text:
Is it safe to use pirated software for Doctoral research?
I am using unlicensed simulation software (downloaded from torrents) for Doctoral Thesis (and Research papers) on my personal laptop without the knowledge of my institution as the university doesn't have the licensed software. 1) Is this safe?
2) Can I be questioned by the software vendor. 3) Can my paper be retracted from journals?
(I'm uninterested in answers relating to free student versions of software and freeware.)

Related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/79603/lab-colleague-uses-cracked-software-should-i-report-it?rq=1

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

It’s not OK to use unlicensed software. I would suspect that advisors would be very concerned about one of their students using an expensive software package for which they didn’t have a license, since they might have liability for letting you use it.
If it’s so important, then you should talk to your advisor about getting a license.
While I am not personally familiar with people having degrees revoked for using unlicensed software, I could certainly sympathize with arguments calling for sanctions against people who do so.

I would strongly object to a degree being revoked for using unlicensed software. It's a civil justice matter; the software company may give them a fine, but knowledge acquired is knowledge acquired and this shouldn't matter at all.

@FedericoPoloni I lile your argument, but imagine someone doing unethical experiments on human participants. They may acquire knowledge; their methods are not ethical; their degree is likely to be revoked because of the latter. Knowledge itself is not sufficient.

@DmitrySavostyanov The underlying ethical questions are different, so it is hard to generalize like this. There is no direct personal harm involved in using unlicensed software, and so it is harder to apply the same sanctions as when humans are involved (which will usually also be criminal, not civil).

@YetAnotherGeek Using unlicensed software is often directly punished by the university. Eg using torrent itself can be enough to kick out a student in many countries.

@Greg wow, that is pretty serious, do you have any sources that support your claim? I observed in a number of european countries that the "torrenting community" is very much represented in student culture.

@user3209815 Just because something is illegal it doesn’t mean no one does it. Eg in Japan the IP of the whole lab is shut down and they start an investigation if anyone runs a software using torrent protocol (including Opera browser).

@YetAnotherGeek Actually, unethical experiments may be perfectly legal. Stanford experiments were legal. Today, misinforming participants about the goal of research is not illegal, but still unethical.

@DmitrySavostyanov Any decent university will have a policy explicitly demanding that you stick to ethical experiments. The same is not true for pirated software.

@sgf It took me 5 sec to google a counter-example: http://accc.uic.edu/policy/software-piracy Feel free to find out more.

@Greg I was writing in the context of revoking degrees, and not of active students, the latter which can be held to other standards than academic (e.g. housing regulations).

-1. OP was asking "is it safe", not "is it OK".

How does this answer the question?

There is no difference between using pirated software and using for instance scihub articles. By the logic of this "answer" we should fire all academics who use SciHub. Sounds like a good way to increase the chances for getting tenure track positions for some...

@DmitrySavostyanov That link is broken by now, but I don't think it really was a counterexample to a negated universal. (But maybe my comment was misleading. By "any", I meant "every".)

This is an interesting topic.
To your questions:
1) Is it safe? Probably not.
2) Can I be questioned by the software vendor? Probably not.
3) Can my paper be retracted from journals? Probably not.
You would have to be sure that you don't get caught. If you are doing your doctoral research at a bigger university you might slip through the cracks because somewhere in your univeristy is using a legit license of the software. In this case it is unlikely that the software company would actually investigate if you are using a license. If you are doing your doctoral research at a smaller university your work might be unnoticed and the software company won't investigate further. But Google Scholar will find everything in case they would want to investigate.
The software company could ask you if you have a license which would be their last step in the investigation. In most cases that happens when someone is using a company outside normal business hours or in a completely different IP range than normal. In your case the software company would only see you using a cracked license. I never heard about software companies who are creating simulation software actually asking reserachers regarding their licenses. But they are fully aware of some researchers using unlicensed software.
If your paper can be retracted from journals could depend on the journal guidelines. The software company would probably see it as some form of advertisement. I would be more worried about your doctoral thesis and your relationship with the university if $h!t hits the fan.
Side note: I know cases where researchers got licenses for simulation software from the software companies. If it's a good project they might support you and are interested to get the results published. They always want to see practical applications for their sotware published because that is the kind of advertisement.
Side note 2: What is wrong with your university? You are doing doctoral research with unlicensed software. Isn't your thesis advisor concerned with how you are obtaining results and the software you are using? And why did you get a research topic when your university doesn't have the actual tools for it?

@aeis. My university is having an older version of the software.

@NumeroUno Why not using that version?

Now I would do.

So you cracked a software instead of using the older version that exists within your university. I don't understand this mess...

I haven't used it yet. Iam just clarifying everything before using it.

I am thinking to work on that cracked software because it is installed in my laptop and I can work on it while I am in home as well.

@NumeroUno Why not just ask the university to provide you with a licensed copy of the software? Presumably the university/your advisor would have a budget for things like this, probably labelled as something like "research expenses".

Most expenisve software I use for research is available via my university for free (the university has a site wide license for Matlab for example) and pretty much all software I need that the university doesn't have a license for has an academic license which is a fraction of the price of a commercial license. They want you familiar with their software when you graduate so you recomend it to future employees I guess. So there's not really any excuse to used pirated software for research.

In many countries it is forbidden to use unlicensed software. Hence, using unlicensed software might result in litigation against your university,* which might lead to your dismissal. Thus, it is unsafe to use such software.
*There are cases when software vendors have litigated against universities. But, it is difficult to know how many, because universities and software vendors will likely want to settle in private.

Having edited the OP's question, I now note that unlicensed software is being used on the OP's personal laptop. Hence, litigation against the university might be difficult, but perhaps not impossible (since the research is most likely owned by the university).

Is there any documented case of a university being sued or prosecuted as a result of one of its members using pirated software on their personal computer?

Yes, my first search result is "Westchase Consultancy...has taken the Women’s University in Africa...to the High Court seeking to recover over $418 000." Of course, we should not expect too many results, because universities and software vendors will likely want to keep settlements private.

Guaranteed they want to settle out of court, newspapers, in fact all parties agree to keep quiet ... A colleague of mine wanted to leave his teaching post - talked to me saying "I have to wait 6 months..." I said go and talk to the dept head and see what they say : one month later he was back in industry, and they had another person to teach as well : the Uni and Industry work together (at least the Uni I was at had HUGE ties with several manufacturers) so no noise, no fuss and swapping people continues...

Here's the story you quoted but didn't link. Let me complete the sentence you partially quoted. "... to recover over $418 000 for allegedly illegally acquiring the firm’s source code from Microsoft without its consent." The consultancy "provided the institution with the enterprise wide university management software." This case does not appear to involve a university member using pirated software on their personal computer.

