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What is the impact factor of my short communication paper?
Recently I published a paper in as a short communication in a Springer Journal in Natural Science discipline (Impact Factor 3.56). It was a short paper within 2500 words and 3 figures although the figures can be split up to 8-10 independent figures to make it a full length research paper.
I shared this paper in the social media after it got published. A few of my contacts asked me why I published it as a short communication, rather than as a full research article. They also mentioned that short communications are in general not treated as peer reviewed articles even if it underwent a rigorous review process. They have now suggested making it a full paper with some additional results.
My questions are:

Does this publication really have no Impact factor as of the Journal?
Does people cite the results published in short communications?
Is it always possible to extend the short communicated articles to
full length? If possible, then can I copy all or some of the point-to-point texts
and results already published in the short communications? Will it be
considered as self plagiarism?

Communications are prestigious in many fields. At least they should show novelty and urgency. Of course, nowadays it is not always true, but still they get screened more thoroughly even before referee assignment. By the way a single paper would have a certain impact, say the number of time it is cited, but not an IF. This is made clear in answers below.

Impact factors are assigned to journals not papers. No paper has an impact factor. The impact factor of the journal you published in, and the format makes no difference to that (as long as it is a peer reviewed format).

In my field (molecular biology/genomics/bioinformatics) people absolutely cite short communications.

Once a paper is published, you cannot publish exactly the same work as a full length article. You might publish further analysis of the same data, or the same analysis on different data, or different work that comes to the same conclusions, but you cannot just expand this same work to a new paper. Your new paper must also acknowledge the existance of the previous, and therefore would probably not be seen as as novel as the first one.

Agreed. At least in my field, communications are often used to report some extremely interesting and new finding in a quick (both writing and peer-reviewing) way, one of the reasons they are often cited a lot. In one of the major chemistry journals  (Angewandte Chemie), communications are the standard form of publication.

@Ian Sudbery . My intention was to ask whether does the short communication has same value as of full research articles published in one Journal. It is very well known many Journals do publish many type of articles, even just news of less than 500 words, do you think/confirm all published stuffs in a Journal carry same values?

The value of work is determined by its content, not by its form. Let me put it this way: if some is just going to judge you on the journal title they see on a publication list, they are not going to know whether its a short communication.Some one who is going to look at the work will judge it on its merits.

Articles generally have more content than short communications, and therefore, on average, might be more valuable. But not necessarily so - a 7 fig article can just be incremental, where as a 3 fig short comm can change the world. Note that 7 fig articles also have many panels per figure, and often many supplementary figures as well, not just the same amount of content spread out more.

@IanSudbery It seems very difficult for me to understand. Anyway, thanks for the inputs. In my understanding, the journal journals 'Nature' or 'Science' mostly publish very  few pages even less than 3 pages, but they carry one of the highest values now a days. So pages doesn't matter. What matters is the contents and information. So I don't agree that full article will be more valuable than short communications in the same journal just due to more content. For you information, my short communication paper has also supplements with another 5 Figures and 3 Tables.

Most papers in Nature are "letters to nature", which are their short communications format and are limited to 3 figures. They do also publish a very small number of "Articles", which are full 7 figure papers. Getting an "Article" paper in Nature is more prestigious than getting a Letter because there are so few.  One might assume that  a 7 figure paper contains more information than a 3 figure paper. But as I pointed out, this is definitely not necessarily make it more valuable, and a letter can be more valuable than an Article, despite what many people naively assume.


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Cheating tendencies for open- versus closed-book online exams
Like many faculty, I am forced to give online exams for the first time this semester.  (See I need help adapting my academic workflow to the COVID-19/coronavirus crisis – where do I start? for some related questions, though this question seems new.)   I am being recommended to do various things like include an integrity pledge (honor code), make them timed, not use proctoring software, employ critical thinking questions, and make them open book.  I plan to do the first 4, but my question is about the latter.
Namely, I have been thinking about various possibilities for what they are allowed to use for there exam.  One could do any of the following, as well as some things in between: no resources, open book but nothing else, open book and personal notes and homeworks, open notes only, open book+notes+internet.  I personally am leaning towards open book only.  Now I can easily imagine that people would be more likely to cheat on a no resources exam versus open everything, and I imagine there are also differences compared to something like open book only.  However, I have no idea to what extent there are differences (both in percentage of cheating and types of cheating), especially assuming things like time limits and honor codes.
Question: Have there been any studies about the differences in students' tendencies to cheat on non-proctored exams based on allowed resource materials?
I am not looking for personal speculation, but scientific studies, e.g., something like in this answer about a study on honor codes and cheating.  I do not require the studies to include things like an honor code component, but it would be a plus.  Even a basic study justifying universities' guidelines to make exams open book would be of interest.

Since you explicitly ask for research and not experience, I won't be able to help. Sorry.

My professor tested an open book exam some 30 years ago, anecdotal evidence but no paper produced so sorry.

I don't know whether such research exists, but there are some difficulties. It would assume that you could reliably detect cheating, which is a rather difficult assumption to make. There are probably more ways to cheat than you could imagine. There is also the problem that the results might be affected simply by the personality of the instructor. Some are so loved and trusted that it would be less likely that the average student would be inclined to cheat. But there is no way to measure that effect that I could see. So, if you do find some research, make sure that the design is valid..

source: Stack Exchange

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How to present work that includes replicating results of another study?
I started working on a research project for a class that was at first meant to be a collaboration between a lab at our university and another university. The only information that I was given to start with was a basic problem statement and a vague description of results with no idea of how they were generated.
This work was unpublished and currently they have a paper under review. I tried to get in contact with the authors to get more information, but was unable to. I have been unsuccessful in getting any information at all about the paper that is under review. I was intending to look at extensions of their work or work related to theirs, but with almost no information about methodology and especially context and limitations I was skeptical of their results.
It should be noted if their work is published it will most likely create small subfield. Lacking important information I decided to see if I could, using my own method, replicate these results. I found my own dataset and managed to get preliminary results using the method I developed and from this came up with directions for future work.
My advisor wants me to present my work at a poster session at an upcoming local event. Is it acceptable to present this work with preliminary results and possible directions for new research?  If so how do I acknowledge the slight contribution from this lab?

I think the best way to approach this is to write a polite email to your collaborators showing enthusiasm for the work and letting them know that you were able to extend it. You may also want to propose if they would like to contribute to the poster. This can strengthen the relations and may result in a fresh collaboration.

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How should you refer to yourself in a paper?
When writing a paper that discusses previous work by the same set of authors, what is the correct way to refer to it?
For example,

"In 2012 Fred et al. introduced a third way of resolving the washing crisis [1234]."

Should this be written

"In 2012 we introduced a  third way of resolving the washing crisis [1234]."

or perhaps

"In 2012 the current authors introduced a third way of resolving the washing crisis [1234]."

or even

"In 2012 Fred et al. (the current authors) introduced a third way of resolving the washing crisis [1234]."

Note that in this style the reference is [1234], in case that wasn't clear.

This usually depends on whether or not you paper will be reviewed double-blind or not. If it's going to be double-blind, then you need to refer to yourself in the third person (i.e. by name, "Fred, et al.") rather than using a pronoun. If it's only going to be single-blind review, then I think it's a matter of style whether you use a pronoun or refer to yourself by name, though the venue you are submitting to, or your field, may have preferences. In which case, you should ask around.

Good point. It is not going to be reviewed double-blind.  The reference is [1234] at the end of the sentence.  Perhaps having 1234 citations was a little unrealistic.

@dorothy, I knew what "[1234]" was, but not, literally, "[...]". Did  you mean an ellipsis denoting more text in those two places, or the same "[1234]" citation?

Edited question to make it clearer. Sorry for any confusion.

Thank you. What would be the style in the venues you publish in?

It's generally open. I have used "we" if the author list is identical. No one is going to reject your paper because of this stylistic choice. You might get an editor requesting you to change it, at the most.

Thank you. It's not that I think a paper will be rejected. It's just that I like to write correctly :)

Although this can be a matter of style, whenever possible, I like to say "I" or "we" when I have been involved in the prior work.  I think that it is important for two reasons:

It is more transparent and honest about possible biases in your citation and perspective on the field, so it doesn't feel like you're claiming independent evidence when you are citing yourself.
It helps to make it clear how a particular piece of work fits into an overall research program.

I also like an active voice style better and think it communicates more clearly, but that may be a matter of style rather than substance.

As Bill Barth says in his answer, it's a matter of style. I personally think that people shouldn't hide quite as much behind passive voice and "Fred et al.". It's refreshing to read people speak in their first voice, so I personally would not mind seeing more statements of the form

Following a long list of unsuccessful attempts, we finally succeeded in devising a third way of resolving the washing crisis in 2012, see [1234].

