text:
Style of inline citations (numeric)
In the paper that I am writing using LaTeX, I have several sentences like:
However, in \cite{aa2014} only a small uncertainty has been introduced ...

Or,
According to \cite{ab2014}, ...

Because I am forced to using numerical references, the result is respectively:

However, in⁴ only a small uncertainty has been introduced ...
According to⁸, ...

I don't like this style of citations so I am looking for improvements. I have been able to rewrite some of the sentences so that I can put the citation at the end of the sentence, but this does not always seems to be a good idea. Are there better options?

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because this is more appropriate for http://tex.stackexchange.com/

@mhwombat, I don't think it is, because my question is only about the style of inline citations, not about the actual LaTeX code.

If you're looking for a style suggestion, normally you use the style that the journal or conference you're submitting to prefers. In my field, CS, numbered citations usually appear in square brackets [5].

It is not clear from your question if the superscript-style citation is required by the publisher or if it is a choice of yours.

The superscript-style citation is required by the publisher. However, I don't like sentences such as: "According to⁸, ..." . So I am asking for suggestions to improve this style of inline citations.

@mhwombat: This question has nothing to do with LaTeX, and it is not more appropriate for TeX.SE.

@mhwombat: Also, even if this question were more appropriate for TeX.SE, it wouldn’t necessarily be off-topic here.

Sorry, I misunderstood the question as asking for suggestions on which *.sty file to use.

I agree that sentences like

According to⁸

are horrible to read, although I recall seeing them a couple of times. A possible solution is to add author names:

According to Alice and Bob⁸
However, in Alice et al.⁴ only a small uncertainty has been introduced ...

Thank you, that indeed seems a good solution. Is there a way to automate the inclusion of the author names? That is, can I use something like: According to \namesofauthors{aa2003} \cite{aa2003}

@Pietair: that, yes, is a question for TeX.SE ;-) Anyway, the natbib package has the command \citeauthor for that purpose.


text:
Do copyright transfer of papers to publishers affect when the paper enters the public domain since copyright belongs to a corporation and not persons?
Currently, in both the USA and Europe, I understand that works enter the public domain:

70 years after the death of the longest living author
or X years after publication if copyright is held by a corporation, where X is 70 in Europe and 95 in the USA

This means that in general, corporate works enter the public domain much sooner than non-corporate ones.
So does a typical copyright transfer of an academic paper to an academic publisher make such papers enter the public domain X years after publication rather than 70 years after the death of the longest living author?
Or are the copyright transfers so varied that it is not possible to simply answer?
As a concrete example, consider the main Stern-Gerlach experiment published in Germany in 1922: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01326983 Stern died in 1969, Gerlach died in 1979, so if we consider:

death + 70: 2049
publication + 70: 1992, already in public domain

Perhaps the concept of work for hire comes into play here. It does not feel intuitively that papers are work for hire strictly speaking. But it feels unfair that publishers should retain indefinite corporate ownership while still keeping the death + 70 rule to paywall things for even longer.
Related questions:

How long does it take before an academic article can no longer be kept behind a paywall?

Do Research Papers have Public Domain Expiration Date?

Journal allows me to choose whether to transfer copyright – why would I do so? suggests that there are two different types of deal, one in which you transfer copyright and one in which you don't. It would be interesting to understand how popular each one is:

why would authors choose to transfer copyright it not forced to do so by the publisher?
how is an exclusive deal different from copyright transfer?

The question of "work for hire" is often answered in the contract between the author and their employer. For academics, typically the employer waives the copyright and allows the author to retain it, so it ends up not being a work for hire.

@NateEldredge yes, that's what I understand. It just feels unfair that then are in many cases basically forced to waive copyright to a publisher who then gets to keep life + X despite being a corporation.

Copyright law differs and changes. For much of the world, however, note The Berne Convention. Note also that individual countries can differ in part from the convention while still adhering to it.
But for things like academic writings, the copyright begins when the work is "fixed" in some form (not necessarily published). It ends a certain number of years after the death of the "author(s)", not the copyright holder. Transfer of copyright doesn't affect that. If you write something and transfer copyright to, say, Springer, you are still the author.
Works done for hire might be a special case, but you need to explore that, as IANAL. Is the corporation the author or those who work on it? And as this is all civil law, lawyers matter.
Disney tried and almost succeeded in getting perpetual copyright for what it produces. It is a political as well as a legal and financial issue.
And note the exceptions, for such things as anonymous works or unknown author work.
Also note that if copyright transfer extended the term of copyright then a company could in principle transfer copyrights back and forth among its subsidiaries indefinitely, possibly resulting in infinite terms.

Thanks, I imagined that this would be the case unfortunately. Work for hire affects it for sure as it is what characterizes corporate authorship, which is likely does not apply for the broken paper industry unfortunately. "Also note that if copyright transfer extended the term of copyright then a company could in principle transfer copyrights back and forth among its subsidiaries": this wouldn't work because what should count is the publication date which is unchanged.

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text:
Is it acceptable to decline to review a paper due to lack of familiarity?
I have recently started my PhD studies. My advisor, as member of a program committee, has delegated a the review of a conference paper to me. This is my second peer review.
Since I have not done research in the area of this paper, I find it very hard to review. Not only does it require much effort for me to grasp the content. First and foremost, I do not think that being able to understand the content of a paper is sufficient for reviewing it. Ideally, reviewing would mean judging the paper for its scientific merit as a peer, considering content, presentation, relevance and relation to other work in the area. Especially the latter aspects I feel unable to judge.
I consider declining to review, but this seems like a drastic step with conflict potential. Certainly, there is an incentive to formally complete the assignment and write a review of little value to the authors, the venue and the scientific community in general. Would it be acceptable or prudent to decline?

Yes.  It is much better to decline as soon as you realise you're not up to the review, than to write a useless review.
Normally, you first get an abstract based on which you accept or decline.  If you accept, the editor may be annoyed if you decline based on seeing the manuscript, but sometimes it's inevitable; only so much can be judged from the abstract.  If you do decline, however, you should let the editor know as soon as possible.
I recently read a publicly reviewed paper where both reviews clearly did not really understand the topic, but still handed in a review.  To me it was quite clear that the paper needed a statistician, which neither of the reviewers were.  One reviewer didn't get much further than pointing out that the introduction was too long, with not a single comment on 10 pages of detailed description of advanced statistical methods.  When reading the reviews, I found it a bit embarrassing that the peer review was so clearly insufficient, and the paper virtually got published without proper peer review.
I know someone who accepted his very first paper review, only to discover when he received the manuscript that it had 130 pages.  He returned it to the editor.

Since your advisor assigned the paper to you, I suspect that your advisor believed that you were either able to do the review, or capable of getting the information you need to do the review, or simply wanted a second opinion.
It's rather normal for advisors to assign to their students papers they get from being on committees. A conscientious advisor will also review the paper by himself/herself though and double-check the student's work, as well as providing feedback to the student about how to write good reviews.
Thus, in your case, your review may not actually go back to the authors - your advisor would take your review and his/her own review and integrate them (or write a new one). In that case, I would do your best to review the paper and then speak with your advisor about how to improve.
If however you still feel extremely uncomfortable about reviewing the paper, I would speak with your advisor about it. Your advisor may have some advice about where to look or what to consider; alternatively you might get a different paper as well.
(Note: If you were reviewing as a PC member or as a journal reviewer, I would instead agree with gerrit above and decline the review.)