@Pont (I hadn't noted the OP was using a personal computer until I edited the OP's question.) We've established that universities are sued by vendors for unlicensed access to software. Moreover, I've noted that litigation might be difficult if unlicensed software is used on personal, rather than business, computer. We'd need a lawyer to establish whether the university has any liability for work conducted on the university's behalf using equipment not owned by the university. (Establishing that universities are typically reliant on staff using their own equipment would be a starting point.)

No, it's not okay. What's the ultimate point of a PhD? To train you in how to perform research.
What are the best practices for producing ethical research? Not using pirated software, for a start. If you use pirated software in the production of your PhD thesis, it's entirely possible that your university will take action against you for violating academic integrity standards.
For example, in the Australian Code of Responsible Conduct of Research, Rule 17 says:

Comply with the relevant laws, regulations, disciplinary standards, ethics guidelines and institutional policies related to responsible research conduct. Ensure that appropriate approvals are obtained prior to the commencement of research, and that conditions of any approvals are adhered to during the course of research.

Since software piracy is illegal, knowingly using pirated software in your research would constitute a breach of this rule. Indeed, in their document "Guide to Managing and Investigating Potential Breaches of the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research, 2018", available for download from the page previously linked to, the definition of a breach of the code includes:

Conducting research without the requisite approvals, permits or licences.

This bureaucratic answer does not answer the question, or incorporates moral or normative judgments that have no relevance to the question asked. It also makes bold statements that are subjective or illogical. For example: "What are the best practices for producing ethical software? Not using pirated software, for a start." -- But the OP didn't ask about practices for producing ethical software at all.

@Dilworth Corrected typo, thanks for pointing it out.

Not sure why this Answer is getting downvoted. It’s true, it’s about the ethical aspects of the Question, and it’s backing it up with citations from relevant regulatory documents that Australian universities base the relevant portions of their Manuals of Policies and Procedures on. It’s not quite a quote from a professional organisation’s Code of Ethics, but it’s pretty close.

I did not point out a typo, but a conceptual error in the answer: you assume by mistake that the OP is interested to perform "ethical research", but this is not part of the question.

@Dilworth Producing ethical research is literally what a PhD is intended to train you to do. If you're behaving unethically when you're doing your PhD, you're likely to get punished by your institution if they catch you, assuming you're going somewhere even remotely reputable.

no. PhD is a programme that trains you to become an independent researcher in a given field. It has nothing to do with doing ethical stuff. Indeed, the research itself should be ethical only so to prove that you have indeed become an independent researchers (for instance, not plagiarized your thesis). A murderer for example can do a PhD and become an independent researcher, even if the murder occurred while writing the dissertation.

@Dilworth Somehow I doubt that you’ll be getting the IRB to agree to letting you to murder someone for your PhD thesis. There’s a difference between unethical behaviour that might occur alongside your research, and unethical behaviour that occurs as part of your research.

I agree. Using a pirated software is not something that occurs as part of the research, in that it does not affect the integrity of the outcome of the research nor the independence of the researcher. Only the methods can be said to be "dubious".

@Dilworth If you're using the pirated software as part of the methodology (data collection, processing, simulation, or what have you), then you're tainting  your research with the crime you've committed. It'd be like murdering someone to write a paper about their corpse, just a lot less severe.


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How portable are NSF grants between institutions and internationally?
I'm a fixed-term lecturer (2016-17 academic year) on the job market. I'm hoping to apply for an NSF grant this winter to fund new research. Very hypothetically, if I am awarded the grant, how portable are NSF grants between institutions and internationally? Or if I got both the grant and a job (particularly outside the US), would the protocol be to defer the start of the appointment? Are there obstacles I should know about that aren't listed on the NSF FAQ page?

Can you talk to the NSF PM in charge of the program?

Yes, you can talk to the NSF PM in charge of the program.  Do that.

Thank you! Wanted to be sure it wasn't a dumb question with an easy answer before I reached out to someone at NSF...

You should also ask your university if they allow fixed term lecturers to apply for grants.  I think it is technically the university which applies to the NSF on your behalf.

@AnonymousPhysicist You are correct: the US government awards NSF (and NASA) grants to institutions, not individuals. See my answer below.

I just participated in a NASA grant-writing workshop. This question came up there, too. The following rules apply for both NASA grants and for NSF grants. (I'm sure there are differences, but at least what I'm writing is the same for both.)
Can the grant be transferred from one institution to another?
Yes.
Check out AAG II.B.h which describes NSF's grant policy:

Contracting or Transferring the Project Effort (Subawards)

a.    Excluding the procurement of items such as commercially available
  supplies, materials, equipment or general support services allowable
  under the grant, no significant part of the research or substantive
  effort under an NSF grant may be contracted or otherwise transferred
  to another organization without prior NSF authorization. The intent to
  enter into such arrangements should be disclosed in the proposal
  submission.
b.    If it becomes necessary to contract or otherwise transfer a
  significant part of the research or substantive effort after a grant
  has been made, the grantee shall submit, at a minimum:
(i)   a clear description of the work to be performed;
(ii)  the basis for selection of the subawardee (except for
  collaborative/joint arrangements5); and
(iii) a separate budget for each subaward.
The request must be submitted electronically, and NSF authorization
  will be indicated by an amendment to the grant signed by the Grants
  and Agreements Officer. The NSF grant conditions will identify which
  articles flow-down to subawardees.
c.    Procurements under NSF grants are also subject to AAG Chapter V.C
  and OMB Circular A-110 Sections .41 through .48. (2 CFR §215.41-48)

The grant is awarded to your institution, not to you. Because of this, your institution would choose to do one of the following:

Nominate somebody (e.g. a Co-I) to take over when you leave
Terminate the grant outright
Initiate the grant transfer process (if certain criteria are met, and both institutions agree...)

According to the NASA VIP leading the workshop, transfers between US institutions happen, though they are rare. Either way, if you plan to do this, you should contact all involved parties: your current institution, the destination institution, and your program officer/manager (your designated NSF/NASA contact person) for the grant.
Can it be transferred to an international institution?
No.
As indicated in 3.c above, AAG Chapter V.C.1.i indicates that funds can be sent under the following condition (among others):

(i)   grantee is not an individual or a foreign institution;

Since both NASA and the NSF are government organizations, they are prohibited from funding foreign institutions.
There are additional rules for certain countries, at least for NASA: if applying for a NASA grant, you can't have any affiliations with a Chinese institution via the Wolf Act.