You may or may not feel comfortable with showing this much of yourself, but I imagine only the most stuck up reviewers are going to ding you for it.

The only place where I have any qualms about using 'we' is when most of the authors coincide, the lead authors (especially when it's literally me) have done most of the work, but the author lists don't coincide exactly. I shouldn't use 'we' in these cases, and I don't, but sometimes I want to. I want to convey the continuing team aspect of the work, but I also don't want to be misleading.

I see this very often (and committed myself previously), but there is an opinion that everything in brackets or parenthesis should be possible to omit during reading. Hence, see [123] is a bad style, but as Fred et al. [123] mentioned is a good one. I try to stick to this during my writing.

Assuming that the author list for the current and cited paper are the same, I would follow this approach.
While submitting for review:

In 2012 Fred et al. introduced a third way of resolving the washing crisis [1234].

When paper is accepted:

In 2012 we introduced a third way of resolving the washing crisis [1234].

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Can research papers postulate a theory without proof or assurance of correctness?
What I mean is, can research papers be written on a problem for which there is a solution postulated but without any actual proof or working model to show that it does work?
To give context, the problem is in the context of Computer Software, and the solution provided is not backed up with a proof of concept.

Sure. All kinds of papers get written and submitted all the time. The best ones have strong empirical data or formal proofs to back them up. Others ... are based pretty much on opinions or hot air.
Of course, you are likely actually asking whether such a paper has a chance of acceptance at a reasonable venue. Here, the answer depends on the field as well as on the type of conference or track you are submitting to. In fields such as math, a paper where you are basically just speculating will (based on my limited knowledge of mathematical research) have close to zero chance of acceptance in pretty much all journals. Computer science is often more forgiving, particularly if the idea is interesting enough and the reviewers believe that it will work. Further, in Computer Science there are (even well-respected) conferences and tracks that specifically target position papers, essays, or "reflection" papers (see for instance Onward!, co-located with OOPSLA). For Onward!, no real scientific evaluation is required, however, you will need something to substantiate your ideas (e.g., some proof-of-concept implementations, initial studies, ...).
One non-obvious fact about such "opinion-based" papers is that they are actually much harder to write than ones that are based on hard science. If you conducted a thorough study on a subject, your data will go great lengths for you. Even if you don't tell the story of your research in the best way, if you have good, hard data, your results alone may carry you. If you write an opinion piece for a competitive conference such as Onward!, your writing needs to carry you all the way.


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How should I respond to a terrible copyediting job?
I just received the galley proofs for an article which has been accepted to a well-regarded math journal.
The copyediting is, quite frankly, terrible. The copyeditor has introduced dozens of mathematical, typographical, and bibliographic mistakes. The proofs were accompanied by a list of changes and questions, and some of the newly introduced mistakes were described in this list, but not all.
A few representative examples:

The editor has, in many places, replaced the mathematical notation << with "is much less than". It is universal within my subfield of mathematics that << means something very different from "is much less than".
The editor has typeset fractions in different ways, so that what was formerly in the denominator is now in the numerator.
The editor has monkeyed unacceptably with the bibliography. I used a software package, for which I looked up on their FAQ how to cite it. The editor replaced my correct bibliography entry with something different.
The tables now appear in wrong places. A cursory reading of the edited text reveals that it now makes no sense, and this would be obvious even to someone without specialized knowledge of my field.

I could go on and on, but I don't want to just rant. Instead I have two closely related questions:

First of all, is this typical? I find it difficult to imagine that a publisher who did this kind of shoddy work on a regular basis could stay in business. I wonder if I just had the bad luck to get the new employee this time around.
More importantly, is a strong response warranted? I am inclined to write to the journal staff, tell them that their work is unacceptably sloppy, explain in detail why, and ask them to start over from scratch, and to furnish a list of all changes made, no matter how minor.
This is not just because I want to pick an argument. I have gone through my paper line-by-line several times in the past, making very sure that everything I said was correct. With this level of copyediting work, I am back to square one and I suspect I might accidentally miss several errors introduced by the copyeditors.
Would such an e-mail be likely to produce the kind of results I'm looking for?

Thank you very much.
Update: Thanks to everyone who replied. I wrote a strong, but I hope polite, e-mail to my contact at the journal, listing several of the mistakes, and asking them to start over and to send me a complete list of changes. His first reply was a little bit ambiguous, appearing to perhaps misunderstand what I was asking for -- but he has since apologized and agreed to my requests.
One point of departure from Anonymous Mathematician's advice: I haven't said anything to the editorial board and the publisher, or discussed this issue (other than here, anonymously) with anyone but my coauthor and my contact at the journal -- happily, it looks like there won't be any reason to.
Update 2: As I requested, my contact at the journal started again from scratch, did a much more conservative job of copyediting, and provided me a copy of my file which was marked up in red and blue with every change they made. Needless to say this made my job quite easy and I thanked them for their good work.

There's a lot of bad copy-editing in math (though a few places, like MSP, have a reputation for doing it well).  However, messing up numerators and denominators seems beyond the pale to me even by the usual low standards.

My first article got expressions like $n/2$ replaced by $n^2$ in seven places; this was introduced after the galley proofs.
I have found the mathematical editor very helpful and understanding when I raised the issue (ultimately, my paper was republished entirely).
So, while this is not a complete answer, I would try to email the editor in charge, explaining in particular that you do it for the sake of the mathematical content.

That does sound terrible.  I haven't run into anything so bad myself, but I know people who have.  It seems to vary a lot by publisher.  My impression is that it happens occasionally when they try to save money on copyediting by outsourcing to a new, cheap copyediting company.  If the results are terrible, then the publisher will switch to the next-cheapest company, and this will continue until the publisher finds an acceptable level of quality.  Unfortunately, it leads to bad results for authors who get caught in the middle of this process.  Hopefully the publisher will learn from this incident and the problem won't continue.

More importantly, is a strong response warranted?

Yes, certainly.

ask them to start over from scratch, and to furnish a list of all changes made, no matter how minor

I'd guess that getting them to start over from scratch will be difficult, but you should certainly insist on seeing a second set of proofs.
Asking for a list of all changes made could be useful, but it's not clear whether you can trust that they will compile a complete list (they may be sloppy about that too).  Many copyeditors mark up a paper copy before changing the file, so you may have some luck in getting a photocopy/scan of the marked up copy.
I'd also recommend letting the editorial board know, and perhaps the publisher too.  If you just resolve the issue directly with the copyeditors, it's possible that nobody else will find out what happened.

I think that asking them to restart from scratch is good policy, if only because crime must not pay. Also, if you ask them for an exhaustive list of change, then you will still have to read the galley proofs entirely, but you will be in a position to call their sloppiness again if you spot anything.

This is perfectly normal. Copyediting is often of poor quality, even with reputable publishers.
In my experience, the following approach seems to work fairly well:

Be polite. Thank for the proofs. Do not accuse anyone, do not vent. Imagine how you would respond if you had found just one tiny typo, and follow the same pattern even if there are dozens of mistakes.
List every copyediting error, and explain carefully what is wrong in each instance. Try to be as thorough as possible. Most likely this is your last chance; do not assume that you will get another opportunity to review the proofs before the paper is printed.
Email your response ASAP, preferably before the deadline. Remember that copyeditors have their own deadlines to meet.

This way you can maximise the chances that the copyeditors will do their best to fix all mistakes in your paper — they will know what to fix and how, and they will also have time and motivation to do it.
Summary: Do not try to fix the whole world, just try to cooperate with the copyeditors to fix your paper.

Hi Jukka, +1, thank you very much for your reply. But I am afraid I am bothered by one thing you say. You recommend that I "maximise the chances" that the copyeditors "do their best" to make sure that the final version is no worse than what I gave them to begin with. Isn't this something we should expect and be able to insist upon? If not, in this day of personal homepages and the arXiv, then I seriously question why we (as a community) should bother with publishers at all.

I think this response is too nice.  If a copy editor is grossly negligent/unprofessional, they need more than just a calm list of errors.  It is perfectly reasonable to ask the publisher (via the editor) to start over, while providing them both a clean set of source files and a clearly representative list of errors introduced by the copy editor.  Yes, respond promptly and professionally, but be clear that you expect professionalism in return.

One problem with this course of action is that if one misses one error added during the first round of copy-editing, it is likely that the error will stay. In such a bad situation, asking the publisher to start the copy-editing from scratch is the only way I see to avoid that. Moreover, one should try not to take too much time to fix others mistake, unless it is one's job.