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text:
Supervisor asking me to fabricate papers (and other problems)
I'm seeking guidance here for a situation which is becoming unsustainable. As you can get from the title, I don't get along with my PhD (STEM) supervisor.
He never cared of my thesis, he doesn't even read my papers at all. All he does is charging me with his ideas that every time turn out to be unsuccessful. Even worse, when an idea of his turns out to be unfeasible, he asks me to fabricate the results (and by fabrication I mean totally invented works). This has become systematic.
For a good part of my PhD I cut him of from my activity, I almost finished my thesis and I published 6 first-author papers, 5 non-first-author papers and about 10 conference papers (I'm not including bogus works in the count).
The problem is that I'm starting an abroad period at another university and I need his recommendation. It goes without saying that he started again with his unethical and time-wasting requests.
After my abroad period, I'll come back some months (six) and finish my PhD. After that I'd like to apply for a postoc in that university.
My question is, if I prove myself during the abroad period, would I still need his recommendation for a postdoc application? Mind that I also have a second advisor for that, in case.
In the six months between my abroad period and the thesis defense I'll be again at his will, so this mean again losing times at crazy ideas and faking papers. I need to dump him as soon as I can. Will I need him for a postdoc, if they already know me at the place where I want to apply?

Do you have documentation (like an email) that shows your advisor recommending you fabricate results? If it is as you say, this is very serious misconduct. By "not including bogus works" in your count do you mean that you actually have published bogus, fabricated works?

No, I just mean that all my publications are fine. All the fabricated material is still to be submitted. I'm trying as hard as I can not to put my name inside these works. I doubt that he's gonna accept, because if I refuse the authorship, the other professors (who are unaware that the work is false) could suspect.                                                                                I don't have documentation, but this week I'll have a conversation with him about two fabricated papers. I'm planning to videorecord with my cellphone.

(to continue the previous message...) I'm trying to slow down the writing and the submission of the faked works, but now he's pushing hard to have them published. That's why I want to go away for my abroad period and them dump him definitely. I just hope that I'm not going to need him for another recommendation when I apply for a postdoc there.

Why have you produced anything fabricated, even in part such that it could be submitted in the future? Especially to the point that you've shared the work with coauthors who don't know it's fabricated? You've put yourself at quite a lot of risk by doing this.

Because that's how it works in my group. You cannot confront a professor, even if you're right to do so. I already tried, and I ended up as the unsubordinated one. Nobody got the b*lls to go against another professor here, probably not even the unaware coauthors. They are not going to argue with a professor just to stand with a grad student. I think that my only option is to go abroad, get references there and then screw my advisor before he publishes anything fabricated. Plus, I'll record any conversation with him on the subject.

You probably need to go as high as you can inside your university to find someone to report research misconduct to. Also, put all the fabricated research on a usb and lose it, or drown it, or whatever.

@DavidRoberts Losing the fabricated research in a freak accident is probably the best of plausible deniability that OP has. It is really a bad situation, if OP has to resort to such measures.

"Why have you produced anything fabricated [...] Especially to the point that you've shared the work with coauthors who don't know it's fabricated?"                                  By the way, I want to answer to this question. The only time I shared results, I was also tricked. He told me to send my plots and then at the meeting he told the other coauthors that I obtained then with a given method (which is completely untrue). I didn't know his intention. Now I'm just trying to slow down things to find a painless way out.

As for the unshared work, same as above. I'm procrastinating so that either he forgets, or we miss the deadlines (if they are conf. papers). In the past it worked, but now he's putting much more pressure on me, strong of the recommendation that I need. By no means I'm in bad faith. That's just so frustrating, because I did good in my PhD, and still my advisor is my biggest thorn in the side. Days and nights working hard to still be in the hands of a bullshi*ter fraud. End of my rant.

Never ever fabricate. I repeat: never ever fabricate.
If you do not manage to get a suitable reference from your superviser, your career may or may not take a nosedive, depending how lucky you are to find someone else to write you  recommendations.
But if you fabricate, you will be found out if your research is of any relevance whatsoever (and if it is not, why do this research in the first place?) and then your career, sooner or later, will be destroyed with no hope of recovery.
Addendum: in my personal opinion, the two capital crimes in science are plagiarism and fabrication. But, in my very personal opinion, fabrication is the worse of the two, because it wastes many people's time and effort in trying to reproduce the results.

Well, I have a second supervisor here (even a third, but he's a postdoc) and my mentor at the hosting university, for recommendation. Could it be OK, considering that I'm applying in that university?                                                                                Probably they won't have any impact. Why do this research in the first place? Because that's typical of him. He does not want to have an impact, he just cannot accept that his ideas are BS and he'd rather falsify result to get his idea publicated. Just like a crybaby with inflated ego.

This notwithstanding, I'm never going to put my name on something fabricated. No doubt about it. I'm just looking advice on how to do the right thing without ending up with bad recommentation from that incompetent fraud.

I think you can safely assume that "that incompetent fraud" isn't going to write you a good (ie, both positive and credible) recommendation. Look elsewhere.

Agree completely - fabrication is orders of magnitude worse than plagiarism.

All the fabricated material is still to be submitted. I'm trying as hard as I can not to put my name inside these works.  I doubt that he's gonna accept, because if I refuse the authorship, the other professors (who are unaware that the work is false) could suspect.

This is very important - do not participate in, or put your name to, any paper with fabricated results.  Not only are you not obliged to avoid confrontation in order to avoid arousing suspicion, but you should report this to your university immediately.  If your description is correct then this is academic fraud, and your role should be as a whistle-blower, not a reluctant participant.  Report this matter to your Head of Department, and send an email to your supervisor saying that you do not wish to be involved in those papers in any way, that you do not wish to have any authorship or acknowledgement in them, and that you believe they are fraudulent and should not be submitted for publication.
This is not a matter of "trying as hard as [you] can".  In a matter this serious, you don't try - you do.  If you end up participating in ---or putting your name to--- published papers with fabricated results, and that comes to light, then that is the end of your academic career.  It's really that simple.  If you participate in publishing results you know to be bogus fabricated results then you will have zero credibility, in any field, forever.  However uncomfortable you feel confronting this matter, just think how uncomfortable you are going to feel when you are publicly known as someone who participated in academic fraud.

I'd love to report him. I just need some evidence, otherwise it'll be my word agains his. That's why I need to record a conversation in which I try to confront and dissuade him from committing a fraud, telling him that I don't want having to do with it. If I just send a mail, he won't answer me back and just deny everything. To state the obvious, I have to act before anything is published, otherwise I'll be a partner of the fraud. I just hope that it won't all turn against me, put an end on my career anyway (it's a small dept. and they are all friends) and that I'll get away with it.

*he'll get away with it.

I am not sure that one should expect from OP to be a whistleblower and sacrifice themselves on the vague hope that they will bring down the fraud (which may not even happen). To take the role of martyrdom is something people may decide for themselves, but it is not something that is to be decided for them by acclamation. I agree with the second part of the response, though.

@Gus Recording somebody without their permission may have legal implications in your country. Be careful.

