepted into the program under this supervisor, signed the letter of intent and everything. But Ive been working with this supervisor for 6 months now and I really don't enjoy the research, and want to switch to a supervisor whose research I enjoy.
I tried researching this but to no avail - I am to begin my PhD in Neuroscience this fall (September 2023) with a supervisor that I got a chance to work with as a research tech starting this January 2023. I initially got my Masters in the Learning and Memory field, doing systems level (circuits) neuroscience, and as I was sending in applications to grad schools for PhD, a professor read my initial application and reached out to me and asked if I was interested in doing research with him. Initially, I thought this was great! A PI reaching out to me is huge! The only caveat was this lab was more of a genetics/neurodevelopment lab, looking at sensory systems at almost the molecular level. Initially I was very interested, and theoretically I still am, in the concepts and ideas of how our nervous system develops (my reason to even do grad school in neuro was to understand how we as humans become who we are, philosophy based). I figured it is a natural trajectory to delve deeper into the field of neuroscience. As I was initially applying for the September 2023 start time, this PI offered me a temporary paid research assistant position from January to September (there was an unfinished project he had no one to finish up), and then I'd officially begin my PhD and my own project in the fall. It's been 6 months now into this lab, I've attended lots of talks, have done a lot of work, and I'm understanding that I really don't enjoy this level of work. I'm not even enjoying the talks and conferences as much as I loved the learning and memory related talks and conferences from my masters.
So essentially, my question is, does anyone have any experience of switching supervisors after being accepted to a PhD program with a supervisor, BEFORE even officially beginning the program? I found a few professors in the same university who are looking for PhD students, for which I reaaaallyy enjoy the research (back to the learning and memory field). Any advice at all would be really helpful, I feel kind of stuck, but if I can switch my supervisor before beginning the program, would that be an issue? I don't quite know how to navigate this scenario, and I tried googling it many, many times, but there isn't an answer for this specific scenario. I am almost afraid I'd be released from the program itself switching so early on (maybe they think I'm indecisive). Should I contact my prospective supervisor first and see if he'd even accept me? So as to not lose my current spot? This is in North America by the way.
Thank you so much ahead of time!!

Is there something like a PhD tutor at the institution? That would be the right person to talk to regarding the formalities, whether this is a standard thing there with standard procedures etc..

This is ok to do, but make sure that you secure a new advisor before you quit the current one! Many programs require you to have an advisor, and if you don't have one, they might assign you a placeholder advisor that is not engaged in research. Or you might end up with a worse advisor and a broken relationship with your current one.

PhD is a long term commitment and will essentially decide your journey. I would recommend that if you don’t like to do PhD in a certain area and would like to switch to another area that’s a good enough reason to switch. Just come out clean with your advisor. Most faculty is pretty understanding that you would like to pursue some other area. You can also go and meet with the faculty you are interested in and just have the first meeting set up to get better understanding about their group. I think this happen often in academia and a simple talk with both the faculty would be an easy solution.


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How to find the state of the art algorithm for a specific problem
Are there any good methods for doing this? I can find papers with algorithms, but they usually do not show their computational results with the same problem sets and the publishing year of two papers is usually different so they will most likely use different equipment for solving the problems.
Edit:
By problem, I am referring also to the specific size of the problem, memory usage and other characteristics of the problem.

Have you tried speaking to an or a more senior researcher at your institution advisor?

The state of the art may not be the best choice for your particular problem. Engineering judgement is required.

You search Stack Exchange.

@JonCuster - yeah, I heard of this state-of-the-art algorithm for multiplying very large numbers in only O(n log n) ...

I generally go through review papers in the field and try to cite them as well if they have any sentence in the paper "claiming that the previous method is SOTA".
There are also benchmark sites.
Famous datasets even have their personal benchmarks linked to their sites.
You could use research gate or any other forum and ask a question there.
You could try a keyword search on google scholar and see if any paper claims to do so.

Regarding the difference in setting, generally the "well-acclaimed" SOTA papers don't have these issues. At least that's what I've noticed majorly in my field.
If that is the case, then I suggest making a small study within the paper covering all the results in the different settings. (Please do correct me if I'm wrong here).