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Should I report cheating to my professor? If so, how?
My professor reuses old tests. I have no idea why she told us this, but she did. In class today I noticed someone reviewing last years test, with the answers circled, on their computer in google drive, along with several other tests for this course that have not occurred yet. The test is in two days, and I know that this person will most likely have the answers memorized so it will be impossible to prove anything unethical is happening during the exam to a proctors perspective. Not only does this student have the exams, though, but many others. Apparently fraternities hold onto these and share them amongst each other.
When posting about this on Yik Yak, and my irritation with this, I received many yaks back threatening me should I turn people in, saying they would find me and hurt me. I have no reason to believe anyone knows what class I noticed the cheating in, or who I am, but this has me unsettled.
I have been studying and will continue to study for this test, and I find it infuriating that others don't need to bother with studying at all. I work hard for everything, and I do not want to get screwed over for this. The tests are curved so that the mean score for every test is a C+, and a large group of students who score well through cheating will undermine those who did not cheat on the curve.
What do I do?

I don't see how anyone could hurt you if you disclose this. However, I am unsure if what happens is against the professor's intentions. If she openly says that she re-uses old tests, without adding to please not look up old exams or to warn that she might slightly modify old questions, she might want to (and does) encourage going through old tests - maybe as that act still teaches you something, or as she hopes that it helps her course evaluation. As I read your question, I understand what your co-students do.

Note that reusing old exam doesn't mean using the same exams every year. By reusing old exams, some people mean reusing the same problems after x many years. Your instructor could simply use for the test in two days a problem from 5 years ago, another problem from 8 years ago and so on....Memorizing all these answers is almost impossible, and reviewing all her exams from the past 10 years in detail is actually a very good practice for the exams, irrelevant of what she tells you. If anyone just memorizes the results from last year exam, he/she/it will likely get a surprise.

The professor is free to decide to reuse questions from previous exams. It's a bit sloppy, but it's her business. She can't forbid students from learning the answers by heart, she would have no ways of enforcing this rule.
It would be unethical only if the previous tests were obtained by stealing them or any other dishonest way. If it's previous students making them available, it's just students investing efforts in a dubious way.
My answer is that you should suck up your furor, try to make the best learning out of the content (why not use these previous exams as an exercise?), and ace the exam your way. You will be much happier with yourself on the longer haul than those who will just have the quick thrill with the (false) impression of "gaming the system".
Also, don't take any more of her courses, and maybe mention in the teacher evaluation that you think the exam is not efficiently testing for understanding.
As a side note, people who succeed by learning answers by heart are only tricking themselves. They invest time and money in an education but don't take advantage of the learning. I think it's idiotic.

"The professor is free to decide to reuse questions from previous exams. It's a bit sloppy, but it's her business." I'm very sorry but this is simply not true. See the part of my answer where I refer to the Code of Academic Conduct at my institution, which says clearly the professor has a duty not to create opportunities for cheating. You have a valid point that memorizing past exams is a gray area and arguably isn't cheating, but repeating past exams, and certainly telling the class that you're going to do so, is more than "a bit sloppy" and IMHO crosses the line into unethical behavior.

Let me qualify what I said, since it came out a bit harsh. It is common practice for professors to reuse old exam material. There is no harm in this if done responsibly by mixing in new questions with the old, changing some data, and not telling students of your plans. But when exams are simply reused verbatim in whole or large parts, that's when it becomes wrong, as it enables the students to succeed easily without knowing the material. I'm not sure whether the OP's prof crossed that line, but it should be pretty easy to tell the difference between a proper and improper question recycling.

@DanRomik: even if you don't tell the students your plans, they probably know them already through student-lore...

"You will be much happier with yourself on the longer haul than those who will just have the quick thrill with the (false) impression of "gaming the system"."
Depends on the subject. If it's like a philosophy during a computer or biology class [yes, most courses have philosophy class just because], then it does not do any damage to our knowledge, because as a programmer/biologist/medic I will never use Kant's theories or same such.
Also - if all students were informed they have equal chances to use or not use previous exams. Seems this was the teacher's intention.

@Karolina I think that's a childish view. University level courses are not only about things "you will use" in the future. I agree with your last sentence though, that was implied in my answer.

@CapeCode University is about learning, yes. But it's a constant battle between understanding and memorizing. I really see no point in wikipedia-type exams, when we are expected to write encyclopaedic answer for a generic questions. We are not expected to think or understand, just write down what was in a textbook. I don't see any way to benefit from this. And it's a cultural thing, again. In Poland we have a special word for school cheating, it's so popular. Something like jaywalking.

@CapeCode  I personally had a professor tell us "if I catch you cheating I will fail you - if you can't cheat on your second year, what kind of a student you are?". This were his exact words. How do you think, how many people didn't cheat? And yes, dean is aware of it and everyone is aware, they just don't care, like with jaywalking again. So I have a different attitude, because this was my reality my whole life.

@Karolina that is very bad publicity for your university. I think people should consider another institution if they envision an international academic career.

@CapeCode Not my university, but whole Poland. It's not that other universities are better. Things are slowly changing, but the post-communistic feel "authorities are opressing us, so cheating them is a good thing to do" is still strong in us. We were growing it this reality. We knew we couldn't repeat what our parents said at home, because they could get in trouble for that. We were taught to keep things to ourselves. People who would denounce others were seen as the worst kind of scumbags. And now we are being taught it's the other way around. We're learning, but it takes some time.

Yes, you should report it, although given the threats against you and other related concerns of retribution or ostracism, it may be understandable if you choose not to. Certainly reporting it would benefit you personally by allowing your work to be evaluated fairly compared to that of others, similarly benefit other honest and hardworking students in your class, benefit your institution's academic reputation, and benefit your own conscience. I feel there is a strong case for reporting.
As for how, there are various means, each with their own pros and cons depending on how involved you want to get in this story, how much certainty you want to have that you can remain anonymous, and how much time it would take for your complaint to be acted upon.
For the most rapid response (which seems important given that the exam is in two days' time), I would draft a polite email to the instructor, along the lines of:

Dear Professor ExamRecycler,
I am writing to express my concerns that some students in our
  class have been memorizing solutions to your class exam from last
  year after you indicated that you plan to give the same exam to our
  class. I saw some students doing this and have suspicions that the
  phenomenon could be a lot more widespread. As an honest student who
  studies hard, I think I have a right to expect that my performance be
  graded based on a comparison with the true performance of other
  students, rather than a fake performance attained through dishonest
  means. I would greatly appreciate it if on Wednesday you can give us an
  original exam that does an honest job of testing our knowledge.
  I also know that there are many other honest students like me in the class and
  I'm sure they would all share my sentiments about this.
By the way, thanks for a great semester! I really enjoyed your course and
  learned a lot.
Sincerely,
[your name]