What if he refuses to take my name away from the publications? (as I've said before, to avoid suspicions by other coauthors)

@CaptainEmacs in my country, recording a conversation is legal. Moreover, I can share the conversation with my employer (i.e., my university), if a disciplinary procedure is in course, even without permission.

If you know where he submits and he proceeds to submit with your name, you can always ask the editors to take your name out. Yes, that will create trouble, but I think you will have trouble in any case.

You've already been clear, I'm screwed. I instantiated this asternoon a request of withdrawal from my phd program, adducing as motivation the pressure to produce falsified research. Next week the commission will make it official. A whole life burnt for a wrong advisor...

@Gus Good luck to you! You are not the only one, seek out some other place, you may find a way to rebuild things and you will now know what to look out for.

Looks like my threat to quit scared the sh*t out of him. He contacted all the  coauthors telling them that we're not doing the job because we found major flaws in the works. Since I have a 7-day window until my request is shared to the commission, I can take it back. My papers make almost the 40% of his annual production, he cannot afford to lose me. Even more, he cannot afford to explain the commission why I left the phd, complaining about academic misconduct. My phd is safe for now.. now it's time to pack up, finish my thesis and run away. Forever

@Gus I still think it's worthwhile, if you have evidence, of going to the university after you get your PhD. I imagine this person will try this trick again on a new student and this needs to be stopped.

@Gus: You need evidence if you want to prove that this other author did something wrong.  You do not need any evidence to remove yourself from authorship of the material.  At minimum, you need to do the latter.

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text:
How useful are university teaching certifications in faculty hiring?
The university I'm attending for gradaute school offers programs that give you official certification in university teaching. The program consists of taking teaching workshops, participating in teaching sessions, and things like this.
My question is, how much attention would a hiring committee pay to something like this, on a scale from "don't care at all" to "mildly care about it"? I certainly don't expect it to be a big factor, but I want to understand how much of a factor it is.

Is this a UK specific thing? I've never encountered it in US.

Canadian university.

@Buffy Here is an example in the US.

And are you asking about how universities in Canada would care about it, or in other places?  E.g., Dawn's answer addresses how it might be viewed in the US (which matches my expectations from the US also).

This will depend on the nature of the job the committee is trying to fill.  For some types of positions, this will be very relevant, and others, not so much.

I was at a name-brand R1 (in the US) and did one of these certificates. In my experience, more teaching-oriented positions (SLAC and R2, mostly) saw it as a positive signal of my commitment to teaching vs research only (which would usually be assumed given my university). It was especially useful since my university didn’t let students work as instructors of record and TA appointments were also pretty rare.
I was often asked about it and I was told by certain faculty that it assuaged concerns about using an interview slot for someone from my university. After that point, it was more about the answers I gave to teaching-oriented questions that got me through…which I felt the teaching certificate helped me prepare for in terms of my knowledge of pedagogy etc.

"Name-brand R1" made me chuckle. :)

If you've earned that certificate then certainly cite it an application for an academic job. It may help and shouldn't hurt.
If you're considering signing up then I suggest you do, because you might become a better teacher - a worthwhile goal whether or not it strengthens a job application some day.

Some of my European friends have expressed shock that university professors in the US don't normally get any formal training in teaching/pedagogy.

Many Europeans don't get any training either.

Obviously different individuals, and different hiring committees, will have different responses. On the whole I doubt they will care very much about the certificate itself.
However, if the course helps you think more critically about your teaching, or  introduces you to different ways of doing things, or even just teaches you some pedagogical jargon: it may allow you to write a stronger teaching statement, and talk more intelligently about teaching matters during an interview. This can be a significant advantage, if the school cares about such things.

It will have next to 0 impact if you apply at most Canadian universities.  Canadian institutions (and no doubt others) are desperate to monetize everything they can and show ”value added” for various reporting requirements.
As there is no clear and commonly accepted guidelines on what one is required to do for such certificates, they are largely meaningless except possibly internally. Basically, it’s the Wild West.
As practical examples, many Canadian universities are now creating EDI certificates (Equity, Diversity, Inclusiveness) so that staff can have proof they have completed some EDI training.  Some universities will ask that you participate in “mentoring workshops” in order to supervise graduate students; some give certificate for this as well.  Some now offer certificates of English as second language for international students as a requirement for admission.
Don’t get me wrong: some of the stuff out there is useful.  You can get certificates in a kinds of stuff - say - Excel, Word, basic html, basic Python, etc and you have proof of completion.  However, the value of these would be primarily personal.
If you have heard good things about this or that teaching certificate, then you should consider it as you might get some insights into teaching, resources, some techniques etc, but this would be highly dependent on the actual contents and the instructor.

I agree with this answer. The certificate/course is sometimes useful for teaching, but meaningless to increase chances of hiring.

Qualification inflation is everywhere in academia.  I think the correct answer to your question is:  Attitudes are changing rapidly.
The concept of teaching certifications seems to have originated with the 1997 Dearing Report.  Ten years ago, nobody had heard of university teaching certifications, at least in the USA.  The related CIRTL was created in 2003.  The UKPSF was introduced in 2006.  I expect that in 10 years, 90% of new faculty will have a certificate, simply because faculty supply exceeds demand in most of higher education.

And the certification I'm eyeing (in Canada) has been around since '98

Apart from teaching institutions, and teaching oriented colleges, universities etc., such accredited teaching certifications bear NO significance, and don't add normally any advantage to your applications.
Hence:

My question is, how much attention would a hiring committee pay to
something like this, on a scale from "don't care at all" to "mildly
care about it"?

the answer is (apart from teaching institutes) "Don't care at all"!

Why not? If one of the main responsibilities of a professor is to teach, then it would seem logical that evidence of teaching ability (like the completion of a relevant accredited program)  should weigh a little.

Unless someone on the committee is familiar with the program, I think the  certificate itself is hard to interpret: they won't know how much work was required for the certificate, how that work was graded, or even the curriculum. Consequently, it's unlikely to get much weight.
That said, participating in something teaching-related, accredited or not, does demonstrates your interest/commitment to teaching, which may help, and should prepare you to answer teaching-related questions better.

This is definitely wrong for the UK and UK-influenced locations.

@AnonymousPhysicist, not really. It's 100% correct, also in the UK, that having some teaching certificate (e.g. fellow of HE) is completely meaningless in THE HIRING PROCESS for research oriented universities. That's what the OP asked about. It is correct that sometimes it is mandatory once hired.

@CSSTUDENT, don't ask me why not. I only stated the facts: committees normally don't really take it into account for hiring for research universities.

@Dilworth I don’t see a reference to research-oriented universities, but I agree this kind of certification is largely meaningless.

@ZeroTheHero, I was just clarifying that my answer is about research universities.


text:
Prospective supervisor stopped replying me before the application deadline
A professor agreed on helping me with applying for a postdoctoral fellowship.
However, after I wrote the application materials and send to him, he stopped replying to me. It is really just several days before the deadline now. And I started to feel frustrated. I don't know what I have possibly done wrong.
Just thinking that I had already ask my professors for writing recommendations and I had devoted much time in proposing and writing the applications. I really don't want to waste them.
Should I make a phone call to ask is there anything wrong?
What would you suggest me to do?
Thanks!!

This is summer, he might be on vacation. Since when can't you have an answer?

He contacted me said let's apply at the beginning of June. I sent him two emails one week ago (with all the materials) but did not get the reply.