I think you have a misunderstanding about algorithm efficiency and its study. A good course in algorithms and data structures should correct that.
I'll assume here that you actually mean algorithm and not just a useful computer program. They are not the same thing. Some useful programs, while they may contain algorithms, have their performance dominated by other non-algorithmic concerns. The performance there might, indeed, be tied to a particular kind of dataset for which small deviations result in wildly different performance.
Algorithms are judged good or bad based on theoretical concerns, not by running them on sample data. The theoretical measures make them independent of hardware within certain bounds. A fast algorithm will run faster than a slow algorithm on different computers that have a similar architecture (see caveats below). Some algorithms (bubble sort) are always bad. Others are always better (selection sort). Still others are "always" good (merge sort, but see caveats).
So, the "different equipment" idea is a red herring, provided that the equipment has a similar architecture.
Caveats, and there are quite a few.
Some algorithms require a lot of memory (quick sort on a large set) because they are highly recursive. If a machine has insufficient fast memory then quick sort on a large data set will be limited by the, independent, efficiency of the memory system.
Some "slowish" algorithms work well on small data sets and can be preferred over "fastish" algorithms if the data set is expected to be small. But these things are known and are normally incorporated into working software. For example, in quick sort once a "split" results in a segment of size 10 or so, a quadratic algorithm will take over to complete the sort. But that is just good software design, and it uses known, theoretical, results for the various options.
However, if the architecture of a machine changes drastically (as a GPU differs from a CPU), then the game changes and some algorithms that are fast on one will be slower on the other. For example, still sorting things, if an architecture makes comparisons "free" then an algorithm that uses lots of comparisons, rather than rearrangements, will be preferred on that architecture. But, again, this is based on the theoretical considerations that measures the various kinds of operations required by an algorithm.
So, to answer your question, you need to look at the theoretical measures, and these are normally provided by authors.
Another caveat. There are some applied problems that are fairly ill structured and haven't (as yet) yielded to the theoretical analysis assumed above. Perhaps a bit of chaos is involved. For these, some empirical measures might be required at the moment. But some of those sorts of problems can also drive people to invent new architectures that can efficiently handle the problems. But, the same sort of problem also drives the theoreticians to invent new algorithms that are amenable to a general analysis of efficiency. But, the results will, most likely, be reported in theoretical terms, not timings on specific hardware. This is probably what you are seeing. And, hopefully, part of their analysis includes limits on when the algorithm can be expected to behave well.

@Libor, actually, any algorithm (provided it actually is an algorithm) can be analyzed and its efficiency predicted. Randomness, for example, is not an obstacle. Some things are harder than others of course. But algorithmics isn't a dead art.

@Libor, good, you do that.

@Libor  And, there are some things done that are of interest but don't fit the definition of algorithm. I don't include those, as being out of scope of the question.

I think this answer is either plain wrong, or you are using more the word "algorithm" differently from what many people are used to.

@user2316602, see the edit. Algorithm has a formal definition in CS and mathematics (and note the tags). I'm referring to that meaning, not some informal synonym for "computer program". The meaning of words matter, I think. If you want an answer to a broader question, then pose it.

@Libor, are you asking me to answer a different question than the one posed by the OP? If so, then state it. I think there is a lot of apples and oranges comparisons going on here, or algorithms and programs, at least.

Thank you for your detailed answer! I understand that there are different connotations of the word "efficient" depending on the problem I am facing. I did not want to say that there is only one efficient algorithm for a specific topic. My question was only about finding the best algorithm for a specific problem (which considers memory usage, the size of the problem, etc.) in a big pile of academic papers on the internet.

I think the confusion here is that the word "algorithm" is used differently in separate domains. In Machine Learning, while "architectures" are coined as algorithms in some instances, they aren't exactly bound by the same rules as to how buffy as mentioned them to be. The way buffy has put the statement is correct for how algorithms are meant to be but incorrect as to how algorithms are "perceived" in different fields". *Theoretical measures don't bound algorithms in other fields and I think that is the issue here. And there aren't also any "generizability" issues in general algorithm studies.

@Aymous, I realize that people outside CS and math might use terms informally. But I also depended on the question's specific tags. And in Math and CS, algorithm has a specific meaning that has been stable for over half a century. A statement about algorithms may not apply to a non-algorithm. I suspect, now that the OP actually meant something else than what is literally stated. In part,  I was trying to jumpstart the education of the OP who has some confusions somewhere. But they asked about why algorithm papers have a certain structure and I wrote about that. Not about other things.