You can make some small variations to the email depending on how much you trust the professor to follow up on your request (and how receptive she would be to the shameless flattery at the end...). For example, if you feel she is not likely to bother preparing an original exam despite your request, cc'ing the email to her department chair could greatly increase the chances that she would comply. Alternatively, you can indicate as diplomatically as possible that you are considering complaining to your university's Student Judicial Affairs office, etc.
Another possibility, if you really don't trust the professor to take kindly to the request, is to go directly to the department chair (or undergraduate program chair or advisor), or to Student Judicial Affairs. Note that this would likely mean a delay in getting the problem addressed, so in particular it's unlikely that anything would get done before your exam on Wednesday.
There is also the question of whether you want to expose the names of the students who you believe are cheating. I don't have good advice to offer about that. Note that they can reasonably claim that looking over old exams is not cheating but a form of studying. It is really your professor who is behaving somewhat unethically by reusing the same exam and openly declaring that fact. In my institution, the Code of Academic Conduct explicitly says that faculty have a responsibility to "Use examination formats that discourage academic misconduct". As a member of my institution's Campus Judicial Board, I attended hearings for students accused of misconduct, and on more than one occasion felt that the faculty had been negligent of that responsibility and therefore bore part of the blame for what happened. I have an impression that this may be the case in your situation as well.
Finally, although you didn't ask about this, I must say I am very strongly bothered and concerned by the fact that you received threats (of what sounds like physical violence or other serious harm) on Yik Yak. This behavior is much more disturbing and egregious than the cheating, and if I were you I would immediately report it to Student Judicial Affairs or another unit on campus that could provide you counseling about keeping yourself safe, protection if needed, and who would be strongly motivated to seek out the people who threatened you and take disciplinary action against them. Such behavior has no place on a university campus and must absolutely not be tolerated.

So it's dishonest even if the past exams are obtained legally?

This practice is, unfortunately, extremely common in my institution. I do not report it, nor I ever will, because I know the professors are extremely aware of the fact that the students often study by previous tests.
Since they have never taken any action against it, and do not bother with making new tests or even telling us not to read older exams, I then assume that they want us to study by old tests. I have talked to a few about this and they have confirmed it.
I study Law and one of the most effective ways of getting a good grade on the bar exams is studying older exams. The professors tell me that, in reusing a pool of questions, they are preparing us for our reality.
I know some are just lazy, but others have made me study hundreds of questions, because they reuse questions, but not whole tests.
Based on this, I do not report such occurrences.

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What is the highest post-doctoral salary one should ask for (immunology)
I know the average salary is generally 45K USD for science post-docs. However, I received an email from a team of researchers who I had an excellent interview with and basically asked, "How much do you want?"
I have no idea what is the maximum amount of money I should ask for without being insulting. I'll be honest, although I don't do science for the money, this would definitely help make a decision for this particular posting.

What country is the position in?

ahh sorry. NY - USA

NY city or NY state? Living expense is high in NY city.

Have you asked them what their budget is? (it's not always easy to ask, and can come across badly if you phrase it wrongly, but it's a number that's worth knowing, in such negotiations)

In my field (mathematics), one of our major professional societies conducts salary surveys, which are very helpful for getting an idea of a reasonable range.  You might see if your field has something similar.  As another possibility, public universities often publish all their salary figures.

Another question is whether this is a 9-month or 12-month salary, and if the former, what are the prospects for summer support.

12 month - NY upstate. Budget is huge.

pure pen and paper mathematics, or with a pinch of computer simulation and software development ? Do you have to sign off NDAs ? do you expect part of your research to remain unpublished ?

What field is this in? Do you have a family/children? Is medical insurance included?

Postdoc salaries as high as 60K are not unheard of, especially if the cost of living is high and/or you have children. I believe some very competitive "independent postdoc" positions can even reach as high as 70K. However, these salaries may not increase annually, while typically lower salaries do increase annually.
BTW I believe the average 1st year postdoc salary is under 40K (and so is the NIH postdoc salary guideline).


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Relevance of computer science degree to pursue a career in cognitive science
This forum looks like the perfect place to ask a question that is being bothering me for a long time.
I'm 22 and a college dropout for numerous reasons (economic and mostly because I didn't like the major that I was studying, which led to depression, etc.)
Anyway, I recently discovered MOOCs (coursera, edx, udacity, OCW-MIT, etc.) and khanAcademy and I immediately fell in love with science and more precisely computer science. I also fall in love with the brain and love to think about thinking, decision making, logic, critical thinking, neuroplasticity, etc...
I also appreciated cognitive psychology and the philosophy of the mind but I haven't gone any deeper to those two.
So, you can say MOOCs changed my life because I'm able to learn things that I never would have consider ever studying.
I'm thinking of pursuing a Cognitive Science degree which can expose me into computer science and some kind of neuroscience, philosophy, and psychology.
The only thing is that here in Greece, Cognitive Science is only a postgraduate degree so I have first to finish an undergraduate degree in Computer Science or in Philosophy and History of Technology (those are the only two majors from which students are accepted for the Cognitive Science degree).
My question is, should I spend the next year of my life into studying for a test that will get me to the University (in order to get to a University you need to give exams in May, I'm not ready to give it this May so I have to give it on the May of 2015)?
Is it worth it to study Computer Science for four years to pursue the Cognitive Science degree which is my primary goal ?
PS: The possibility of studying abroad is out of question given the economic situation of my family, unless a scholarship for studying abroad is available.

Think further ahead: what do you want to do after you finish the Cognitive Science degree?
Do want to go into academia and work as a professor (probably after some research postdocs) in the field? If that's your ultimate goal, then that's the most straightforward career path.
If it's something else, figure out what the prerequisites for that thing are. There are too many people who got into grad school pursuing a degree in something because they thought was cool only to discover that after they graduate, they have nowhere to apply their degree.
Whether it's worth it depends on you. Weigh the costs to you against the benefits to you.

For now , is for knowledge and learning things that I love learning about.
The world is unpredictable who knows what will happened in the following years.
Now, I'm curious and the lost appreciation of learning came back. I see going back to University as an option of gaining more in depth knowledge and find like minded people there.
Anyway thanks for the answer.

I think a computer science degree is useful because it opens up a lot of possibilities, but it's up to you. I like to write code and think about algorithms, so I have some personal bias towards it too.

What I like about Computer Science is the emphasis on problem solving and that programming is just a tool that allows you to solve problems. You separate them into pieces and try to implement what you already know and in the process you learn more.. It's an ongoing process that requires rigorous thinking and clarity. Also , the times that we're living with the rising of technologies there always will be demand for computer scientists.

If you like the problem-solving aspect, you might also like engineering fields.

What do you like about C.S ?

I like the problem solving aspect, and also the theoretical part of it: proofs and so on, the mathematical aspect. My majors were math and CS. Initially I knew I wanted to do math "and something," CS turned out to be the thing that came easiest to me, with physics being a close second.

As a EU citizen you have access to the education in the entire European Union, so you can look around for the Cognitive Science programs in the other EU countries too. It is quite possible that some of them would not require a previous graduate degree and would be taught in English.
It may happen that there would be tuition fees (if I recall correctly, this is the case e.g. in the UK), but as a EU citizen you also can work in any EU country without almost any extra formalities (pretty much under the same conditions as a citizen of the country you are in), so you can earn the money to support yourself through your studies.