I've been in a very similar situation and did make a phone call, or rather a few. I think you should do the same.
The most likely scenario is that they don't have the deadline very clearly in their head and something else came up. Professors have to deal with multiple things all the time and sometimes things just get very hectic. There's probably nothing wrong, per se.
So I'd place a phone call and for example ask him "I haven't yet received your acceptance letter for the fellowship deadline that's coming up. Did something go wrong with the email, maybe?"
Don't wait too long! If he still has to write the letter, make sure he has enough time to do so.

I would call and leave a message and send a follow-up email “in case you are not in the office and cannot listen to my message.” In the future, you can inquire how the prof wants you to handle unresponsive emails. My prof had a rule that if I did not have a response within 3 days I needed to email her again.

Thank you so much!!! I was seriously considering making a phone call. But I tried to calm down. And just today, he responded and everything's back on track!  Thank you so much!! I will try to prepare this kind of thing in advance.. Phew...

1 week of silence should not send you into panic, you will have to put up with significantly longer and abrupt cuts in communication, if you choose to pursue a life in academia, I can promise you that much.
Whatever amount of time and effort you might have put into the project, it's irrelevant comparing to the number of things the potential supervisor you mention is likely juggling at the same time. Frustrating, I know, but also a fact of life in academic work environment.
I would suggest sending a reminder email, that is short, clear and courteous, essentially mentioning that the deadline is fast approaching and that you would like to get things done the best possible way. Then giving it a couple of days, I would call to check if the person has seen the email.
I would not read too much into it if all of that effort still doesn't work, you have no idea what might be going through the other person's head, what kind of issues s/he might be dealing with currently. Sometimes it boils down to serendipity.
Good luck,


text:
How/when should I ask my supervisors' for a reference letter?
I'm currently a fourth year undergraduate student graduating this year. I'm taking the upcoming school year off to travel, so instead of applying to grad school during my fourth year like most students, I will be applying this upcoming September (when I will have graduated).
I worked with two professors this school year doing research, one of which I got a publication out of. I plan on asking both for reference letters for my graduate school applications.
Both profs seem to like me and are happy with my work. However, I won't be actually applying to grad school until late this year (probably September-December), so I'm worried if I ask for a reference later in the year, they will have forgotten a significant chunk of their experience supervising me and my contributions.
I want to get a letter out of them now when I'm still fresh in their minds and can get a great recommendation out of them. I'm sure they'll give me a positive one either way, but I feel like if I get one now it'll be a lot stronger, where as if I do it several months in the future, considering how busy they are, I probably won't be nearly as well remembered and my letter will be a lot more generic.
I wasn't sure if this is appropriate to do, and how I should go about doing this, so I was hoping I could get some advice on this. Both profs work in ECE (electrical and computer engineering) and the programs I will be applying to will be a combination of ECE programs and computer science programs.

Inform them about your plans now and let them decide what works best for them.
You may be right that they will have forgotten you by the time you apply (depending on how much you worked together). But on the other side, the best LORs are specific to a position you are applying for and should be tailor written, "generic" LORs may not be as good, and some people may not want to write one without knowing what they are going to be for.

Yes.  Nobody likes a last minute request for a letter.

Ask your writers to draft an initial letter now, while information about you is fresh. You're intuitions are correct. Tell them your plans and keep in communication with them about important updates in the interim (bulleted notes with a request to update the letter are fine). I have so many students that I frequently have no idea who the are a year later.
I'll note that, in many disciplines, a year away from academia can make your credentials a little old, so I hope that the paper was in a prestigious journal or that your writers are very well known. If not, I encourage you to take a class, get a certification, attend some conferences or, better, submit to some while you take a year off. Most committees won't be very interested in what happened during your year off, unless you did something relevant to your discipline.

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text:
How do members of a grad school admission committee make sure they are reading all the applicants' essays with the same level of mental freshness?
I am currently in the process of applying for graduate studies in electrical engineering. A big part of my statement of objectives is dedicated to give a feeling of how I became interested in a specific area of research. I am worried that that part of my essay is going to make my essay be looked at as just another emotionally overdone statement, while I have been told by people who reviewed it that it is quite inspiring. How do members of a graduate school admission committee make sure that they have not built some kind of tolerance to personal stories as they go through a few hundred applications?

They don't? And there may be committee members who explicitly and intentionally try to build this tolerance, not avoid it?

Feels like something you'll need input on from your advisors.

To put into different words what @Peteris probably wants to say: The trick is not to make the last essay as interesting as the first one, but to make the first one as boring as the last one.

Make yourself a grid, and put in your grid consistent notes about the content and the various aspects you consider important.

The title is a much different question than in the body: "mental freshness" is a very different thing from "vulnerability to emotional appeals". What do you really want to ask?

Worth looking about "emotional statements": Can an emotional letter of motivation be harmful in a PhD application?

I am worried that that part of my essay is going to make my essay be looked at as just another emotionally overdone statement -- Then omit it.

A big part of my statement of objectives is dedicated to give a feeling of how I became interested in a specific area of research. I am worried that that part of my essay is going to make my essay be looked at as just another emotionally overdone statement, while I have been told my people who reviewed it that it is quite inspiring.

Your statement of purpose should be a professional statement and overview of the research you want to do in graduate school. It should be forward looking.
It should not be emotional or inspiring. And for most applications, not be done in narrative form ("when I was in sixth grade, I knew I wanted to be an engineer when my mom fixed the carburetor in our '58 Chevy."). Every paragraph you spend on the past is a paragraph you could be using to strengthen the articulation of work you wish to do in the future at this graduate school.
Leave the narrative history and inspirational material in your personal history or diversity portion of the application.
Finally, at my department we ensure all applications are read by multiple faculty. This helps protect against individual variability.
Caveat: I'm a social scientist but I imagine the physical sciences are even less likely to respond to appeals of emotionality.


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How should I explain why I am leaving my current PhD and looking for a new PhD?
As I mentioned in this question, I am unhappy with the way my PhD is going. For the sake of completeness, I will summarize my condition in this question too.
I am a 2nd-year PhD student in computational physics. My advisor left my university soon after I joined the PhD program. I did not want to join any other research group. So, my advisor and I decided that he can supervise me remotely (he went to another country). In my first year, I was mostly focused on coursework. Since August 2020, I am focused on my research work. We used to have one meeting every 2 or 3 weeks till December 2020. Now, since December 2020, the advisor is not giving me any time. We just had 2 meetings in 7 months.
Now, finally, I had a meeting with him a few days ago. I told him that I need more time. I need regular meetings. He said that he's very busy and can't give me a lot of time. I told him that I am not happy with the way my PhD is going. He said that he understands that it can be very difficult to handle things without having a proper research group and with no active supervisor. He literally said, "technically speaking you have no supervisor at this moment". When he said this, I mentioned that maybe I should move on and search for any other suitable position. He said that I should definitely look for any other position.
Currently, I am looking for other positions. My question here is: should I mention my "two years wasted at this university"-story in my SOP or in any other documents? I am about to write emails to a few professors and ask them if they have any PhD vacancies. Should I mention my current PhD student status in emails?

Have you talked to your graduate school about getting a new supervisor?

Would it even be possible to graduate without an advisor at the university?