@Anonymous: Well, commercial publishers try to provide some "added value" so that they can justify their existence. This is why the papers are mangled in the typesetting and copyediting processes. It is a strange game — your adversary tries to hide mistakes and you are trying to spot them quickly — but in my experience it is possible to win the game. Or at least not lose too badly. (Computer-aided tools help; for example, you can convert both publisher's proofs and your own version to plain text and automatically highlight the differences.)

@JeffE: Out of curiosity: have you ever had much success with sending such requests to the editor?

Fortunately, I've never had a reason to make such a request.

@Jukka: Your cynicism towards the publishing industry exceeds even mine. I had not previously realized that was possible.

Tell them to revert everything to the original version, period. If they introduced 100 mistakes, it is not your job to find them all (besides, I doubt you'll find more than 70 anyway). Be polite but firm. Don't accuse anybody of anything but stand the ground even if you'll have to withdraw the paper. Your primary duty, as a writer, is to readers, not to publishers. Good luck!

If a copy-editor (CE) changes the meaning of your manuscript you obviously need to recorrect it. The CE should have received a set of "house rules" for how thing should be formatted but it is not likely the CE is an expert in evey field. In your case it sounds as if the CE has been "trigger happy". In any case, you should makethe necessary corrections and return the proof to the editor detailing what you find wrong with the CE edits. You should clearly state why the edits are unacceptable.
Concerning your point about location of tables, I am not sure what exactly you mean by "wrong place" but the journal will obviosuly place tables and figures where they make type-setting sense but should of course be located after where they are first referenced in the text.
So in some cases journals (CE) may change things to adhere to "house rules". These changes must be accepted but of course not when they change the meaning of the paper or introduce errors. I have experienced similar (but not as severe) edits to my own papers, I have also been in the position to enforce house rules in the journal I edit, but never to the point of changing the meaning. If in doubt I would have contacted the author or passed along a query about the particular issue.

Regarding "In any case, you should makethe necessary corrections and return the proof to the editor detailing what you find wrong with the CE edits." Thanks Peter, but this does not quite address my question. If the CE has introduced fifty errors I imagine that I will only find 47 of them. Would I be reasonable to insist that they start over? Thanks.

@Anonymous Yes, if you feel the corrections have come completely out of control 8as it certainly seems) then the best would be for the CE to start over with the original file. you can make this point clear and that you cannot with certainty revert all the unnecessary corrections based on their proof. besides, it is the CE (=journal) that has caused the problem.


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How should I write a statement of interest about how my research will fill gaps in the field, when I don't know enough about the field yet?
I'm applying to do a master's at Canadian universities. My background is Earth & Environmental Sciences.
When writing a statement of interest, I am familiar with the various research in the field I want to go into, however, a professor told me I should talk about "gaps in the data and where my research could fill those gaps". While I believe that's a great suggestion, I don't feel like I know enough about different methodologies and their faults to write a good statement of interest. Should I keep it on the vaguer side and relate it to the professor/research group's common interests?
On a different note, my marks aren't the best, they're about the admission requirements/slightly above. I have a lot of work experience in the field, and TA'd quite a bit. I also did an undergraduate thesis that I'm quite proud of (and hope to publish soon). So I know that already sets me apart from my peers and may make up for my lower average.
Within that framework, should I discuss my marks and explain how I am a better researcher/writer than I am at taking exams, or do I leave out grades completely?

Is the "statement of interest" different to the SOP as we widely know?

This statement of interest is both a persuasive and reflective piece. You need to sell yourself as best as possible. Below is one good way to do that.

General advice: Sell yourself, but be honest. Be specific and concrete - a few detailed examples are better than lists of stuff you did (which goes in a resume if one is requested). Highlight experiences that suggest you are ready for graduate-level research. Relate your experiences and interests to the research going on in the department/program to which you are applying.

Paragraph 1 - State your intention (admission to M.S. program). Here is a good place to very quickly summarized your qualifications and to highlight your general research interests.
Paragraph 2 - Why the admissions/selection committee should give you a spot. This paragraph is the place to mention your experience, your TA activities, and your thesis. If you have a lot to say, group it by categories (like coursework, research, service/teaching) and make more than one paragraph. Do not worry so much about how your current experience is shaping you to contribute greatly to the field. Instead, focus on that thesis experience and what you learned from it. Do you think you are more prepared for graduate-level research than other undergrads might be because of this experience?
Paragraph 3 - This paragraph is an opportunity to be frank about anything that others may see as a limitation and/or weakness. Then you should describe how these limitations are not so serious or are counteracted by some additional experience/strength that makes you stand out. You can also describe how you are addressing these limitations so that they will go away. You should mention your grades in this section. Do not hide from them, but do not fixate on them either.
Paragraph 4 (optional) - If you have some unique story about how you because interested in a field, subfield, or research project. If your reason boils down to "it sounds neato", then incorporate this content into another paragraph. You can bring up your thesis again and discuss how you chose the topic and how the work has shaped your interests.
Last paragraph - Wrap-up. Restate your intent and summarize the key factors why they should accept you. This is a good place to write some specific wordage for the program you are applying to: "My undergraduate thesis was on the effects of X on Y, and I would like to continue study in subfield Z. Projects being undertaken by professors J, K, and L at Institution M are especially interesting to me because..." If you do this, you are showing that you did your homework about the program. You can also put this kind of stuff up front.

Thank you, that was very helpful.
Are you sure saying something along the lines of "My average may not be the highest, but I have balanced course work while maintaining 2-3 jobs at a time." doesn't come off wrong? I know plenty of people who have A averages in my program but they haven't worked a day in their life and they spend all day and all night studying. That simply isn't me, I want a semblance of a social life!


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Why don't universities reveal the extra time they give to students with disabilities when taking exams?
Many (most?) universities have a system of allowances for students with particular medical conditions/learning difficulties including dyslexia, dyspraxia and others.  The most common allowance is extra time in exams.  Sometimes this can be an extra half or whole hour but in other cases can be, for example, 8 hours allowed for a 3 hour exam.
There are various arguments in favor of giving this extra time but of course the merits of doing so can also be debated.
When the student graduates, as far as I know no universities include a record of this extra time on their official transcript.  This appears to hide an important piece of information from a potential employer and also makes it very hard to compare one set of grades with another or to interpret the significance of any particular set of grades.  Of course an employer might not care how long it takes a student to solve a problem or write an essay as as long as they do it well. But for some employers it might make a crucial difference.
Why don't universities provide this information on the official grade transcript that a student gets?

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. Note that comments can only be moved once; further discussion will be deleted. Comments asking for clarity on the question are always welcome.

I removed the pros/cons from your question; if you want to post about the pros and cons of this from your point of view, you can write an answer your own question.  That way people can vote on the answer and offer constructive criticism on it, separately from the question. (I have also deleted the comments in which people engage in debate about those pros and cons; feel free to use the chat link above for that.)

Since nobody seems to have mentioned it yet,
it is very likely illegal
In the US, at least, several laws (including the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act) prohibit discrimination on the basis of disability. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act also prohibits unauthorized disclosure of a disability or presumption of disability without the express permission of the person in question. It could be argued that marking those who received accommodations for a disability is disclosing their status as disabled, thus violating this law.
And while it may be helpful for an employer to know if a prospective employee is disabled, this is generally only helpful if the employer wishes to discriminate. Why else would they need to know of the disability during the application process? If an accommodation is needed, this can be taken care of after the application process, once the possibility of discrimination has been severely reduced. Of course, one does need to disclose a disability to receive accommodations for it, but only if one wants accommodations. For example, as a disgraphic, I cannot write legibly and type most of my work. If I were working as say, a software engineer, I would not disclose because I need no accommodations (and the disability is therefore irrelevant to my job).
This source explains it far better than I can, but it seems

Under Section 504 and Title II, recipients and public entities may not provide different or separate aid, benefits, or services to individuals with disabilities, or to any class of individuals with disabilities, unless such action is necessary to provide those individuals with aid, benefits, or services that are as effective as those provided to others.
  Essentially, because notating use of accommodations is not related to to providing "aids, benefits, or services" to help mitigate the students' disabilities, it is prohibited by law as discrimination on basis of disability.

Incidentally, the College Board and ETA got in trouble for this exact action a few years ago. source 1 source 2 - note that SAT flagging was removed after the article was published
On a further note, many feared this would allow abuse of the accommodations system, but these fears proved unfounded. In fact, many students, including me, were not able to get the accommodations they needed in a timely or even any manner.  They've supposedly reformed that this year, but we'll see how that works out...

BrianDHall did mention this in his answer, but it’s worth repeating.

+1 Very informative citations. Wish this was the topmost answer.

This is very interesting and thank you BrainDHall too. If I understand correctly there is currently no case law relating directly to universities?