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"Storytelling" in the introduction: Math papers
This question is about best practices of writing manuscripts in mathematics.
Q. How much "storytelling" in the introduction section of a math paper is "appropriate"?
To clarify what I mean by "storytelling" let me give an example but of course one can find numerous of such cases:
In the introduction of a math paper(which I'd rather to keep the names anonymous) almost half of the first page is dedicated to saying what happened in friends gathering and that the author bet on bottle of wines that certain problem has solutions and what not. It was really annoying to me. I wondered why readers need to know all that and how are these stories are even relevant?
Side note: It seems to me sometimes journal editors demonstrate double standards and approve/disapprove this "story telling" matter depending who you are and where you stand in the field.

It also depends on the venue. Often this kind of things is accepted in special and "Festschrift" issues (i.e., "for the 65th birthday of prof. Bigname"), but not in regular papers.

I am starting to feel that the word "ethics" is being drastically overused on this site.  Is determining the maximal amount of allowable fluff in the introduction of a math paper really an ethical issue?  At the moment I'm not seeing how.  (As a picky side note, the phrase "scientific manuscripts in mathematics" is maybe a little strange.  What is an "unscientific manuscript in mathematics"?)

@PeteL.Clark good points. Icorrected the second one. Regarding "ethics" being over used, in case of my post it is merely because of the fact that I could not find a better word. I definitely welcome suggestions slash edits.

I made an edit with some language / tag changes.  Feel free to roll back if you don't approve.

I like the stories I've read in papers (and elsewhere).

I propose the following guideline as a basis for answering your question: what is "appropriate" is for the author(s) of the article to try to write the best paper they can write, and for the journal editor and reviewer to make helpful suggestions about small changes the authors can make to improve the paper even more. In my humble opinion, the editor should generally not require changes to the paper unless they feel that they are seriously necessary to keep the quality of the paper at the standards of the journal. Thus, there should be a bit of room for authors to impose their creative vision on the work, which also includes the freedom to make wrong judgment calls that annoy some readers.
If you accept the premise above, it follows that if the authors of the paper thought the story with the wine bottles makes the paper better, the editor should let them include it, even if he/she personally disagrees with the decision.
TL;DR: within reasonable limits (and half a page sounds reasonable to me), it is the authors who should decide what is appropriate. Some readers may be displeased, but that is true about almost anything that one writes.

Seconding @DanRomik's answer, I think that it is generally harmless to inject anecdotes, even if silly or frivolous, but vaguely connected to the issues at hand, if only to avoid the other (extreme) tradition of "austere formality". At its worst, the latter implicitly includes a pretense that we are trans-material entities without human failings, etc., which might in itself be off-putting.
The point is that people who don't want to read (small) frivolous bits can skip over them, while people who might be soothed by small frivolous bits may not be easily able to imagine them in the context of a cold, austere discussion. I certainly do not wish to pretend to mandate chattiness for those disinclined, but (if it does not compromise the precision of the mathematics) in small doses it's surely harmless.


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Is calling a staff member "selfish" harassment?
A faculty member wrote to a staff member that "you are selfish." The staff member wrote back to the faculty member asking for an explanation. The faculty member did not respond and wrote: "I would not respond to you any further." Is this harassment?

Please provide more details in order for us to understand the question. Who from the faculty? Who is the staff? What is the reason?

From the faculty. The faculty did not the reason.

Okay, but a faculty cannot write an email. There must be some person who actually typed the email, right?

Likely this was not an email out of the blue, with no prior communication. So, lacking that other communication, this is impossible to answer.

Whether it is harassment is a matter of opinion, I think.  Whether it's something that's forbidden by your institution's rules or local law is an entirely different question that we can't answer, not knowing what those rules are.

It's brusque and ill-advised, but it's not harassment per se.
Harassment is the creation of a hostile work environment through pressure or intimidation. A one-off heated email and the use of a single adjective to describe someone in a negative light is certainly not sufficient of proving anything more than the person who wrote the email probably should have waited a while before hitting the "send" button. A sustained campaign of emails and a larger pattern of behavior would be needed to make a believable harassment argument.
There's no reason for this to be escalated into a larger situation that will ultimately accomplish very little except inflaming tensions further.

Then what will be requirements of "harassment"? What will be needed to prove that there is a harassment?

See my revision.

There are multiple that the faculty eventually banned a staff from any discussions and meetings.

That's not in your original question. And it's still not clear that it's harassment.

If this is the US, in order to qualify as harassment legally, the behavior in question also has to be based on a protected characteristic (i.e. sex, race, age, etc). Calling a staff member "selfish" because they are Jewish = harassment; calling a staff member "selfish" because you don't like their shoes = not harassment.

@nengel Could you please give a link to the list of protected characters in USA?

@nengel ehm... no. Just look up how many times the word harassment is used in the US Code. There's 170 sections that contain the word harass. "protected class" are just relevant for title VII discrimination

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Graduate Admissions: Teaching Emphasis
I’m on my 3rd/5 undergraduate years, so I’m just starting to think about grad admissions.
I’ve been planning on applying to MD/PhD programs. I enjoy/feel comfortable in hospitals and think I can make a contribution or two in medically-relevant bioinformatics/comp. genetics.
So, one of the big pulls for me into a grad program is teaching. I would probabaly enjoy being a high school teacher or a college lecturer but it seems like an insecure career path to me, and not doing any research would probabaly bum me out after a while.
And, in theory, MD/PhD programs support that—TAing, teaching classes, teaching workshops at conferences, simplifying complex ideas for patients, etc. MSTP guidelines even mention teaching interest as an important characteristic.
But, in practice, I feel weird about emphasizing my teaching interest. Most grad students I meet dislike being a TA, professors don’t like teaching, and often it seems like they feel like teaching gets in the way of their real work. And those are the people who will be reviewing my application. I’m kinda afraid that I’ll be seen as a not-serious-researcher for wanting to focus on teaching.
Should I de-emphasize my teaching interest? If not, do you have any suggestions about how to present it on personal statements/interviews/etc?

If you want to teach, I would suggest doing a postgraduate teaching course (for instance, in the UK we have the PGCE). A PhD is about learning how to do research-- TAing is just a way of making money to support yourself whilst doing so.

Thank you for the comment! If I want to teach graduate and medical students and do research, wouldn't a doctoral degree be most appropriate?

The primary quality that is typically sought after in PhD programs is the ability to become an independent researcher. Teaching is, for good or ill, secondary to that, and is in general something that is only a "second-order" effect on the selection of a person as a potential PhD candidate.
MD/PhD programs are a separate issue—perhaps they prefer future teachers as an additional quality but, if so, it's unique to them.