Even if there's a good reason for not getting a new supervisor, people are going to want to know why you would rather change universities, losing 2 years, rather than work with a new supervisor at the same university. If you don't have a plausible sounding reason, they may just assume that actually you were the problem--that no supervisor there wanted to work with you.

It is certainly not "wasted". Mention the work you have done, ask for your current advisor to recommend some suitable positions and email those people. Definitely mention your current status, but do NOT badmouth your program or school in any way.

Yes, but keep it very short and neutral. Something like:
My advisor left my university soon after I joined the Ph.D. program. I did not join him. We tried to make this work by him supervising me remotely, but that did not work out.
Also, if your current (remote) supervisor can give you a positive letter of recommendation, then that would help as well.

Excellent advice. The positive letter might be essential, actually. Do what you can to obtain that.


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Logistics of job offer negotiation
My question about the logistics of negotiating academic job offers (in particular salary) is two-folded. Is it best:

to simply point which items of an offer can the department improve on (e.g. salary, startup package, relocation) or be specific about a range of values that I have in mind for each item?

to do so in a Zoom meeting or by e-mail?

Naturally, I imagine that giving some justification for the increases would be necessary either orally or via e-mail.
EDIT: the question is for the US academic job market. The offer comes from the dean but my contact is a department faculty heading the search committee.

Country? Who is your contact and who has decisionmaking power on the offer? For instance, at my uni, offers came from the dean, but my contact was my chair. So basically it was the chair’s job to help me frame my counter to the dean.

@Dawn good points. I edited the question to stress that the context of my question is the US job market and the offer came from the dean but my contact is the faculty member heading the search committee.

I would suggest having everything in writing (which would suggest email) and to be specific (which would suggest providing concrete numbers or ranges for the items you would like to negotiate).
Being nonspecific (e.g., saying "the salary you offer is too low") is just not a great starting point for a conversation. Of course you want more salary. We all do. So inevitably whoever you talk to will have to ask you (i) what "not too low" would mean, (ii) why you think you have a basis for negotiation, such as an offer from elsewhere. You might as well avoid this round of statement-and-question by saying up front what you want and why you want it.


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Post-doc vs Research Fellow on CV after Phd thesis submission
I submitted my PhD thesis in February, and now I'm a research fellow for 1 year at an Italian university. I will defend my PhD thesis in summer. In the meantime, I'd like to apply for some jobs so I'm updating my CV. What should I select as current position, postdoc or research fellow? I don't have a PhD since I have not defended already, but I'm not sure to be a research fellow since I have only a 1-year contract.

A post-doc is a paid position. It doesn't just mean that you have finished your doctorate.

You definitely can't call yourself a postdoc if you are not yet a doc. "Doctoral researcher" is one option.

Unless you have been hired as a post-doc, that would be inappropriate. It is a paid position with a contract.
Ask your institution if you can still represent yourself as a research fellow after it expires. And, you can use it prior to its expiration, of course.
But, in any case, you can add that you are a "former" research fellow, giving dates. Your "current position" after graduation might just be "none". But since a CV is a personal document you don't need to say that. People will understand.


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List of "possible publications" at international conferences
I want to apply for a PhD fellowship program abroad and one of the requirements is that I must provide a list of possible publications and presentations at international seminars/conferences, what does this mean?

It actually means if you have come up with a research plan as a part of PhD application, you should have got some research directions. If yes, you can propose list of "possible publications" and where you would like them to get published. Every field has some renowned conferences and journal one could possibly target. I have not read the point in full detail but based on what you mention here, it seems like the list does not need to be very concrete and concise. But you should be knowledgeable about your possible publication topics and where they would appear that could certainly be changed.


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Does accreditation matter in Computer Science (UK)?
For the context, I'm in the final year of my MEng degree in Computer Science, and I have a choice to resit a course, which I failed, to stay on the accredited route, or I can choose not to resit and graduate without BCS accreditation. The main problem with resitting is that I will only be able to graduate and receive my degree certificate in winter, meaning that I might not be able to find a job in the next 4+ months. In addition, if I don't resit, the title of my degree will change to Computer Systems Engineering. Does anyone know if accreditation and degree title actually matter in the UK (or EU)? Is it worth not being able to graduate anytime soon?

It may matter for professional accreditation purposes. For example, to become a Professional Engineer (PE) in the US requires a 4-year engineering degree from an accredited engineering program.

I am not UK, but it depends on your life situation.  Over the long-term, IMHO you are better off getting the accreditation, but if you have a short-term need for pay you may wish to skip it.  If you are "on the fence" (which by asking question you appear to be) I'd go for the accreditation.

More on topic, it seems like your actual question should be: does degree title matter, as you state in the body of your question that not taking the resit will also result in the (more crucial) title change. The degree title essentially signals what your degree is to an employer, so it's about whether you want a job that is more engineering or more computer science. I would personally resit, especially if the only con is that you may go 4 months without work. You can always do some freelance work or find a temporary job to get by for 4 months, but you can't change your degree title later.

Out of interest, as someone personally considering studying CompSci in the next 2 or so years, can I ask what the course you need to resit is? I'm interested to know what's so important that it changes your entire degree title and prevents you from getting accreditation.

@HashimAziz , I need to resit Computer Graphics, but it actually doesn't matter which one you fail. It could be any other course, I would still need to resit to preserve my accreditation. At least, that's how it is at my university.

@leaf34 So essentially you need to pass a certain number of courses or your degree gets "downgraded"? Makes sense.

You may wish to take a look at the BCS website to learn more about the accreditation process and what it is intended to signify.
There seem to be two benefits to studying an accredited degree. The first is that it provides some benchmark of course quality: if you choose an accredited degree, you can have some confidence that the course will cover the core skills and knowledge that are needed for a career in IT. However, it is those skills and knowledge that are valuable, not the accreditation itself. In your circumstances, the important question is "will resitting the course give me a better understanding of a topic that will help my career?". Doing it to get an accredited degree may not be worthwhile, but doing it to demonstrate competence in the material may be.
The second benefit of an accredited degree is that it gives you a more straightforward route to Chartered IT Professional/Chartered Engineer status. Whether this is valuable likely depends on your intended career path (looking at LinkedIn profiles for people in your target industry may provide insight into this). Even with a non-accredited degree, you can achieve chartered status; you would just need to provide additional evidence of your competencies and skills.

My undergraduate degree was a BCS accredited BEng in Software Engineering, and when I was applying for graduate programming jobs nobody was interested in the accreditation - they were interested in whether I could write code. It depends on what you're planning to do after you graduate. If you're interested in a specific field, you can check some job listings to see if accreditation is important. I think for the vast majority of programming jobs, it won't matter at all. I wouldn't delay graduation for BCS accreditation unless you know you're going into a field where it really matters.

It may matter in the future, in ways that no-one can predict depending on what you may or may not decide to do in future (e.g. a further degree in a decade).
Will any job you can get in the mean time care? Probably not, employers offering entry level programming positions are most likely be interested in the practical skills not the academic qualification so if you can demonstrate you can code (e.g. from projects you can show) then you're probably fine.
TL;DR the risk/reward of regretting not resitting is higher than the risk/reward of working four months without either.


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Pros and cons of informing students about the outcome of their course’s evaluation
Is it a good practice that a university informs the students of a class about the final outcome (that is, the overall score of the instructor based on the evaluation forms) of their own evaluation of a professor or a course?