If this is the case, I would interpret OP's question as "Why is it illegal?" - It stands to reason that anybody who requires extra time in an exam may also require extra time in completing tasks for their employer, enduring a higher cost to them. If someone is going to take longer to complete a task than someone else, does an employer not deserve to know of this before hiring them, seeing as it will cost them more money?

@EdmundReed The same arguments are generally levied against hiring women because they might get pregnant. General opinion seems to be fire a person because they not performing their task at the expected level, not simply because they are disabled so may have issues going forward.

@SGR I don't think general opinion is that people should routinely be fired because they are disabled!  The comparison to pregnancy is interesting.

@EdmundReed, your reasoning does not stand. Extra time on tests does not necessarily mean extra time on work. It has already been pointed out that tests are not representative of the real world. In addition, extra time is often for less-than-obvious reasons. For example, it is a common accommodation for those with anxiety disorders. Having time stress causes anxiety, which reduces performance. In this case, simply knowing you have extra time reduces or eliminates the anxiety, even if you don't use it. Also, most jobs do not require bubble-filling.

@cat40 What is bubble filling in this context?

@Lembik An example of something that happens on exams that doesn't happen in the real world. Many multiple choice sections use scanned entry sheets that require filing a bubble for each answer selection.

You already gave the actual reason: to hide it from employers. Why? Because it is irrelevant.
Diplomas/grades from university are the same, for all students. Period. It does not matter how you acquired it, the university recognised you meet the criteria (skills, know-how, ...) for having this diploma. That's all the employer needs to know.
Edit from comments:
The employer just has to know the grades/diplomas are assumed to be given objectively.
Time is irrelevant, because extra time allowance is here to level the student impairments to give him a fair chance at proving his/her skill on the subject. Time is usually a factor because there has to be a point where it's finished. The duration is not a factor of evaluation. Diplomas and grades are the same for all students because they evaluate the skills/knowledge of the students and not his/her performance.
If an employer needs someone who can do things in some timely manner, they are the one who needs to test candidates on that criteria. Universities just don't do this.

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Does your argument suggest that when employers carry out tests for applicants, as suggested in your question, they should provide time extensions for applicants with disabilities or not?

"Duration is not a factor" is easily disproved - students regularly do not complete exams in time and so it is obvious that some students would get more marks if given extra time.

Duration is not a factor of evaluation. Teacher do not grade student differently depending on whether they had extra time or not, as this would negate the purpose of it. Timely completion of an exam is definitely a factor though, but all students are given the appropriate time to do so.

College degrees are not a tool for evaluating employment eligibility.
Despite the way it has been used in recent times, college diplomas are a certification of higher education in a particular field - they were not designed to be a measure for employers to look at and evaluate for hiring employees, and they still aren't designed that way.
There is a strong association between having a higher education degree and getting a job - and that is because employers do look at the higher education their prospective employees have.
This doesn't obligate the school to modify their curriculum for those employers.  While there is an incentive, because schools that have a high number of graduates find employment in their field of study are far more popular, this is a secondary goal of education, and always has been.
You can argue otherwise if you wish, and some academics may even agree with you, but the point is they don't have to agree with you, and they don't have to disclose additional personal information about a student just because it would be convenient for you.  And that includes any 'extra time' they may need to complete course materials.

I don't mean you specifically - I mean the generalized 'you' that would argue that disclosure of this type of information would be desirable.

Speaking anecdotally from the perspective of hiring in industry, I've never paid any attention to the listed GPA of an applicant, even when hiring recent graduates.  The presence of a degree is just used as a first-pass filter to reduce the volume of low-quality applications.  Grading standards are highly variable between institutions and even departments, so a GPA tells me very little.  Even if it did, a good student is not necessarily a good employee.  Finally, once a candidate has just a few years of relevant work experience, the GPA (and largely, the degree) is completely ignored.

@DanBryant How do you decide who to interview if you don't look at the grades of recent graduates?  A lot of people have degrees of one quality or another.

@Lembik, I'll give some small weight to the reputation of the institution they attended, but mainly I'm looking for work experience (even if it's part-time) or extracurricular activities that relate to the job.  In evaluating those activities, I'm less concerned about technical skill (they won't have much yet): rather, how well will they work with others?

Revealing Disability Accommodations Is Against University Interests
Disability accommodations serve the interests of the University in a variety of ways, and anything that penalizes, prevents, or causes students not to seek appropriate accommodations (such as fear of forced or unauthorized disclosure, or an "asterisk" on their grades) is harmful to these interests.  Just a few of these interests:

legal and ethical obligations to serve disabled students (Americans With Disability Act of 1990 in the US, FERPA, civil rights laws, among multiple others, and many more in other nations). Office of Civil Rights gives very specific, related advise on what should and should not appear on a transcript in primary/secondary education, which is similar in many respects to post-secondary education:

May special notations, including asterisks or other symbols, appear on a transcript for a student with a disability who received
  accommodations in general education curriculum classes? In general,
  no.  Because the use of accommodations generally does not reflect a
  student’s academic credentials and achievement, but does identify the
  student as having a disability, it would be a violation of Section 504
  and Title II for a student’s transcript to indicate that the student
  received accommodations in any classes.  For example, a notation
  indicating the use of Braille materials is not related to whether that
  student mastered all the tenth grade objectives for her literature
  class.  The only purpose of such a notation is to identify that
  student as having a visual impairment.  Because accommodations are
  generally understood to include aids and adjustments to enable a
  student with a disability to learn and demonstrate knowledge, this
  notation could identify the student as having a disability and
  therefore constitute different treatment on the basis of disability.

legal and ethical obligations to protect private medical information (dozens of laws restrict and control medical information in most parts of the world)
ethical obligations to assist under-served and at-risk populations (unemployment rates of the disabled are often twice that of the general population, due to both unavoidable restrictions from the disability and unlawful discrimination)
practical interest of the University in having more enrolled students (tuition, etc) would be reduced by not sufficiently accommodating disabled populations
practical interest of the University in having access to the best and brightest students, regardless of disability status - losing a brilliant and talented student because you didn't provide a wheelchair ramp, or testing accommodations for someone with dyslexia, or a reader for someone with other vision impairment, would be purely counter-productive
practical interests of ease of assessment for instructors. Most tests are designed as "power tests", where time should be more than sufficient for all students, and having more time would not improve your score (you either know the material or you don't). Practical issues of room availability and class scheduling limit the time slots available, so rather than give everyone 4 hours when most don't need it, holding the room and instructor (and possibly torturing students who will not benefit from the extra time, but feel compelled to stay until the last minute to review and obsess over answers), it's simply easier to only give extra time to those who really need it to be assessed fairly.
revealing accommodations would have the de facto perverse incentive of discouraging students from getting assistance that would help them succeed in University, and hopefully also in life beyond, as they would correctly fear this private information would be required to be disclosed, potentially harming their future careers. They would thus be positively encouraged by the University to suffer and be more likely to fail, in violation of all of the above reasons for the University to provide appropriate accommodations in the first place.
as a simple matter of marketing, it would be hard to imagine how the University would want to risk it being known that they will take your money for years, claim to accommodate you and give you an equitable education, and then mark your transcript in such a way that it could make it harder for you to find a job
Universities often report and are judged partly on their placement rates (unemployment) of their own alumni, and providing any information on their graduates that could risk making it hard for them to find an retain gainful employment - especially by making it easier to discriminate unlawfully against their own alumni - would be a remarkably self-destructive stance to take without a compelling good reason