It's sort of a catch-22 situation here. On one hand, you do need a PhD to teach at the higher education level; on the other hand, the PhD doesn't teach (and doesn't even intend to teach) you how to teach!
But I guess wanting to teach (at university level) is a valid reason to get a PhD, as I've had friends and instructors who took PhDs because they want to teach college. Of course you'll still need to like doing research (and you'll probably still be held to the same admissions standards as those who just want to do research), but wanting to teach at the college+ level seems like a valid reason to take a PhD.
I'm not a faculty member, though, so you may want to talk to some teaching faculty with PhDs at your university to see what they think.


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Graduation Robes - What accolades does this guy have?

I am currently at my brother's graduation ceremony at Adelaide University, and in the Professor's/Post-grad seating area, sits a man fully in green. What does this special gown mean?
(Apologies for the awful picture)

It is difficult to tell from the picture. At graduation ceremonies I've been to the color of professors robes have referenced the universities they attended, not any special accolades.

I got another photo! He's the only one in an unusual colour so I don't think it's to do with that

Wait for the ceremony to get over. Either you will know it by then or probably, you could approach him and ask gently.

Most schools, at least in the US, have black robes. See this list https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_regalia_in_the_United_States and not everyone buys their schools robes since they cost 1000 USD so it is not surprising that he is the only one with unique colors.

I love the cap.

The type of cap may indicate the type of doctoral degree.  IIRC that looks vaguely like a Divinity School  cap.

Not all of the other robes are black. The robe of the person four behind him in the procession appears to be navy blue.

Wizard who can charm plants?

The kelly green typically represents some field of medicine.

I wonder if he is wearing CSU regalia https://www.gowningstreet.com.au/uni/csu/bachelor-of-education ?

Christmas dwarf?

I asked this question on the Facebook 'Academical Dress' group, where Patrick Cook was able to find out who the figure in green is:

It is Polish. The gentleman in question if Prof. Maciej Henneberg. His qualifications are listed as MSc, PhD and DSc (Dr habil), all from A Mickiewicz University, Poznan. So I'm guessing the gown is either the PhD or the DSc.
  http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/.../03/content_5448095.htm

Great digging work!

Credit to Patrick Cook (who is not me)!

It is conventional in many places for faculty who participate in a graduation ceremony to wear the regalia from the university where they got their degree. Some universities have more... elaborate regalia than others.(See e.g. Etiquette of wearing the wrong academic robes at graduation as a lecturer in the UK, especially this comment. And this.)
Others sitting on stage in your photos appear to be wearing the Adelaide University regalia - maybe that's where they did their doctorate (or they did it at a university that uses the same regalia), or maybe they don't have the regalia from their alma mater and just wear this one.

+1 ... the university where that guy got his doctoral degree had green robes.  Here in the US most doctoral robes are black.  But not all.  I would wear my crimson robes from Harvard, for example.

I think the first class at Harvard must be on how to work the fact that one has gone to Harvard into every conversation...

@BradWerth I also went to Harvard.  It cost $5.00 on the red line.  I did not study there, but it was worth it to be able to interject into every conversation "I went to Harvard."  It was a valuable inflection point that led me to my 8 year residency (outside) the White House.  I do not wear a Harvard robe.  My Harvard tee-shirt does the job of informing people about my association with Harvard University.


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Same review for Math Reviews and Zentralblatt
I have been serving for several years as a reviewer for both Mathematical Reviews (MathSciNet) and ZbMath.
Earlier this year, I received an invitation for a paper for MR which I already reviewed for ZbMath. I dug up my old review and submitted it to MathSciNet without giving it much thought.
But there seems to be a pattern emerging. I received an invitation from MR for two more papers I already reviewed for ZbMath.
So here are my questions:

Do the editors of MR know/check who reviewed the paper for ZbMath in order
to find suitable reviewers?
What do I do about the double reviews?

My idea was to just refuse to write the reviews. But if the answer to the first question would be yes, then the editors know that I have a thorough review lying around. Just resubmitting this one would save a colleague from writing a new one.

@BryanKrause I think these are different topics: this is about reviews (after publication) and the other one about referee reports.

Many times I've seen ZbMath reviews (indeed, print versions from 1990s and earlier) that indicated, either at the beginning or at the end (I think it was at the end), that the review was from Math. Reviews, maybe something like "(MR 86c:30018)" (parentheses included; since this is almost certainly a true review number, I'm not claiming what I'm saying is the case for this review). However, I never knew whether such cases are as you describe or whether they just asked to use the MR review because they couldn't obtain a suitable review for some reason. And I've seen the reverse also.

@DaveLRenfro I wrote one of these (more recently). zbMath assigned me the same item (by chance I think) and they offered that I could submit the same review as to MR (see my answer below for more details)

The Math Reviews Guide for Reviewers addresses this explicitly:

Reviews in other publications. You may find yourself asked to write a review of the same item for another publication. In general, the community is best served by reviews written independently. If you have already been asked by another publication to review an item, please let us know and we will transfer it to another reviewer.

So, if you have already reviewed the article for Zbmath, you should decline to review it for MR.  I didn't find a similar rule on the Zbmath side, but I would say the converse should also hold.
Also, per your agreement with Zbmath, when you submit a review to them, you grant them "exclusive exploitation rights".  So if you submit the same review to MR, you're infringing Zbmath's copyright.  I doubt they will sue you over it, but this shows it's actually illegal as well as unwanted.
In view of this, you may want to contact MR and ask them to withdraw your previously submitted review.
Evidently, one should not assume that the MR editors will check who reviewed the article for Zbmath in order to avoid inviting the same person, since they apparently failed to do so in your case.  (Another possibility is that they did check, but your Zbmath review hadn't been posted yet.)

In my experience zbMath wants to know about when they ask the same person as MR but might not transfer the item and even offer to accept the same review.

Great answer! Do you know where one can access the corresponding agreement with Mathscinet, by the way?

I think we had another question about it.  I don't think it's online; they send it to you directly when you first start to review.

@FedericoPoloni I think Nate is referring to this recent question; the accepted answer (by the Executive Editor of Mathematical Reviews) mentions copyright and what Mathscinet allows you to do (which seems to correspond to Christian's answer), and it also contains an extract of the reviewer letter, apparently.

I was in a similar situation but in the other order: I reviewed a paper for Mathematical Reviews and then was asked by zbMath to review the same paper. I told zbMath about this and they agreed that it is not ideal but they asked me to write a review nevertheless and told me that they are fine with getting the same review as Mathematical Reviews. I asked MR for permission to do this and was told that they always grant it provided they are the first one to publish it. They asked me to make sure to tell the editors of zbMath that MR published the review first and that they would know how to handle it. It seems that this situation happens from time to time.
Note that this situation is different since Mathematical Reviews‘ terms are more permissive than zbMath‘s.