This is not an opinion forum.  So answers should not merely be opinions.  Perhaps there has been a study on this question, then the results of that study could be an answer.  Perhaps a professional organization has issued a policy statement on this.  That could be an answer.

What "final outcome"? Like an email every quarter saying "Based on your reviews of PSYCH 121, we have decided to renew Professor X's contract"?

@AzorAhai An explanation was added.

@Name Oh, can you not see those? We can look up scores by instructor, by class, and even get break downs on how may 1s, 2s, etc they got

@AzorAhai Different institutions have different practices.  For example, my (US public) university administration considers teaching evaluation scores to be extremely confidential, even refusing to release them in response to Freedom of Information Act requests, on the grounds that they are employee evaluations.

If a complete process is put in place such transparency can be a good thing. However, doing half a job can be destructive.
I'll note that there are public fora in which students can Rate My Professor publicly. Some of the comments made there are very negative and hurtful. However, when such occurs, other students can counter the negative reviews with their own observations.
In light of this and my own use of soliciting anonymous feedback from students in a public form, I suggest that it is positive, provided, and provided only, that students seeing the feedback have a public way to respond - probably anonymously.
Yes, I realize that this can result in endless bickering, but it was never my experience. Bad reviews by bad actors countered by good reviews from good actors is pretty obvious, just from the tone of the replies. No one needs to make official judgements of the responses, as they speak for themselves.
I'll note that while this is opinion, it is backed by fairly long experience.
Many professors might fear such a system, but, for me at least it was entirely positive, even though some of my reviews were very negative. Better it be out in the open than just passed invisibly via gossip in the quad.
I'll add that I never had to reply to public negative reviews myself. If they were truly invalid, the students would put the record straight themselves. If they were valid, well, then, I needed to adjust something. I therefore wouldn't suggest that the professor's replies should be made public. For me it was never needed.

I'm not sure if this answer's the OP's question.  My reading was this is about releasing numerical ratings rather than comments.  (In particular, there would likely be no way for students to refute other students' reviews post facto.)


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What are the pros and cons of the practice that includes some questions in a math exam which are directly discussed in the lectures?
What are the pros and cons of the practice that some questions of a (written) math exam are exactly from the course? For example, asking about the proof of a theorem proven in a course.
The argument I have heard against such practice is that some students tend to just memorize the material, but on the other hand, some people say that the results covered in a standard course are usually essential theoretical results and even memorizing them has some pedagogical benefits.
Edit:
The majority are average students are able to do routine exercises, are more and less attentive. Few students are outside average range (very exceptional students or below average). Just a normal class.

Describe your students.

"even memorizing them has some pedagogical benefices." Has it?

@JochenGlueck I am not sure about that, please feel free to extend your comment as an answer if you have arguments against such a practice. I edited my question a little bit.

"Average" is not a useful descriptor.  My average undergraduate student is utterly incapable of doing anything they haven't been told explicitly in lecture, and my below average student is genuinely shocked that any human being is capable of such a thing (and genuinely finds recalling what happened in lecture a challenge).  Somewhere else, the average student may differ.

@AlexanderWoo Hopefully you haven't explicitly told them how to follow you on Academia.SE.

Since you're specifically asking about math exams, you might also consider posting this to https://matheducators.stackexchange.com/

Being able to answer at least one even if small question at the start will soothe a lot ot exam nerves. Plus knowing that they might have to reproduce a proof might encourage the students to at least somewhat engage with their notes.

A big reason for teachers to do this (atleast in my environment), is that students are more inclined to actively do their coursework if they know that a few of the questions will return in the test ("free points"). This is likely to improve student performance in cultures where doing your coursework is not a given for everyone.

@AzorAhai-him- I don't hide what I think from my students.  They need vastly better problem solving skills in order to succeed after they graduate, and I think it does them a disservice to be learning this by having trouble keeping a job or getting promoted rather than learning this while they are still in university with more resources to work on it (or have a chance to change their studies to an area where their problem solving skills are better.)

Have a look at Bloom's Taxonomy. Asking students to understand a proof from class well enough to recreate it is near the bottom of the taxonomy. This is perfectly fine because you definitely need the students to be at that level before they can apply their understanding to new situations. But the questions you need to ask yourself are:

how much of my assessments focus on understanding vs on application?
what other questions could I ask to test their understanding?

For a proof-based class, the students should be engaging with higher levels of the taxonomy so you don't want the majority of your questions to be "recreate what I did in class." One or two questions should be ok given some thought about the key concepts in the proofs you expect your students to know.

One big advantage of this sort of question is that it tests what it aims to test extremely well. If a student knows the material they will be able to do the question (even on a bad day) and if they don't they won't (even on a good day).
When you ask about something new, there is inevitably some randomness about which students will spot what they need to do differently. A slightly different question might suit different people, and someone having a bad day could miss the key idea even if they would probably get it under better conditions.
Of course, that is also why you need plenty of questions higher up the taxonomy - you need to measure those skills too, and since they are harder to measure you need to put more effort into doing so.

I would definitely question the claim "If a student knows the material they will be able to do the question (even on a bad day)". Memory is a skill just like any other, and one that is particularly affected by "bad days" (e.g. lack of sleep). I know from personal experience that even top students have days where they have trouble recalling previously shown proofs from the course.

Variation in familiarity/difficulty is desirable in exams
An ideal examination will have questions that range in their level of difficulty and familiarity, including some questions that are familiar to students and offer an opportunity for "easy marks".  Including questions that have already been asked and answered in lectures or tutorials (or which were assigned as homework) meets the function of giving familiar questions with no nasty "twists" that would require higher-order skills.  You should also include some questions that are minor variations on things the students have seen before, some questions that are major variations on things the students have seen before, and also some questions that are totally unfamiliar, but still use the same mathematics that is being taught in the course.  This variation will help students get used to adapting to solving new problems with varying levels of familiarity.
There are some areas of applied mathematics where it is useful to memorise a set of equations or results, particularly when what is being memorised is the correspondence of an equation or result with its name.  For example, for students doing work in probability/statistics, it is useful to have memorised the density functions of all or most of the core families of probability distributions (e.g., being able to easily identify the normal distribution, gamma distribution, binomial distribution, etc.).  This is useful in the same way that it is useful for medical students to memorise the names of parts of the body to aid in learning the substantive parts of medicine.
Aside from these types of cases, one of the key things you will need to impart to your students is that "memorisation" of results that is not backed by understanding is not a method that can lead to long-terms success in mathematics, even over the period of a single course.  It is possible that a student could memorise a proof and regurgitate it, but it is not really feasible to pass an entire mathematics course merely by memorisation and regurgitation (and it is certainly not feasible to have a successful mathematics career this way).  Memorisation of an entire proof comes with a significant cost in terms of cognitive load.  Memorising the steps of a proof you don't understand requires significantly more cognitive load and likelihood of error than merely remembering the core method and main steps of a proof you understand.  Moreover, the lack of understanding means that you can only reproduce the same proof and you can't handle variations on the problem if these arise.
In a learning situation, the student who memorises the proof (in lieu of understanding) learns that there is a significant cost to not understanding something and merely reproducing it by rote and that this is an inefficient method over the long-term.  At most, memorisation of a proof can offer a minor short-term benefit.  It is useful to impart this reality to students explicitly, but they will also learn it as they go when they attempt to "cram" for exams.