@Aymous, and your answer, while I think it is more about "useful computer  programs" than algorithms (and fine in that context), may be more what the OP here was interested in. Perhaps they will enlighten us.

@Buffy I actually meant that within CS itself, the term algorithm is used differently! Many places in CS, they call "useful computer programs" as "algorithms". I think that's where the confusion arose. I completely agree with what you have said regarding algorithms but the word has a taken a different meaning in a few fields within CS itself.

@Buffy I did upvote your answer and consider it very useful. Do you recommend me to rename my question to "the state of the art program" instead?

I think that people who study "algorithms and data structures" have a formal definition of an algorithm that differs from what other people use, even within TCS. I think unless specifically stated, this should not be assumed to be the definition meant by OP and I, therefore think the quitestion is fine. Note that I am saying this as someone who does algorithms specifically, so I am used to the meaning Buffy uses.

Another reason for the gap between theoretical and practical efficiency is that theorists mostly care about worst-case complexity (and potentially some abstract notion of average-case complexity). Often, these cases are not quite representative for practical inputs. A prominent case are SAT solvers, where the best techniques have a worse theoretical complexity than others, but are faster at solving practical instances (millions of variables).


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Can I claim my assignment solutions as mini projects in my resume?
I am currently doing Master of Technology (M.Tech) in CSE from IIT Kanpur, and here each and every assignment is like a mini project in itself. For example in my Advanced Computer Architecture course, in one of the assignments we have to build and simulate cache from the scratch and thereby analyze the entire experiment. It is more like a project than an assignment. So can I cite these works as my project in my resume?

"Can I claim my assignment solutions as mini projects in my resume?"

You would be better off putting research-level projects with professors or industry professionals if possible, or even independent projects that you've done in your free time and posted online (for example on GitHub). But if you don't have anything like that, you can of course put down major assignment projects in your resume, but I'd recommend not to oversell these as some type of project done as a contractor for a company in industry or as a paid research internship with a professor.
Since the example you gave was for a course on computer architecture, most people looking at your resume these days will be familiar with GitHub, and for someone with a lack of "formal" project experience, it may not hurt to list some of your bigger GitHub projects, which may include projects you did for your academic courses.

"Like in my Advanced Computer Architecture course, in one of the assignments we have to build and simulate cache from the scratch and thereby analyze the entire experiment. It is more like a project than an assignment."

Sure, it's not a small assignment, but it's also still a student-level course project whose purpose is only pedagogial: It's a generic assignment which seems to be the same for everyone in the class, and has been solved several thousands of times, so there is nothing "novel"  like what would be expected in a research-level project. As an undergrad, the end-of-term project for an advanced 4th year course on quantum computing, I wrote a review paper on a topic of my choice in quantum computing for which no review paper had existed.
Likewise for the final project for a 3rd year undergrad course in numerical methods for differential equations, I wrote a review on "Linear Multi-step Methods" which didn't exist at the time, and after posting it on arXiv it has received 6 citations on Google Scholar, including in some people's PhD theses.
In summary: some undergrad courses can involve quite substantial work for the assignments, ranging from generic problems to solve which may be challenging but have still been done thousands of times by other students, to full-fledged research projects like the ones described above, where it is really more of a "research project" than a generic assignment question.
Another good example is the project Adam Bookatz did for the MIT course Physics 6.845 taught by Scott Aaronson, which turned out to become the first canonical survey of QMA-complete problems. You can see at the end of the paper, that it says

"Much appreciation goes to Scott Aaronson, for whose excellent MIT 6.845 course I prepared this paper."

ok.. Thanks a lot :)

Unless your resume format is prescribed by some external entity, then you can put pretty much anything you want on it. But, don't oversell these as they were all, I assume, a year or less in duration.
And again, unless you are required to use a specific format for some reason, there is no reason for a "Project" item.
Just be clear and honest in any CV.
But perhaps you mean that your institute requires you to produce such a thing for graduation and they set the format. In that case, seek guidance locally about what is accepted and what is not.