It's just better for the University, selfishly, to provide appropriate accommodations - even if you remove legal compulsion to do so. Of course, you can't actually ignore that - there are laws at multiple levels that restrict how a University must handle such things as medical records, including anything that would disclose a medical condition or disability. Saying that the transcript would only be disclosed on student request does not magically absolve them of their responsibilities, or legal and ethical duties under the law.
Revealing Disability Accommodations Is Against Business Interests
Requesting transcripts is generally safe under the law as it is easily defended as having a legitimate business interest, while at the same time not exposing the business to information they are legally prohibited from considering. Adding an indicator of disability accommodation to a transcript would have a perverse incentive of making it legally dangerous and inadvisable to accept or consider transcripts at all.
Why? At least in the US, employers are partially protected from discrimination claims by making it clear that they did not have access to, request, or accept information that could be used to engage in unlawful discrimination, such as receiving medical diagnosis data, disability information beyond disclosure of a requirement for reasonable accommodation under the law, etc. Heck, even credit reporting agencies must take steps to mask medical collection data to prevent disclosing anything related to a diagnosis. Simply having an indicator on a transcript means that the business can be expected to conclude, by any reasonable person standard, that the applicant must have had (or now has) some form of disability that previously required an accommodation. Their decision making is now tainted, and they cannot plausibly claim they didn't even know about the disability and thus couldn't be discriminating on that basis.
When it comes to information you are legally prohibited from considering, it is simply better that you not have the information. Otherwise it is far easier to establish a prima facie case of discrimination, exposing your enterprise to very real penalties and expense. It would thus be wise for the business to stop accepting transcripts entirely, to avoid even the possible appearance of impropriety.
Finally, as a practical matter, it is not in the interest of business itself to discriminate when reasonable accommodations in the current workplace were in fact 'reasonable' or not necessary at all. It is simply better that agents do the best they can to pick proper employee placements, and giving them access to information they should not consider (legally, ethically, or practically) harms their ability to make good decisions that are in the best interests of the business itself.
Revealing Disability Accommodations Is Against Student Interests
Disability disclosure is a difficult decision (where, when, who, and if to disclose at all) that is hard for anyone with a disability to make. If anyone, such as the University, will be revealing that information to others - or de facto revealing it to others by stamping official transcripts with such identifying information, even if not fully specific - then students must reasonably struggle with whether or not they should disclose to the University at all. This makes it harder for them to make a decision that is best for them, and makes it harder to get accommodations that would benefit their education, lives, and careers.
Further, a de facto required further disclosure of such medical status to attempt to seek employment effectively robs the student of a measure of their basic human right to privacy, dignity, and self-determination. You could say that an employer might want to use the information to further their own agenda, but you must inevitably admit that this is explicitly done to reduce the effective power and control of individual students over their own disclosure and records. Whether you think that is an acceptable trade off or not, it is clear that this would be against the interests of students with disabilities at the very least.
If the business has a compelling reason to care about how fast someone can complete a given type of assignment, they are absolutely free to conduct or require their own assessment. They would need to be ready to defend it's bona fide business interests, among other legal considerations, but it is a common enough practice if appropriately narrowly tailored to the actual requirements of the business.
Revealing Disability Accommodations Is Against Wider Societal Interests
As evidenced by numerous laws protecting the rights of the disabled - and by extension every one of us, as we may all develop such a disability at any time in our lives, temporarily or permanently - there is a wider societal interest in ensuring anyone in need of reasonable accommodations receives them, both in education (at all levels) and in employment, with full dignity and without discrimination. To have capable members of our society rendered unable to contribute for any reason other than inevitable necessity, is a waste of human potential to contribute to themselves, to their communities, and to the whole of our civilization. Morality compels us instead to charity, lest these otherwise capable people be rendered destitute and homeless, which is a far inferior result by any modern measure. The mere possibility of such outcomes as discarding human life and potential also makes real a fear that the very same fate will befall us, as factors outside our control could wrack us at any moment - compelling us to act out of personal interest, if not out of moral compulsion.
It is thus possible that there could even be a compelling business reason for an  individual to use medical, disability, or accommodation information to discriminate against a person for their own business's profitable gain; yet this does not mean that we need to enable such a discrimination through our institutions or personal action. There are lots of things that could bring a few people profit at the expense of our society, ethics, and personal/collective rights, and it is part of our job as citizens to decide if we should compel - or even passively permit - such activity. Over the last century, modern societies have consistently ruled that discrimination of this type - even if individual actors might actively want to engage in it - is harmful and should be put down, for the good of all of us (collectively and individually).

I haven't fully digested this answer but I do think the legal points are not relevant.  The university doesn't disclose the transcript to the employer, the student does. As the university is not disclosing anything it can't be held legally liable for what the student chooses to disclose (although IANAL).

"[...]losing a brilliant and talented student because you didn't provide a wheelchair ramp, or testing accommodations for someone with dyslexia, or a reader for someone with other vision impairment, would be purely counter-productive" This is not relevant to the question I have asked. No part of it suggests that accommodations should not be made for disabilities.

@Lembik For an example of legal guidance: https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/letters/colleague-qa-20081017.html While this one is about primary/secondary school, it explicitly addresses how a transcript/report card should not contain "unnecessary disclosures of disability status". So, actual lawyers with the Office of Civil Rights seem to think the laws apply, and thus the laws are very much relevant, and the University can most certainly be held legally liable for what they choose to put on a transcript, regardless of who requests it. The law is not so trivially counteracted.

I can't express an expert legal view here but that seems to be a specific law relating to primary/secondary school report cards in the US. Is there such a law for university transcripts?

@Lembik Think of it like this - You openly acknowledge that an academic transcript is something that employers would request when interviewing candidates - not being able to produce one would put a candidate at a severe disadvantage.  So the information included on such a transcript is not so neutral a matter, to both the student and the university.

@Zibbobz That point is (more or less) in my question in the "Against" list currently.

@Lembik As referenced in the link, the authority granted to the OCR - and thus the relevant laws - is from the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990, among others (IDEA, FERPA, etc). The interpretation is just specific to the context of primary/secondary education - the laws themselves are broad, applying to federally funded programs, employment, etc, and there is no exclusion for Universities (except perhaps religious/private institutes that do not take federal funds). Beyond that, it's quite explicit what is and is not allowed, and what a transcript is for.

Very good answer. The implicit premises of the original question presume a function of colleges and universities that is eminently disputable, and, without which, the question doesn't make sense. Indeed, high-speed solution of contrived problems is not usually the goal of any enterprise, academic or industrial, but it's easy to measure?!? :)

Excellent answer throughout. I concur that businesses do not want this information in transcripts, or in anything else related to a job application. This sort of information is only useful to discriminate against disabled people and ethical employers do not even want the appearance of temptation of impropriety in this area. Every interview training class I have taken emphasizes that point very strongly, and I would not want to work with somebody who expressed more than a passing curiosity about such information. The OP’s persistence on the topic is off-putting.

"Revealing Disability Accommodations Is Against Wider Societal Interests" I completely agree with this part.

It would mark people as having some type of disability, which the
university may not be allowed to disclose. Noting on the transcript that the student used extra time is equivalent to disclosing that the student has some form of disability that allowed them to receive this extra time.
It is tedious to keep track of which students are allowed extra time and which of them actually used it and more importantly, for which subjects. E.g. I have dyslexia, but do not recall ever using extra time (note: this is not true for everyone with dyslexia).

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Just a minor sub-answer, but to my mind reiterating an important point: although the "school model" of assessment makes limited-time-exams a crucial player, this is artificial, almost entirely for convenience, and to serve certain assumed ends.
For example, it is convenient to assume that being able to do more things in a shorter time frame is a sign of greater competence. But this is (observably, to me, in graduate mathematics and research mathematics) not the case. That is, some very competent people are quick, and some quick people are competent, but there's a very flimsy connection in the first place. So, in principle, I'd give students taking an exam as much time as they wanted... also having observed that having extra time if one is clueless doesn't help anything (for a reasonably structured exam).
In other words, the artifactual aspects of academic assessment are already heavily caricatured (only teach what can be tested?), and the arguable "corruption" of allowing extra time really doesn't change anything (although admittedly would create logistic complications).
True, if "extra time" meant months or years or decades, then, sure, that might be "unfair", ... but, still, if a person did finally understand a thing ten years later, what's the problem?

I don't find this argument convincing. Perhaps a model that gives a different perspective is one of language fluency (as opposed to problem-solving). If one is given an open-ended amount of time and a dictionary, and allowed to look up every individual word, then are they usefully fluent? I think the threshold between "yes" and "no" is in hours, not months.

@DanielR.Collins, whether in languages or in mathematics, a sort of fluency is exactly what I'm interested in gauging, and with questions where a large part of the issue is appreciation of context, it's hard to acquire that appreciation in an hour or two or three. I'd claim that without a substantial understanding of a language, a dictionary is grossly inadequate for understanding, in the sense that a literal translation is often wrong. That kind of thing.

Well, I'll just say that my example is not theoretical; this a concrete thing that happens with our institution's English proficiency entry/placement testing. And it does indeed suffice for people to pass it after sitting at the test for, say, half a business day or more.

Mathematics is sort of a bad example. It is essentially immune to extra time because if you didn't understand it to some degree in the first place, you're not going to figure it out in the extra time you're given for the exam. For some exams in other subjects you have a text to look at for reference ("open book") and, given enough time, anyone who can understand the book can get a perfect score. In that case time is an extremely important factor. It is limited with this in mind, so the book is only useful if you know where to look in it.