This was my first thought when reading the question. You want to test everyone at different levels to see who understands the material, who doesn't, and who can extrapolate beyond what's been presented. And also to see who's been attending the class. I took a pretty elementary algebra course, and on the last day of class, the professor said, "You don't really need to know this..." and showed how to multiply matrices. There was an final exam question asking for the result of multiplying two matrices.

My sense of your question is that this is entirely normal and common. But the question isn't (shouldn't be) one that emphasizes memorization, but, rather, insight into how such a proof actually works and contributes to the overall theory. That requires thought, of course.
I'll note that some proofs in math are especially useful when they provide not just proof, but insight into the underlying concepts of a field.
I'll also guess that this is most useful for the important theorems, rather than the corollaries and such.
For this approach, I don't see any downside.

Often I do exams like this:

First part, lesson questions

Question 1) Recall the definition concept X.

Question 2) Recall theorem Y.

Question 3) Recall the proof of theorem Y.

Second part: solve a math problem (divided into several subquestions to guide the steps).
Third part: another math problem (usually one of the two problems is much shorted than the other)

Not surprisingly, the students who fail questions 1, 2 or 3 also completely fail both problems, and most students who succeed at questions 1, 2 and 3 mostly succeed at the problems as well, although there can of course be a few mistakes along the way.
So, it looks like these three sets:

the students who memorised the lessons
the students who understood the proofs
the students who are able to apply the concepts to solve a problem

are mostly one set, not three different sets.
The exact score earned in the exam due to the two problems vary a lot between students, due to varying number of mistakes or of how well they handled the time constraint of the exam; but the first part very clearly divides the class between those who have a basic understanding of the lessons and those who don't.
If I had to explain why, I would guess that the concepts are actually easy enough that if you have memorised them, you will not have too much trouble understanding them; but they are complicated enough that there is no hope of understanding them if you haven't even memorised the basic building blocks.

I think this is a great observation. I wish it guided more research/pedagogy. My theory for some time is that testing the level-1 knowledge of definitions is under-emphasized in math education.

One disadvantage – or at least restriction – is that it doesn't work in an open-book exam.

You've received some good answers already, I'll just add an example of what might happen in case you overdo it.
At the uni where I studied there is a lecturer in theoretical physics who was (and maybe still is, I don't know) known among students for basing her exams largely around (minor variations of) exercises that were studied in the exercise groups during the semester, and thus for the exams being easy to pass even when you struggle to understand difficult theoretical material.
And then, of course, more than on average perhaps students that are looking for an easier way to pass the exam attend courses by such a lecturer, for example students that have failed the course before or, interestingly, sometimes even students who take the course one year earlier than scheduled just to get that opportunity (thus not having attained all the knowledge from preceding theoretical physics lectures they might need for the course).
I'm saying nothing about the extent of such an effect and one whether you should put this down as a pro or a con... ;)

Okay, so I would like to share my experience working with some professors and also in the creation of test papers for university students in Russia. Some questions on math exams are taken directly from the course material, not just math but everything.
Here are the pros:
It solves the problem of a lack of question materials. You cannot keep creating new questions all the time. In fact, professors often create a list of questions based on what was elaborated on during lectures. And, of course, the lecture program was created based on a "course" book. Even if let's say you can create new questions, can you keep doing that for years, because after each years, the current year of students will just made a compilation of known questions and sell it to the next year. New questions become known questions.
It makes it easier for students. Now, you may ask, why does it need to be easier? Simply because many professors know that students don't have time to study all of that. Life in university or college is really busy, and many students work part-time while attending classes. So having repeated questions each year based on lecture materials reduces the time required for studying.
It also reduces the chances of disputes. When you create new questions, different students will answer differently because they will have to answer based on their understanding. University students' wording is not always the best, so in cases where the answers to those questions were not regulated, it's hard to deny the answer of someone without disputes coming from them later on, which costs a lot of time and work.

Well, I don't get what the alternative would be. As a student, I expect the exam material to reflect the notes, readings, and lectures. If the exam doesn't do this, then the notes, readings, and lectures are useless, from my vantage point.
I haven't started teaching yet, but it would be unfair of me to ask students details we've not covered in class or in the material, because everything I'll cover is worth covering under the time constraints.
I should note that the questions I would ask on an exam depend on the audience. If I'm teaching a masters level class on causal inference, I will only ask why, for example, the convex hull constraint is believed to be useful. I won't, for example, teach them about changing the constraints to allow for negative weights, allowing for intercepts, or taking away the adding to one constraint.
Why? Well because I honestly would expect very few masters students to even try to do well on a question like that. If I've only covered the classic method, then that's all they'll need to know about.
And even if it were a PHD course on synthetic controls, I would still at least talk about these different penalties and approaches to constraining the weights. I would demand they have knowledge of the basic setup, and then be able to talk richly about why changing these details might change our results. Why? Well, they're PHD students, and this hypothetical course would only be an elective, so if you're here in the class, I presume you want to know deeply about this method in econometrics.
You've already mentioned that your students are average (which is fine!!!). Why even bother to ask them things you know they won't do well on, if the median student in the class is average? Part of being a teacher is teaching to your audience, and putting things in a way they will understand, and testing them in a tough, but FAIR manner.

Surely you see the difference between what the OP was talking about ("the practice that some questions of a math exam are exactly from the course") and what you are talking about (" I expect the exam material to reflect the notes, readings, and lectures")?

No, I don't see the difference (only in that I was much more broad in scope). If you're teaching quadratics to kids and you ask a question in class that's meant to be tough, and the question number for number reappears on the exam, this tells me who learned from their mistakes when they show their work. So, I concede I was much, much, much broader than OP, but the principle I'm talking about still applies. In other words, I'd want to hear why "the practice that some questions of a math exam are exactly from the course" is wrong/bad or suboptimal.

(+1) I upvoted this (I believe I was the first to vote either way) because what you wrote is exactly what I was thinking when I read the OP's question. In fact, unless one specifically tells the students which proofs they will need to know, studying for such a test (at least for me) would be a lot more difficult than if I wasn't expected to reproduce proofs from class, since then I could simply focus on the techniques and concepts, and any proofs expected of me would have to be relatively straightforward or else hardly anyone would be able to come up with them in the time available.

Also, for proofs given during the lectures, I think there is a huge difference between proofs the students are expected to know for the test and proofs the students did not know they were expected to know for the test. The former is quite common and reasonable, and the latter could easily wind up being questions no one gets correct. The only situation I can think of in which the latter applies in a nontrivial way are Ph.D. qualifying exams (U.S. math departments), and even for Ph.D. qualifying exams, students are given fairly detailed descriptions of what they are expected to know.

I'm not sure I understand the first sentence ("Well, I don't get what the alternative would be"). The alternative is to ask questions that were not literally treated in class but test if the students understand and are able to use the concepts taught in class.

@JochenGlueck yeah but to me there's a delicate bandwidth to play with here. As I mention in my post, synthetic control methods in econometrics can use a variety of weight penalties aside from a convex combination. I could ask about others, but I won't because a detailed understanding of the basic one is usually enough. If you "really" understand it, you can get into changing stuff around, but most people won't have the ability for that. So, the safest, fairest bet is to ask questions that're well within the realm of things that they have seen, with any additions left as bonus questions.