I have seen several students add something like this to a resume. If you don't have any significant work or research experience to list, this can show off some skills. My only suggestion is to be very clear that these are class assignments. If you call them "technical projects" or something it's ambiguous as to whether it's work, research or class. Be very clear that this is classes


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Does the word limit for Physical Review Letters include references etc.?
I'm preparing a manuscript to submit to Physical Review Letters. On their website it says that the word limit is 3750 words.
Does this word limit count every word in the whole manuscript, including title abstract acknowledgements and references? Or does it only cover the body text?
I couldn't find this information on their website.

Sorry, maybe a silly question, but why is this downvoted?

@Clumsycat Maybe because the answer to the question can be literally found by following a link on the very website that OP has linked?

@Sursula that doesn't say much for OP's reading comprehension, but the question still seems on-topic, and heaven knows, I've failed to properly comprehend clearly written instructions before. It seems to me that this question is on topic and OP may not be the last person to overlook that link.

I checked again and the link on that page is quite easy for me to find now. I'm excited but also pretty stressed about the process, and my reading comprehension for topics I'm very stressed about is significantly lower than my average. I looked  through the page a couple of times before posting, and I've appreciated the answer here. (Thanks for helping me feel a little less silly @Clumsy cat)

Rule of thumb: If you end up at a bit less than 4 pages before acknowledgements + references start, you should be roughly fine. And if not, PRL will tell you to shorten the manuscript (they will provide a length estimate) before continuing. So as long as your paper is not excessively long compared to this, no need to worry. In particular, no need to go through the involved word-counting procedure.

On the page you linked to, it says

For a more detailed explanation of length limits, please consult the journals’ Length Limit Guide.

If you were to follow that link, you'd find that the length formula used by APS is somewhat complicated, as they assign an equivalent number of words to figures, tables, and equations. However, it also establishes that e.g. abstract, author listings, references, and acknowledgements do not count towards the length limit.

Although the various formulas over the years (APL, PRL, ...) are approximations, and passing the formula count does not guarantee fitting within (hard anymore?) page limit. If every paragraph has one word left hanging on its own line at the end, well, that is a problem (and the first place to look for taking out one word to gain an entire line back).

@JonCuster Yes, trying to quantitatively use those formulas has some inevitable uncertainty, but it certainly helps to know that some parts of the manuscript won't count. And the length estimate APS provides on the submission page seems wildly inaccurate at times. In practice, the best guide seems to be if everything that counts can be fitted within some number of pages (4 for PRL).

Back in the day, there were several TeX formats floating around that copied APL and PRL output pretty well. The few times I had issues it isn't clear that they would have helped either. As you say, follow their instructions and most of the time there won't be a problem.

@JonCuster The page limit got replaced by the word count.

@user151413 - Interesting, and thanks for bringing me up to date. Not so surprising in this day and age with pdf files rather than hard copy. Sure would have made life a bit easier back in the day.


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Should I send a follow up email to my potential PhD supervisor?
I recently applied for a PhD position in Europe. The deadline for applications was the 30th of September (so almost a week ago) and the starting date for the position is January 2021. I won't graduate until June 2021, but nevertheless, I decided to send my application since I'm really interested in the position. After sending my application (3 weeks ago), I contacted the professor with the question if it's possible to start later, after graduation, and he told me that they need to discuss this and that I could apply.
I would like to send an email to ask if they already decided if it's possible to delay the starting date and to ask when I can expect to hear back from my application (there is little information about the admission procedure on the website). I don't want to be pushy, but I really want to show that I'm really motivated. Should I send an email or should I just wait until I hear back from them? How long should I wait?

I would wait at least 3 weeks to be honest. 1 week is not nearly enough, committees meetings like this are usually a bit spaced (AFAIK) and organizing them must be being more complicated than usual with the pandemic going on. Just be patient, you already did what you had to.

My guess would be they won't bother with your request to start late unless in considering all the applications they decide they would want to admit you. Probably that process will take awhile.

The deadline for application was a week ago, is it anywhere specified the deadline for the first round of evaluation? You should wait at least for that

@AnOrAn No, unfortunately not. I have no idea.

Always insist on what you want. But: Always be polite. Never be too pushy or write too quickly if you can avoid it. 1 week seems too quick.