I think M'vy's answer gets the gist of the issue, but I'd like to expand on that a little.
Essentially, the intent of assigning grades is to summarize a student's knowledge/mastery of the content of a particular course. Adding a rider such as "student received extra time on exams" defeats the purpose of the grade, since you are no longer summarizing.
To take it further, suppose we decide that extra time on exams is a relevant piece of information that should be noted on transcripts. But immediately we can see that there are other factors that could contribute to a student's mastery that aren't already included on transcripts. For example, how much did this student take advantage of study groups or university-provided tutoring? How about outside tutoring, such as paid third-party services? Why not also detail how the student was evaluated? Some professors might weigh homework quite heavily, some might not include it at all. As you can hopefully see, there are simply too many outside factors that contribute to a student's knowledge and mastery of a particular course for all of them to be noted in transcripts. This of course leads us right back to the concept of summarizing all these factors into an easy-to-digest grade.
If an employer needs to hire with a specific emphasis towards one or more of these factors, it is their responsibility to interview with that in mind. This is why some interviewers give practical problems to be solved in the interviews. It's also why interviewers for entry-level positions will often ask questions about the structure of the courses on the transcript, in order to gauge whether the particular skills the employer desires are actually reflected in the final grade for the course.

Thank you for this interesting answer.  This is slightly tangential to your answer but, I do think there are two views about what an exam assesses. As an example of another view, a major university I know has 8 math questions per paper for their final year undergraduates.  An average student could maybe solve 3 in the time and a genius could solve 6 in the time. However an average student could probably also solve 6 in twice the time.  So if you give twice the time, what are you to make of their grade?  Clearly this depends on the precise detail of their disability.

@Lembik I could argue that an average student could solve these problems faster than a genius by familiarizing themselves with the materials more thoroughly, while a genius might be pursuing other academic endeavors, such as a double major, and not have the type of time to dedicate to studying the exam.  This is also tangential, but makes for 3 competing views on what exams actually evaluate, and shows how complex it is to try to present all these extemporaneous factors into a single college transcript.

In the history of the university, I would claim no non-math genius has ever solved 6 questions on such an exam. The questions are really hard  :)  You are of course right however that a transcript is always a summary and can't be exhaustive.

Either the accommodation levels the playing field or it does not.
If the accommodation does not level the playing field, the university should not have given it. Since the university did give it, the university believed that it leveled the playing field.
Since the university believes that the playing field was level, there is nothing to disclose. Employers already know that universities do their best to level the playing field. With a playing field leveled to the best of the university's ability, the university believes that all grades have the same meaning.
It is the university's job to determine whether or not people meet the minimum standards required for receiving each diploma they grant. If a person does not meet those standards, they should not get a diploma. If they do, they do not deserve any asterisk or black mark.
In any case where the university feels such a mark is necessary, it should instead evaluate whether the recipient meets the minimum standards or does not. If they can't do that right, they have no business granting degrees.
Surely at least some people who receive accommodations easily meet the minimum standards requires for the degree and even exceed them. Why do those people deserve a black mark? And once you're deciding on an individual basis, as you must to be fair, you're back to just not giving people who don't meet the minimum standards a degree.

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One interpretation of your question might be "if some students are less good at the material and need more time to write the exam, isn't it true they don't really deserve the mark they earned and employers should be warned they are not as good as they appear?" And the answer is that your premise is flawed. The extra time isn't to compensate for a student not being as good at the course material as others, but not being as good at test mechanics as others. Since most employment bears no resemblance to tests, it's important to test mostly knowledge, and to have test mechanics almost irrelevant to the final mark. That isn't possible for all students.
To elaborate, the student's mark in the course is supposed to reflect their knowledge of the material and, in some cases, ability to perform specific tasks that might be included in a job. So if the course is "introduction to C++" the mark should indicate how well they know the basics of C++ and how well they are able to write and debug C++ applications. Anyone hiring the student will expect that two students with the same mark have a similar knowledge of C++ and would perform similarly on the C++ aspects of a job.
Now the thing is, if one student is very slow when handwriting answers, even though they can type code quickly, and know the language well, then that fact alone might mean they didn't manage to answer the last question on an exam, causing them to earn a mark substantially less than their actual mastery of the material. Giving that student extra time makes their mark accurate once again. Or if a student writes code well, but has some processing issues that make it difficult to "match items on the left with definitions on the right", again their mark may not truly reflect what they know, but instead their ability to handle the mechanics of a particular type of question. As educators, we often don't even like giving marks, but if we're going to give them, we want them to be accurate, otherwise they are pointless. Accommodations, whether in the form of extra time, allowing answers to be dictated to a scribe, omitting certain kinds of questions (eg multiple choice), not taking marks off for spelling when the intent is clear, or whatever, all serve one purpose: making the student's mark accurately reflect what they know, not how they do on tests.
Since almost nobody is employed to answer multiple choice questions or write page long essays on topics related to their education, this works out well for everyone. The student gets a mark that reflects what they know, and the employer gets a mark they can use to help in their decisions on who to hire. Adding the details of what it took to make that mark a fair and accurate measure of the student's knowledge is completely pointless. The point is that it's accurate as-is, and needs no disclaimers or asterisks.

I understand the angle you are taking but let's take your slow at writing example.  The only way extra time could level the playing field is if the student doesn't think at all during the time they are writing slowly. If this is several hours this seems very unlikely.

That's a strange assertion. The people at the Disabilities Office are actually trained on this and know how to work out extra time. If the person is so slow at making marks on the paper with a pen that the actual handwriting becomes the bottleneck rather than the thinking, gaining extra time to write out what they have thought of will not generate extra thinking time. It's possible that the student takes an hour longer than the others to write out the answers, but is only given a half an hour extra because they can do some thinking while they are slowly writing. I don't know; this isn't ....

... my specialty so I happily leave it to those who are trained in it. Generally very few of my students use all their time anyway (and the last to hand in typically get the worst marks) so I don't believe that extra hours of thinking would actually raise many marks where the bottleneck is how much of the material you know and can remember.

If all the students finish within the time then you are right it makes very little difference. I am thinking of exams where many of the students are writing at the end of their time.  In relation to the Disabilities Office, I don't know anyone who has been asked about the details of the exam they have set by this office or equivalent. The extension decisions are made according to broad general rules which are not likely to be relevant in specific cases.  Finally I am not sure I understand why you regard the extra time as irrelevant for solving exam problems while you write.

@Lembik - Mozart was able to compose new pieces of music while he was writing up music he had already composed in his head.  But Mozart was a genius.  Most of us mortals can't do new problem solving while we're writing up the solution to something we've already worked out in our head.

@aparente001  I suppose this is an empirical and testable question now.  I wonder if any studies have been done on this.

@Lembik - Be my guest.  It seems like an extreme form of multi-tasking.  I don't know anyone who can do it.  For example, my spouse has a publications list a mile long and is a sought-out collaborator, very creative problem solver in the lab, but can only do one thing at a time, and will get frazzled if you ask a question while merging into traffic.

I think specifics are important here but it takes a little off topic.  In any case, as was discussed, the people who decide on the time extension typically have no knowledge of what the specific test is that the student will sit.  It may  or may not involve a lot of writing, for example.

@Lembik that was NOT "discussed", it was just asserted by you. I have been asked things by the office, and more importantly the STUDENT is the one who goes and talks to the office. They also talk to the departmental secretary, who is often highly familiar with the exams (mine printed all the exams for example.) They also have rules of thumb according to department (more handwriting in English lit than in some other departments) and generally ARE TRAINED ON THIS which you are not, you are just on a hobby horse that accommodations to others are unfair to you and should be flagged.

That is interesting. I have set exams in 5 universities and have never seen or heard of  the disabilities office looking at an exam (or talking to someone who has seen the exam) before deciding on the time extensions. They usually have rules of thumb as you mentioned. There are of course many universities.  I am not sure what you mean by unfair to me. My hobby horse, if I have one, is that universities may be blindly accepting a system that materially affects the grades that a sizeable minority of the students receive without careful and critical analysis of that system.

As many answerers have pointed out, indicating the usage of extra time or any other accommodation is a way of pointing out that the student has some disability, and is a violation of some established regulations, not to mention an invasion of privacy.
It's also not often relevant to an employer. Disabilities come in a broad spectrum, and an asterisk noting that a student "got extra time on x exam" doesn't really offer much useful information to the employer, other than the fact that the student had some recognized disability at the time that allowed them to be given an accommodation. This doesn't mean that the disability was permanent, or offer any sort of information about the type or magnitude of it. The university can't attach that information to the footnote without violating privacy regulations.
For example, if a student received extra time on two exams during their sophomore year of college due to a recognized disability of major depression, and then received treatment and has had no accommodations or disabilities since then, it isn't really relevant to the employer that at one point in their life they had a disability.
If an employer wants to know if a prospective employee has a disability that could impact their job performance, the best (and most legal) way to learn is to ask them. If they're concerned abut whether or not their degree qualifies them for the position, they should evaluate their performance and knowledge in an objective way that they can apply to all employees, because degrees from different schools (even the same school but different professors) offer a different evaluation of the student's performance and knowledge.
Because this information is not particularly relevant to employers, universities don't see a need to start collecting and cataloguing it. Recording who actually used their offered extra time, and communicating that on a transcript, requires time and effort from university staff. Not to mention that if a university is known for publishing that on students' transcripts, students who have disabilities may choose to attend a different school where their disability is not a part of their final transcript, hurting the university's enrollment rate, with no net gain.