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How do I cite personal observations of what people generally believe about a topic?
I am trying to figure out how to cite what the general "word on the street" is regarding a certain topic within a scientific paper. As a researcher, I have noticed there are a number of popularly-held misconceptions regarding the object of my research held by colleagues in the same field (but different specialties) and the general lay public. Indeed, part of the goal of my research is to debunk these ideas. I need to figure out how to bring up this is what people have actually thought regarding the topic and therefore it is necessary to discuss. However, there are two problems...

Many of the comments I have seen first-hand were made by the general lay public on social media. Citing random people's social media accounts to make a point in a scientific paper doesn't feel right and feels like punching down.
Many of the comments on this by fellow colleagues are negative and could be interpreted as insulting if tied to a particular individual. Additionally, these comments are again almost all from pers. comms. or on social media. Again, this is an issue that people rarely study, so you have a lot of researchers in adjacent fields speculating on this subject casually but because they specialize in other subjects these comments never make it into print.

I need to cite these observations to show that these are actual things people have said, but I don't want to tie it to specific people because it might be seen as offensive. How should I do this? I would say (pers. obs. by author), but would it then come off as though I am the one claiming this rather than these are observations of what others have said? I'm hesitant to treat this as "general knowledge" because it may not be general knowledge in the next 20 years or so.

You're asking the wrong question. I think you need to consider how to collect data to show that what you think the general population thinks is actually what they think. Then you can make whatever statement you want and you don't run into the issue of trying to cite the grapevine. Cherry-picked, anecdotal evidence is like the antithesis of the scientific method, it doesn't make sense to reference it...

You could state that the source is "Anonymous" which would not link the source statements directly to the individual who stated the original comment.  You could also cite the platform the statement appeared on and use a randomly generated username to protect individual privacy.

I think I'm not clear enough on why you are concerned with the misconceptions of people who are (i) not academics or (ii) academics but not specialists in your research area.  In my experience, the vast majority of academic papers are pitched at specialists in your research area.  But academics often give general audience talks, write popular books, and so forth: these have very different goals.  I wonder whether you are conflating these goals or whether what the general populace believes is actually relevant to your research.

@PeteL.Clark I describe the issue as kind of like the "Spartan Mirage". The vision of the subject in the broader conscious is largely based on exaggerated sensationalism and old debunked 19th-20th century zeitgeist. The problem is there are so few specialists in this field that even researchers in adjacent fields tend to buy into the unsupported sensationalism. It's like how the old perceptions of the Persians in academia were 90% memes because there were so few scholars on the Achaemenids and the people writing on them were Judaic, Greek, Egyptian, and Babylonian specialists.

As an analogy, your paper provides a scientific answer as to why the sky looks blue. You think this is important because lay people have a very wrong idea as to why it looks blue and you are trying to somehow cite the wrong lay idea to motivate your paper?

It doesn't sound like you merely need to cite this observation, it sounds like you don't actually know with any sort of certainty what the answer is. You have a hypothesis, but no data. You may need to actually do some research into this question if it's that important. I have colleagues who have done exactly this, using survey methods to provide some quantitative estimate of what "everyone thinks", rather than just what everyone thinks everyone thinks; you might be surprised at how valuable other people find these things, one of the studies I have in mind has been cited as much or more than the work it was intended to support.
If people believe the thing you think they believe enough to write it in their papers, etc, you can cite those like you would anything else. I would focus particularly on papers that are influential (citation count is probably a reasonable proxy), especially reviews in your field by people who you think you and others would see as leaders in your field, and give more than one example to not single anyone out. I don't think you should worry so much about offending these people, you don't need to call them idiots while doing so, you're just pointing out a belief that is expressed in the literature, and then offering your take on that belief, hopefully with evidence that is convincing to others. Every single useful academic paper is doing this to some degree.

In my case what the general public and researchers outside specialists on this topic think is clearly different from what the actual data says. "Common knowledge" on this subject is largely from the 1920s and is heavily influenced by biases of that era (teleological thinking). The problem is other researchers do not state these opinions in a citable format. They are mostly specialists on other groups of animals giving idle speculation on the group I work with, but they don't actually publish papers on them.

@user2352714 Doesn't really seem necessary to cite, then, why not just describe how things really are in your paper?

Because the issue then becomes "Why is this even being brought up? Why is it relevant?" Whereas if it is mentioned that the commonly held belief is incorrect providing the relevant information necessary to correct it is a useful contribution to the literature.

@user2352714 I think I'd focus on what's in the literature rather than outside rumors. If nothing has been written on the topic since the 1920s, that's motivation enough, no?

@user2352714 you're asking how to cite anonymous samples as proof of a certain believe. But they are not proof of that believe, hence the answer is: you cannot. You need to get actual proof.

(1) How central is this for your paper? (2) Are you writing for a readership that actually holds these misconceptions, or for experts that do not hold them? (If you say "both", which group you think would be the majority?)
If this is not so central, and the main point of your paper will stand without giving strong evidence for the "word on the street", you may get away with just saying something like "I have come across this view often". If it is really so ubiquitous, reviewers (and readers who agree with you) might just nod and let it go through.

A solution my co-authors and I used in a similar situation: when we wanted to attest examples of misstatements of the meaning of null-hypothesis tests in published papers (Table 1, Dushoff et al. *Methods in Ecology and Evolution 2019), we quoted relevant snippets of text from the articles but said only "citations available by request" so that we weren't calling individual authors out quite as explicitly. In our case, anyone who wanted to find the original sources could probably also find the original references by full-text search on Google Scholar ... that would be much harder for social media posts, I think.

If you want to know what "word on the street" is for scientific publication, you design an instrument to assess it, design a study around the instrument, take the study to an RSRB to approve it, do the study, then publish it.  Other/alternative methods would include rigorous literature review to try to capture it.

My understanding from your question is that you just need to show that a wrong belief is common, as a starting point for debunking that belief. Since you don't need to quantify exactly how prevalent that belief is, a survey may be overkilling because nowadays you can just run a query on social media or the web and report that a reproducible search yielded a largish number of instances of the wrong belief versus a same order number of instances or less of the right belief. Twitter (now X) may be an easy way because, as far as I know, there are available databases of tweets. Even automatically search the web (with an script checking results from a Google search) can show that there are a number of results for that wrong belief.

I can actually find tweets of colleagues saying these ideas on Twitter and other places. The issue is if I do it comes off as taking potshots at a colleague for what they said on social media.

Right, but you don't have to cite the tweets individually - you can just make the point that the view is common without calling out any particular individuals.

My answer is not about finding a particular tweet with that wrong belief, but about finding hundreds or more of them. If there are just a few of them but they are relevant because of the author, you could just mention that those tweets exist and keep them just in case the reviewers ask for them.