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What is the best approach to fix the date in a weekly seminar/colloquium with the potential speakers by email
I am organizing a weekly seminar (at specific day of every week) at our department. We will have 12 talks for the next coming semester. We have a list of n potential people for these talks (suggested by seminar committee). It is clear that not every people on this list can actually deliver a talk (for time restrain or personal reasons), so n should be larger than 12.
The invitation is done by sending an email to the potential persons, asking if he/she is interested to give a talk. We don't necessarily have a phone number of these people.
What is the best approach to propose the date of seminars to the interested people by email?
If I list all the available 12 dates to the first person who replies positively, he/she may not quickly select the desired date and asking to answer quickly may be sometimes uncomfortable. If I have his/her phone number I immediately call him/her for fixing the date, but some people don't like to share their personal phone numbers, also office public phone numbers are not always working (once I almost spent the whole working day to call someone at his office but nobody was there). Also while I am waiting for someone to select his date, it is difficult to propose the same dates to another person as both may select the same date.

Why not set up a doodle? Ask the prospective speakers to fill in all of the dates that they could do.

Send an invitation to your top 12 candidates. List all 12 dates to all candidates. Ask everyone to reply whether they can and want to come at all, and to indicate their first, second and third choice of dates.
Track answers. Any date that is chosen by exactly one person as his first choice is blocked. Clear any conflicts in first choices among the people involved, using second and third choices.
After one week, remind those that haven't replied yet.
One week later, assume those that haven't replied after the reminder will not reply at all. Assume that k people will come. Send out invitations to your next 12-k candidates, shortening the list of potential dates by those that have already been blocked.
Iterate until all dates have been filled.
Expect people to cancel at short notice. Have someone local as a backup speaker (yourself?).

Use an online shared platform and first come first served. Possibly, the simplest and least hassle is doodle: they just fill in their name and click on their preferred available date.
Or you can share a spreadsheet (Google Docs, or your favourite provider) with the calendar. Same protocol, they fill in their name, and leave a field for their talk title. This is what we do in our department for the internal research talks.
I think it is good to have this done on the spot and with minimal intervention on your part. If you ask them to give you several options, wait a week for everybody to respond, find the optimal arrangement, email them back with their final date, (and maybe you take a couple of days to do it because of other priorities)... they may have already been booked and you have to start all over again. If you were particularly interested in some top busy person to give a talk, send them the form first.


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Time to Meet a Milestone
I am interested in understanding if measuring the time it takes for an adult to meet a training milestone is a training metric that is commonly used to assess progress and, if so, what adult learning theories or academics discuss this concept.
I would suspect that, during training, a group of adults would hit a particular milestone in a given range with some type of frequency distribution that would indicate normal.  I would further suspect that, as we approach either tail, there would be signs of something else going on that is either enhancing training or disabling it in some way and would be cause of alarm, where some type of training intervention would be required for the benefit of the student.
Conversely, is there any reasons why time to milestone is NOT important and should be ignored?  If so, what academic studies are behind that opinion?
EDIT:  I may have thought the topics of this exchange were a bit different, but my problem may generalize to those studying in academia.  Here's the specific question I have:
A debate is going on regarding the number of hours it takes for a pilot candidate to solo.  One side is arguing it simply does not matter, that it indicates nothing as far as the training is concerned or anything about the skills of the pilot after license.  The other side is arguing that it does matter because it indicates the health and progress of the training.  If you captured this solo metric across the US, you'd likely see a distribution of hours from something as low as 15 hours to maybe as high as 30 with the MODE somewhere around 20.  The latter group is arguing that, if your student is approaching 30, or even passes it, something's wrong in the training environment that needs changed.  It is a special cause variation versus normal or common cause variation.
I was hoping there was some literature that either supported or discounted the need to track time as part of an assessment in education or training.
Is this on topic for this group?  If not, please let me know so I can post in a more suitable group.  I was going to post in the Aviation exchange, but I don't think that is suitable because I am looking for more of an academic opinion.  Thanks!

Do you mean adults in academia -- e.g. graduate students?  If not, could you clarify why your question is on-topic for this site?  Just asking for "academic studies" is not enough: this site is for questions about academia itself, not which call for academic knowledge on various subjects.

I edited my comment but I'm not sure if it is considered on topic for this exchange.  Thanks for your consideration!

I feel the question is off-topic: it is not related to academia in itself. Probably the question is better suited to Workplace.se?

It is possibly a little ironic that a question relating to pedagogy (how adults learn) is off topic on a site for academics.

I voted to re-open because I think this question is on-topic. For example, what is meant by taking a 6 credit hour course? How much am I supposed to know after completing a 4 credit hour course instead of 6 credit? Why a course is designed that students must go to class 3 hours every week? Sorry about voting to close in the first place.

I think the example might be throwing people—I know it threw me at first. But I agree this is on-topic, if a bit off the main path.

Although this is a TedX talk, it throws some light on "metrics" such as how long it takes for someone to be "perfect" in a field.

I’m voting to close this question as off-topic because it is in no way specific to academic learning. It may be on-topic on [cogsci.se].

I voted this question up because I think it is valid to ask if there is a general guide to the amount of time to meet academic milestones. Should general rules be applied, or should each case be treated differently? But I think the question needs to be modified to fit this interpretation. Perhaps you can ask a more general question on here, then an aviation specific question on Aviation exchange.

@scaaahu, as far as I know credits have nothing to do with what learners know, but to do with how much time is spent studying, either contact time with a staff member, or self-studying. Hence why a course can be failed, regardless of the amount of time a student has spent studying for the course. Learning outcomes are not reflected in the credit scoring of a course.

@David Espina, did you try the Mathematics Educators site with the same question?

@G-E Learning outcomes are not reflected in the credit scoring of a course? I fail to understand this. A course of 4 credits of grade A is definitely different from a course of 1 credit of grade A when calculating GPA.

@scaaahu, totally agreed about "definite difference" but on what ground is each credit given to a course (be it 1 or 4 credit(s))? Of course the learning outcomes will be different. But are learning outcomes the technical basis for the difference of credit amount? Locally, as far as I know, a credit is a reflection of the amount of study work spent, for instance a 20-credit course will require in the region of 120 hours of study time. So there is a milestone there. The educator thinks the learning outcomes for the course are achievable after 120 hours. Maybe it's different in diff. countries.

@G-E I am using US GPA system. Please see GPA Calculator In US, 4 credits means students and the professor(teacher)  meet 4 hours a week. You can translate number of hours in total if you want. To me, if I take two courses A and B. I must meet course A instructor total 20 hours and course B instructor 200 hours in total to get grade. Let's say I get A from both courses. Then I would assume I learn a lot more from course B because I spend 200 hours for B. That is what I mean.

@scaaahu, thanks for the link. I think we agree. The learning involved is 'assumed'. The unit that is technically used to decide on the amount of credits is study time, not the 'quantity' of learning, which can only be assumed in relation to the amount of study time/credits attached to the course. So, back to your original question, 'How much am I supposed to know after completing a 4 credit hour course instead of 6 credit?' and to the main question, there is no straightforward unambiguous answer. Ultimately only the grade can determine what one has learnt and knows as a result.