I agree with much of this but "f they're concerned abut whether or not their degree qualifies them for the position, they should evaluate their performance and knowledge in an objective way that they can apply to all employees, " just moves the problem to a later test doesn't it? Should they also give extra time to dyslexic applicants in this test?

@Lembik That depends on if it's relevant to the skills needed for the job. If the job requires fast, accurate reading, and someone who is dyslexic is unable to perform at the level expected for an entry level applicant, then no, the employer is not expected to give them extra time if the skills being assessed are directly affected by time. However, most job skills are more open ended, and wouldn't require a timed test as opposed to some type of questionnaire or performance evaluation.

Almost all tests are timed in the sense that they have to fit into a fixed amount of time for practical reasons. So a logic test that Google gave you, say in an interview or before the interview, would also be timed and if given in a university the same student would have extra time. I am not sure employers routinely give extra time for tests they pose to interview candidates.

@Lembik In America at least, employers are required to make "reasonable accommodations" for individuals with disabilities. Essentially, if you have a recognized disability that may require you to need some sort of "extra" provision while working that is not standard to all employees, the employer must provide it so long as what's requested is legitimate and reasonable. This does include reasonable accommodations for job interviews. You would still need to have all the qualifications/skills, and the accommodation can be denied if it places a major burden on the employer.

All true but have you heard of a major high tech company giving extra time for an interview or test they set job candidates?

I will pose the following question: What would you do in the case of a faculty member who gives all students unlimited time on all exams, gives them help on the exam if they need it, and allows them to take the exam as many times as they want? The instructor then inflates grades as the final step in this seemingly unending saga.
I don't see any way in which one can effectively monitor how grades are assigned to students regardless of whether they do or do not have disabilities.

A pessimistic take :)

And if this process (apart from the asserted inflation of grades) includes all the students learning all the stuff, what the heck is the problem? That the alleged successes "are meaningless" because there were no failures?

@paulgarrett: I would think that the "inflates grades" step implies that students did not learn all the stuff.

Right. What matters is whether or not the grades accurately reflect the students' knowledge of the subject. Universities do their best to ensure that they do.

@DavidSchwartz One source of confusion/conflation here is between "knowledge" and other sorts of skills that grades might attempt to reflect.  Math exams, language proficiency and others test more than the recollection of facts.

Without necessary accommodations, we'd be testing the student's disability rather than his mastery of the curriculum.  That is, we'd be measuring the extent to which his disability limits his ability to demonstrate what he has learned.
In other words, accommodations are needed so we can test the student, not the disability.
To disclose the existence of the accommodations would defeat this.  It would be like saying, "The grade this student with a disability received doesn't count."  And there would be no point in providing accommodations in the first place.
A system that doesn't allow a student with a disability to be tested fairly is discriminatory and illegal in the United States.  (I would like to hear about how things work in other countries -- see What protections exist in the European Union against discrimination in an educational institution?.)

One question is if "The grade this student with a disability received doesn't count."  is really the only way anyone sensible would interpret a description of extra time on a transcript. That interpretation contradicts almost everything said in the comments to this question for example. The general view has been that extra time doesn't in any way invalid a grade.  I don't think you can have it both ways unless we believe that everyone involved in grading in universities is morally good but everyone else, be they in academia on hiring panels or employers outside academia is bad or ignorant.

It would indeed be interesting to understand the legal position outside the US. In fact even in the US it seems there is no existing case law and that the legal opinion expressed here in an answer is (potentially) novel.

@Lembik re your second comment: my impression is that there is case law about this. // Re your first comment: I'm not sure I understand what your position, or your point, is.  What I'm saying is that in my opinion flagging defeats the purpose of providing accommodations.  (Not everyone agrees with me.  For example, LSAT accommodations are flagged.)

a) If you could quote the case law that would be great.  b) My position was simply that one of the arguments proposed was internally inconsistent. That is not to say the conclusion was wrong of course. c)  In general, I find that the wish to arrive at a fixed (and in my view morally good) conclusion leads a lot of people into muddled thinking in their attempt to justify this conclusion.  To borrow from mathematics, the theorem may be correct but the proofs are not. d) Very interesting about LSAT, thank you. I wonder how they justify their decision.

@Lembik - Everything I've read I found by googling.  Give it a try.  If you get stuck, you can write a new question, where you provide specific information about what you're looking for, what you've found so far, and what you're still hoping to find.  Here's something interesting to get started with: http://www.wrightslaw.com/blog/judge-sotomayor-wrote-best-description-of-learning-disabilities-she-got-it/, http://www.wrightslaw.com/news/09/bartlett.sotomayor.htm.

The is no good case for mentioning the extra time.
The reason is that the work seeker could have contracted their disability after graduation and there would be no record of it on their university report, assuming someone has no disability because they did not have it when graduating shows a gross lack of diligence on the part of the recruiting team.
If they cannot detect the disability in the interview then it cannot be that bad.  If they detect it and it matters then what may or may not have been on the report is irrelevant.  A bit like hair styles and dress sense in a specific job, they may be relevant but they may have changed since graduation.

(if we skip related legal issues...)
An exam is a strongly artificial situation. In real life, most persons never faces a situation where:

they can not know nor plan the activity until the moment of start it,
and activity is only a few hours.
they can not use external resources like internet, books, own notes...
they are not in a team or posibility to ask a collegue or team leader
...

These characteristics made exams invalid in lots of situations because they fail in their objective of measure learning stage. In some other cases, exams must be improved: different support media, variable allowed time, etc, in order to still use it in some subjects or with some persons.
I known universities that doesn't use exams at all; in primary and secondary school, continuos evaluation is a rule. We could say exams are deprecated.
Allow me to finish with a joke: I can not imagine any school that adds to its reports "we have need to adapt our obsolete evaluation method to still use it with this person".

Extra time is given to balance the student's disability compared to other students. Thus, if you want a "completely objective" certification (i.e. to prove that the extra time given is appropriate), you would need to quantify the "degree of disability" to compare that with the extra time given. And that's impossible. And without this comparison, it's useless to know the amount of extra time given, unless you want to discriminate the disabled person in question.

No, extra time is given to improve the evaluation method, mitigating some of the intrinsic failures of the exams

Because non-disabled students would likely react negatively to finding out or being reminded that disabled students were given special treatment over them. People tend to like to think that they're the ones getting the special treatment or that everything is fair - not that they're the ones at a disadvantage. And universities generally want to keep their customers happy, like other business.

Not receiving extra time is obviously not a disadvantage, since extra time's entire purpose is to reduce or eliminate any advantage held by the abled student.

Having shorter time to finish a timed exercise is quite obviously a disadvantage.

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


text:
How can you argue that your leading publication venue is important?
I am applying for academic promotion and as part of my case I would like to argue that having published x FOCS, y STOC and z SODA papers is impressive.  However, I have been told by our head of department that those on the promotions panel will never have heard of FOCS, STOC and SODA and so this will just be compared with the number papers people publish in any other venue.  I have further been told that I should provide checkable evidence that these really are important conferences.

How can I do that?

I could quote acceptance rates except I don't believe they are particularly low in these conferences due to self selection.
One might also have thought that recommendation letters would be the best way to judge the quality of someone's work. Sadly we first have to pass a first filtering round in the promotions process before they are requested.

"Sadly we first have to pass a first filtering round in the promotions process before they are requested." So your institution's policy is to wait on getting expert opinions until they give their own inexpert opinions, which may lead them not to solicit the expert opinions?  You're right, that's sad.  I might consider asserting that the conferences are prestigious and giving names of eminent faculty members at other institutions that can corroborate that.  There really is no way to check academic prestige without asking other academics, and I would hope that at some level they know that.

@PeteL.Clark Yes that is exactly the process, sadly.

For those not in CS, it is worth mentioning that FOCS, STOC, and SODA are widely recognized as top publication venues in CS theory, perhaps the top.