Consider the possibility that you are being groomed by an echo chamber.  Consult with your advisor to ensure the value of your research is not entirely predicated on popular misconception.  Instead of diverting resources to half-baked sociological sampling, it may be better to focus resources toward demonstrating the utility of the research.  If you feel that utility is a bad thing, then you may want to point your research in another direction.
For example, there are some open source programming languages built on academic research, such as Haskell, Agda, and Clean, if you want to have a look at communities where making tools/alternative perspectives directly available to the public is somewhat normalized.


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Is "ghosting" a reviewer's suggestions common behavior during revision of a manuscript?
This is an issue I have run into multiple times as a reviewer on a paper. During a manuscript review I pointed out several areas of concern. Some of these are methodological issues but in other cases these are grammar issues that are easy to fix. When the first round of revision comes back none of the suggested changes have been made to the manuscript. All of the grammar mistakes are still there.
Notably, the lack of change is not because the authors disagree with the suggestions and provide rebuttals in their 'responses to reviewers' document. Instead, the revised manuscript acts like the authors had never seen my review. They respond to the other two reviewers in their responses to reviewers section, but there are no comments addressing any of the concerns I raise, even the minor, easily addressable ones like the grammar issues.
Reaching out to the editors about this situation, I asked if it's possible that my annotated draft of the manuscript and/or reviewer report potentially did not reach the authors. However, the editors said the review report and documents had been sent to the authors.
Is this a common issue in academic review? I have had this happen while reviewing articles by two different research groups (both of which are relatively prominent in my field) for two different journals handled by two different publishers within the last five years. However, I have never heard of this being an issue before. The best solution I can think of is just send it back to the editor and say the authors did not address my concerns in the previous round of review. But it seems very strange to have happened more than once.

At the same journal?

Seems like something is wrong with the system…

@AzorAhai-him- Different journal, and different publishers

Related: Reviewing a revision, after the original review did not reach the authors

@user2352714 Well then, weird

@GeorgeSavva "Ignoring" can possibly be done with the other party knowing your intent - you could ignore a reviewer comment by explicitly stating you didn't have time to consider it. "Ghosting" additionally implies a total lack of acknowledgement - the ignoring party behaves as though the review doesn't even exist.

This isn't common, but it's not that rare either. You might see it like once every six months to a year as an editor (this is an estimate; I did not keep count). One way this can happen is if your review is late. The journal sends the author a decision first with the other reviewers' reviews, then you submit your review -> the authors aren't aware your review exist.
If it looks like the authors have not seen or forgot about your review, then I'd return a major revision recommendation and leave the rest to the editor(s) of the journal. Recommending rejection seems a bit harsh to me given it could be an honest mistake, although practically speaking there might be no difference since the editor is likely to send the manuscript for a second revision.

I think this is what it was. In both cases my reviews were not late, but they were submitted towards the end of the deadline. This is likely what happened.

Yes, if the authors have genuinely engaged with the other reviewers' points and not even mentioned yours it seems almost certain that they have missed your review entirely, whether because of their own carelessness or the editor's. They should be given another chance to respond.

Failure to respond to points raised -> Reject
Proper practice for responding to referee reviews of a paper is to go through point-by-point and respond to each item raised in a systematic manner (see related answer here).  Ideally, the author should directly copy-and-paste the entire referee review and then respond to each point as it is raised.  (When I do this, I usually give the referee remarks in one colour and then my response in another colour, so it is easy to see exactly what the referee said and then my response to this.)  This method ensures that no points are missed and there is a clear response (agree, disagree, revised, no revision, etc.) to each point raised by the referee.
In my experience, no, it is not common for authors to fail to respond to points raised by referees.  Academics usually proceed systematically through referee suggestions and train their research students to do the same.  In some cases a single point might get accidentally missed (e.g., if it was raised by the editor outside of the referee reports) but it would be unusual to have multiple points where there has been no response/revision.  The occurrence of this outcome reflects sloppy revision practice and it is unusual in professional settings.
If you are a referee and this has not been done, and there are significant points (or multiple small points) raised in your review that were not addressed, you should immediately give a one-line rejection of the revised paper: Author has failed to respond to previous points raised in review, so we recommend rejection of this paper.  Give this back to the editor immediately and let them contact the author to reject/re-write.  If referees were to do this en masse than it would lead to a rapid improvement in the quality of responses.

Yeah, this does happen. A funny variant is when they correct it or remove the material only where you pointed it out and left the other mistakes. E.g.: you say that there are many mistakes in this paper with the units, e.g. in section 5. You get the revision back with Section 5 removed, but in the remainder the authors still don't know how to make units tally.
I feel your pain - pointing out the same issues again and again makes you look like an obsessive sourpuss, the frequent complainer who is soon ignored. For that reason I think it is best to leave it at "the issues I pointed out previously have not been addressed."
But there is often something off about these things, where the editor seems prepared to give these authors endless second chances. I don't know about you, but there have been times when I felt implicitly bullied by the editor to accept the paper, as if to say: This zombie will keep darkening your inbox until you recommend we accept.


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Is it typical for one review to be made by multiple reviewers?
I recently got a review back from consideration. One review was a little odd in that the reviewer(s?) consistently referred to themselves using "We" and "Our". It seems highly unlikely this is the royal we. Notably, it is just this review, the other reviews all use singular pronouns.
Is it typical for a manuscript review request, which is typically only sent to one individual, be reviewed by multiple people? I am not sure how reasonable it is from an ethical perspective.

In academic writing, authorial 'we' is very common, where the authors always refer to themselves in the first-person plural even if the there is only a single author. Although this is less common in reviews, the reviewer likely just used this authorial 'we' to refer to him-/herself.
See also Choice of personal pronoun in single-author papers.

This. As an editor, I see this all the time.

The authorial "we" is the most likely explanation. Joint reports are also possible, at least in physics. My impression is that they are somewhat rare, however. Perhaps the most common scenario  is a student writing a report together with their supervisor.

At least in my physics experience, joint reports (supervisor and student) are pretty common and since physics journals actually encourage these, they are also not hidden.

As a postdoc, I once was one of two referees that co-wrote a joint referee report in physics. It was a situation where the paper combined methods from two different, very technical areas; my colleague was the one officially asked to be the reviewer and was an expert on one of the areas. He asked me to help him write the part of the report focusing on the second area, which he was less familiar with but was in my wheelhouse. We then submitted a joint report (informing the editors beforehand, of course).

mathematics
I have authored at least one referee report that was jointly written with another person. In my experience it’s not common, but it does happen.

I just personally finished a co-review a few days ago. I am a postdoc and my PI asked me to join in because the paper covered multiple topics and it just so happened that I had additional experience that made me an ideal referee. We contacted the editor in charge and informed them that I would contribute, and the editor welcomed the additional input.

I would not say it is very common, but it can happen. I received just today a review invitation where the editor specifically told me that I am allowed to review the paper together with a colleague.