What role does your head of department play in the promotion process? Typically he or she has a key role to play in advocating for the candidate and communicating to the administration various nuances about the candidate's area and achievements that the administration would not be able to be aware of otherwise - precisely the kind of advocacy that you seem to be in need of. I recommend going back to the head and trying to shake him/her out of their apparent apathy.

Related: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/26807/rankings-of-computer-science-conferences-and-journals

Umm... Ask your department head to call me?

One potential issue is that the "panel" is not so much looking for truth, etc., but is looking for ways to diminish candidates. Some of this can be arranged to be procedural, obviously-but-sadly. And there does often seem to be a sort of xenophobic clannish-ness so that people in other fields willfully misunderstand the context of other fields, so as to be able to "diss" them whenever politically convenient. In that context, you need strong support from your dept chair and faculty, or "the others" may just ride rough-shod over your case.

I have been told by our head of department that those on the promotions panel will never have heard of FOCS, STOC and SODA and so this will just be compared with the number papers people publish in any other venue.

I find this stance outrageous.  It is the promotion committee's responsibility to understand—at least at a high level—the publication landscape in the fields in which candidates publish.  Moreover, if the committee is outside your department, it is your department chair's responsibility to educate the committee on the publication culture in your field.
Aside from the conference rankings that Henry mentions, there are other less official rankings of CS departments or just theory groups, based on publication output weighted by prestige.  (The rankings themselves should not be taken seriously, but they do provide a window on what the community thinks of the conferences.)
Another method that might be helpful is to gather evidence about where strong theoreticians actually publish.  Select a handful of successful theoretical computer scientists in top CS departments and show the committee where those people publish.  To pick out a few random DBLP pages off the top of my head: Avrim Blum, Chandra Chekuri, Satish Rao, Santosh Vempala.  Choose whatever experts you consider to be your aspirational peers in your subsubfield.
Alternatively, bypass the "prestige" question and argue directly that your work is strong.  I assume you are provide the review committee with a research statement.  That statement should provide direct evidence that your work is important, visible, and highly regarded.  How often is your work cited, and by whom? (Only your subsubsubfield, or a broader set of researchers?)  What followup work has it inspired by other researchers?  What do other people's papers say about your work or the problems it addresses?  Have you received any research awards (for example, Best Papers or an NSF CAREER) or more indirect accolades (for example, invitations to program committees, journal editorial boards, or Dagstuhl workshops)?  Are you in Oded Goldreich's list, or in David Eppstein's annual top 10?
I'd also recommend asking your department head whether the pre-letter evaluation is merely a sanity check, or if it has real teeth.  My university's promotion process includes a preliminary stage, where the Promotions and Tenure Committee decides whether to request recommendation letters, or not to put the case forward at all.  But at least for tenure cases, this stage is essentially pro forma; a decision not to request letters requires a compelling case for failure.
If that's not the case at your institution, I'd strongly recommend pointing the committee to CRA's Best Practice Memo on Evaluating Computer Scientists and Engineers For Promotion and Tenure.  In particular:

The primary direct means of assessing impact —to document items (a) and (b) above —is by letters of evaluation from peers. Peers understand the contribution as well as its significance.

it is your department chair's responsibility to educate the committee on the publication culture in your field is really the key to the whole problem. This is especially problematic in CS where primary publication venues are conferences rather than journals. Your chair should be telling the committee that these are top-tier places and should be giving the names of a few eminent faculty to corroborate that.

This is an exemplary answer.

In the end I found out what the system was. The first pass filtering does indeed receive no expert advice. The Head of Department is however meant to write a letter of recommendation that should be taken into account by the panel.

The site Conference Ranks helpfully compiles conference rankings from three sources.  Two are "objective" (based on the citations) and the third is "subjective" (based on the opinions of people in the field).  (Personally, I think the latter is more meaningful in this case, but your institution might disagree, so it's nice to have both.)
More generally, there's something strange about your situation.  Your institution is, surely, aware that publication venues vary widely in quality and must have dealt with this problem in the past.  This may be a case where asking a question just the right way will get a more helpful answer: instead of asking what you should do, it might help to ask what previous people have done, and how publication venues have been evaluated in the past.

I think this is a good answer.  On the face of it, the institution's process is unrasonable.  In fact, it is so unreasonable that one presumes there must be workarounds.  (Or maybe promotions there are nonexistent or completely random.  One would hope the OP would have found that out before now.)


text:
What are good resources to read up on funding policies, especially pertaining to biology in the United States?
I am a biology PhD. student in the United States. I would like to know a little bit more on how to navigate the politics and processes that guide grant funding. In addition to this I am looking for good resources to keep up with news that might impact or change these policies. I guess in short, what are some reputable sites, blogs, news sources, literature or books to help with this?
By tracking policy I meant any good resources that track any legislature or incentives that are being passed that might impact the amount of money going into grant funding. I am also just genuinely interested in the grant funding process or any insightful resources on how to best navigate the whole process.

What kind of funding policies? What country are you in? What field?

I am in a biology PhD. Program. By tracking policy I meant any good resources that track any legislature or incentives that are being passed that might impact the amount of money going into grant funding. I am also just genuinely interested in the grant funding process or any insightful resources on how to best navigate the whole process.

What country are you in?

Sorry should read a little more carefully. US.

There are a few blogs that I find highly informative regarding the politics, changes, and historical trends affecting science funding in the United States.
Drugmonkey often blogs about the NIH. Recent examples include:

NCI will ease that difficult transition to postdoc
Congress let the NIH drop the HIV/AIDS set-aside: Implications for NIDA?
RFAs do not narrow the NIH portfolio, quite the opposite.
NIH grant application changes are in the offing

Prof-like Substance blogs a fair bit about goings-on affecting the NSF, especially IOS and DEB divisions and also generally the BIO directorate, including historical trends and recent changes in proposal and funding procedures. Recent examples:

Your DEB panel summary will look a bit different this year
What you learn from reviewing a batch of proposals
My love/hate relationship with NSF preproposals
How do we make NSF science more sustainable?
Some depressing NSF DEB stats

There's also the blog of the NIH Office of Extramural Research, which is often very informative. I especially appreciate the posts that reveal data about internal workings and funding patterns of the NIH. Examples:

Understanding the Capacity of NIH’s Peer Review System
What are the Chances of Getting Funded?
Lab Size and Strategic Support of Science: Thoughts on Finding the Right Mix
Update on the Postdoctoral Benefit Survey

Science Insider reports on science policy. Examples include:

Decision to end monkey experiments based on finances, not animal rights, NIH says
NIH releases first agency-wide strategic plan in 2 decades
Budget agreement boosts U.S. science

Thank you this is an excellent start. Just what I was looking for!


text:
What does the term "highest qualification" mean?
What does the term "highest qualification earned" or "highest degree earned" on applications mean? For example, if I am a current undergraduate student, does that mean my highest qualification is "undergraduate degree" or should it be my "high school diploma"?

Highest qualification means the most advanced (i.e., highest) academic award (e.g., high school, bachelor's degree, master's degree) that you've been granted (i.e., completed).
So,

if I am a current undergraduate student, does that mean my highest qualification is "undergraduate degree" or should it be my high school (12th grade)?

A current undergraduate student has not yet been granted that undergraduate degree, so the student's highest degree is from high school (assuming no other relevant qualifications).

Perhaps this should be contrasted with "highest education attained", which job application forms often ask about. In that case the answers can include e.g. "some high school", "some college" or "some graduate school".

The other answer points out the most natural human interpretation of that question and how to respond, but that's not how you should respond. From USAJobs.gov,

What if I’m currently completing my degree?
If you’re currently completing your degree, select the degree and enter in the expected degree completion date.

It's discouraging, but, (job/internship/school/etc) applications are a place to be selling yourself as a candidate, and not necessarily being truthful for the sake of being safe. Or think of this: every other candidate filling in that same application asks themselves this same question you've asked here, and by giving the safe truthful answer you're putting yourself at a disadvantage to those who responded with the higher qualification that they are still completing.

There is nothing untruthful about listing a degree in progress so long as it is clearly marked as being in progress by giving an expected completion date in the future.  If the "box" is labeled "date," write "expected" before the date to make it very clear.

@BobBrown I mean, that's exactly the nitpick here and the reason for this question in the first place, is in the wording of the application. If they're asking about your "highest degree earned" then you haven't "earned" the degree you're currently working on yet

In English language academia, qualifications are ranked like this:

Habilitation (not used in English speaking countries)
Doctorate (not used in all disciplines)
Masters (Honours in Australia)
Bachelors
Associates (Mostly in the US)
Secondary/High School

Your highest degree earned is the first one on the list you have completed.  Starting a degree does not count.  Exceptions apply if you are specifically prompted to enter a future completion date or if you are prompted to select a partially completed degree like "some college."